Week Four I HAVE BEEN SHOPPING!
In the world of computing there are two main tribes, just like Peds and The Lads sang about back in the Eighties. Back when music mostly had better production values with Trevor Horn-rims as he was called, leading the way. Here’s an historical ancient-but-über-cool fact: The Frankie Goes To Hollywood Album was guaranteed to sell like hell. ‘˜Relax’ had been the last-ever real jukebox hit. For it had been banned by the BBC. Thus, jukebox-fillers the nation over had bought a copy and in each place this naughty banned record was tucked into a juke, the collectors would arrive for weeks on end to find their cashboxes overflowing. It had been a huge phenomenon. Anyway, the deeper and wider and more richly engraved the funny little bumps and wobbles in the surface of an analogue record are, the deeper in frequency and the wider of dynamic range is the resulting music playback. And only really classical recordings used to get this treatment. ‘Welcome to the Pleasuredome’ was a double album and yet played so was still able to fit onto a single CD when it was released that way. I love the meandering intro, complete with the odd sloshing noises that Trevor Horn recorded in his bathroom while washing his kids!
And meandering myself, as ever, I meant of course the tribes of Macintosh and Personal Computer. (who the heck EVER says either in full these days?)
Mine Guru and all the computer scientists who moderate the Talk Audio forum boards seem to be mostly PC Windows folks. However, through all my years freelancing, every magazine office I ever sent work into, has been an Apple Mac environment, with my editors and line department folks being slightly bemused at my ‘˜luddite’ approach. For genuine ‘creatives’ all use Apple products. Is that because the arty types are too dense to understand?
And I have always used a PC. However, my wear-it-out-get-a-new-one cycle has been locked into the hilariously bad operating systems of Windows. My current machine is a VISTA one and I look to be having to buy a Windows 8 machine. Funnily enough, the International CES press room machines used Windows 7, which says a lot. And even with the 8.1 patch, I understand that the cognoscenti are waiting for the new Windows OS.
But I have no choice, for my DELL Vostro machine creaketh. I have nearly a terabyte of video and words and some music in my WD backup drive and that too has been creaking. It has taken to thermal shut-down during video. I know I can take the side off and suck the dust out of the fan but the real issue is that I now have an EOS 7D as well as my Sony sponsored video camera and I want to start edit work and make some real telly.
And oh my does Guru know me and my foibles. I like rapid, moron proof computing and do NOT enjoy ferreting problems to their solution. Rather, I want to make one call and get my issue crushed in nothing flat and carry on working. I don’t really care about industrial design for my hammer & chisel but I think Estwing ones are art (leather disc stacks used to make their hammer and hatchet handles, look fabulous and have even been on How It’s Made) so I am thrilled to be changing to a computer so gorgeous it hurts.
Yes, I have ordered an iMac. A fire breathing monster with a spec to die for. It will take a day or two, for it is above what would normally get ordered at an Apple shop. As I type on my poor old Dell, she is going whooooooo from her fan and I feel guilty. I was all casual on my Facebook page like the car’s ashtrays were full, so I bought another. But I have been doing Disc Cleanup every day and my bars have been glowing redly for months. So with luck, the next time you see this column, it’ll have been written upon my new 5K mad-ass Retina-display 3TB storage, 16GB memory i7 Titanium hammer in a velvet glove..
SighI almost feel guilty for leaving the PC culture and engaging with The Smug.
Almost.
Adam Rayner On Line Editor