Peter's Movie - The Apple Experience
I am an experienced Mac-user teaching MacOS, Adobe products, Macromedia products, webdesign and PHP-programming. A fileconversion and scanningjob does not have to take more then twenty minutes: it never did.
But MacOS eats more and more of my time today than it ever used the last seven years. I got so fed up with it, I logged this process.
- I put both photographs of Peter into the Umax-SCSI-scanner I bought one year ago, and meanwhile try to open Peter's webcam-movie to translate it to RealVideo, Flash, Mpeg and GIF-animation. A twenty minutes job you'd guess. Well, for me it used to be: I am a Mac-user. That meant: no hassle, no trouble, just do a complex job in a couple of minutes. I loved Apple for it.
- QuickTime 4.03 says it needs to be updated. No other option: just Quit or Upgrade -which translates as "Cancel" in Europe, we'll seen why. Thought I'd upgraded recently...? Blink! I reinstalled the system, so its that 'old' QuickTime version I got with my MacOS9-CDrom again. Let's run the Updater again.
- QuickTime Updater says my QuickTime4.03-version is a different language, -sure, it is Dutch- and I need to deinstall QuickTime myself, before being able te upgrade it. Only option: Cancel.
- No 'Mercy-button' saying 'Okay, we'll allow you one more time to run Quicktime.' No Mercy-button saying 'Upgrade Later for my Provider is down.'
- Hmm. I could go to the Apple-website to see if there's a Dutch Updater. The Apple-website, that means filling-in forms again to download the Updater, and I've got an Updater, haven't I?
- Deinstalled QuickTime manually. That means, browsing the system folder and trashing the right items.
- Ran the QuickTime updater.
- After rebooting twice (at deinstalling and at updating to QuickTime 4.1.2), I try to open Peter's movie with Premiere, with After Effects, and QuickTime but all any software shows is a blank window and some error message about missing components. But I just updated QuickTime...
- So.. I run the QuickTime updater again, it now says Updates are available and it encountered missing components (!) so I choose update. QuickTime updater is connecting to Apple again and downloading. No language-alert this time today.
- No Language-alert? Hmm. Maybe the Updater downloaded the English QuickTime version? Yep. It did. Maybe that causes the 'blank movie' problem. Lets repeat the whole installation-proces. But first fill in forms at Apple's to download that other Updater.
- Right on rebooting with the newly downloaded and installed Dutch version of QuickTime, the OS says QuickTime is old and needs to be updated. It leaves me with two options: Cancel or Upgrade. Nu breekt mijn klomp! as we say in Dutch, "now my wooden shoe breaks."
- Again I run the QuickTime updater.
- Ofcourse I'd pay for QuickTime if that would make downloading QuickTime unneccesary, -does it, by the way? [No.] If only creditcards were of any use in Europe -except for paying Apple over the internet. Have you ever tried to pay for software 'overseas' via a bank instead of a creditcard? I have, and it is -eufemism- not customerfriendly.
- After running the Dutch QuickTimeupdater, problem still exists: blank movie.
- Maybe the movie-file is invalid. So I try to play some other QuickTimemovies I made with Premiere, VideoShop and or After Effects. None of the movies shows anything but a blank screen . All error-messages are about compression components that are unavailable.
- Compression components? Could be the VIDEC-drivers: Since QuickTime 4.x conflicts with the Drivers for my Connectix / Logitech webcam and crashes the cam, that I got 20 months ago, I did not reinstall the VIDEC-drivers anymore.
- The 'great' thing about a Dutch MacOS are the errormessages. They make it impossible to find the right -American English- keywords to search the Apple Tech-info database with.
That means this error message will mean as much to you as it does to me.
- So I switch to the controll panel "Start Up Disk" and select the second SCSI-disk that will boot MacOS 8.1, with QuickTime 2.5, and the Connectix/VIDEC-drivers.
- I reboot to MacOS 8.1, with QuickTime 2.5, and Connectix/VIDEC-drivers.
- My USB-keyboard will now not work anymore, for the HEISEI HU-32i USB host PCI-card drivers are available for MacOS9 only. No problem, I am prepared:
- Since some keys and shortcuts do not function on a USB-Keyboard, I keep an ADB-keyboard attached too. I would use just the -extremely large- ADB-keyboard, but I have a severe problem with my arm and shoulder. My Physician told me the small 'iMac'keyboard is by far the most ergonomical keyboard for me. So I use them both now, the old ADB-one for missing key-support, and the new USB-one to work with. Isn't it great that Apple supports two keyboards on one Mac!
- I open the movie as movieclip file in Premiere under MacOS 8.1, with QuickTime 2.5 and Connectix/VIDEC-drivers and export it to a new movie. Experience no problem at all. I open another movie as footage file in After Effects and render it to a new movie.
- Reboot to OS9 with QuickTime 4.1.2
- QuickTime 4.1.2 does play both movies now. I can't see why, for this is exactly what I did last year.
- Let's take a look at www.apple.com/support/ but MSIE 5.0 crashed before I finished typing the URL. Ohwell. Forget support. I bet there's no QuickTime Known-bug information anyway without filling in exhaustive forms.
- And I'll probably get the usual Apple-Answers
- "We are unable to restore your session. Please try again" while trying to set up an ID for the Apple support-pages.
- "An unexpected error occurred was encountered (sic) while processing your request."
- "Your session has timed out. To properly navigate through the knowledge base, you will need a cookie-enabled browser" (I got two of them dear Apple, both accept cookies, they are known as: Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 and Netscape Communicator 4.7.)
- "This software requires a modern Power Macintosh" (well, I got two, an iBook and an 8600).
- WHAT? You did *only* buy a G3-laptop this year? How dare you still use a 3 year old state of the art Mac PowerPC besides it?! Buy a G4!!
- So I'll just reboot and do the translation to RealVideo, Mpeg, Flash, and Gifanimation. This cannot take long now, anymore, can it?
- RealProducer renders the RealVideo-file. Everything works fine.
- Previewing the RealVideo-file in the browser appears impossible: Real Player says it is Expired.
- I log in to the Real Website, fill in the forms and download the latest Real Player, the rp8-setup.hqx-file.
- Stuffit Expander 5.5 says "Decoding was incomplete because an invalid BinHex character was found."
- I log in to the Real Website, fill in the forms and download the latest Real Player again, the rp8-setup.hqx-file from London instead of from Amsterdam. Same problem.
- I log in to the Real Website, fill in the forms and download the latest Real Player again, the rp8-setup.hqx-file from Switzerland instead of from London. Same problem.
- Maybe its my browser, I tell myself, so I log in to the Real Website with MSIE 5.0, fill in the forms -got Real fed up with forms by now- and download the rp8-setup.hqx-file again. Same problem. MSIE says the file is 100K smaller than it should be.
- What if its my Harddisk, I ask myself: it is 'only' 8 Gig, so I log in to the Real Website, avoid the forms -one learns- and download the rp8-setup.hqx-file again, but to another disk. Same problem. "Decoding was incomplete because an invalid BinHex character was found."
- What if it is Stuffit Expander 5.5, I tell myself, and download GifBuilder as a test, decode its .hqx with Stuffit Expander 5.5, but GifBuilder Works Fine. So it can't be Stuffit.
- Searching for help via the expired RealPlayer leads nowhere, I give up on Real-software for Macs.
- Fortunatly, one of our 8 computers in the room runs Windows NT, so I upload the Real Video files anyway, and view it in the NT-RealPlayer. At least I know Peter's movie runs perfect.
- I open the movie in GifBuilder 1.0 that says it hasn't got enough memory. Well, this Mac has 160 RAM, so I close GifBuilder, and increase its memory to about 35 Mb -something NT would never make you do, ooops, what did I say.
- I open the Movie in GifBuilder, import the colortable again, I remove some unneccessary frames and the OS crashes. Ohwell.
- I retype the last frases of this report, never do anything on a computer without saving your last action.
- I open the Movie in GifBuilder, import the colortable again, I try to set the Interframe Delay and the OS crashes. Ohwell. Maybe 40 Mb RAM for GifBuilder will do, so I increase its memory again.
- I open Peter's Movie in GifBuilder, import the colortable, remove some unneccessary frames, set the Interframe Delay, save the movie, I try 'Save As' for a 3Bits-animation file and the OS crashes. Ohwell. At least the basic version was saved.
- I hit Controll Command Restart on the ADB-keyboard, as I always do when the OS crashes since the USB-keyboard does not support reboots. I save the 3bits animation.
- I open the color-gifanimation in Flash, set the Jpeg-compression and save the animation as Shockwave-Flashmovie. Less than five minutes work: the way Macintoshes are supposed to perform.
- I open the succesfully converted under OS8.1 today to several versions for OS9- movie in Sparkle 2.4.3 to export it to Mpeg. Brilliant, Sparkle shows a grey window only of all versions.
- I hurry to http://www.versiontracker.com/ and type Sparkle. It says: "Apple QuickTime is a much better choice for MPEG and AVI playback," and is probably right. See point 1 to 15 above. So I download Sparkle anyway.
- Versiontracker warns me again: Editor's Notes: "Sparkle is very old and a lousy choice for MPEG playback. We recommend using QuickTime 4 instead as it's far superior." He is probably right, I *never* experienced ANY problems with QuickTime 4, It NEVER crashed my webcam, it even supports my 20 months old webcam. It *never* annoys me telling me to download the blo^H^H^H-file again, and that NEVER happened twice a day. I NEVER had to download QuickTime while my provider was down, and we all have Free Modemlines in Europe -haven't we- so It REALLY DOES NOT MATTER that I have to download QuickTime again again and again and again.
- But I didn't want Mpeg Playback, I wanted to convert to Mpeg, and have you Ever seen QuickTime Player saving a file? Me neither. It does not save. Jesus does. And MoviePlayer, part of the older QuickTime versions, did. But QuickTime 4.x doesn't. So I download Sparkle.
- And Yes, you're right.. I own an iBook too, I could have downloaded iMovie! If Only. If Only my iBook ran OS9, but it came with OS8.6. Yes yes, I'll upgrade to MacOS9, I bought it, remember. I got myself some extra Mbees RAM for my iBook that came with 32 Mb only, so it didn't run OS9 back then. But it will now.
- Versiontracker must have been right: Sparkle 2.4.5 crashes immediatly after running it. I move the Sparkle 2.4.5 folder to the trash. What's next.
- Blink! Let's boot to OS 8.1 with QuickTime 2.5 again. I select the second disk in the controll panel "Start Up Disk" and boot MacOS 8.1 with QuickTime 2.5.
- That does the trick... It wasn't Sparkle that was lousy, it was QuickTime 4. Sparkle 2.4.3 smoothly translates the QuickTime movie to Mpeg under MacOS 8.1 with QuickTime 2.5. And plays the Mpeg too. Let's report that. Oops, keyboard does not work.
- Reboot to OS9 with QuickTime 4.1.2. Sparkle 2.4.3 now does not play the Mpeg-movie anymore. QuickTime 4.1.2 only plays it after 'conversion.'
- I open my good old Maczilla, and see it that plays the Mpeg I just created. IT DOES!
- We are allmost there! Just two scans left! With the wonderfull performance of MacOS that can only take five minutes. Couldn't it?
- I run the UMAX VistaScan 3.1 scansoftware. It starts, and crashes. What is this? It used to work OK!
- I reinstall UMAX VistaScan 3.1 and drivers with the official disk. It still crashes afterwards. I'll probably need to download a new driver from the Umax-site, for MacOS 9.
- I run MS Internet Explorer, but it crashes like UMAX VistaScan 3.1 did. No problem, I probably need to reboot MacOS or run MS Explorer Selfrepair. Or both.
- No. Explorer still crashes afterwards. Oh sh*tty MS Explorer, where is your disk. I'll reinstall you!
- After trashing its preferences and reinstallation of MS Internet Explorer 5.0 it still crashes on run.
- This means I have no choise but to reinstall MacOS9.
- I get the -official ofcourse- MacOS9installer disk, the OS9.04-updater disk, and reinstall the system.
- Now that I am busy reinstalling, let's get rid of that vicious Sherlock 2. It is slow, lost its handy title-bar 'window-shade' and offers nothing I need. If I want to search the web, I'll use my browser, for what Website does support Sherlock?! Let's reinstall good old Find.
- You can guess by now I have to reinstall QuickTime again too. On reboot after reinstalling QuickTime, MacOS says QuickTime is old and needs to be updated. We were familiar with that one, so I update QuickTime again and reboot again.
- OK, Reinstallation of MacOS9.04 Complete, now let's run Internet Explorer to download an Update for UMAX VistaScan.
- Cool, Internet Explorer doesn't crash anymore. I type www.umax.com to findout there are NO drivers for MacOS9, and there is no new version of UMAX VistaScan for MacOS.
- Should we blame UMAX for that, since Apple withdrew Umax's license to produce Macs?
- Ain't I lucky to have Two Disks! I reboot to the other disk with MacOS8.1. My guess is it will run UMAX VistaScan.
- It does. After rebooting to MacOS8.1 UMAX VistaScan runs smoothly. I scan the two photographs, reboot to MacOS9 and run them through Photoshop 5.5.
- I love Adobe, Photoshop never gives me any trouble and in a minute the Jpegs are perfect.
- Great! I can now upload the two Jpegs, the Mpeg, Flashmovie, Gifanimation and Real-files to the internet.
- Days after this Apple Experience, I learn that Intel has developed several Indeo Video codecs for use with QuickTime ....And Apple will soon release QuickTime 5! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaargggh!!!!!
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Why do I not upload the QuickTime-version?
- It is way too large
- I do not want my website-visitors to go through the same hassle as I did, having to QuickTime upgrade and re-upgrade via Apple's website
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- Get two bootable harddisks, two Mac-OSversions, and Two QuickTimeversions
- avoid MacOSversions in your own language
- Get two keyboards if your Physician advises you to use Apple's ergonomic USB-one on an PCI-USB-card
- Buy a new Mac at least every year
- Get a creditcard, for soon not just the G4-cube will be online available only
- Buy new webcams, printers, scanners every 18 months at least for drivers will be unavailable or the version will no longer match your latest Mac(OS)
- Get an AMD- or IntelPC for anything that does not require professional use of Photoshop 6, After Effects 4.0, Illustrator 9, Macromedia Dreamweaver3 or Flash4, -I've seen 'm perform on a PIII/450Mhz/256MbRam and it slows them down- but does require extra hardware, Mpegconversion, AVIconversion, RealPlayer and whatever 'exotic' things you want to do
- Move to the U.S.A, that will make your weekly download of QuickTime much easier
- Remember Jesus saves and QuickTime doesn't.
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- Improve both QuickTime and your QuickTime-Updater
- Stop releasing a silly #.x.x-sub-version of QuickTime. Especially skip it when it means a downgrade instead of an upgrade to your customers
- Focus on Performance and remember a nicer Look -Sherlock, QuickTime- does not neccesarily mean Improved Functionality
- Invest in better deals with software / hardware companies like UMAX, Real and Logitech
- Make both hardware and software -including QuickTime- "offline" available to resellers and customers in Europe
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As an experienced Mac-user teaching MacOS, Adobe products, Macromedia products, webdesign and PHP-programming, I had to upgrade QuickTime four (4) times, I had to reinstall all of MacOS 9.04 after conflicting UMAXdrivers, and ofcourse: after that I had to upgrade QuickTime twice again. I had to reboot between MacOS 9.04 and MacOS 8.1 so often I lost track, since I couldn't find MacOS9 drivers for neither my webcam nor my scanner, and meanwhile cannot use my USB-keyboard under OS8.1. I had to reinstall Microsoft Internet Explorer after a Systemcrash due to conflicting drivers, while Real appeared to have uploaded an invalid Real-player for MacOS, and other Mac-software appeared buggy under MacOS9.
All this, while just trying to make two scans and convert one movie. Which would have never costed me more than twenty minutes. Neither on my PPC 8600 nor on my iBook that would have taken me two whole days in the good old days of Apple: one year ago. It now takes me two whole days, that means over 16 hours to install, reinstall and to reboot from one MacOS-version to the other and a couple of minutes to do the translation of the movie and to make the scans.
It is getting hard for me to tell my students Apple products are any better than other products.
Do you think your customers will buy it if you tell them to download their software from your website, the same software over and over again? Do you think your customers will buy it if you tell them to buy new hardware every year? It's no joke Apple: I switched to Macintoshes seven years ago now, and own seven Macs. I convinced companies I work(ed) for buy to Macs. Most of my supplies are no older than one year. The Mac-hardware of five of the seven Macs is still OK. One runs NetBSD and has an uptime over 100 days. Get your OS to do that. Of the other four, two run a 'modern' OS. Why should I replace them? I replaced four Macs allready. So let me tell you: I will not. And at least: not for a new Mac. Unless you deeply, thoroughly improve the system, but above all: your customer friendlyness.
Jolie
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