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To RAID or not to RAID? PDF Print E-mail
Tuesday, 22 May 2007
So, you'd like better performance out of your workstation, and you've heard that configuring your hard disks as a RAID will speed it up. We'll for most part, you're right.

The first thing you'll need to determine is whether your hard drive is the bottleneck. This is a whole discussion in and of itself, but I'll discuss it in brief here. Normally, adding RAM will always speed up your machine. This is especially true if you like to have many applications open at the same time (I usually have about twenty) or you open big files in, say, Photoshop (I regularly open half-gig files). I have five gigs of RAM, and I'd love to add a few more. I use MenuMeters to keep an eye on how much of my memory is being used at any given moment, so I know that adding more will benefit me.
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 05 June 2007 )
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Which Monitor? PDF Print E-mail
Tuesday, 22 May 2007
A client who does relatively critical color work is ready to replace his aging Apple 17" LCD monitor. He asked me to give him some suggestions, so I though I'd post them here with approximate pricing.
  • For overall best color and performance money can buy: Eizo ColorEdge CG221 (22” @ $5000)
  • For great color and performance, I’d recommend the Eizo ColorEdge CE240W. (24” @ $1700) I have one of these and I love it.
  • For sheer size and good performance, go with the Apple Cinema Display 30 (30” @ $1800) I have one of these, too, and it makes me very productive.
  • For best value and good performance, go with the Acer AL2416WD (24” @ $510)
  • Next, you should get a good monitor calibrator like the Eye-One Display 2 ($200) which you can use to calibrate all your monitors. Also get a monitor hood if possible. Lastly, your monitor should not be facing any windows if you want accurate, repeatable color, so you might want to turn your desk appropriately.
Sincerely,

Art

UPDATED 7/19/07:

I recently saw a new monitor that I thought was impressive for the price:
  • Samsung 245BW - 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor - 1920 x 1200, 5ms, 1000:1, DVI ($500)
I would recommend this one over the Acer AL2416.

UPDATED 8/6/07:

I have tested out the Acer AL2416 and it is a piece of garbage. It is poorly constructed, not very sharp, has horrible viewing angles and color is different from top to bottom. Stay away from this display.

So far, it seems that you get what you pay for.
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 07 August 2007 )
 
Apple Aperture 1.5: First Look PDF Print E-mail
Friday, 29 September 2006

I got the Aperture 1.5 update today. It took a couple of hours for it to update my library, but I must say, it is definitely faster in some areas, though most of the adjustment sliders are still sluggish. Some of the new features are very cool. I like how there is a color slider just for adjusting fleshtones.

I’ve seen recent tests which show the ATI X1900 XT (the graphics card I returned) running on the Mac Pro 3 GHz. Some tests show it to be as much as six times faster than the GeForce 6600 on the G5 Quad (which is what I'm stuck with).  http://barefeats.com/quad12.html

But for Photoshop, the Quad G5 is still as much as twice as fast as the Mac Pro 3 GHz (though many PS tests only run 5% faster). http://barefeats.com/quad11.html
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 22 May 2007 )
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Article: Bits and Pixels PDF Print E-mail
Friday, 23 December 2005
How to calculate file sizes: from megapixels to megabytes
A Primer: Part I
by A Arthur Fisher

So you just bought a new eight megapixel camera.  Congratulations, and welcome to the big time!  But how does that translate?   How many images can you store on your flash card, or hard drive? And just how big can I print that sucker, anyway?

Let's discuss the math behind uncompressed images.  Don't get scared just because I said math. The concept really isn't that difficult.

bitmap gird
A Bitmap (1 bit) Image
The first thing you need to know is how binary bits translate into bytes, kilobytes, megabytes and gigabytes. A single bit of information represents a binary digit; that is, a bit represents two possibilities, for example on/off, yes/no, black/white. Therefore, a one-bit image means that each pixel is either black or white. In our first example image, we have a grid consisting of 25 pixels.
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 28 November 2006 )
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