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Camera Bags – They Are Always Too Small
Aperture 3 – The Blind Leading The Blind
A little humor for today so please take this as it is intended – a light hearted comment on human nature, mine include. So… as many of you know I try to participate on the Apple Support Forum for Aperture. I am not one of those people that signed up there the very first day I started using Apple products. I signed up specifically to ask a question to other users since my pro-care support contact (the old really good pro-care – not the new one that is worthless) had not a freaking clue on a problem I was having using Aperture way back in the day when I was shooting commercial work. Long story short – I stuck around because it became apparent that there were not a lot of people that used the crap out of Aperture like I did. I figured I would help if I could – hence this website a few years ago.
My usual M.O. is to surf the first page of the forum and see if there are unanswered stuff that I can point people in the right direction. There are certain subjects I shy away from because I am sick of typing the same sentence over and over and it is simple and will get answered in about 5 mins anyway. I do this while I am at my computer waiting on “stuff” and have time.
Lately – after the Aperture 3 release I find myself surfing Aperture forum less and less – more like every few days. Why? The chaos of all the new users and the idiotic questions and all of the idiotic answers that go along with it. A total mishmash of wrong questions, wrong answers, irrelevant discussion – chaos. To much stress. The really not so funny – funny part is when a bunch of people asking and answering exactly wrong come to agreement that wrong = right. So I shoot over there every couple of days.
The punch line – there are a few voices of reason over there – I do not know how they do it. Matthew B. is one of them. What struck me as funny today was one of the usuals posting the topic “please watch the tutorials before posting” Haaahaahaa haahahaha.
Funny stuff – and I thought I was the only one smacking my forehead while my eyes rolled into the back of my head. The good news is it seems like Aperture 3 has a market.
RB
Ps. If you are in the right mood the funniest shit is posted by the Lightroom experts who are now Aperture experts.
RB,
I agree 100% with you….like I wrote on other posts I’m not a pro nor photography’s my job…I usually have a look at the Aperture 3 discussion once in a day and at the moment I truly believe that 80% of the posts are a total waste of time.
Waste of time for the folks who creates the post, they could spend more efficiently the time lost typing doing researches on what has been already written and discussed (a lots of solutions and indications are already in, just waiting there to be used)…and waste of time for guys like you and Matt B. and the other guy of the Fragmentation thread…along with others there you guys were (and actually are) so precious that I don’t really understand why you have to repeatedly answer to the same, stupid, questions….or to deal with ridicolous complaints about performance and other demented stuff I find every day.
A whole lot of people just type in the “problem” and waits there, sitting in front of the screen, refreshing the page and hoping to find something like “oh, well, poor you, don’t despair, do this, and this, then wait, relax, do this, open this menu, and this and that…are you feeling comfortable?”.
We have such powerful and efficient research tools and we still don’t use it…why? because answers and arguments requires reading and investigations…boring, annoying…better to throw in the request and wait…something will happen…someone will help me eventually.
Well, maybe I over reacted and I apologize, I still believe that the nature and purpose of a discussion forum is to “build” something, something that could be helpful and useful for the most of us, for veterans, newcomers and so on. Something that stays there and forms a deep knowledge of the problematics of a specific software, procedure or whatever…and something that in most cases offers answers.
Today I only see complaints, same stupid questions and statements over and over, lazyness of the mind because in most cases it’s clear enough that people coming in and shouting “Why I can’t do that? How can I do this?” would have find the solutions by doing a simple search, that in most cases involves typing few words in a search bar.
But it’s easier to do the other way. Well, I don’t think it’s easier…I believe it’s a reflections of what we are.
Am I too hard?…no, I don’t think so.
(I also read the topic “please watch the tutorial first” today…)
Keep the good work RB.
Alberto
Alberto,
Yea – the good ole days – If I see a question that is not already 63 pages long that I think will degrade into something 63 pages long then I try to head if off = check out the “color rendering problem” post there today but if it has already out of control I just avoid it.
I have a formula now it goes something like this:
1) Good question by someone that is not experience = nice and to the point answer with maybe some additional info.
2) Question phrased as “Aperture don’t work when I bang on keyboard” with clear evidence that the person has not spent more than 10 seconds EVER using Aperture = smartass asshole mode where I answer with lots of sarcasm and between the lines name calling but still give the answer.
RB
Ps. Apple tried the knowledge building thing but the problem was that people that could contribute (3 star people or something like that) stopped because NOBODY – NOBODY – NOBODY ever read all the stuff there as evidenced by the same question coming up 900 times a day even though it was on page 1 of the knowledge base.
[...] RB Design – Aperture 3 – The Blind Leading The Blind [...]
And there you have the downside to the democratic forum.
And hey, there’s more than one way to skin a cat. I try not to pretend I know everything on the Apple Forums. Usually I just ask people questions that might lead to their discovering the right answer on their own. Some people respond to that, and some just want an “expert” who tells them the answer. Trouble is when everybody is an expert.
RB, I think the Apple Forums are still the best Aperture resource out there. AUPN (or whatever the shit it’s called now) is still a chaotic mess with less than 100 members- they recently purged the db and user logins AGAIN. Assholes. And the others are not worth mentioning. Are you still considering a forum here? It would be really great, methinks.
And where is Apple in all this? Like everyone here, I too find my post-processing stress going way up when I read all those forums. But it would be nice if the Apple folks would step in and clear the air with some well-focused communications to their loyal followers. Is it just me that gets this feeling that Apple kind of sits on the sidelines watching the chaos fester and get growingly confusing with misinformation? If anyone knows where I can find the Apple Aperture 3 folks and their communication with their users out there in the Internet, I sure would like to know!
Eric, That’s exactly what they do. Every once in a while they’ll contact someone directly and start a side conversation. I was contacted by email the week the 3.0.1 update was released because I had drastically different behavior on one machine than I did on another. The forums are explicitly for users, but Apple does watch to see if they pick useful stuff out of the choas.
RB
couldn’t agree more with you, really.
I like (and actually laughed a lot) the “smartass asshole mode with sarcasm” thing…really!
the point is that in most cases sarcasm do nothing on this fellas, it’s too sophisticated for them to understand!.
Another point is the total lack of respect for the people that regularly contributes to the forum in the smart and positive way, not giving straight answers all the time but providing a way to overcome problems and issues, inviting to research and experimenting. thus helping people to build “confidence”.
Lack of respect because every crybaby out there think that you guys are their personal and exclusive resource, been put there for their exclusive benefit.
And that is, for me, pure and clear rudeness.
Greetings to everyone and my wishes for a Happy Easter!
Alberto
RB,
that linkback up there at #3 looks like spam to me.
Regarding the forums, if you ever see me giving bad advice in there, I hope you’ll slap me upside the head.
rob,
Hence my opening statement – just humorous. No one or nothing specific. Just the general chaos of the mob, sort of like when you are referring to a very large generic group vs an individual – you know when re republicans refer to democrats and vis-a-vis. As you know the mob can be idiots but one on one individuals are usually just fine and dandy people.
RB
Oh,
Rob – you have to know by now I am not shy or anit-confontational in the least. Get’s me in trouble all the time with people that do not know my intent or realize I have no axe to grind.
RB
Case in point – this post. I am absolutely sure that some population of people with read it and be highly annoyed with me because they somehow ignore the first sentence and think I am calling out some individual – the reality is I laugh at myself for even being screwed up enough to get aggravated by the chaos.- think about that for a second … if affects me in absolutely no way so why do I get spun up. Human nature.
RB
I have been very lucky with Aperture 3. The transition from AP2 was long, but AP3 has only gotten faster. I think that the Bergsma Bash (deleting the cache/prefs files) helped a lot. Defragging added some amazing speed icing to the cake.
But perhaps the real breakthrough was Rob’s cross dressing color fix for Nikon images. For years we have been hearing all of the ranting and raving about how Capture NX was so much better than AP (or Lightroom), used all the data, only program that really “understood” the RAW file, etc. Rob may not be happy with his Nikon color, but I think he is way more than close enough.
I recently shot a bunch of pictures for a local band. Snapshot quality and I wanted them out the door, fast. Could have shot JPEG, but, as always, I shot RAW. Only this time, I engaged one of Rob’s nifty Nikon D200 presets while importing and voila: instant Nikon “JPEGS.” And, just as in Capture NX, I could remove the effect, should I choose. In fact, I have gone so far as to create my own, color only preset, as I am pretty comfortable with contrast/sharpening/etc.
And even better, Rob gave us the road map to make our own profiles for whatever camera in Lightroom, Aperture, or whatever. This is really good stuff.
So I, for one, deeply appreciate the help I have found on the Internet.
PAX!
Hi RB, I have to say I work plenty in Final Cut Studio, and Damn, those forums are as bad as the aperture groups X all programs in the suite
I’m glad that there are folks like You, and others who do take time to answer legitimate issues not always covered in the manual. It is increasingly amazing how few users of these complex programs actually do ‘crack the manual’ or watch the free online vids.
It would clearly eliminate some of the crappiest questions – course it is good for a laugh, and for all who have legit issues/problems, and those who take the time to collectively answer, thanks!
-Rich C.
unrushedphoto@Gmail.com