Mac software updates

Steve · Dec 17, 2013, 10:00:36

How strange I'm glad I didn't do the update last night, the Music Server (Mac Mini) was fine, however the MBP stalled on 5 secs to go. I turned it off, then rebooted , disk utility failed to verify and to be honest I've not seen this issue before. Then booted into safe mode with an additional disk verification so I could see the check and then re installed 10.9.1 update which this time went fine, thank goodness.

Simon · Dec 17, 2013, 11:09:10

Who'd have a Mac, eh?

zappaDPJ · Dec 17, 2013, 13:43:40

I'm seriously considering buy a new Mac Pro

I know most people think they are outrageously expensive but for graphics and video work, there's nothing on the market that comes close.

Steve · Dec 17, 2013, 13:54:17

It's a lovely looking machine and compared to what I spent 15 years ago on a PC, you could say it's a bargain.

Tacitus · Dec 17, 2013, 17:02:18

Quote from: Steve on Dec 17, 2013, 13:54:17
It's a lovely looking machine and compared to what I spent 15 years ago on a PC, you could say it's a bargain.

I took a look at one and even with higher education discount they are expensive. You then need to factor in something like a Drobo or one of the hideously expensive Promise RAID boxes and you can easily hit £4K even with the discount - and that's not for the high end version.

All fine of course if you're doing video production, but not for me I'm afraid much as I lust after one

It's interesting how much some of the older MacPros are fetching on eBay.

zappaDPJ · Dec 17, 2013, 17:48:40

My first PC, a 33MHz 486 Compaq with 640k RAM and a 20MB hard drive cost me well over £4000 in the 80s and that was by no means the most outrageous amount of money I've paid out on computer equipment $:-\$

Simon · Dec 17, 2013, 17:55:06

I could only dream of having £4000 in the 80s!

Steve · Dec 17, 2013, 17:55:43

It depends what you want to do Zap but the iMac is a very capable machine although you don't get the choice of monitors!

zappaDPJ · Dec 17, 2013, 18:47:25

I'm starting to take on video editing and rendering work. The problem is my best PC struggles to run the software. To be honest the cost of the Mac Pro is not as much as a hurdle as replacing all my software with Mac versions.

Gary · Dec 17, 2013, 20:18:02

Quote from: Steve on Dec 17, 2013, 10:00:36
How strange I'm glad I didn't do the update last night, the Music Server (Mac Mini) was fine, however the MBP stalled on 5 secs to go. I turned it off, then rebooted , disk utility failed to verify and to be honest I've not seen this issue before. Then booted into safe mode with an additional disk verification so I could see the check and then re installed 10.9.1 update which this time went fine, thank goodness.

A few people had that, I did a clean install of 10.9.1 (without icloud nonsense) and its running smoother, still wont put my Firewire/Thunderbolt ports to sleep but it is a step forward, still a few glitches with app nap and memory compression but I imagine things will get better in 10.9.2

I installed 10.9 when IDNet was having really bad packet loss, I do wonder if that effected the install in October.

Technical Ben · Dec 17, 2013, 22:06:51

Quote from: zappaDPJ on Dec 17, 2013, 13:43:40
I'm seriously considering buy a new Mac Pro I know most people think they are outrageously expensive but for graphics and video work, there's nothing on the market that comes close.

For that price I'm sure I could get some NVidia cards with CUDA support and a couple of i7s. It would be setup in a cardboard box though... but it'd be fast!

PS, just looked, I am honestly shocked that this is at least 1 Mac priced correctly. Priced it up on scan with slightly faster GPUs (Apples are custom) and non-ecc memory (no professional server boards available to measly peasant consumers like me

) and it came out a couple of pence over £2500, the same as the Mac Pro.

Though I'd assume they have slightly less clocked and less ram for the GPU. Things like ECC memory etc do pull it back in it's favor for a small server/simulation box. Not sure if a single pixel color out of place would matter on encoding though, but may save from a program crash.

Gary · Dec 17, 2013, 23:20:03

Raw update 5.0.2 released

zappaDPJ · Dec 17, 2013, 23:36:35

Quote from: Technical Ben on Dec 17, 2013, 22:06:51
For that price I'm sure I could get some NVidia cards with CUDA support and a couple of i7s. It would be setup in a cardboard box though... but it'd be fast!

The Mac Pro's cardboard box is a little bit more than a cardboard box

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbWOQWw1wkM

I'd imagine it adds somewhat to the final price tag as well.

Technical Ben · Dec 18, 2013, 18:31:07

As said, that was my first impression, on checking, I saw Apple did a first, and charged the right price for the product. Though the looks are still put ahead of most other things (a round PC, that's CRAZY!

).

Glenn · Dec 18, 2013, 21:15:11

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJA9CEhnsIE may be handy to look at before buying.

Gary · Dec 21, 2013, 11:48:57

I stuck my iMac up for sale today, I dont use it enough any more. Get a celluar iPad air 64Gb for all the music and photos (iPhoto on the iPad is great) Makes life simpler for me all round, Justina is selling her laptop too as she only really needs a tablet, That way I can not worry so much about iPhones as I don't need to double up on the tech so a simple phone will do when my iPhone dies(break out my Nokia 8210). My TV already has iPlayer as does Sky but it has Youtube etc as well and its better watching all that on the bigger screen. If I get the iPad from John Lewis it comes with a 2 year warranty so no need for Apple care.

Above all no more OS X which really is abysmal these days.

Bill · Dec 24, 2013, 12:53:18

Safari 6.1.1 (Mountain Lion) and Digital camera RAW update 5.02.

pctech · Dec 24, 2013, 14:01:39

Quote from: Technical Ben on Dec 18, 2013, 18:31:07
As said, that was my first impression, on checking, I saw Apple did a first, and charged the right price for the product. Though the looks are still put ahead of most other things (a round PC, that's CRAZY! ).

Nice looking machine certainly but there's a good reason they have designed it in this way, so that you have to go back to Apple for any upgrades you may want.

Gary · Dec 25, 2013, 09:06:27

Quote from: pctech on Dec 24, 2013, 14:01:39
Nice looking machine certainly but there's a good reason they have designed it in this way, so that you have to go back to Apple for any upgrades you may want.

Most people dont upgrade computers much these days, they buy one and that's it, the day of the hobbyist computer geek is fading. As for upgrading a computer myself, 10 years ago maybe, now id let the retailer, I could not be bothered tbh, hence I'm selling mine so I never have to. I have reached that age when I know a tablet is all I need, I cant be bothered with keeping up with it all, the money I have waisted on phones and tech...damn I could have had some great memories with that cash, Mitch.

pctech · Dec 25, 2013, 15:05:42

For the mainstream I would agree yes but I think there'll be a few of us (myself included) that will still want more power and flexibility than a tab or phone can provide so will end up buying CPUs, server motherboards and other components and cobbling together our own systems.

I wouldn't be without my smartphone now (never thought I'd say that!) but still want the power of a desktop for my main computing needs but at work am definitely getting lots more folks ringing up for help with sites running on smartphones and tablets.

Glenn · Dec 25, 2013, 16:35:27

I just bought a new graphics card, Sapphire HD7970 vapor X, it should allow me to run iRacing on full settings.

zappaDPJ · Dec 25, 2013, 16:37:13

For maximum efficiency, keeping in mind that I work from a computer at home, I use an iPhone, iPad and a workstation. What I certainly don't need any more and I'm glad to see the back of, is an expensive but slow laptop. My iPhone is pretty much essential for push notification as it allows me to provide support 24/7 and while I hesitated buying an iPad for a long time it's getting at least double the use of any laptop I've ever owned. Sure they are expensive but it's still only a third of the price of the majority of laptops I've bought. I love the fact that it's ready to use the instant I open the cover, it's fast and it does everything I need to do far better than a laptop. It'll more than pay for itself within a few months.

I am going to have trouble justifying the price of a Mac Pro though. I've looked very carefully at all the available options and it's going to cost me just under £5,916 inc for the model I want which is more than double the cost of my current workstation. I think I'm going to have to go and play around with one for a day before I even consider buying one at that price plus I need to factor in the cost of all the software I'll need.

Steve · Dec 25, 2013, 16:51:09

I agree the iPad does make a laptop largely redundant, would a high performing iMac not be up to the task? Not the specs of the pro but maxing out the ram and video memory with a fusion drive should give impressive performance at half the price.

pctech · Dec 25, 2013, 17:22:38

Quote from: Glenn on Dec 25, 2013, 16:35:27
I just bought a new graphics card, Sapphire HD7970 vapor X, it should allow me to run iRacing on full settings.

I keep meaning to get iRacing up and running as I do love racing sims, might do it over the holiday.

Nice card btw

zappaDPJ · Dec 25, 2013, 21:18:33

Quote from: Steve on Dec 25, 2013, 16:51:09
I agree the iPad does make a laptop largely redundant, would a high performing iMac not be up to the task? Not the specs of the pro but maxing out the ram and video memory with a fusion drive should give impressive performance at half the price.

I recently borrowed a 27" i5 iMac from someone I know with a view to buying it but in the end I decided against it mainly because it didn't really perform any better than my 2-3 year old PC/workstation. I think the right spec Pro will but I can't really gauge by how much.