Category: Blogging

Models: Getting Discovered

As a photographer, I spend a good deal of time looking a model profiles, cataloging possible candidates. There’s a pretty stark line between existing models and those that want to be models. The fidelity of the line, however, may be hard to see from the modeling side of the table.

New models can increase their chances by applying a few little secrets that will help your profile from quietly getting skipped over.

I doubt it’s too far of a stretch to assume that the primary goal of anyone with an online modeling profile is to increase their personal chances of getting approached with a modeling gig.

As a photographer, I spend a good deal of time looking a model profiles, cataloging possible candidates. There’s a pretty stark line between existing models and those that want to be models. The fidelity of the line, however, may be hard to see from the modeling side of the table.

This blog entry is aimed at helping new comers increase their chances by passing on a few little secrets that will help your online modeling profile from quietly getting skipped over. You’ll get inside the minds of those looking at your profile photos, as to be better match yours to what they’re looking for.

Getting Discovered as a Model

We’ve all met a waitress who says she’s an actress and is waiting to be discovered. But as an non-emotionally invested third party, it evident to you know what’s wrong: she’s waiting tables, when she should be acting, in anything, if not for the exposure, then the experience.
RULE #1: Don’t wait to be discovered, get yourself out there — don’t say what you want to be, do what you want to be.

If you can’t take quality photos of yourself, find a photographer online and negotiate a TFP/CD deal (it’s free), then post those photos to your profile.

Clients and photographers have to know what you look like. That means in the modeling world, photos speaks volumes. The more, the better. A model that expresses desire (“I’ve always wanted to model my whole life”), but has no photos has given no point of reference to make a casting decision. Worse yet, this is precisely the kind of person a scammer can target by playing to emotional appeal.
RULE #2: You can’t be discovered with an empty portfolio. Post photos.

First impressions count, and you know this to be true from when you meet new people at social engagements. It’s also true for a virtual encounter. The first thing people will see is your avatar — your profile’s picture should be of you. Low-res, grainy images are unflattering.
RULE #3: Choose a good quality profile picture that makes people want to click on it.

If your profile picture is your resume, which is designed to get a larger slice of follow-on attention, then your profile photos are your interview which showcases what you’re capable of. Unfortunately this is the point where, after a quick browse, many profiles get skipped over.

The problem is not so much the model, but the presentation. If there isn’t enough detail to tell what a model looks like, it’s just about the same as not having any photos.
RULE #4: Presentation is everything.
(MUST READ: See my blog post titled Online Model Portfolios: 7 Common Problems to avoid making a bad online portfolio.)

Speaking of getting noticed, consider how most people find your portfolio: it isn’t by searches or random browsing, it’s by your activity on the system. Participate. Leave comments, join groups, start discussions, post photos. Anything you do raises the chance of someone seeing your profile picture and clicking on it.
RULE #5: Participate to be seen.

All of the rules boil down to effectively selling yourself, in particular, your image. Show the product (you) in the best possible light (your photo gallery) and market it (raise awareness by getting it seen more often).

Online Model Portfolios: 7 Common Problems

After scanning hundreds of modeling portfolios online, I’ve noticed a number of common problems which are preventing potential models from being taken seriously or that get their profiles skipped over. Here’s are seven common mistakes to avoid.

I’ve scanned hundreds of modeling portfolio profiles and have noticed common photo problems. Simply avoid these and your profile will have a much more professional look. That also means you’ll get more comments, and that translates to a higher popularity rating on the site.

Photo Mistake #1 – Face-on, arm-dangling photos.
The camera isn’t going to suck a beautiful image out of you just standing there. You’re a model, right? Pose. Not sure how? Twist your torso, tilt your head, shift your weight to one leg, bed an arm, and put your hands somewhere. Mimic a pose from a magazine.

Photo Mistake #2 – Dead facial expressions, or worse, snarling.
Avoid glaring into the camera with a pissed off look. Don’t be void of expression. Smile, look into the camera, and engage the viewer. For a sincere smile, actually think of something that makes you happy until a smile naturally comes, don’t just go through the motions; the camera will pick up the difference.

Photo Mistake #3 – Blurry and out of focus shots.
There’s a big difference between an expert’s use of depth of field, which has selective sharpness, and a photo that has no sharpness and is totally out of focus. While it might be possible to tell what you kind of look like, you won’t get a gig based on this. Post sharp, clear images of yourself.

There are too common ways a blurry picture results. One is that you have the camera too close and it can’t focus. Two, and this is the most common, is that you’re holding the camera at arms length and there isn’t enough light in the room — so the shutter stays open longer, you can’t hold perfectly still (no one can), and that results in blur.

To fix this, have someone else take the photo. And if you can’t, simply increase the amount of light, or put the camera in auto-timer mode and prop it up on something.

Photo Mistake #4 – Photo is too small.
Again, being able to see and make out detail is important to someone who’s selecting a model. If your photo is an inch or two in size, it’s too small to be of use. The bigger, the better.

Photo Mistake #5 – Digital Extremes.
If a photo is too light and washed out, too dark and covered in shadow, or too contrasty then it doesn’t have enough detail to be of use. Mind you, it might be a pretty photo, but if you can’t be seen, then there’s not enough information to make a decision about selecting you.

Photo Mistake #6 – Distracting elements in the foreground and background.
If you’re going to take a picture to sell yourself, then make it count. Use a decent background, we don’t want to see a toilet, towel racks, tile, or shampoo bottles behind you; while bathrooms have mirrors, they have other things that say “unprofessional.” If doing an overhead shot, remove the pile of laundry behind you or the clothes you just took off that are crumpled at your feet. Make sure there’s no television on or person walking in the background. Make sure there’s no junk on the table in front of you. Let nothing detract from you.

Photo Mistake #7 – Flat and dull photos.
Pictures taken with an on-camera flash have a habit of being harsh and unflattering. If you’re able to illuminate from the side instead, and not use the flash, your picture will have light and shadow, and that means visual depth. If you must use the flash, put a white index card in front of the flash at a 45 degree angle, and “bounce” the light off the ceiling. You’ll get a much gentler and flattering image.

A good profile that has a high chance of getting a model work consists of professional quality images, represents a variety of styles, and include tear sheets if available.

Don’t know how to work your camera? That’s ok, you don’t have to! Find a photographer online, negotiate a TFP/CD deal (there’s no cost), and post the session to your portfolio. Keep adding to it, doing as many TFP deals as it takes to get noticed.

Note that if a photographer enjoys working with you and produces good product, there’s a much higher chance you’ll be sought again, and referenced to friends, for paying gigs.

Models: Getting more from a TFP/CD shoot

TFP/CD is an arrangement whereby a model and a photographer exchange professional services instead of one hiring the other. Surprisingly, though, many new models don’t know it exists, and those that do have some serious misunderstandings about it. Here are two secrets models might like to know.

Getting more from a TFP shootTFP/CD means “Time for Print” / “Time for CD,” and it’s an arrangement whereby a model and a photographer exchange professional services instead of one hiring the other.

Surprisingly, though, many new models don’t know it exists, and those that do have some serious misunderstandings about it.

I happened to be reading a discussion forum where some photographers were discussing photo shoots and the models were wanting quick turn around times on CDs. Reasonable. But then it dawned on me, perhaps it wasn’t clear too all what caused the delay. By the time I was done, I derived two secrets models might like to know.

For photographers, setting expectations up front is really important. Failure to do lets misconceptions propagate.

For instance, an inexperienced model may do a 2 hour shoot and roughly estimate the photographer took 500 pictures based on shots-per-minute during a scene and how long the total session was. When a CD doesn’t arrive within the next few days, anxiety replaces anticipation, and when it does arrive there may be only a handful of images leaving a model to wonder why it took so long. But what’s really happening? Did the model get screwed? Was the photographer lazy?

Is there anything that could have been done to get even more images, get some them sooner, or even get even higher quality images? Actually, yes.

The photographer in a TFP/CD deal is just as concerned about his or her reputation as a model is and doesn’t want anything substandard floating in the wild. As such images rarely go from camera to CD to model without review and processing.

Here’s the same scenario from the other side of the camera:

In reality, the photographer may have taken only 200 pictures. Photos are often taken in bursts and during makeup and wardrobe changes the camera isn’t firing; this counts for a lot of down time.

Of the photos, there will always be some that didn’t turn out: eye blinks, unwanted motion blur, lens flare, a horrible facial expression, hair obstructing the face, an unflattering fold of skin, an oil shine, a harsh shadow, undesirable lint, fly away hair, hot spots, exposure alterations, etc. The bursting allows for lots of micro differences to choose from, so that the best of a given set can be selected. To the untrained eye it can simply look like a lot of the same picture. This narrows down the usable images considerably.

Also neglected is that many photographers now also do their own photo editing. And that’s where the really time-consuming part starts. A single photo might take an hour just to get right. The higher the resolution photo and the sharper it is, the more time it takes. Often a photographer inspects every pore of skin. So, even if 20% of the photos are usable, this can represents a full-time week’s worth of editing.

Think about it; that’s 40hrs of follow-up work from a mere 2hr shoot. The misconception is that pictures are ready once taken, usually they aren’t. And, in a TFP/CD shoot, there’s no cash income from this job, so it’s very likely that this post-processing time has to come from in-between other paying gigs, which pushes out the delivery further depending on other commitments and schedules.

A studio uses TFP/CD to put their best foot forward, and that’s why the model greatly benefits from this. It’s unspoken, but often TFP/CD shoots get a little more time, care, and attention; one isn’t producing product, but art.

Sometimes whole segments that looked like a good idea during the shoot just don’t have the magic when everything is seen in context. As such, the photographer will often cull down from the usable photos to just the absolute best of the best and then spend a lot of time and detail on just those.

Believe it or not, the photographer also wants the model to have the images as soon as possible, because if they’re ready for the model’s portfolio, they’re also ready for the photographer’s.

I think the best advice to a photographer in this case is to under commit and over deliver. Don’t say it will take a week if it will take two. Explain that the goal is to get some small number of high quality photos, regardless of how many are taken.

And as for information to the model, the shoot isn’t over for the photographer when the last picture has been taken; that’s when the laborious and time consuming meticulous editing begins.

But here’s some secret advice that will get a model better product, sooner, and more of it:

1) If you are patient and have the extra time, offer during the TFP/CD shoot to allow the photographer to experiment with the lighting. Almost always there are a number of experimental configurations a photographer is secretly wanting to try, but he knows it’s high risk because it might not work perfectly and he doesn’t want to send you home with nothing. Conversely, it could really work out special and you’d have something new, amazing, and highly creative for your portfolio. By allowing for creative freedom, which might not work out, you actually increase your chances of getting super-spectacular shots. Photographers kill for models who let them tinker with experimental lighting.

2) If you are a tech-savvy model and are willing to accept electronic delivery instead of a CD, many photographers will happily send you email attachments or URLs where you can get your photos as they become ready. Because there is no bulk collection with a looming deadline, the photographer will often end up giving you more photos over the course of time, but you also benefit from getting those already done sooner. Plus, since you’ve set up a venue for delivery, a photographer revisiting prior shoots experimenting with new editing techniques has the means of sending you future updates for your portfolio as well.

Expensive Pizza

It’s not often you get to walk away with a thousand dollar charge for ordering a small pizza.

The largest pizza bill I ever covered was $300 at Pizza Hutt when I decided to throw a party for a number of friends in high school. Since then, I learned you always go Dutch, even with folks that have the best of intensions, and you always order more plain cheese than anything else, because people like to mix toppings, but hardly do people consume what they create. Toppings are expensive.

But my all-time record almost got blown the other day, when I went to order a small cheese pizza and was charged over $1,000 for it.

Thousand Dollar Pizza

The cashier fumbled the entry trying to enter a one dollar coupon and a fifty cent topping, only to miss the add button and pressing seven instead.

I caught the mistake, and we all had a good laugh. The date on the receipt was mere coincidence.

The story doesn’t end, as I kept this little token of amusement in my wallet for some future use.

While visiting Potbelly’s I happened to order a drink, cookie, and pickle, but no sandwich. This greatly confused the cashier who questioned me about why I didn’t order a meal.

The truth was I had just eaten and was meeting a friend, but I couldn’t help myself.

“Normally, I would, but I’m broke.” I pulled out the receipt and handed it to her. “See? I was charged a thousand dollars for a pizza topping.”

The girl looked at the real receipt with total amazement and shock on her face. “What topping did you order?” And before I could answer, she offered, “Was it mushrooms?”

So, I kindly fed into her misguided fantasy. “Yea. Those suckers are expensive,” shaking my head in sad disbelief that if only I’d known….

I now wish I could be the fly on the wall the next time someone tries to order a pizza with mushrooms with her. You know she’s going to intervene. Or, at least, go Dutch.

Connecting Models and Photographers… why so hard?

There are numerous sites that proclaim to connect models and photographers, however based on the design and business models I’ve seen, I don’t think it can work in present form. Here’s why.

As a photographer that photographs models, there’s two primary goals that any website that tries to connect models and photographers should aim for:
Model: Leah M. - Image Copyrighted by Walt Stoneburner

1. Assisting a photographer in finding the right model.

2. Assisting the client in finding the right photographer.

All else is peripheral.

The idea is that if you’re a model looking for work, you post your portfolio online and photographers approach you with gigs. Conversely, if you’re a photographer, you post your portfolio and jobs start coming out of the wood work. The reality is that few sites can deliver on the promise adequately, not to a fault of the site’s objective, but due to design, business model complexities, or subtleties pertaining to the problem of brokering.

Naturally, for any such site to work you’re going to need a critical mass of both kinds of users just to have a wide enough selection to make this happen. As such, it’s important not to alienate users — something that is very easy to do with bad design or practice. It’s not enough that a site be free.

The closest site that I’ve come across that seems to have the right idea is www.ModelMayhem.com. It’s search capability is right on target. You tell it that you are looking for models in your local area that are some number of miles from your zipcode, that are between the ages of 18-24, female, 5’2″ – 5’7″, olive skin, with shoulder length black hair, green eyes, and poof — out pops a number of candidates.

This is the way it should work. You tell the criteria about what you need, and it finds people with those attributes.

The problem is the interface is klunky, the portfolio space limited, the navigation is horribly disorganized, and pretty much anything other than models is left wanting. Yet it’s still usable.

I wish it had a way to describe the kinds of services photographers offered and made them in a searchable fashion as well. Oh well, at least finding models isn’t problematic.

Such locator services are not a social network, nor are they a dating service. They’re supposed to be resources that connect professional with professional, with the added bonus of having a reasonable idea of what you’re getting. It frustrates me when a site is designed around chit-chat and messaging. Simply put let one professional find another, preview their work, and then get in contact with them by email; don’t obscure things. A site that works gets traffic, it doesn’t need fudging to get visitors.

Conversely, I just deleted my account over at www.aMuseBook.com, a web site that professes to do the same thing: connect models and photographers. I’d argue not only that it doesn’t, but that it physically can’t in my personal opinion — it’s a business model problem gone awry.

While better organized, and certainly much prettier, it’s search capabilities are downright awful. The best geographical resolution is state-level. So, if you’re looking for a model in Texas, that’s all of Texas. Additionally, providing search criteria for attributes just isn’t possible, which means locating a specific model by looks isn’t doable. And if you can’t find candidates, you aren’t going to be hiring.

Here’s another bad design choice that just seems obvious. If you want to find a model, you typically are looking for an age bracket, yes? Well, the site doesn’t let you search by age, instead you have to search by a specific birthday, which is stupid. Oh, and that’s a Day – Month – Year birthday at that. Even searching by year alone isn’t helpful, because simply year subtraction doesn’t give age.

Now while aMuseBook does give you more space to store your photos, it unlocks features using a point system. You gain points by commenting on people’s pictures and telling your friends to join. What becomes transparent very quickly is that the site is not structured to make contacts, but to get you to churn through pages so that Google Ads get thrown in your face generating an alternate revenue stream. I quickly got tired of being told in every email I have to “use” the site and it will ‘work’ for me.

Hogwash. If I can’t locate a model or post a comprehensive portfolio, then neither I, nor the models, are getting any serious value out of the site.

Adding insult to injury, the site gives you the ability to provide URLs to your own site; this sounds good at first, until you realize that many models and photographers keep their photos on Flickr. Why? Because Flickr is great for managing photos. But what does aMuseBook do for those sites? It blocks them out, showing up as www.*****.com, and when I questioned the site admin about it, I got back a response stating they didn’t want their site for depositing competitor URLs and not another portfolio site.

Wait a second. The service is there to help me find people by showing them my portfolio but they don’t want me to show them my portfolio if it’s elsewhere? Plus I can’t post my portfolio unless I leave comments that I wouldn’t have otherwise. That’s stacking the deck and gives unrealistic feedback. And when points are rewarded for clicking on ads, I’m pretty sure that’s against Google’s terms of service for AdSense.

If people are churning pages leaving “Nice smile” comments, how is one to know which comments are real (and therefore useful) versus people just trying to collect points? The information itself becomes devalued. Thus the business structure and the design alienates users in the short term, while the lack of utility alienates them in the long term. It can’t be viable.

And that’s why I deleted my account over there: It wasn’t usable or productive.

No wonder it’s so hard for models and photographers to get connected. I wish there were a simple directory that focused on doing one thing and one thing well, connecting professionals. It’s a hard problem, but the person that cracks that nut can steal a whole lot of business from all these other sites without trying too hard.

Fundamentally, the problem is that a brokering agent has to provide and organize information. Limiting it, not being able to search it, or failing to have a positive user experience drives away the very assets that are needed to make the site work. This appears to be a case where a well simple organized directory could be a winner-take-all.


UPDATE: I have found an awesome site for models, photographers, and makeup artists. It’s call Miss Online and it allows unlimited photo uploads with no point limitation schemes. It also includes discussions, groups, blogs, and email. The site is very active and quite attractive to use; advertising is at a minimum, and you aren’t coerced into clicking through tons of pages. Plus, and here’s the real proof: as a photographer I’ve had more exchanges with models with this one site than all the other sites combined. It does get you connected.

Muppet Bodies: The Exhibition

The display you really want to see is “Muppet Bodies,” where they take a bunch of preserved, dead muppets and puppeteers and cut them in half, showing you the insides…

Jerry Carr is a cartoonist, known for monkeys, babes, and the graphic novel Cryptozoo Crew, which looks like it may be made into a movie, amongst other things.

While visiting Jerry’s Facebook page, I saw his status message was set to this:

Jerry is freshly motivated after a day at the Jim Henson Muppets display at the Smithsonian!

Unfortunately, I couldn’t help myself. I had to comment on his wall:

Muppet Bodies: The ExhibitionThe display you really want to see is “Muppet Bodies,” where they take a bunch of preserved, dead muppets and puppeteers and cut them in half, showing you the insides.

You can see how the tendons connect to the distal phalanges in order to produce more articulated facial expressions.

Note, though, there’s a special baby muppets section, which shows the progression of muppet fetuses, starting from a simple spool of thread and piece of fabric. A word of caution, it’s pretty emotional, because at the end are a small number of muppets with birth defects; it’s very sad.

Forgive me Jerry.

The Most Sublime Hot Dog

Explosive food, little old ladies, and an empty bucket on a train.

The other night I had the most sublime hot dog. I don’t mean it was good, I mean it turned straight to gas.

The place was the MCI Center, and I got to see the Wizards play the… oh, who am I kidding. I was trying to make out the cheerleaders from four stories up while eating 6 oz of cotton candy from a plastic $5 bucket. Which, I might add, I refused to throw out since I paid so bloody much for it.

Wizard Game

The most enjoyable part of the evening was not the game, but the ride home. As we were waiting for the metro train to arrive, an old lady sat down next to my friend Mike and started to listen in on our conversation.

“So, Walt, we’re thinking of having you over for Christmas. Have you ever had lamb before?”

“Yeah…”

“Oh. What’d you think?”

“I didn’t care for it that much,” And as I noticed the old lady listening in, I quickly added, “but the Bar-B-Que kittens were delicious.”

This prompted the look I was after. And she instantly engaged Mike in conversation to check the veracity of our conversation. At least enough to ascertain that we were good friends.

As the conversation took a turn to prior places lived, it turns out Mike and the old lady had both been to Germany. And, much to the confusion of those around them, started speaking in German. And they did quite well, I must say.

Too well. Cutting me out of the conversation, along with every other eavesdropper in earshot.

I informed Mike that this was America, and that we spoke English here; then I asked to see his legal status. Normally, I don’t engage in this kind of bold maneuver with an armed officer of the law, but by now the overpriced confections instilled a bravery that only spun sugar can do.

Naturally I backed down as he has more ways to kill me in his little finger than a pissed off villain in a James Bond movie.

At this point the train arrived, and I sat down next to the nice little old lady. And her friend. And some other chick who thought it might be the wiser move to ignore me.

“So,” asked the little old lady, “how do you know each other?”

“Him?” I glanced to Mike. “He’s my parole officer.”

Mike over heard enough to flash his handcuffs at me. The little old lady looked mildly uncomfortable and changed the topic.

“Where were you seated?” she inquired.

I explained we were in the 400’s. She then wanted to compare ticket prices (like that mattered now). And then we compared how many times we’ve been to a game at the MCI Center.

There’s a lot of promotional stuff going on at these events, whether it’s Chipotle throwing burritos into the crowd or t-shirts being dropped from parachutes to lucky winners below.

“So,” she continued, “have you ever caught anything at a game?”

“A cold.”

While I got a polite chuckle for quick delivery, she had enough and said, “get your friend; I want to talk with him.”

I yelled over to Mike, who was standing by the door. “She wants to talk with you, apparently I said something again.”

The chick to my left had vacated at the prior stop, so I slid into her old spot, and Mike took mine in front of the old lady.

And immediately, she switched into German again. Clearly, she wanted to practice.

I leaned over and said, “excuse me, you’re talking in code again.”

Mike turned to me and said, quite loudly, “I’m sorry. She said you had a nice ass.”

Without missing a beat, I addressed the old lady, “It’s true. You may be wondering why I’m covering my lap with a bucket.”

Mike, it turns out, wasn’t the only person to bust out laughing, seems a lot of people were riding our conversation, not just the train.

Comments on: Leopard is the New Vista

PC Magazine’s Oliver Rist has a harsh observation: Leopard is the New Vista. And what’s worse, he may be right. Here’s the Waltomatic take on each of his five points. Who’s the winner?

Today I was forwarded a review of OS X entitled: Leopard is the New Vista, and It’s Pissing Me Off.

LUV OS XI think it’s safe to say that I’m a fan of Apple, in general, as I find their hardware, environment, and tools far more productive for my development, office, and home needs than I ever did using Microsoft or its products.

I think it’s also fair to say that I’m willing to also point out when things don’t work:

Oliver Rist, raises some very good points in his treaty on Leopard’s recent similarities to Vista’s screw ups.

Here’s my take on his five points.

Vista Similarity 1: Wait for a Service Pack—Perpetually


Rist is right in saying that “[With Tiger] Everything. Just. Worked. Period.” I’m also quite in agreement that with Vista, even “a year after its shrink-wrapped release” it still has problems, driver issues, and “doesn’t work with 50 percent of new software.”

But I wonder how far back he’s actually recalling. Historically, I recall that each early version of Apple’s OS had serious kinks. Is comparing Tiger 10.4.9 with Leopard 10.5.1 actually a valid Apple to Apple comparison? (excuse the pun)

I’m with Rist if he thinks it should be, but accept the reality it isn’t. In my mind, Apple changed a number of things about the OS that they didn’t have to. Stability, size reduction, and additional hardware support will always earn high marks on my reviews. Unless the new glitz is functional, it doesn’t do much for me; but more on this in a moment.

At the moment, I’m tolerant because historically Apple has made right in reasonable time. By 10.4.3 and 10.4.4, I was quite happy. Given that I suspect Apple’s real purpose was not to make GUI fluff, but to pave the way for resolution independent graphics and new Core Animation, I’m surprised how well things held up.

Microsoft, Direct X improvements aside, gets no such pass, because as a whole, I still have problems with the OS, and it’s been around longer, and had more people working on it.

That said, I’m also aware that a good number of the Microsoft blue screens of death aren’t Microsoft’s fault — directly. When drivers do bad things, it can topple an OS. Of course, this leads me to wonder why Microsoft didn’t manage their kernel layers a bit better.

Knowing this actually provides some insight for Leopard as well. Everyone understood how Tiger worked. Too well, perhaps. There were quite a number of OS resource tweaks that delivered amazing integration and features. I was certainly one of the advanced users.

However, Apple assumes, and I think rightly so, that if you intend to do an upgrade in place, then if you’ve changed the operating system out from underneath them, you roll the dice. A number of people were bit by Unsanity’s Application Enhancer that didn’t upgrade at the last moment before installing Leopard.

Keeping up to date with OS X third-party applications is just as hard as it is on Windows. That’s why I eventually plopped down the money for Version Tracker Pro. Had I not, I would have been one of those that the new install would have taken out. Diligence is king.

Even so, my problems with an Upgrade was slightly broken features, like the password working after a screen save (despite the settings to the contrary), and performance. I later learned that the former was a permission problem on the preference, and the latter was a library extension that didn’t work with Leopard and just tried to keep reloading itself.

My solution was to do an Archive and Install. All of my options were preserved, just like an Upgrade in place, but because the OS was virgin fresh, my system behaved wonderfully.

I give Apple this round, simply because a “fresh install” with Microsoft is so destructive.

Oh, and yes, once you’ve touted something as a “new” feature, like 64 bit, you can’t do it again for the next release. That’s cheating.

Vista Similarity 2: Needless Graphics Glitz


Leah, my iPhone girl.I love eye candy as much as the next guy, and in my operating systems too.

However, I question the real value one gets out of it. As long as it doesn’t get in the way, that’s great. If it communicates more information subtly, that’s great too. Incidentally, what I mean by that is effects, like Genie, which show where your Window is going when you minimize it, is useful.

All these different preview modes, sliding covers, and non-sense, I could really care less about.

Though, I have to admit I’m a closet user of them. Sometimes it easier to quickly view an image to make sure I’ve got the right one, or scan the contents of a document because a poorly chosen filename was used. I’d like to think Apple could have done this without the big production.

What really gets my goat, however is that Tiger had transparent Windows. Then it went away! That really made me mad, because I was using them since I had a small desktop.

So, that made me go find Virtue, in order to have multiple desktops. My gosh, I loved that product. Where else could you have different backgrounds, on a 3D cube, and get to them by keystrokes, mouse maneuvers, or tilting or laptop or waving your hand over it and triggering the ambient light sensors!

But then Apple went and created Spaces. With no real future, Virtue is going away – – and killing off a fantastic sales tool for me. With no competition, I don’t see Apple adding these things back.

And, only now, are we starting to talk about the transparency I had before. Argh!!!

So, while Vista is pretty, and Apple is pretty, Apple got by for having slightly more than fluff for fluff’s sake. Apple gets to take this round, begrudgingly.

Vista Similarity 3: Pointless User Interface “Fixes”


I’ve got to say, again, I agree with Oliver. The new dock may look pretty, but Apple had an uncanny way of letting me know what was going on with those nice, readable from a distance, black, unobtrusive triangles.

Do I have a way to get them back?

Can I switch an put the dock on the side and get something more acceptable looking? Yes, but then again I don’t want it on the side.

It’s crappy decisions like this that cause people to write utilities to hack the operating system which cause the initial instability problems in the first place.

Using Vista as the example, just because something is pretty doesn’t mean it’s enjoyable to use.

Having said all of the above, I have to admit that many of the things I initially didn’t like, I quickly grew to use. They bother me less.

Let’s just say in this round, the bell rang, and there was no winner.

Vista Similarity 4: Nuked Networking


I groan when I see Microsoft operating systems splinter over stupid artificial limitations like how many network connections can be concurrently inbound or outbound. I shake my finger at any operating system which can’t handle jumbo packet sizes or let me switch between 10/100/1000 ethernet speeds.

But I do accept that Windows shares, using Samba, can be difficult with Microsoft deliberately sabotaging protocols to force a homogeneous network with them being the vendor. Embrace and Extend. Anti-Trust. Bogus interoperability. Halloween Memos. I just can’t take the message that Microsoft is out to help me seriously anymore; too much bad history; too little progress. DRM, WGA, poison pill updates, spying – that’s the reason I left Microsoft.

While I recognize that Apple and Microsoft are in a cat’n’mouse game for accessing Windows resources, I do have a complaint to put on Apple’s shoulders.

And that is: just because I have a network, doesn’t mean I want to network. Unless I’m trying to comb my network’s machines, don’t bring them all to my Finder. I don’t need that. I know what kind of network traffic Microsoft generates.

On the other side of the coin, VNC is now built in. And, well, wow. Apple, you did well there. It’s almost as if Apple knows I’m slowly expelling Microsoft and replacing it with Unix systems.

But that doesn’t change the fact that when I do need access to a Windows box, and I’m using my Mac, I want it to be just as seamless. Just the other day, I tried to copy a file from a Windows share to my local desktop to work with a local copy. Locally. (Sense a theme?)

The Windows box said “that file is in use” (because someone had the network Excel file open) and wanted to know if I wanted a read-only copy. The Mac, however, simply said Permission Error and never told me why.

Apple: I need error messages to not be so abstract. Give me a way to Option-Click on them or something and dump the error.h code; in short, if I’m smart enough to fend for myself, let me. Or, just make it work.

I assume people have already heard that if you Move (not copy) a file from one resource to the other, if the destination is full and aborts the copy, the source file still gets deleted (the other half of the move). I hope that’s fixed.

Now, the sheer fact that Microsoft has a horrible time with other OS’s (and depends on them playing by their rules), the final score for this one goes to Apple. Though Apple got lucky.

Vista Similarity 5: Bundled Apps as New Features That Suck


Oliver and I may start to part ways at this one, although not that far.

All the standard home and media applications Apple bundles with their OS are really top notch in my opinion. In fact, I buy iWork in addition to iLife. It’s Apple’s Pro applications that use a interface that I find very dated. And ugly.

But the feature we all seem to gripe on is Time Machine.

My first experiences with Time Machine were horrible. The system would seize up, and, well to be fair, I have to admit that this all went away after I did an Archive and Install, rather than the Upgrade in place over my existing patched OS Tiger.

And, while I applaud the concept of Time Machine, I don’t like that I can’t force it to kick off when I want. Or that I can’t easily point it at a common server. Or use it wirelessly.

But my biggest beef is why in the world Apple just didn’t hold off, wait until ZFS was working the way they wanted, and delivered something that managed things directly with the filesystem itself.

In addition to Time Machine, I find myself using SuperDuper and Carbon Copy Cloner to make quick, efficient backups, that are also bootable.

What I think Oliver might have missed is a subtle difference.
– With Time Machine, everything is backed up.
– Not that Time Machine backs up everything.

Let’s cover that a little closer. Time Machine does do a full backup, but then everything from then on out is incremental. And intelligently so. In fact, you can even go wandering around the files on the backup disk directly, should you choose to.

The way I’m reading things is that the review gives the impression everything is always backed up. That’s just not so.

Would I like to be able to tell Time Machine to only back up what I want it to? Yes. Please.

Would I like to only delete the things I intend to? Of course. But, realistically, it’s when I delete an important system file, and Time Machine has a copy, that I’ll suddenly become more forgiving of why it does what it does.

All his GUI gripes with Time Machine are dead on. However, when you get Time Machine working (via a clean Archive and Install – which keeps your preferences, data, and applications, btw), it does work as advertised.

It’s close. Time Machine’s integration is trivial. But over all, I think Vista’s backup, is better in the long run. Vista wins this round.

Oliver, I think, in this case was guilty of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. To be ticked off at the first version of a new application that could have been better, is justified. To extend that assessment to all bundled apps, as he does in his title, is not.

What the world hates is that after buying the OS, you still can’t do much with it. With Apple you can. And, with most Window machine purchases, you get a lot of crapware. Apple, you don’t.

In fact, I think Apple misses the mark. QuickTime Pro should be bundled with the OS, and if they were really on top of things, iWork as well. I’d gladly even pay the full retail price rolled into the cost of the machine. Why? Because can you image if everyone’s machine out of the box shipped with software that could do Office related stuff? You’d have a killer do-all platform from time the machine was powered up. There’s no way Microsoft could do that.

So, while Vista won this round, I’m gonna give Apple half-credit, since I think it was an unfair contests.

Walt’s Final Score


Apple 3.5 / 5; Vista 1 / 5.

I’d still rather use OS X Leopard than Vista any day of the week.

Walt gives OS X Leopard a thumbs up, even though it still needs some work.

The Only Book About Men Women Ever Need

If you had a book entitled “The Only Book About Men Women Ever Need” and could thumb though its table of contents containing questions – what would you expect to see…

The Only Book About Men Women Really NeedMy friend and published author, Danny Adams has expressed interest in writing a book entitled The Only Book About Men Women Ever Need.

In the book, we intend on soliciting questions from women (about men) and giving them an honest, yet humorous slant.

As part of an experiment, Danny used his Live Journal account to see if there was any interest.

There most certainly was.

Check out the comment section on Danny’s blog, and if you’d like, leave questions here or there.