Windows 2 Apples

Episode 36 Safari and IE8 Issues and Notes on Using iMovie 09

Here I am finding myself exclaiming “wow” one more time. This time because Safari has become sluggish and prone to crashing on both my Apple and Vista machines. I am not alone. A growing number of bloggers are making similar observations. The public release of Safari 4.0 appears to be less stable and more sluggish than the beta release. As one pundit noted, Safari is confirmation that “it does not always work”.

To be fair to Apple, I have noticed an improvement in performance and fewer crashes after downloading several large updates on my Mac and Vista tower computers. However, it has been the cause of several catastrophic crashes on my net-book requiring I completely reboot to recover. I still find myself using Safari particularly when I am working on my Mac. I like the convex favorites wall, finding it much easier to locate frequently used sites than on any other browser other than Opera.

When working on my Vista machine, I tend to use Explorer 8 but have noticed one very disturbing quirk. When I am accessing sites that incorporate drop lists, IE 8 and only IE 8 will not expand the width of the items list allowing me to view the full text of the items in the list. This is particularly disorienting when I am reviewing statistics for this podcast hosted by Podbean. Podbean has a handy built-in podcast stats feature enabling me to review the numbers on all podcasts posted or a single selected podcast.

For example: If I want to see how many have downloaded or subscribed to Windows 2 Apple’s episode 33, I select that episode from a drop dow list but only see Windows 2 Apples with the actual number of the episode truncated. I have lost count of the number of times I have forgotten this limitation and inadvertently tried to access my statistics while using IE 8 only to have to shut it down and start Firefox or Safari.

I suspect this quirk is traceable to Microsoft’s effort to make the software strictly compliant with CSS standards, however, it has proved to be a major annoyance and has almost shifted me away from using IE 8. If you’re asking why I continue to use it when I have so many other browsers to choose from, its because I also use a product called Link Scanner now shipped with the free as well as paid versions of AVG antivirus software. I use the paid “professional” version to scan links before clicking on them. Supposedly, the software is able to determine whether or not a scanned site is associated with a nasty payload or malware. Unfortunately, the Link Scanner plugin appears only to be compatible with Windows Internet Explore browsers.

I suspect that those listening to this podcast are aware Microsoft will be releasing Windows 7 in October of this year. We have ordered one copy for our Sony Tower Entertainment PC at the introductory price of $49.95. I as do many other bloggers and podcasters feel that the significantly higher official prices for Windows 7 upgrades will dampen interest and unnecessarily restrict sales. The suggested list of $99.95 for the home premium upgrade is particularly unfortunate in todays economic climate. I would much prefer to see Microsoft offer upgrades at lower price points and recover costs through volume. I am convinced Microsoft would profit monetarily and add to the momentum of recent upticks in positive consumer ratings if the retail price of the Windows 7 Home premium upgrade was kept at the special intro price of $49.95 and the Ultimate upgrade $119.95. Microsoft may end up squandering much of the goodwill it seems to have garnered in recent reviews by adhering to the higher pricing structure.

One of the reasons I finally bit the bullet and upgraded to leopard was so that I could take advantage of iLife09 and in particular the revamped iMovie 09. I have experimented with iMovie 08 and as many including rabid Apple enthusiasts felt that it was unnecessarily limited in features and particularly unintuitive for a Apple product. Initially, we relied on the free Windows Movie Maker to produce short clips and video podcasts and Pinnacle Studio 12 for more demanding projects.

I have experimented with many movie editing applications including Adobe Premier Elements, and Corel Video Studio. Although, Pinnacle Studio 12 remains the preferred editor on our main Vista machine, it is far from our concept of an easy to use and efficient application. It offers many features and options to those seeking to produce relatively complex video projects but it is sluggish and the video quality often is inferior to that we can produce using Mac-based iMovie editors. I’m still perplexed as to why the output quality can be so different even when we are using compression options to supposedly identical to those used on our Apple.

We recently put iMovie 09 through its paces when editing the video episode of an Infinite Potential’s Video podcast produced for the Mindfitness Foundation. Many have commented that iMovie 08 and iMovie 09 feel strangely unintuitive. It always seems to take an inordinate amount of time to relearn the software if not used frequently. That is usually the case for me and I suspect it has to do with the fact that Apple still does not offer the anticipated timeline edit option taken for granted on other video editing applications including the venerable iMovie HD.

Once I get past the refresh iMovie 09 learning curve, I am usually able to quickly produce relatively short videos. The Mindfitness project proved to be far more demanding than previous projects but we chose to use iMovie 09 because of the enhanced resolution we are accustomed to getting when editing on our Mac, and because iMovie 09 simulates pan and zoom with a much more efficient video cropping option. The ability to crop and use the point-to-point smooth Ken Burns effect to gradually shift focus from one subject to another is much more intuitive and precise when trying to simulate a two camera effect using footage shot with one camera focused on two or more people.

I continue to miss the timeline but the more I use iMovie 09 the more enamored I am with it. We are gradually shifting the majority of our video editing over to the Mac. A future Windows2Apples podcast will focus on a more detailed review of Movie 09 features. If you are interested in viewing the final edited show you may find it on the MindfitnessFoundation.org website under the video podcast tab.

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