Recently I've been plotting about how to shift machines around after we do some upgrading in the library media labs. I've got two 24" iMacs on order with the hope for two more so thinking about how to deploy the four G-5's that they will replace is reasonable. It's like all things, planing makes good sense, but the realities hit hard and fast when you trip over some unthought of problem or your view point shifts and a new idea is discovered.
I was going to suggest that we give the Music Program one of our old G-4 machines so that they could run Siebelius on it for music notation. Well the Siebelius concept that I know is way out of date. It's a whole new animal now and has much higher technical specs, an Intel machine for one. That keeps happening more and more and bodes ill for the usual trickle down effect we normally get from updating. Nothing trickles down anymore and we're about to hit a big technology wall.
The newest thing I've just tripped over is QuickTime X that comes as a part of the new 10.6. It does streaming all by it's self. You no longer need a QuickTime Streaming Server. Yea, so what? Well it sounds to me as if a lot of people will be "doing the stream" all on their own maybe at a much lower level but much more often. Hum. No, I don't really know what that means, but I'll start thinking about it. Watch out YouTube you're in trouble now.
But what it really means is that there are a lot of hidden doors with problems and opportunities lurking behind some or all of the current and future changes. There's a flow to the direction of all of this. It's not a given that everything is going to work out well, but it also doesn't pay to go against the flow. We need to see the pattern, establish directions and ride the wave. SD cards, hybrid cameras, Intel processors, cheap RAM, AVCHD, H.264, full HD, working across the network - all of which require higher skill sets, deeper insights, more experimentation and most of all good humor.
gunther
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