From the monthly archives:

August 2008

Switching (Part 2): From Mac to XP for business only

by Veit on August 28, 2008

Around 9 months ago, the Fortune 500 company I worked for then rolled out a trial to some of its Marketing employees — switch from Lenovo Thinkpads to MacBook Pros. Almost immediately, they had to waitlist interested employees…

Within weeks, another line formed — Marketeers wanting to get their Thinkpads back. Why? Three reasons:
1. No extended battery for the Mac, thus subpar battery life. It’s not easy to go from 5+ hours unthethered back to 1.5 or 2 hours.
2. Wireless connectivity was not as robust on the MacBook Pros as they were on the Thinkpads. More dropped connections.
3. Having to run a very load-heavy corporate software environment, all the test participants mainly worked in Parallels, which was just too slow for their tastes. Boot times were horrendous, waking the thing from sleep similarly slow

Fast-forward 9 months: I’m no longer with this company. Having switched to a MacBook Pro myself for personal use around 18 months ago and being very happy about that switch (18 months with almost no problems, including my very first OS upgrade since Windows 95), I wanted to use my Mac for business as well. But pretty quickly, I learned the limitations of a MacBook Pro in today’s business environment, esp. if your co-workers, partner companies and customers are on XP. My 17″ model is just too big for a daily mobile lifestyle. Battery life is really not that great. Wireless connectivity is decent, but my favorite Wi-Fi service, iPass Connect, is not available on the Mac. Calendar incompatibilities. Email issues. MS Office 2004 just too slow (and I need extended Excel macro capabilities, so upgrading to Office 2008 is not an option). No MS Project or Visio for the Mac. Incompatibilities between the Mac equivalents for Project/Visio and the Microsoft software.

I contemplated installing Parallels or VMware Fusion in order to run Windows. But apart from a required memory upgrade, I would have had to also upgrade to a bigger disk (since my disk is already filled up with photography related files and software which I really bought the MacBook Pro for) and get a Windows license. Not something I really wanted to do, esp. since it would not have solved the battery/size issues I had already experienced.

In the end, I invested around $1000 to buy a Lenovo Thinkpad T61 (with Windows XP pre-installed – no Vista for me). Now I have the best of both worlds – a good work-horse for business and a Mac for my personal stuff.

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Switching (Part 1): From Canon to Nikon?

by Veit on August 27, 2008

Last weekend, a couple of friends and I went to the Infineon racetrack to photograph the IndyCar Grand Prix of Sonoma. Both of my friends showed up with sparkling new Nikon D300’s — one recently upgraded from a D200, one switched from a Canon 20D.

Of course, the debate ensued whether to switch from Canon to Nikon, especially given Nikon’s recent release of great full-frame cameras (D3, D700) and Canon’s (almost unbelievably) continued absence of a successor to the now 3-year-old 5D. My position in the debate: No, I would not, even if all my gear was stolen tomorrow and I had to start from scratch again. The reason: Canon 24-105/f4 L IS and Canon 70-200/f4 L IS. I use these two lenses for at least 90% of my photography (in fact, I shot more than 2000 images at Infineon with just one lens – the 70-200/f4 L IS) While Nikon offers great f2.8 lenses, these are too big, bulky and expensive for my taste. I gladly trade one stop of lens speed for less weight. And Nikon does not have equivalent f4 lenses.

So the answer remains a solid “no”: I would not switch from Canon to Nikon and would not even consider switching unless they introduce a line of f4 VR lenses.

Below is a shot of Helio Castroneves during qualifying where he captured the pole. He went on to win the Grand Prix the next day. Canon 5D, 70-200/f4 L IS at 200mm, 1/200 sec at f/16, ISO 100.
Infineon Castroneves IndyCar Grand Prix Team Penske @byveit.com

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