Apple Mac Pro Rig.

Here is a picture of the rig I have recently put together to take my learning and work upto the next level.

I ditched Windows and moved to Mac in order to be able to work on more video based projects.

The rig consists of the following -

1 x Mac Pro with following spec -

750GB Serial ATA 3GB/s Drive @ 7200.

350GB Serial ATA 3GB/s Drive @ 7200.

2 x 3.0 Ghz Quad Core Intel Xeon Processors.

2 x 16x SuperDrive DL (DVD+R / DL / DVDRW / CD-RW)

ATI Radion x1900 XT 512MB SDRAM.

6GB Ram.

2 x Dell Ultrasharp 2407WFP-HC 24″ Widescreen LCD Monitors.

1 x Harman Kardon Soundsticks II Speakers.

Apple Pro Training Final Cut Pro and Motion, oh and a bit of Actionscript!

I have just started studying my new book – Final Cut Pro 6 – Professional Editing in Final Cut Studio 2 By Diana Weynand.

Have done the first three chapters and have found the book to be good so far.

I have finished the Apple Pro Training Series: Motion 3 book but need to go back throught it again as it got a bit tricky in some parts, especially when discussing working in 3D with cameras.

I am also studying Flash Actionscript which I have dabbled with on and off for years but never made the full effort to sit down and do some training on.

You can however, see the potential of Motion instantly once you have been through the book and I am looking forward to getting stuck into using the program once I have a bit of an idea about what I’m doing!

This training is made much easier now by the fact that I have two gigantic 24 inch Dell monitors hooked up to my Mac Pro.

It means I can park video tutorials on one screen and work along in the other, I also have far more screen real estate when working with programs like Final Cut and Motion.

Adobe’s New Website.

Abode unvieled their new website the other day, breaking with the old centre aligned website and going to a left aligned website and a right sided search feature.

The website is far more in your face that the old design and and still easy to navigate around.

I like it, I think they need to brave and start delivering a more bandwidth intensive webiste in order to inspire people with the products they sell.

While on the subject of inspiration I am currently working my way through four new study books -

Apple Pro Training Series: Motion 3.
Flash Video for Professionals: Expert Techniques for Integrating Video on the Web.
Creating Flash Advertising: From Concept to Tracking – Microsites, Video Ads and More.
Hands-On Guide to Flash Video: Web Video and Flash Media Server.

I have about another four chapters to do on the Motion training and have just finished the Hands-On Guide to Flash Video: Web Video and Flash Media Server.

It’s a long haul but it will be worth it in the end!

However, I will be taking the night off tonight to go see the re-formed Shed Seven at Leeds University which I am very much looking forward to!