Tiger/QT7: check bug reports before upgrade

I backed up everything important before I installed. I'm self employed too, and have a G5 and a 15" PowerBook. I just kept a few unimportant projects on to see how they took the change. No problems on either machine yet. I even got QT pro on them both. The HD samples on the Apple site are incredible. Spotlight is soooo cool. And now you can sync mail and bookmarks in isync. Its the best upgrade I've ever seen. So far.
 
Are you using a regular LCD or CRT monitor to watch those HD clips? If so, I'm surprised (pleasantly) that you have enough resolution to see a diff.
 
This is OT, but do any of you happen to use Virtual PC? I'm thinking of getting it to test my web pages on PC browsers.
 
I think there have been a few people who've had some issues with apps like Virtual PC and some other more Windowscentric programs.

Some are waiting for software updates. You can check the macrumors.com forums for some of this info (I think that's where I saw it).
 
I don't know if virtual PC would be a true indicator of how Mac things would look on a PC, since its still Mac hardware and guts, just in emulation mode. I've thought about buying a cheap PC to try web sites and QT content on, but just haven't been able to bring myself to do it. I think I'd rather cheat on my wife than my Mac... Come on Powerdog. Don't be a chicken. You can't live in the past forever. :)
 
Oh, PPT, only a week ago I was living in the present! Time flies.

Anyway, since posting here I've read on several other boards that people do use VPC for checking web designs, and they consider it fairly accurate. It's either that or a subscription to Browser Photo at $150/yr.
 
pptphoto said:
I don't know if virtual PC would be a true indicator of how Mac things would look on a PC, since its still Mac hardware and guts, just in emulation mode. ...
Click to expand...

Pixel-for-pixel, it's what you'd see on a PC because the it's the CPU and the system itself that's being emulated. VirtualPC runs unmodified Windows software ... just much more slowly than an actual PC does.

Then again, you could also just use Firefox for a cheap preview -- it's not exactly what PC users might see, but it still gives you an idea of how an alternate browser will render your pages.
 
Great, thanks Pals. Good to know. Did you see that Powerdog? Beats buying a PC just for testing. I was just kidding about the living in the past, nothing wrong with being safe. I just have no patients, and love trying the new candy as soon as possible. Hey, I still know people on OS 9, afraid to "jump" into OS X too fast. Now THATS living in the past...
 
I love new toys myself! It's taking all my self-control to not place my order. But then I think of the very remote chance of something happening, something that causes a problem, that annoys clients, that results in my paltry income becoming even more paltry....Shudder!!

Regarding Virtual PC, guys, the big question: Windows XP Pro or 2000 Pro? I've read that 2K runs faster on a Mac, because it has less graphic bells/whistles, but I think they sell much less of it...so support will be harder to find. The whole thought of adding Windows makes me feel so...dirty!

Thanks for all your help, everyone!
 
I haven't compared Windows XP to 2000 in Virtual PC, but I do know that XP is actually faster in several ways (e.g. startup). You can also turn off the "bells and whistles" (if you can call them that) to make the appearance identical to Windows 2000. This will probably help.

I'd say one sure way to guarantee crappy Virtual PC performance is to have too little RAM. Figure that your Virtual PC should probably have at least 256 MB of RAM, which means you'll probably want at least 1GB of RAM in your host Mac to make sure that things run smoothly. Of course, more is better! :)
 
Pais, I actually joined a PC message board just to ask them. They agreed that XP Pro was the one to get, and that it can be optimized with various settings. I have 1GB in my Mac, so it should be OK. Ugh, hate to do it, but Mac web designers always get in trouble when they don't check their work on a PC.

Just one other question: Can VPC be used to check color differences between Mac and PC, or only layout?
 
The short answer is no -- Windows systems typically use a gamma of 2.2, where Macs have a gamma of 1.8 by default. Virtual PC does nothing to change this, so things will look a little "lighter" than they might on an actual PC because the color characteristics are different.

In the Displays control panel, though, you could create an alternate color profile with a different gamma if this is a serious issue. Kind of a lot of trouble, but it would work. Or you could just kinda squint and pretend the graphics are slightly darker ...

You also might be able to control the color settings on the emulated PC, too, but I've never really played with that stuff in Windows before, sorry.
 
I couldn't remember which was lighter, Mac or PC. If it's Mac, that's surprising because I was just going back and forth with a client over the darkest web-safe green, 003300. It looks black to me, but he says on his PC it's clearly green. (Funny, the only time I see it as green is when I do a Command-Shift-4 screenshot, and the gray selection area lightens everything so it looks green.)
 
You can easily setup a monitor profile to be 2.2 gamma and switch between them.

Note that most computer screens (like TV's) aren't calibrated by their users so not all PC users will see the same thing anyway but 2.2 gamma is in theory the standard.
 
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