OT: Microsoft to open retail stores

Coursedesign wrote on 2/14/2009, 9:12 AM

AE CS4 has a lot of nice improvements, but it is still a 32-bit app no matter which OS you run it in.

Here's some info that may help you, I found it on an Adobe forum that has been helpful sometimes:

By turning on "Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously" in the Preferences (in CS3 or CS4) AE can start hidden copies of itself to use more processors to render more than one frame at a time.

(Jonas is a broadcast dude who uses AE daily. As usual for pro users, he has immense experience, but there can always be things that only Adobe knows.)

It's a bit surprising that Adobe wasn't more forthcoming (before CS4) about how to configure AE to use today's large RAM amounts (which as you noted are sorely needed).

newhope wrote on 2/14/2009, 8:50 PM

Any truth in the rumour that MS is going to name it's retail stores Lemon? lol ;-)

New Hope Media

Coursedesign wrote on 2/14/2009, 9:28 PM

Hooo-hooo!

No, it would be "Lemon" to fit with the "Apple" Store.

And after three months of not putting any wear on the store threshold, they'll rename it "Lemon-Aid" and people will storm in to get help with their Vista systems and W7 beta systems.

L.A. Times covered this today:

I am excited about helping consumers make more informed decisions about their PC and software purchases," [David Porter, MS' corporate vice president of retail stores] said in a news release.

Sigh.

newhope wrote on 2/15/2009, 1:21 AM

"Lemon-Aid"

Nice!!!

Though after a 15 minute phone all from Athens to Sydney while I tried tried to sort out why the latest Vista update crashed my nephew's laptop perhaps I'll just take that name for my support service for Windows... with your permission of course!!! lol

New Hope Media

John_Cline wrote on 2/15/2009, 3:50 AM

I absolutely don't understand how people can complain so much about a company (Microsoft in this case) yet continue to use their products to make a living. If they're so vocal about hating Microsoft so much, then it seems that they would jump ship over to Apple on principle alone. It's like someone hating their spouse so much, yet remains married. Just doesn't make any sense. Get a divorce.

I run a combination of Microsoft XP and Vista on twelve computers and none of them ever crash and each of them generates income daily. I have absolutely no reason to complain about Microsoft.

blink3times wrote on 2/15/2009, 4:39 AM

"And "fear mongerer" is someone who points out problems that many would rather see swept under the rug, so they don't have to deal with them."

No.
A fear mongerer is someone that takes an ant hill and allows their imagination (for what ever screwed up reason) to turn it into a mountain. It also mostly comes from people who don't quite know what they're talking about. Pretty irrational stuff... but then hey.... this thread is FULL of that.... why stop?

newhope wrote on 2/15/2009, 4:56 AM

Similarly, I don't understand people without a sense of humour.

I run a number of computers, both PCs (Intel and AMD) running WIndows XP and Vista and Macs (Intel and PowerPC) running OSX, XP and Vista (the later only on the Intel Macs of course).

They mostly behave but all of them, regardless of make or OS, do at times have problems and I deal with them, with a smile, sometimes a grimace and often some sense of irony.

It's what keeps me sane when I'm spending a weekend dealing with a glitch that has been caused by the latest Windows update or a corrupt file on a Mac causing FCP to tell me there's a full disk error (General Error 34 for the uninitiated) on a drive that has 234GB free.

I've been making my living using computers to produce product for film and television since 1984, prior to that I did it all by hand with steam powered Nagras and carved walnut Sennheisers connected with leather hand stitched leads(that's the irony coming out) ;-)

If I can't take a pot shot (in humour as we aren't gun owners here in Oz) at the odd multi-billionaire, be it Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, and their corporations without people getting all righteous well where's free speech gone?

By the way have you heard the one about how many Microsoft Software Engineers it takes to change a light bulb?

Yeah I know it's an old one.....

Oh.. the answer is NONE.... they just declare darkness a new standard...and we all have to live with it.

Of course the Apple engineers would invent the iBulb which is cross platform compatible and doesn't require plugging into a socket. However it doesn't light up rooms without iTechnology installed and comes with a motherboard mounted battery that costs more than the iBulb when it needs to be replaced.

New Hope Media

craftech wrote on 2/15/2009, 5:07 AM

I absolutely don't understand how people can complain so much about a company (Microsoft in this case) yet continue to use their products to make a living. If they're so vocal about hating Microsoft so much, then it seems that they would jump ship over to Apple on principle alone. It's like someone hating their spouse so much, yet remains married. Just doesn't make any sense. Get a divorce.
==========================
For the same reason - they are doing it for the "kids" .

John

Coursedesign wrote on 2/15/2009, 10:54 AM

I absolutely don't understand how people can complain so much about a company (Microsoft in this case) yet continue to use their products to make a living. If they're so vocal about hating Microsoft so much, then it seems that they would jump ship over to Apple on principle alone.

I jumped ship from Apple to Microsoft when Apple was really screwed up at the time of System 7, so I can certainly endorse that idea.

System 7 was unbearable, and Windows was measurably superior at that time, much helped by pre-emptive multitasking (System 7 had only cooperative multi-tasking, which led to error messages like, "An error of type 13 has occurred in application 'Unknown'."

My Windows machines are generally trouble-free across the board, and I have no hatred towards MS or any other supplier, or any human being for that matter.

Why is it that when somebody points out an area that could use some improvement, this is classified by some as "hate?"

Could it not just be an item in the Suggestion Box, a candidate for the $25,000 Suggestion of the Year award, given with gratitude to the person who had the best suggestion for product improvement?

I am concerned about Microsoft's thick layers of middle management, because it appears to me that they have paralyzed the company.

I'm also concerned about Microsoft being led by a bureaucrat who doesn't know how to recreate the innovative environment MS at one time was known for (sure, a lot of it was "stolen" from other companies, but who cares, societal progress has always been made on the shoulders of many).

It's like someone hating their spouse so much, yet remains married. Just doesn't make any sense. Get a divorce.

I have helped thousands of married people who had truly severe problems with their spouses. Not one of them expressed hatred. In every case, they really wanted to help even where help wasn't possible (due to serious and so far incurable mental health problems). But divorce was necessary when communication wasn't possible and harm was being done to the children.

I'm hoping to create a program to help people identify, before they consider marriage, which problems are solvable (with best practice efforts), and which are not.

For the former, their marriages can be OK, and they'll learn to live happily with the imperfections of their chosen life partner (or the end of their 90-day marriage consumer contract, whichever comes first...). And they'll shake their heads occasionally, and try to inspire their partners to improvement in respectful ways.

For the latter, they can avoid getting married to someone who cannot be helped by anyone.

I'm hoping that it will one day be taught in the schools how to identify the most serious problems, because they truly are not curable (although in the case of BPD, "Borderline," there are good meds that can alleviate the symptoms so they can function somewhat normally).

Many people say they have a "love/hate" relationship with Windows, but in reality neither love nor hate is involved. It's just joy with what works and frustration with what doesn't.

It could easily be argued for example that Windows isn't really suited for non-geeks, especially those using home PCs.

It is just way too open to a multitude of attacks (when not professionally managed), and security researchers say tens of millions of PCs are zombies under outside control, used for extortion and Denial Of Service attacks.

Anti-virus is reactive, with updates provided AFTER each virus/worm/etc. has been hitting enough machines to make it widely visible.

So why complain about Microsoft's imperfections?

The Bible says, "Spare the rod and spoil the child."

But that is in contradiction to what's taught in what many people seem to think of as its Appendix (aka The New Testament).

So I'll stick with using what works (for me, primarily XP and OS X), and complain, with clear specifics, to all software suppliers when something isn't done right (which of course happens to all of them).

And may nobody find that I have exuded hatred towards anyone, for any reason.

If I criticize, I'll do my best to ensure it will be criticism of behavior, not of the person.