Alex Hardy

… it’s the sound of Windows Vista launching. No, that’s not a joke about the general apathy surrounding the most important Windows since the hot topic was “who’s better: Blur or Oasis?”

There’s much debate about what Vista means - is it more secure or will the UAC nags desensitise people so much that they carelessly *OK* any prompt that appears (thereby making it less secure)? - are the additional bells and whistles timely enhancements or is it lip gloss on an old hag? Are the various multimedia apps a shameless rip off of iLife, or an essential response to the demands of today’s user?

MS, just like Apple, has its hardcore supporters and detractors. Reality (read: “the market”) lies between. The Apple camp who see Vista’s lukewarm reception as the beginning of MS’ end are deluded. The business world and most homes have computers that Mac OS X would refuse to run on. The greatest threats to MS are open source software (eg: OpenOffice.org) and Internet services (eg: Google).

It would please me to see Apple regain some market-share through Mac OS X and the so-called “iPod halo effect”. 10%, 20%? Who knows… Maybe that would bring the games developers. In any case, Apple will remain a niche player, and this is how it must be.

This has nothing to do with Mac snobbery - just realism. Apple users rejoice in the Mac’s simplicity, and pour scorn on MS’ uphill battle to rally countless disparate components together and call it a platform. To their credit they do a remarkably good job. Now flip it. Go to the Apple Store. You’ll find two classes of laptop, and three classes of desktop computer. Imagine that this was all the choice there was. Sound appealing?

If Apple became the dominant platform, the aspects that users praise as its key virtues would become its worst crimes. The only way to compete with MS would be to open Mac OS X to run on generic hardware. If they did, any stability advantages would disappear. Apple also consistently prove that they don’t have the manufacturing capacity even to satisfy the demand they have now. Fancy waiting six months for your new computer?

It works to think of the Mac as the Milan catwalk, or the Tokyo concept cars of computing. Ideas filter through to the mainstream, to George at Asda. Windows is a Ford Focus. Vista was never going to roll out to an Apple-style ta-dah: it will be routinely installed on every PC sold from now on. In three years’ time, most users will be on Vista. The ones that matter will anyway - the ones that spend money on such things.

It’s a fait accompli. The most important thing is that it appears to be a significant improvement. I’m looking forward to trying it out.

Have a look at the latest trailer. Mac users should download the Flip4Mac WMV components for QuickTime.

Wow. That’s a bit impressive, no? When its hardware requirements mean that PC sales don’t deliver an acceptable return on its development costs to Electronic Arts, I look forward to playing the (unconfirmed) Xbox 360 port.

Lightroom has launched, with Aperture squarely in its sights.

… but enough about Adobe’s lousy design.

These applications target professional and “prosumer” photographers, who naturally want to work with RAW image files. They offer powerful management, adjustment and workflow solutions without many of the design features of Photoshop - which may be surplus to such a user’s requirements.

Last year, rumour and counter-claim circulated around the quality of the original version of Aperture and the fate of its development team. Now at version 1.5.2 one can only assume that the application’s birth pains are behind it and take it on current merits.

What Lightroom loses from Aperture’s head-start, it may regain through aggressive pricing (at $199 it is $100 cheaper than Aperture) and Adobe’s clever extension of the Photoshop name, which will lend it instant credibility. You may be of the opinion that using Photoshop’s name to bolster a fledgling app weakens Photoshop, but that depends on whether you consider Photoshop to be a brand in the first place.

I consider it a product, and one so entrenched that there is little that could possibly do it harm. Adobe does risk confusing customers (…is it a cut down Photoshop? …where does Photoshop Elements fit in? …how does it stand alongside the CS family?), but clearly communicating what Lightroom is, and more importantly what it isn’t will alleviate that issue.

Superficially, there isn’t much to choose between them so I hope Adobe will offer a trial of Lightroom. Aperture offers a 30-day trial, and to be able to test drive them for comparison would be useful to many. It remains to be seen whether Macromedia’s culture of offering trials for their products will seep into Adobe.

Mostly, I’m pleased that Lightroom and the recently announced return of Premiere to the Mac signify that Adobe has regained some competitive spirit, and is no longer content to sit on its laurels.

If you make websites, then you need to test under different browsers. Microsoft Internet Explorer is the most widely used browser by an overwhelming majority, but doesn’t really like to exist in more than one version under a Windows install. If you have access to several computers, you can keep one using IE6 and another using IE7. This is a solution, but far from ideal.

Where there’s a will, there’s a way though I found Multiple IE Installer on Google while testing my folio page under IE6.

It’s freeware, not exactly bug-free and probably breaks the IE license agreement in all sorts of ways (so don’t come crying to me if you try it and things go horribly wrong) but it appears to work. I’m currently looking at my page in IE6 and IE7.

My page has some IE6 glitches. Better sort them, then. Ho hum.

Pitching, loss leaders, spec work. Call it what you will. You win some, you lose some. The Foundry has some talented creatives and hence a healthy success rate. My sister Katie once asked me what pitching is. Since she worked in a shop that makes wedding cakes, I explained it to her like this:

Imagine that a person walks into your shop and says “I’d like to buy a wedding cake, but I’m not exactly sure what kind. Please come up with some ideas and make a small example of each of them for me, at no charge. I’ll eat a slice of each one, and *maybe* I’ll pay you to make the one I like best. Or perhaps I won’t – I may just take the recipe home and get my grandma to make it.” What do you think of that?

Katie replied with words to the effect of “they’d be laughed out of the shop”. This is how agencies work. I suspect it contributes substantially to the hourly rate that an agency chooses to charge for its services. Clients are, in part, subsidising the pitching process. They pay for those who didn’t pay.

Loss leaders baffle me too. In my limited experience, the only thing a loss leader leads to is more loss. Why would you imagine that a client who is too much of a deadbeat to pay you in the first instance, will ever come through? You’ve set a precedent with them, and they will always baulk at your quotes in future because you cut your own throat to start with. Why can’t you do that every time?

A particularly bitter irony of loss leaders is that often the bigger a client company is (and the more money they have), the more they expect for less money. Presumably this is in return for the prestige of being their agency. Never mind that your agency is on the verge of ruin, you’ve got [insert famous brand] in your portfolio!

… Yet these practices render having a portfolio completely pointless. Why bother gathering your best examples of work to demonstrate your talent, when you’re obliged to re-establish your credentials with every project?

In my naievety, I’d like to imagine that there is room in the industry for a different kind of agency. One that charges much lower rates and breaks a project down into smaller deliverables - but simply does not pitch.

I don’t like Apple’s Mac adverts very much. The original 1984 ad is a classic, but the iMac ads with Jeff Goldblum felt misjudged, and the new adverts do too.

Goldblum appeared to be using a Mac because he was too inept to use a PC (which you might assume means “Proper Computer”). Witness him bumbling on about email…

The “Mac and PC” ads are not much better. Their objective is to win over new customers to the platform, yet all these adverts do is flatter the existing userbase while poking fun at the PC – and by extension, PC owners.

A computer is an expensive item that people replace every three or four years (my guess). How does it make sense to imply people’s previous purchasing decisions were foolish? My iMac G5 is my third Mac (after a much loved iBook G3 and Performa 6400). During that time I’ve owned two PCs (Evesham desktops).

Was it because I’m a dumb punter who hasn’t seen the light of Apple? No – the first time it was because I genuinely wanted to see if the grass was greener on the other side, the second time because I worked at J-Media and did all my work on Windows. I reckon Boot Camp and Parallels Desktop mean I’ll never need to buy another PC, but not that I’ll never use Windows.

Since when was iLife the Mac’s greatest selling point? What good does it do to name-drop Mac OS X without showing it, when many users don’t clearly understand what an Operating System is?

Mac users have a bit of a reputation for being elitist and smug. If anything, PC guy is more comical and likable than Mac guy in these adverts. Mac guy just looks like a smartass. There are plenty of retorts that could be made to these ads, and Youtube is stuffed with tedious parodies. Heaven forbid PC guy should mention availability of games…

Apple obviously considers themselves far too boutique to do anything as vulgar as showing the Mac in action, so there’s no point suggesting it. They do need to adjust the tone of their advertisements though.

Brilliant

Stephen and I met up this week to discuss an early visual for the Refresh homepage. As far away as this image was from being right (I won’t be showing in-progress site visuals), it was a strange thing to see.

I started work on this project with the view that it should be an interesting little journey. If it repays the effort that goes into it financially, that will be fantastic. If not, it will be a valuable learning experience. This is partly why I asked Ste to do the design work. I know that Ste is talented, reliable and most importantly would be able to surprise me.

I’ve tried not to steer too hard in any creative direction, but I have a clear idea of function and content. The experience so far is giving me a better understanding of my own clients. To have your idea realised for you through someone else’s design is initially disconcerting. You have an gut reaction: “I hadn’t imagined it quite like that”. It’s tempting to fixate on minutiae because you feel compelled to change aspects of the design, to reclaim as your own.

I’m excited to see where this will go - we both understand it to be critically important that the site is user-friendly and looking great if it is to succeed with its intended audience.

I’ve been looking for a solution to getting photos online. I’ve noodled around with Flickr, Picasa and Ringo but I’ve pretty much dismissed Ringo because I’ve not found a satisfactory way to upload images in bulk.

Since the Mac is my weapon of choice, I import and organise my photo collection with iPhoto. Picasa looks like a very capable equivalent for Windows users, but it’s unavailable for the Mac - presumably because Google chooses not to fight a preinstalled app. They support it instead, by providing handy free Mac tools in the form of an iPhoto export plugin and a standalone uploader application.

The Picasa Web Albums website isn’t bad for a relatively new offering and is tempting because it means I can just use my existing Google account. It does lack a lot of things though, like tags*, visitor comments and is presented with Google’s usual design style - which is minimal to say the least.

In the other corner, Flickr provides links to third party tools that do the same job, although the iPhoto plugin charges a £12 registration fee.

I think Flickr wins for me because it can easily be incorporated into an Automator workflow: a Photoshop actions pack and Flickr upload plugin are freely available. This will be useful for a freelance project that I have on the cards…

For my money, Flickr is a cooler website and the Photo Album WordPress plugin is the icing on the cake. All I need to confirm now is that my phone identifies itself properly to iPhoto as a Sony Cybershot - that would be sweeeeeet **

Expect to see my humble attempts at photography on these pages in future!

[CORRECTION] *Picasa Web Albums does have tags.

[UPDATE] **It does indeed!

A hearty pat on the back should go to Reggie Fils-Aime, president of Nintendo America, for maintaining a dignified stance and not stepping into the childish war of words that is going on between Microsoft and Sony.

Graduates of the Steve Ballmer School of Marketing should recall an old proverb:

“You can’t make your candle burn brighter by blowing out the other fellow’s.”