OT: Windows 8 - anyone?

[Paul Griswold]

My main Win 7 workstation has been really acting flaky lately.  Microsoft has just release Windows 8 RTM, so I was wondering if anyone had tested it out yet?

I realize there are plenty of opinions on the whole Metro interface, but I'm just wondering if it's stable and if Softimage will run under it.

I need to take a weekend and reformat this machine & start over anyway.

Thanks,

Paul

[Stephen Davidson]

I haven't tried Windows 8, yet, but I do have Windows 7 64 bit Pro. My machine was acting flaky,

also, so I reformatted the drive and re-installed Windows and all my APPS. It took me

an entire day, with all the Windows updates, and drivers, but it was worth it. Much more

stable, now. 

I had heard that Windows 8 was geared heavily for touch screens, so I haven't even considered it.

I can't see me getting a 32" touch screen, and I would need a chiropractor after reaching across

my desk to the screen all day.

--

Best Regards,
  Stephen P. Davidson 
       (954) 552-7956
    sdav...@3Danimationmagic.com

[Rob Wuijster]

I've tested W8RP on my old HP laptop, and so far almost all apps did run just fine.

The Metro/Modern startscreen and the sliding panels/hotcorners need some getting used to.
But it seems to be quite a bit faster with a lot of things than W7, booting espc.
Memory management seems to be up a notch as well.

I didn't have much problems regarding stability. There were some stability issues reported with certain i7 mobo's during the latest W8RP, but that seems to be solved with the more recent drivers.

And yes, it's a lot more touch centric than all previous versions of Windows, but that doesn't mean it's not workable with a mouse or tablet.

Rob
\/-------------\/----------------\/

No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 2012.0.2197 / Virus Database: 2437/5205 - Release Date: 08/17/12

[Thomas Helzle]

Check out the Wacom Intuos 5 Touch tablets, should work great with Win8, I use it with Win7 and OSX. 

I too don't intend to grab at my monitor all day but with the Wacom it's quite natural.

My only gripe is, that it doesn't act like a tablet with "absolute" coordinates (where you touch is where your pointer is) but like a mouse or laptop touch pad.

That also makes multitouch less useful, but I still am very happy with it, after my old one broke.

Cheers,

Tom

[Mirko Jankovic]

it seems to be shame that they create OS that works a bit faster/better than win7 and then focus mainly on touch stuff and leave most pro workstation work on dry. 

was is that hard to leave option to work as normal desktop workstation and not touchcrap?

after all all versions ha  old win classic look, why not keep it for people that are looking for function an not fancy look.

[Alan Fregtman]

For the record you can click on "Desktop" and get the standard Windows desktop you know and love.

It does show the Metro UI by default at first though.

[Sam Bowling]

I tried out the release preview on my laptop and windows 8 is crap. The only reason this exists is so Microsoft can leverage their desktop OS to get people you use their extremely unpopular Phone OS. They have literally removed everything that made windows 7 so popular (start menu, quick searches, etc.). Now you are forced to move your mouse all over the screen to the “hot corners” or “hot edges” to get to all the features you used to easily get to with the start menu. You load to the Phone OS screen and the desktop is now an “app” that you run your “legacy apps” in (IOW, where the real programs run). All the new phone apps load full screen and can not be windowed. That means that all the little helper programs to run in small windows will now load FULL SCREEN. They have basically put a GUI on DOS and added in task swapping. None of the new apps can run in the background as far as I have been able to tell, so they all basically go into hibernation (to save battery life... as if my PC runs on batteries.....) when you switch apps, so multitasking is dead unless you are running “Legacy apps” on the Legacy desktop (which they say they will be removing).  They want you to buy all these touch enabled tablet things for your PC, so your PC can be as useful as your laptop when you don’t have a mouse. Unlike all the other Windows releases, you can not go back to the older interface style. It has all been physically remove from the OS leaving you with only one choice (even though it was all there in the initial developers preview).

 

Windows 8 is pure rubbish with a clunky,  sickening, eye wrenching phone interface plugged on top of it and it has made me do something none of the other OS makers have ever been able to do..... I have now seriously considered moving to another OS/Platform. This thing is even more dumbed down than OSX and that is something that I didn’t think was possible.  I really tried to get used to windows 8, but I just feel handicapped on that OS.  If they don’t do some serious backpedaling in the future I will be moving to something else. I predict that Linux and mac “sales” will increase dramatically over the next few years.

[Matt Lind]

Microsoft stated Windows 7 mode would be retained, but you would have to activate it from the control panel.

 

 

Matt

[Sam Bowling]

Interesting because no one seems to have been able to find it yet. I haven’t tried the actual RTM version.

[Sylvain Lebeau]

this makes me think about Apple rumour to let go the dev on the mac pros...

Seem's everybody is going nuts on the mobile thing. And all professional market get's ignored!!

i wont be able to do Arnold render regions on my f-ing iphone!!!!!
wtf is going on with these guys!?


sly

--

Sylvain Lebeau // SHED
V-P/Visual effects supervisor
1410, RUE STANLEY, 11E ÉTAGE MONTRÉAL (QUÉBEC) H3A 1P8
T 514 849-1555 F 514 849-5025 WWW.SHEDMTL.COM <http://WWW.SHEDMTL.COM>

 

Paul Griswold

Friday, August 17, 2012 12:18 PM

[Stefan Andersson]

It's not any better in the Linux Camp. Everyone is moving towards tablet use. But what boggles me is that... how can the developers themselves stand it?

On a side note. 

I've been using Linux for a long time now, but got fed up with crappy wacom drivers and the crippled paint applications. So... I've installed Windows7 on my workstation at home. And so far I'm really impressed with the speed and the response from the system. Softimage works a lot smoother on Windows7 than on CentOS 6.3.

Anyhow, going to take a shower now since I feel quite dirty. 

And I think Windows 8 will be as Vista, a "side-note". They are already talking about Windows9.

regards

stefan

--
stefan andersson - digital janitor - http://sanders3d.wordpress.com

[Andreas Bystrom]

". So... I've installed Windows7 on my workstation at home. And so far I'm really impressed with the speed and the response from the system. Softimage works a lot smoother on Windows7 than on CentOS 6.3."

hmm, it's not april.... did hell just freeze over? actually the day alan jones writes something like that will be the day hell truly freezes over..

on a serious note, for every single windows release that's about to come out since win2k I've heard the same exact thing "this will be terrible, I'm staying with win xxxx forever" yet those same people somehow upgraded throughout the years and found themselves quite happy...

--
Andreas Byström
Lighting TD - Weta Digital

[Tim Leydecker]

> this makes me think about Apple rumour to let go the dev on the mac pros...

Is this latest news?

The late 2012 MacPros are, umhh, not impressive but apple mgmnt has promised
something really great for next year...

I wonder how much this is a result of Jobs gone (r.i.p.) and Intel not feeling
any pressure to make Xeons competitive in terms of price against performance?

The 2008 MacPro�s beat Dell/HP/Lenovo both in terms of price and style and opened
a big chunk of market to the MacPro by making them run really nice with windows.

...

Maybe we don�t need content creation artists using dedicated hardware anymore?

There�s enough cloud apps to instantly create nice images and rights-managed stuff
billed by the click to get rid of pesky artists blocking the retina already?

And there�s always india, china and millions of young, idealistic interns to pull from?

...

I would also like to have a solid, clutter free workstation without any license/transfer hassle
I can use productively for content creation using stable and reliably tools plus betas where
it makes sense.

But maybe I�m old-fashioned and should just wave off (using a gesture involving my middle finger?)

Cheers,


tim

On 18.08.2012 05:01, Sylvain Lebeau wrote:
> this makes me think about Apple rumour to let go the dev on the mac pros...
>
> Seem's everybody is going nuts on the mobile thing. And all professional market get's ignored!!
>
> i wont be able to do Arnold render regions on my f-ing iphone!!!!!
> wtf is going on with these guys!?
>
>
> sly
>
> --
>

> *Sylvain Lebeau // SHED**
> *V-P/Visual effects supervisor
> 1410, RUE STANLEY, 11E �TAGE MONTR�AL (QU�BEC) H3A 1P8
> T 514 849-1555 F 514 849-5025WWW.SHEDMTL.COM <http://www.shedmtl.com/><http://WWW.SHEDMTL.COM <http://www.shedmtl.com/>>
>
>
>
>
>
>> Paul Griswold <mailto:pgri...@fusiondigitalproductions.com>

[Rob Wuijster]

Not sure what you mean, but the desktop is still there with the same keyboard/mouse support as W7.
But with some Metro/Modern UI additions, like the app bar to the left and the settings bar on the right that are accessed with the mouse.

Sure, the start menu/button have been replaces by the new Metro/Modern UI, although there's still a handy rightclick menu where the visibal start button was.
With a lot of handy shortcuts to common 'poweruser' tasks.
But I don't see much difference in the way I would use W8 or W7. W8 does have some interesting new ways of working and handling apps.

It seems one is in the 'I like it' or 'I hate it' camp, there's no real in the middle for now.
Me personally am very interested to see if whole the Metro/Modern UI apps thing takes off. Having the same app on your phone, tablet and desktop with 'Skydrive saved' settings sounds good in theory.
It's to see if MS can pull this of much more cleanly as previous large projects.

Rob
\/-------------\/----------------\/

[Paul Griswold]

Sam is right on the money.  I heard an interview with Paul Thurrott and he said according to the Windows team, Windows 8 is much like the first version of OS-X.  It's not Windows 7 with some bolt-on UI elements, it is a new OS that has a "Classic" mode to maintain compatibility with non-Metro apps.

There are no more windows in Windows except in Desktop mode.  Even a file requester is full-screen.  I do wonder how pro developers are going to deal with it - because MS says the desktop mode will be phased out eventually, just like Apple got rid of Classic mode. 

The tablet craze is here to stay.  It's all about chasing dollars & there are a lot more dollars in the general public then there is in selling only to any one particular market segment.  Just look at Apple's current stock price & their cash on hand and you can understand what they're all thinking.   

I did see there's a Windows 8 Enterprise version that's being release too.  Is that more pro-friendly?

-Paul

[Stefan Andersson]

When I think of operating systems today I think of the "death scene" in Toy Story 3. Perhaps we should just hold hands and face the facts. Maybe there will be a giant claw out there that can save us all...

/Stefan 

[Rob Wuijster]

I don't think there will be any pro-friendly OS's out there in a few years time.
Like people already said, everybody is jumping on the mobile train, and the 'pro's' get the leftovers on the desktop.

As more and more apps move to the web and cloud (Office 2012 e.g.), we'll slowly start too see a shift. At some point the desktop as we know, use and love will be dead, not just on Windows.

And to answer your W8 Enterprise question, it's the same with some additions for security, domain login and such.

Rob
\/-------------\/----------------\/

No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com

Version: 2012.0.2197 / Virus Database: 2437/5207 - Release Date: 08/18/12

[Paul Griswold]

It seems like the market might be ripe for some enterprising new company to come along and develop some specialized pro-level hardware & software.  Of course it would be Silicon based hardware, specialize in Graphics and would need to be Incorporated...  ah, but that's a crazy idea!

[Luc-Eric Rousseau]

It's not possible to turn it back to win7, but it's my understanding that it's only the Start menu you'd miss when you run the desktop?

It's on the ARM that the desktop might go away, but on intel i'm pretty sure it's here to stay.

[David Gallagher]

Mobile is so overrated. Does anyone actually get anything done on a mobile device?

[Paul Griswold]

Depends on what you mean by getting things done.  With my iPhone & iPad + Growl and Boxcar I can have Deadline send me a message when renders finish.  I do a lot of general-purpose office work while sitting on the sofa with my kids in the evening on my iPad.  I'm not doing modeling, etc., but it's nice to be able to know I can go hiking with my kids and still be able to follow up with a client via email.

I know there was a video recently posted from SIGGRAPH where Thiago was talking about his new project being able to render from an iPad in Chrome.  So you never know where things are headed.

-Paul

[Thomas Helzle]

Wasn't I supposed to be all gloomy about newfangled stuff ;-)

Well, I currently work on audio related things and just read an interesting article about Windows 8 and some benchmarks:

http://blog.cakewalk.com/windows-8-a-benchmark-for-music-production-applications/

I can't see any reason for doom and gloom to be honest. Looks more like a continuation of Vista->Win7 to me.

I worked from early on with Vista 64 and found it much better than its reputation - and much better as XP in fact.

Win 7 improved it a lot in interaction speed, memory needed, multicore use etc. Much smoother experience.

Now from what I read Win 8 goes on with that.

I agree with the sentiment that there is space for a real pro OS, but this space exists for a long time now. I wasn't surprised with OSX going the way of the app, was quite a lot more surprised when Windows did it and just couldn't believe some of the Linux things I saw...

Should somebody finally resurrect BeOS? ;-)

But then again: What most people do with computers can probably be done on a tablet or laptop. 

I can actually see us head back to Silicon Graphics days, with real high end pro machines becoming something special again.

In a way this is natural if you think about it: why should everybody and his mom working on basically the same machines as you?

I personally plan to do a full fresh install as soon as Win8 is available - finally on a SSD.

Should be snappy.

And keep the Win7 Partition as a fallback.

Cheers,

Tom

http://www.screendream.de

[Alan Fregtman]

Minor correction: It doesn't render on the iPad, it receives a streaming progressive render in realtime and the client is just a GUI to it. ;)

[Sam Bowling]

You realize that there are still a ton of people that are still running windows XP, right? You also seem to be forgetting Vista (which I actually liked, but most other people didn’t).

 

From: Andreas Bystrom

Sent: Saturday, August 18, 2012 1:05 AM

To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com

Subject: Re: OT: Windows 8 - anyone?

 

[Sam Bowling]

We use macs where I work and upgraded last year, right after Lion came out.
Quicktime is just garbage compared to what it used to be and even with the
latest updates, the OS is still full of bugs (especially if you use 2
monitors). Maybe with Jobs out of the way things will improve, but I sort of
doubt it. Apple tends to "think different" from normal people.

-----Original Message-----
From: Tim Leydecker
Sent: Saturday, August 18, 2012 2:14 AM
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: OT: Windows 8 - anyone?

[Sam Bowling]

There is noting modern to Metro. It’s a lousy cell phone OS that is terrible as a desktop OS. The backend has some nice improvements, but the UI is just garbage. It is just completely useless and a definite step big back compared to windows 7. Seriously, they couldn’t even make the “apps” load in a window?  Do you really need your control panel or IM to load as a full screen app?

 

 

From: Rob Wuijster

Sent: Saturday, August 18, 2012 4:36 AM

To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com

Subject: Re: OT: Windows 8 - anyone?

 

[Sam Bowling]

Have you seen what they did to the File Explorer? The ribbon was a bad ide and now it’s spread to the file browser like some kind of bad virus.

 

Have been a windows user for over 20 years I was surprised that I had to look up on the web how to restart the computer.

Just follow these simple steps... <Sarcasm>So much easier than Start>shutdown/restart </Sarcasm>

http://www.karthikk.net/2011/09/shutdown-restart-in-windows-8-how-to/

 

I love the way you have to constantly jump from the left side of the screen to the right side of the screen for everything in this OS. So much easier than having everything in one place.

 

 

 

 

From: Luc-Eric Rousseau

Sent: Saturday, August 18, 2012 8:53 AM

To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com

[Andreas Bystrom]

"You realize that there are still a ton of people that are still running windows XP, right? You also seem to be forgetting Vista (which I actually liked, but most other people didn’t)."

ofcourse, there are still people using win2k/nt even.

also i did not forget vista, i ran it myself for years and was quite happy with it, win7 is better but overall vista wasn't that terrible either.

also having used Linux for almost 2 years at work I've realized you can get used to and be quite happy with anything, its just a matter of using it long enough really, even though I still would never bother using linux at home..

[Stefan Andersson]

It all depends on what you are doing at work.

Animators, likes windows or osx

why: sound, viewport performance, video capture, quicktime

Generalist TD, no preference

why: cares only about scripting and I/O performace

TD/Programmers, likes osx and linux

why: actually only cares about terminals. As long as you can work through a terminal

Pipeline TD, Linux or FreeBSD

why: we wish everything worked on freebsd, but we settle for any linux flavor.

Concept Artist, windows or osx

why: Adobe rulez! And wacom just can't get the drivers to work correctly under Linux

Shading TD, no preference

why: as long as the renderer works

Modellers, Windows or osx

why: zbrush and a zillion of photoshop plugins

Did I miss anyone?

/stefan

[Martin yara]

We gained stability directx and some other things with winXP so it was a good change from win98 and 2000. It felt like a 98 and 2000 mixed and with the SPs blue screens were pretty rare.

XP 64 and Vista never felt like a finished product so Win7 64 was a huge change for designers. 2 or 3Gb per application was just not enough.

This time, I just don't see any reason to upgrade. Not yet at least. It seems that the upgrade price will be quite cheap so it may be worth to give it a try, specially if there is a no Metro GUI option.

Linux and OSX are quite limited in software and plugins library so I don't think they are a valid option for a designer / generalist.

M.Yara

<postbox-contact.jpg>

Paul Griswold

Friday, August 17, 2012 12:18 PM

My main Win 7 workstation has been really acting flaky lately.  Microsoft has just release Windows 8 RTM, so I was wondering if anyone had tested it out yet?

I realize there are plenty of opinions on the whole Metro interface, but I'm just wondering if it's stable and if Softimage will run under it.

I need to take a weekend and reformat this machine & start over anyway.

Thanks,

Paul

--
stefan andersson - digital janitor - http://sanders3d.wordpress.com

--
Andreas Byström
Lighting TD - Weta Digital

[Tim Leydecker]

> Did I miss anyone?

Producers, Clients, Agency?

... h264�s for approvals sent to the iPhone/MacBookAir/iPad.

you�ll never know what gamma settings your windows mp4 will give them
unless you check it on a mac yourself.

...or just use vimeo to convert it for you...

---

Comparing xp64 with win7_64 here now on, I had used the downgrade option
to run xp64 from a win7 license to keep all machines identical/swappable.

Benefits of win7 (on a MacPro2008):

*directx 11 support (since vista)
*harddisks >2TB will probably work just fine, xp64 4K sector alignment can be skipped
*transferrate between harddisks in machine is a lot higher and
the explorer gives detailed info about what it does
*powersave modes for idling seem to work nice(r)
*SSD support (caching)
*more options included to easily backup or restore the whole system quickly
(making clones easier as well as transfers to bigger disks)

program support

-adobe cs5+ line of products
-ZBrush4R3 (and R4) not supported on xp64


Personally, I think I will enjoy using win7 on that MacPro2008.
It�s not too cluttered, you still get at the management console
easy enough if neccessary and the whole OS feels pretty stable.

I�ll add some RAM to the MAC, 24-32GB will be good enough until the machine
has written off from tax and a solid successor with roughly double the CPU
power can be found, I guess. That would be a solid 3-5 year lifecycle then.

Cheers,


tim

On 19.08.2012 08:32, Stefan Andersson wrote:
> It all depends on what you are doing at work.
>

> *Animators*, likes windows or osx

> why: sound, viewport performance, video capture, quicktime
>

> *Generalist TD*, no preference

> why: cares only about scripting and I/O performace
>

> *TD/Programmers*, likes osx and linux

> why: actually only cares about terminals. As long as you can work through a terminal
>

> *Pipeline TD*, Linux or FreeBSD

> why: we wish everything worked on freebsd, but we settle for any linux flavor.
>

> *Concept Artist*, windows or osx

> why: Adobe rulez! And wacom just can't get the drivers to work correctly under Linux
>

> *Shading TD*, no preference

> why: as long as the renderer works
>

> *Modellers*, Windows or osx

> why: zbrush and a zillion of photoshop plugins
>
> Did I miss anyone?
>
> /stefan
>
>
> On Sun, Aug 19, 2012 at 1:17 AM, Andreas Bystrom <andreas...@gmail.com <mailto:andreas...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> "You realize that there are still a ton of people that are still running windows XP, right? You also seem to be forgetting Vista (which I actually liked, but most other people

> didn�t)."

>
> ofcourse, there are still people using win2k/nt even.
>
> also i did not forget vista, i ran it myself for years and was quite happy with it, win7 is better but overall vista wasn't that terrible either.
>
> also having used Linux for almost 2 years at work I've realized you can get used to and be quite happy with anything, its just a matter of using it long enough really, even
> though I still would never bother using linux at home..
>
>
> On Sun, Aug 19, 2012 at 9:42 AM, Sam Bowling <sbow...@cox.net <mailto:sbow...@cox.net>> wrote:
>
> You realize that there are still a ton of people that are still running windows XP, right? You also seem to be forgetting Vista (which I actually liked, but most other

> people didn�t).
> *From:* Andreas Bystrom <mailto:andreas...@gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Saturday, August 18, 2012 1:05 AM
> *To:* soft...@listproc.autodesk.com <mailto:soft...@listproc.autodesk.com>
> *Subject:* Re: OT: Windows 8 - anyone?

> ". So... I've installed Windows7 on my workstation at home. And so far I'm really impressed with the speed and the response from the system. Softimage works a lot smoother
> on Windows7 than on CentOS 6.3."
>
> hmm, it's not april.... did hell just freeze over? actually the day alan jones writes something like that will be the day hell truly freezes over..
>
> on a serious note, for every single windows release that's about to come out since win2k I've heard the same exact thing "this will be terrible, I'm staying with win xxxx
> forever" yet those same people somehow upgraded throughout the years and found themselves quite happy...
>
>
>
> On Sat, Aug 18, 2012 at 6:55 PM, Stefan Andersson <sand...@gmail.com <mailto:sand...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> It's not any better in the Linux Camp. Everyone is moving towards tablet use. But what boggles me is that... how can the developers themselves stand it?
> On a side note.
> I've been using Linux for a long time now, but got fed up with crappy wacom drivers and the crippled paint applications. So... I've installed Windows7 on my workstation
> at home. And so far I'm really impressed with the speed and the response from the system. Softimage works a lot smoother on Windows7 than on CentOS 6.3.
> Anyhow, going to take a shower now since I feel quite dirty.
> And I think Windows 8 will be as Vista, a "side-note". They are already talking about Windows9.
> regards
> stefan
>
>
> On Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 8:01 PM, Sylvain Lebeau <s...@shedmtl.com <mailto:s...@shedmtl.com>> wrote:
>
> this makes me think about Apple rumour to let go the dev on the mac pros...
>
> Seem's everybody is going nuts on the mobile thing. And all professional market get's ignored!!
>
> i wont be able to do Arnold render regions on my f-ing iphone!!!!!
> wtf is going on with these guys!?
>
>
> sly
>
> --
>

> *Sylvain Lebeau // SHED**
> *V-P/Visual effects supervisor
> 1410, RUE STANLEY, 11E �TAGE MONTR�AL (QU�BEC) H3A 1P8
> T 514 849-1555 <tel:514%20849-1555> F 514 849-5025 <tel:514%20849-5025>WWW.SHEDMTL.COM <http://www.shedmtl.com/><http://WWW.SHEDMTL.COM <http://www.shedmtl.com/>>____
>
>
>
>
>
>> Paul Griswold <mailto:pgri...@fusiondigitalproductions.com>

>> Friday, August 17, 2012 12:18 PM
>> My main Win 7 workstation has been really acting flaky lately. Microsoft has just release Windows 8 RTM, so I was wondering if anyone had tested it out yet?
>>
>> I realize there are plenty of opinions on the whole Metro interface, but I'm just wondering if it's stable and if Softimage will run under it.
>>
>> I need to take a weekend and reformat this machine & start over anyway.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Paul
>>
>
>
> --
> stefan andersson - digital janitor - http://sanders3d.wordpress.com
>
>
>
>
> --

> Andreas Bystr�m

> Lighting TD - Weta Digital
>
>
>
>
> --

> Andreas Bystr�m

[Sam Bowling]

One of the big surprises when I started working at this company that uses a lot of macs was the complete lack of free utilities available on a mac. You can get almost any kind of converter/utility for windows for free, but EVERYTHING on a mac will cost you money and most of them don’t even have demo versions so you can see if it even work. Hopefully they will continue to allow people to downgrade to earlier versions of windows, but with the way they are pushing their cell phone OS they probably won’t allow it on this version.

 

 

 

From: Martin yara

Sent: Saturday, August 18, 2012 11:53 PM

To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com

[Tim Leydecker]

Hi Sam,

here�s a pretty good download database for all sorts of Apple related tools,
beware it�s in german. Fortunately, lot�s of english teminology anyway:

http://www.heise.de/download/apple-50002505000/

I tend to go there first if I need a misc. tool, as the site belongs to a
german computer magazin and the tools found there can often be assumed save
to start with.

Has linux and windows stuff, too. Even stuff for smartphones.

Cheers,


tim

On 19.08.2012 23:48, Sam Bowling wrote:
> One of the big surprises when I started working at this company that uses a lot of macs was the complete lack of free utilities available on a mac. You can get almost any kind of

> converter/utility for windows for free, but EVERYTHING on a mac will cost you money and most of them don�t even have demo versions so you can see if it even work. Hopefully they
> will continue to allow people to downgrade to earlier versions of windows, but with the way they are pushing their cell phone OS they probably won�t allow it on this version.
> *From:* Martin yara <mailto:furi...@gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Saturday, August 18, 2012 11:53 PM

> *To:* soft...@listproc.autodesk.com <mailto:soft...@listproc.autodesk.com>

> *Subject:* Re: Windows 8 - anyone?

> We gained stability directx and some other things with winXP so it was a good change from win98 and 2000. It felt like a 98 and 2000 mixed and with the SPs blue screens were pretty
> rare.
> XP 64 and Vista never felt like a finished product so Win7 64 was a huge change for designers. 2 or 3Gb per application was just not enough.
> This time, I just don't see any reason to upgrade. Not yet at least. It seems that the upgrade price will be quite cheap so it may be worth to give it a try, specially if there is
> a no Metro GUI option.
> Linux and OSX are quite limited in software and plugins library so I don't think they are a valid option for a designer / generalist.
>
> M.Yara
>

> On 2012/08/19, at 8:22, Andreas Bystrom <andreas...@gmail.com <mailto:andreas...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>> "You realize that there are still a ton of people that are still running windows XP, right? You also seem to be forgetting Vista (which I actually liked, but most other people

>> didn�t)."

>>
>> ofcourse, there are still people using win2k/nt even.
>>
>> also i did not forget vista, i ran it myself for years and was quite happy with it, win7 is better but overall vista wasn't that terrible either.
>>
>> also having used Linux for almost 2 years at work I've realized you can get used to and be quite happy with anything, its just a matter of using it long enough really, even
>> though I still would never bother using linux at home..
>>

>> On Sun, Aug 19, 2012 at 9:42 AM, Sam Bowling <sbow...@cox.net <mailto:sbow...@cox.net>> wrote:
>>
>> You realize that there are still a ton of people that are still running windows XP, right? You also seem to be forgetting Vista (which I actually liked, but most other people

>> didn�t).
>> *From:* Andreas Bystrom <mailto:andreas...@gmail.com>
>> *Sent:* Saturday, August 18, 2012 1:05 AM
>> *To:* soft...@listproc.autodesk.com <mailto:soft...@listproc.autodesk.com>

>> *Subject:* Re: OT: Windows 8 - anyone?

>> ". So... I've installed Windows7 on my workstation at home. And so far I'm really impressed with the speed and the response from the system. Softimage works a lot smoother on
>> Windows7 than on CentOS 6.3."
>>
>> hmm, it's not april.... did hell just freeze over? actually the day alan jones writes something like that will be the day hell truly freezes over..
>>
>> on a serious note, for every single windows release that's about to come out since win2k I've heard the same exact thing "this will be terrible, I'm staying with win xxxx
>> forever" yet those same people somehow upgraded throughout the years and found themselves quite happy...
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Aug 18, 2012 at 6:55 PM, Stefan Andersson <sand...@gmail.com <mailto:sand...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> It's not any better in the Linux Camp. Everyone is moving towards tablet use. But what boggles me is that... how can the developers themselves stand it?
>> On a side note.
>> I've been using Linux for a long time now, but got fed up with crappy wacom drivers and the crippled paint applications. So... I've installed Windows7 on my workstation
>> at home. And so far I'm really impressed with the speed and the response from the system. Softimage works a lot smoother on Windows7 than on CentOS 6.3.
>> Anyhow, going to take a shower now since I feel quite dirty.
>> And I think Windows 8 will be as Vista, a "side-note". They are already talking about Windows9.
>> regards
>> stefan
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 8:01 PM, Sylvain Lebeau <s...@shedmtl.com <mailto:s...@shedmtl.com>> wrote:
>>
>> this makes me think about Apple rumour to let go the dev on the mac pros...
>>
>> Seem's everybody is going nuts on the mobile thing. And all professional market get's ignored!!
>>
>> i wont be able to do Arnold render regions on my f-ing iphone!!!!!
>> wtf is going on with these guys!?
>>
>>
>> sly
>>
>> --
>>

>> *Sylvain Lebeau // SHED**
>> *V-P/Visual effects supervisor
>> 1410, RUE STANLEY, 11E �TAGE MONTR�AL (QU�BEC) H3A 1P8
>> T 514 849-1555 <tel:514%20849-1555> F 514 849-5025 <tel:514%20849-5025>WWW.SHEDMTL.COM <http://www.shedmtl.com/><http://WWW.SHEDMTL.COM <http://www.shedmtl.com/>>____
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>

>>> <postbox-contact.jpg>
>>> Paul Griswold <mailto:pgri...@fusiondigitalproductions.com>

>>> Friday, August 17, 2012 12:18 PM
>>> My main Win 7 workstation has been really acting flaky lately. Microsoft has just release Windows 8 RTM, so I was wondering if anyone had tested it out yet?
>>>
>>> I realize there are plenty of opinions on the whole Metro interface, but I'm just wondering if it's stable and if Softimage will run under it.
>>>
>>> I need to take a weekend and reformat this machine & start over anyway.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>>
>>> Paul
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> stefan andersson - digital janitor - http://sanders3d.wordpress.com
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --

>> Andreas Bystr�m

>> Lighting TD - Weta Digital
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --

>> Andreas Bystr�m

[Stefan Andersson]

Maybe I spoke too soon :) I felt a bit lost, so I'm back into Linux now. Trying a bit newer distro (Ubuntu 12.04). I know it can't run Softimage, but I don't use Softimage at home that much anyhow.
It was a nice try, but it felt there were too many gremlins under the hood that I had no idea of what they were up to.
Too many reboots and too many processes that started working for no apparent reason, and popups, my god.... it felt like using firefox without a adblocker. But besides that it was a better experience that my last attempt which was with Vista.

I'm back home now. Hell did not freeze over, it's still warm and cozy.

regards
stefan

[Stephen Davidson]

Bottom line, for me, Windows 8 is fine to use on my tablet, but

there is no reason to use it on my workstation, unless they force me to,

by dropping support for Windows 7, like they will, for XP, on April 8th 2014.

I have a laptop/tablet pc that I use for drawing (it has a Wacom pressure sensitive pen)

that runs on XP, but won't run Windows 7. I guess it will have a limited life.

It is a shame, because I can't find any new tablets that support pressure

sensitive pens. Most new tablets run on Android, which looks like the model

for Windows 8. Android is great for non-business devices, but that too is

geared for tablets.

I think what the problem is that there is no money in selling to the professional

video and entertainment market. Look what Apple did with Final Cut Pro.

They turned it into a home user product, and ignored the pro market completely.

Maybe it is just a big hint, from the universe, for me to start a new career. ;)

--

Best Regards,
  Stephen P. Davidson 
       (954) 552-7956
    sdav...@3Danimationmagic.com

[Eugen Sares]

Am 20.08.2012 19:56, schrieb Stephen Davidson:

Bottom line, for me, Windows 8 is fine to use on my tablet, but

there is no reason to use it on my workstation, unless they force me to,

by dropping support for Windows 7, like they will, for XP, on April 8th 2014.

I have a laptop/tablet pc that I use for drawing (it has a Wacom pressure sensitive pen)

that runs on XP, but won't run Windows 7. I guess it will have a limited life.

It is a shame, because I can't find any new tablets that support pressure

sensitive pens. Most new tablets run on Android, which looks like the model

for Windows 8. Android is great for non-business devices, but that too is

geared for tablets.

Won't Microsoft Surface have a pressure sensitive pen? No idea though how subtle it will be.
It will come in two versions, one with a lame ARM and one with an i5, which sounds quite interesting.
And if it's not going to be MS, I expect quite a few other manufacturers to offer something similar.

[Rob Wuijster]

Asus EP121?

Rob

\/-------------\/----------------\/

[Len Krenzler]

NO.

On 8/18/2012 12:44 PM, David Gallagher wrote:

Mobile is so overrated. Does anyone actually get anything done on a mobile device?

-- 
_________________________________________________

Len Krenzler - Creative Control Media Productions

Phone: 780.463.3126

www.creativecontrol.ca - l...@creativecontrol.ca

[Len Krenzler]

I liked Vista a lot too.  If you disable some of the very stupid web oriented crap it outperforms Win7 by a good margin.  I have 2 identical machines, 1 on Win7 and one on Vista and main programs such as SI, PS, Avid MC all open in half the time and run better overall and Aero works smoother.

And the best thing is I can still hide the taskbar in Vista.  On Win7 it's like a F*ing virus that you can't get rid of.

Long live Vista.  It was a real WS OS before the toys took over.

On 8/18/2012 3:42 PM, Sam Bowling wrote:

You realize that there are still a ton of people that are still running windows XP, right? You also seem to be forgetting Vista (which I actually liked, but most other people didn’t).

[Gene Crucean]

What? hehe. Is that whole $0.99 gonna break the bank for ya? Don't you
think all those hard working developers deserve a little money for
what they do for YOU?

Regarding everything costing money: That's a complete load of crap
btw. There are TONSSS of free and open source apps/tools available for
OSX. There are even full blown package managers like yum/apt-get for
osx... just like linux.

I respect your opinion... but to me, it just says a lot about how
little you know about the platform. It's HOT right now for development
and there are zillions of apps made for it every day. Well maybe not
"zillions" but there are a lot. ;)

On Sun, Aug 19, 2012 at 2:48 PM, Sam Bowling <sbow...@cox.net> wrote:
> One of the big surprises when I started working at this company that uses a
> lot of macs was the complete lack of free utilities available on a mac. You
> can get almost any kind of converter/utility for windows for free, but

> EVERYTHING on a mac will cost you money and most of them don�t even have

> demo versions so you can see if it even work. Hopefully they will continue
> to allow people to downgrade to earlier versions of windows, but with the

> way they are pushing their cell phone OS they probably won�t allow it on

> this version.
>
>
>
> From: Martin yara
> Sent: Saturday, August 18, 2012 11:53 PM
> To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
> Subject: Re: Windows 8 - anyone?
>
> We gained stability directx and some other things with winXP so it was a
> good change from win98 and 2000. It felt like a 98 and 2000 mixed and with
> the SPs blue screens were pretty rare.
> XP 64 and Vista never felt like a finished product so Win7 64 was a huge
> change for designers. 2 or 3Gb per application was just not enough.
> This time, I just don't see any reason to upgrade. Not yet at least. It
> seems that the upgrade price will be quite cheap so it may be worth to give
> it a try, specially if there is a no Metro GUI option.
>
> Linux and OSX are quite limited in software and plugins library so I don't
> think they are a valid option for a designer / generalist.
>
> M.Yara
>
> On 2012/08/19, at 8:22, Andreas Bystrom <andreas...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> "You realize that there are still a ton of people that are still running
> windows XP, right? You also seem to be forgetting Vista (which I actually

> liked, but most other people didn�t)."

>
> ofcourse, there are still people using win2k/nt even.
>
> also i did not forget vista, i ran it myself for years and was quite happy
> with it, win7 is better but overall vista wasn't that terrible either.
>
> also having used Linux for almost 2 years at work I've realized you can get
> used to and be quite happy with anything, its just a matter of using it long
> enough really, even though I still would never bother using linux at home..
>
> On Sun, Aug 19, 2012 at 9:42 AM, Sam Bowling <sbow...@cox.net> wrote:
>>
>> You realize that there are still a ton of people that are still running
>> windows XP, right? You also seem to be forgetting Vista (which I actually

>> liked, but most other people didn�t).

>>>> 1410, RUE STANLEY, 11E �TAGE MONTR�AL (QU�BEC) H3A 1P8

>>>> T 514 849-1555 F 514 849-5025 WWW.SHEDMTL.COM <http://WWW.SHEDMTL.COM>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> <postbox-contact.jpg>
>>>> Paul Griswold
>>>> Friday, August 17, 2012 12:18 PM
>>>> My main Win 7 workstation has been really acting flaky lately.
>>>> Microsoft has just release Windows 8 RTM, so I was wondering if anyone had
>>>> tested it out yet?
>>>>
>>>> I realize there are plenty of opinions on the whole Metro interface, but
>>>> I'm just wondering if it's stable and if Softimage will run under it.
>>>>
>>>> I need to take a weekend and reformat this machine & start over anyway.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>>
>>>> Paul
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> stefan andersson - digital janitor - http://sanders3d.wordpress.com
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --

>> Andreas Bystr�m

>> Lighting TD - Weta Digital
>>
>
>
>
> --

> Andreas Bystr�m

> Lighting TD - Weta Digital
>



--

Gene Crucean - Emmy winning - Oscar nominated VFX Supervisor / iOS-OSX
Developer / Filmmaker / Photographer
** Freelance for hire **
www.genecrucean.com

~~ Please use my website's contact form on www.genecrucean.com for any
personal emails. Thanks. I may not get them at this address. ~~

[Sam Bowling]

What $0.99 video format converters do you know of that will give you real
professional quality results, because I couldn't find any. Also there are a
ton of free programs for synchronizing your drives on windows and I couldn't
find any for OSX that didn't cost money. BTW, I'm talking about Mac
programs, not unix programs. The people I work with would be completely lost
if they had to do anything in a terminal. They're mac users after all.

Oh, there was one free program that I found useful. I can't think of the
name at the moment, but it allows me to search drives that have not been
indexed yet, and use wildcards (2 things that should have been built into
the OS IMO). I would love one that would stop the computer from asking me if
I want to use an external drive for time machine every time I plug a drive
in and also stop it from wanting to open every freaking window and program I
had open every time I reboot the computer. But apparently Apple seems to
think we want to open all the same programs and windows every time we
restart the computer.

As far as how much I know about macs, I know that every time I've searched
for a utility to help out with a job it either costs us money (and my boss
does not like to part with money) or has to be done on a windows box.

[Nic Groot Bluemink]

There's the new Galaxy Note with a Wacom pen. Underwhelmed a bit in the review though-
http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/15/3243546/samsung-galaxy-note-10-1-review

-Nic

--

Technical Pretty Picture Making Person

Kettle

[Stephen Davidson]

Nice that it has a pressure sensitive pen (Wacom)

Like you said, the review is not great.

And it's Android OS which does not support Photoshop.

I don't know of any decent paint program for Android

Thanks for trying, though.

[Stefan Andersson]

On Tue, Aug 21, 2012 at 7:49 AM, Sam Bowling <sbow...@cox.net> wrote:

What $0.99 video format converters do you know of that will give you real professional quality results, because I couldn't find any. Also there are a ton of free programs for synchronizing your drives on windows and I couldn't find any for OSX that didn't cost money. BTW, I'm talking about Mac programs, not unix programs. The people I work with would be completely lost if they had to do anything in a terminal. They're mac users after all.

I'm just... I... I don't know where to start. I...

Please don't ever make another comment about OSX users and OSX. If you do that I will promise to never post anything regarding Windows. Deal?

best regards

stefan

[Paul Griswold]

Wow, my simple question on Windows 8 took quite an interesting turn...

For the time being I think I'll keep trying to figure out why Windows 7 is so crash-prone on my main system & perhaps do a fresh install.

Thanks for the lively discussion guys.

Paul

[Dan Yargici]

I've made Soft work on 12.04, but if you were to now ask me how.... the bottom line is that if you go through all the Linux related posts on Stephen's blog you'll get it running totally fine in the end.

As an aside, I have to say that I love Gnome Shell (just called Gnome now in 12.04).  Unity sucks utter balls IMO but Gnome Shell feels quite nice.

DAN

[Martin Chatterjee]

Dan,

cool - have you actually done any production work on this install? 

Does opening/saving/merging scenes work for you? And can you read/write icecaches?

I personally haven't spent any time trying to get it to work because I've read all these reports about these show stopper type problems regarding Softimage on Ubuntu...

Cheers, Martin 

 

--
       Martin Chatterjee
 
[ Freelance Technical Director ]
[   http://www.chatterjee.de   ]

[ https://vimeo.com/chatterjee ] 

[Szabolcs Matefy]

So, the question is if I move to Windows 8, Softimage will perform well?

 

From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Martin Chatterjee
Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2012 1:06 PM
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: OT: Windows 8 - anyone?

 

Dan,

[Chris Chia]

Thought the biggest question should be: Would Windows 8 operate well with every other software? ;)

Chris

On 21 Aug, 2012, at 7:33 PM, "Szabolcs Matefy" <szab...@crytek.com<mailto:szab...@crytek.com>> wrote:

So, the question is if I move to Windows 8, Softimage will perform well?

From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com<mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com> [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Martin Chatterjee
Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2012 1:06 PM
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com<mailto:soft...@listproc.autodesk.com>
Subject: Re: OT: Windows 8 - anyone?

Dan,

cool - have you actually done any production work on this install?

Does opening/saving/merging scenes work for you? And can you read/write icecaches?

I personally haven't spent any time trying to get it to work because I've read all these reports about these show stopper type problems regarding Softimage on Ubuntu...

Cheers, Martin

--
Martin Chatterjee

[ Freelance Technical Director ]

[ http://www.chatterjee.de<http://www.chatterjee.de/> ]
[ https://vimeo.com/chatterjee ]

On Tue, Aug 21, 2012 at 12:53 PM, Dan Yargici <danya...@gmail.com<mailto:danya...@gmail.com>> wrote:
I've made Soft work on 12.04, but if you were to now ask me how.... the bottom line is that if you go through all the Linux related posts on Stephen's blog you'll get it running totally fine in the end.

As an aside, I have to say that I love Gnome Shell (just called Gnome now in 12.04). Unity sucks utter balls IMO but Gnome Shell feels quite nice.

DAN

On Mon, Aug 20, 2012 at 1:56 PM, Stefan Andersson <sand...@gmail.com<mailto:sand...@gmail.com>> wrote:
Maybe I spoke too soon :) I felt a bit lost, so I'm back into Linux now. Trying a bit newer distro (Ubuntu 12.04). I know it can't run Softimage, but I don't use Softimage at home that much anyhow.
It was a nice try, but it felt there were too many gremlins under the hood that I had no idea of what they were up to.
Too many reboots and too many processes that started working for no apparent reason, and popups, my god.... it felt like using firefox without a adblocker. But besides that it was a better experience that my last attempt which was with Vista.

I'm back home now. Hell did not freeze over, it's still warm and cozy.

regards
stefan

On Sat, Aug 18, 2012 at 10:05 AM, Andreas Bystrom <andreas...@gmail.com<mailto:andreas...@gmail.com>> wrote:
". So... I've installed Windows7 on my workstation at home. And so far I'm really impressed with the speed and the response from the system. Softimage works a lot smoother on Windows7 than on CentOS 6.3."
hmm, it's not april.... did hell just freeze over? actually the day alan jones writes something like that will be the day hell truly freezes over..

on a serious note, for every single windows release that's about to come out since win2k I've heard the same exact thing "this will be terrible, I'm staying with win xxxx forever" yet those same people somehow upgraded throughout the years and found themselves quite happy...

On Sat, Aug 18, 2012 at 6:55 PM, Stefan Andersson <sand...@gmail.com<mailto:sand...@gmail.com>> wrote:
It's not any better in the Linux Camp. Everyone is moving towards tablet use. But what boggles me is that... how can the developers themselves stand it?

On a side note.

I've been using Linux for a long time now, but got fed up with crappy wacom drivers and the crippled paint applications. So... I've installed Windows7 on my workstation at home. And so far I'm really impressed with the speed and the response from the system. Softimage works a lot smoother on Windows7 than on CentOS 6.3.

Anyhow, going to take a shower now since I feel quite dirty.

And I think Windows 8 will be as Vista, a "side-note". They are already talking about Windows9.

regards
stefan

On Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 8:01 PM, Sylvain Lebeau <s...@shedmtl.com<mailto:s...@shedmtl.com>> wrote:
this makes me think about Apple rumour to let go the dev on the mac pros...

Seem's everybody is going nuts on the mobile thing. And all professional market get's ignored!!

i wont be able to do Arnold render regions on my f-ing iphone!!!!!
wtf is going on with these guys!?


sly
--
Sylvain Lebeau // SHED
V-P/Visual effects supervisor
1410, RUE STANLEY, 11E ÉTAGE MONTRÉAL (QUÉBEC) H3A 1P8

T 514 849-1555<tel:514%20849-1555> F 514 849-5025<tel:514%20849-5025> WWW.SHEDMTL.COM<http://www.shedmtl.com/> <http://WWW.SHEDMTL.COM<http://www.shedmtl.com/>>




<image001.jpg>
Paul Griswold<mailto:pgri...@fusiondigitalproductions.com>

[Stefan Andersson]

Well... I came off a little harsh there. My apologizes, it was not intended to be that harsh.

*stefan goes off and hides under a rock*

I hope no one (especially Sam) wasn't offended, it was never my intention.

best regards
stefan andersson

[Dan Yargici]

Hi Martin,

No production work no.  Opening and Saving definitely worked!  I don't recall having had to merge and I wasn't doing any caching with ICE (but I was using ICE extensively)...

I didn't encounter any issues at all and it seemed very stable to me.  I've used 2011 and 2013 with Ubuntu 12.04.

I'll try to test the ICE caching for you...

DAN

[Martin Chatterjee]

Hi Dan,

awesome, thanks!  :-)

I just dug out the old thread I vaguely remembered - if you want you can check it out here.

That was a year ago on Ubuntu 11.04 - keeping my fingers crossed that the issue is solved in 12.04! :-)

Cheers, Martin

--
       Martin Chatterjee
 
[ Freelance Technical Director ]
[   http://www.chatterjee.de   ]

[ https://vimeo.com/chatterjee ] 

[Dan Yargici]

Hmmm. Nope, seems I have those exact same issues!  Even the batch issue that Patrick mentions in the last thread.

Sorry for creating the false hope! :/

DAN

[Tim Thorburn]

You can try out the RTM version now and see if it works for you, and the software you use.  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/evalcenter/jj554510.aspx  This will get you a 90 day evaluation copy of Windows 8 Enterprise, unfortunately, there's no option to purchase a serial number after Win8 launches to continue using; but as a trial it's fairly good.

I installed this last nite as a VM on Win7 to play with the final code.  I have to say, after just a few minutes of playing around I began to hate it much less than I did during either the developer or consumer preview releases.  Not entirely sure I'll upgrade on day one, but from what I read the upgrade price tag will be $40 - cheap enough to pick up and not worry about really.

Impressions after a few hours of playing on a VM - Win8 seems snappier than Win7, of course this is very likely due to the fact that it's a fresh Win8 install, compared to an existing Win7 install running av/firewall, backup software, etc in the background.  The Start screen compared to Start button will take some getting used to - not sure that's the best approach for a desktop atm.  In that vein, full screen Metro-style (or whatever it's supposed to be called now) also feel out of place on a desktop; some, like the weather app are pretty looking - but I'm the user that has many windows open at a time, in Desktop that's fine and normal as it is now, however in the Start Screen you need to move your mouse to the top left of the screen to see what's running so you can either close it, or switch back to it.  Of course, you can also just click on a tile, if the program is already running, you'll be brought back to the screen you "tabbed out" on.

My prediction is that Win8 won't be overly well received by business or pro-users for some time after release, if at all.  Business/corporate likely won't even consider their next Windows upgrade until Win9.  Home enthusiasts may pick up the upgrade for $40 just because it's relatively inexpensive.  Tablets like the Surface will probably do quite well for those who wish to run their usual software on a tablet (provided they use the Intel version; the ARM version will only run Metro-style apps and be more like an iPad than a traditional computer).  Odds are Win7 will become the next XP, until such time as people "get used" to a start screen over a start button, or Microsoft allows people to go back to a more traditional UI.

As for the Windows vs Mac vs Linux thing ... it's a holy war.  None are perfect, they all suck in their own special way, down off your high horse of superiority, and Coke is always better than Pepsi.  There, I said it, now we begin the beverage wars!

Paul Griswold

Friday, August 17, 2012 12:18 PM

My main Win 7 workstation has been really acting flaky lately.  Microsoft has just release Windows 8 RTM, so I was wondering if anyone had tested it out yet?

 

I realize there are plenty of opinions on the whole Metro interface, but I'm just wondering if it's stable and if Softimage will run under it.

 

I need to take a weekend and reformat this machine & start over anyway.

 

Thanks,

 

Paul

 

--
stefan andersson - digital janitor - http://sanders3d.wordpress.com

--
Andreas Byström
Lighting TD - Weta Digital

[Martin Chatterjee]

Hmm, oh well... No worries - thanks a lot for checking! :-)

Cheers, -M

--
       Martin Chatterjee
 
[ Freelance Technical Director ]
[   http://www.chatterjee.de   ]

[ https://vimeo.com/chatterjee ] 

[Paul Griswold]

Well, for grins and giggles I installed Windows 8 RTM on my laptop.  Softimage 2013 SP1 runs ok from what I can see.  There's some interface weirdness, such as the top menu bar is pure white and "Softimage 2013.......etc etc." is centered at the top of the screen instead of on the left.  I loaded a FaceRobot demo scene & it seemed fine - then I loaded a CrowdFX demo & it too was ok.  But I then noticed no matter how many times I reset my layout to Default, when I opened another scene it went back to the FaceRobot layout.  

Anyway, in my very limited test it seemed to be ok.  

I probably won't chance it with my main machine for a while though.

-Paul

[Stephen Blair]

You need to disable Face Robot.

From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Paul Griswold
Sent: August-21-12 12:44 PM
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: OT: Windows 8 - anyone?

[Gene Crucean]

"They're mac users after all."

You know you are talking down to just about everybody these days right? Apple was just reported as the worlds most valuable company. http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/story/2012-08-20/apple-most-valuable-company/57161260/1 (check the dates on that too. MS hasn't been at that valuation since 1999!!!)

Welcome to life after MicroSoft.

 I would love one that would stop the computer from asking me if I want to use an external drive for time machine every time I plug a drive

A program to do what a simple system option can do?

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/403879/time_machine_option.png

and also stop it from wanting to open every freaking window and program I had open every time I reboot the computer.

Again... system option. And I agree about this one... annoying as hell. They switched it off by default in the latest OS version.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/403879/restore_windows_option.png

What $0.99 video format converters do you know of that will give you real professional quality results, because I couldn't find any.

Video is one area in which you do not want to take this discussion :)

3D would be a better option... which honestly is even getting pretty good now. I only say this because we're posting this on.... the SOFTIMAGE list. Grrrrr.

I also agree with Stefan. Until you educate yourself on the matter, it's probably best to steer clear of it as a whole.

Take care

[Gene Crucean]

Sorry I forgot to reply to Paul.

Win7 is by far the best version of windows I've used in a long time. To me, it sounds like you just need to re-install that badboy.

[Luc-Eric Rousseau]

On Tue, Aug 21, 2012 at 12:56 PM, Gene Crucean
<emailgene...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> "They're mac users after all."
>
>
> You know you are talking down to just about everybody these days right?
> Apple was just reported as the worlds most valuable company.
> http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/story/2012-08-20/apple-most-valuable-company/57161260/1
> (check the dates on that too. MS hasn't been at that valuation since
> 1999!!!)

As you know there is no link between the valuation on the gambling
market that is the stock market, and the actual results of a company.
Microsoft has sold more than 650 million licenses of Windows 7 in
three years, but the stock is cheap because it doesn't attract
gamblers.

But if we want to play that game, adjusted for inflation MS was at
$853.7 billion in 1999. that number doesn't compare to apple's
$623.5 billion valuation today, it went much higher. And
meaninglessly so, because that's just a measure how much traders think
other traders will buy the stock for.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/11/28/maximizing-shareholder-value-the-dumbest-idea-in-the-world/

[Nicolas Burtnyk]

As you know there is no link between the valuation on the gambling
market that is the stock market, and the actual results of a company.
Microsoft has sold more than 650 million licenses of Windows 7 in
three years, but the stock is cheap because it doesn't attract
gamblers.

Actually Apple and Microsoft have almost identical PE ratios so their stock price vs. actual company performance (earnings) is almost identical.

[Kiril Aronofski]

RE: desktops are doomed

Don't forget all this mobile devices are consumerist in nature - someone will somehow still have to create the content for them to consume. Desktop sales are in decline as most people realize they can survive with a tablet and a phone. In my opinion Microsoft is trying to leverage both worlds by making this hybrid system where "a desktop" is a professional environment you can enter if you wish so, but "metro" is the frontend - something most users will be spending their time in. For the record, I do not think they are even close to making it all work right now. They have invaded power-user's/enterprise's space heavily and sacrificed it in an effort to appeal to the market they desperately need a foot in. Than again, PC's have been skipping every other version of windows forever now so how is this anything new?

And Gene, I agree he shouldn't be talking down to onyone based on what OS they are using... but Apple's dominance is in mobile world (in other words, iOS) and that's where their value comes from. Microsoft still owns the largest chunk of desktop market so, technically, he is offending only a small percentage of "just about everyone".


-Kiril

[Matt Lind]

The tablet comes with Photoshop Touch installed.

 

I have the Galaxy Note phone, which ironically has the same screen resolution as the tablet.  The apps are pretty nice but do take some getting used to.  While the Note comes with a stylus, can be used to paint and other creative things, it’s targeted towards a light business audience, not artistic (write memos, fill out forms, communicate on the go, etc…). 

 

 

Matt

 

 

 

From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Stephen Davidson
Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2012 1:13 AM
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: OT: Windows 8 - anyone?

 

Nice that it has a pressure sensitive pen (Wacom)

Thanks for trying, though.

--

Technical Pretty Picture Making Person

Kettle

[Gene Crucean]

but the stock is cheap because it doesn't attract gamblers.

Actually... it's cheap because why would I dump money into a stock that hasn't done jack sh** in 5 years, vs dumping money into a company that's exploding. Proof: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/403879/AppleVsMS.png

... but feel free to defend MS every time I post something about Apple. I'm not really sure why you do that Luc.

[Luc-Eric Rousseau]

That's the gambling market.. money is made by speculating about how
much one could sell the stock to someone else in the future. The way
the stock market was supposed to work was that you bought shares in a
company in order to own part of it and get dividends, proportional to
your number of shares, from that company's revenue. In any case,
it's not a reflection of how many people run windows vs macs, which is
how this all started. :)

On Tue, Aug 21, 2012 at 2:23 PM, Gene Crucean

[Thomas Helzle]

Interesting how heated this is still getting when the differences are actually growing smaller every day. :-)

Windows Explorer has grown as crappy as the stock Finder, but for both there are good replacements (I use XYplorer and Pathfinder but there are many).

I run both systems on a MacPro and I'm happy to be able to switch - right now I have a project that needs both.

I tried Windows 8 on a machine in a store lately and found Metro much less of a problem than I thought.

And there already is a "Classic Start Menu" Version that supports Windows 8, it replaced the - IMO crappy - Win7 Startmenu for me a long time ago.

I have been able to disable almost everything I ever wanted to disable on either system, from replacing the ugly start graphics (on both systems) to the automatic window-opening on OSX Lion or the zip folder functionality in Windows.

On Mountain Lion, you can SaveAs again when holding CTRL and open non-signed apps also with CTRL.

I guess I'll find some things to like in Win8 as well.

We'll see how it all turns out :-)

Cheers,

Tom

[David Gallagher]

Of people visiting AnimSchool.com:

[Daniel H]

Win 8 will be fine; it's already outperforming Win 7 in the benchmarks.

Mac influence in the desktop world is very minor compared to Windows dominance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems

Windows = 70.42%
Mac = 7.46%
Linux = 1.53%


Daniel
VFXM

[Jens Lindgren]

The Samsung Galaxy Note II will be announced August 29th and I think it will be more targeted to the artistic people as you can see in this teaser:

http://androidandme.com/2012/08/smartphones-2/samsung-teases-galaxy-note-ii-in-new-online-video/

 

/Jens

--

Jens Lindgren

--------------------------

Lead Technical Director

Magoo 3D Studios

[Matt Lind]

I doubt any phone will be considered an artistic device.

--

[Eric Turman]

Maybe not as a professional production device. But there are a number of good art apps for android. I, personally, really really like my Galaxy Note. It is still small enough to fit in my front jeans pocket, it is snappy, and it is convenient for sketching out ideas or as a portable sketchbook.

--




-=T=-

[Stephen Davidson]

Notice in the teaser, the "artist" is wearing glasses .... that is from squinting at a 5.5" screen.

When creating "art" I want a big screen. Bigger than 10" would be nice.

Yeah, ok, that's not a "portable" device, but does everything have to be "portable" ?

I'm starting to feel manipulated, by marketing hype, instead of defining my needs.

How portable is an easel and canvas? Does that lack of portability stop an artist from

painting a landscape or portrait?

I notice many people must have the latest and greatest gadget. Ask yourself....

"What do I need?" .... "What features of a tablet would make the creativity process

easier and more productive?"

Just my two cents from an experienced (read old) artist.

[Paul Griswold]

Actually the one device I'm very interested in is the Samsung Series 7 slate running Windows 8.  It's a Core i5 based machine with a Wacom screen, so it's 100% Windows, not RT.  Seems like a good alternative to a Cintiq with the bonus of being a full-blown computer.

But with Win 8 officially shipping soon, I'm waiting to see if there's a hardware refresh on the unit in the fall.

-Paul

[Stephen Davidson]

Nice Find! This one goes on my list to Santa.

SWEET.

[Matt Lind]

Our lead animator has the Slate running windows 7.  It’s not bad, but has a few obvious shortcomings such as no place to store the stylus when not in use.  Also doesn’t have a mode to only acknowledge the stylus.  Resting your hand on the slate while using the stylus often results in unintended actions.

 

 

Matt

 

 

 

 

From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Paul Griswold
Sent: Thursday, August 23, 2012 12:45 PM
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: OT: Windows 8 - anyone?

 

Actually the one device I'm very interested in is the Samsung Series 7 slate running Windows 8.  It's a Core i5 based machine with a Wacom screen, so it's 100% Windows, not RT.  Seems like a good alternative to a Cintiq with the bonus of being a full-blown computer.

[Stephen Davidson]

Oh, that's not good. You must have a way to switch of the touch screen when you use the pen.

How crazy, not to be able to do that.

[Stephen Davidson]

After seeing your post about not being able to switch off the touchscreen while you are using a pen, I

did some research, and found this YouTube link that not only shows off how well the tablet works, it also

gives you a link to a custom script that will allow you to switch off the touch screen while using the pen.

You may want to give your lead animator this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTHbCNiUpK4 

As far as stylus storage, wrap the pen in velcro and stick the alternate velcro side (the hooks) to the case 

that you use to store the tablet.

[Matt Lind]

He has the script, but the point is the feature to ignore the hand is not native to the tablet, it has to be handled per application.