Dual display issues, screensaver crashes, and plain ol' quirks with a 2nd display

My system setup is this:
20" imac
4GB RAM
22" HP w2207 LCD monitor (rotated vertically)
Firewire audio interface - FW400
WD Terabyte Firewire 800 drive

I have an HP w2207 monitor as the 2nd monitor for my imac. The ATI Radeon video card is supposed to be able to handle two monitors, but that doesn't mean it's seamless. It struggles a lot and I'm sure that fact isn't publicized about some of the video weakness in the new aluminum imacs, except for the one graphics update that erroneously downplayed the problem as applying only to avid gamers and video hogs. I did neither and had serious probs before that. And then the update was renamed completely with references to video problems stripped out. Hmm?

I've noticed the following quirks:

1. When I had the infamous crashing imac before mac replaced it and gave me a later batch model, a lot of crashes were caused by or related to the unit going to sleep and not being able to wake up with 2 monitors attached. If I turned the extra monitor off before letting the system sleep, less crashes. Hmmm.
2. Something about how the imac handles Firewire somehow interferes with the video display. I had a firewire audio interface, that even when it wasn't actively demanding system resources, it causes the video display to flash erratically. This is the only thing I'm mentioning, but not the only problem I've noticed where Firewire takes something else unrelated down with it. I've since bought a different Firewire interface, but among the 3 I've used, there are some consistencies. I've since DOWNGRADED not only from Leopard back to Tiger (which ran like a charm) but I've downgraded my version of Firewire implementation. Apple wrote a patch for Tascam that took the Firewire implementation back to the way it was done in 10.4.9 which was super stable. If that's not an admission of something, I don't know what is.
3. When I reboot and the 2nd monitor is already on, my mac will hang on the blue start up screen, sometimes indefinitely (today I walked my dog and came back and it hadn't progressed at all) until I flick the power for the 2nd display on and off and then voila! The mac osx progress bar comes on the screen and it tries to redraw the desktop wallpaper, etc. So it works, but I actually SEE it struggle with the 2nd monitor on. If I were to do this whole startup b4 turning on the monitor, it goes much quicker and you don't see the redrawing of the screen with the temporary blue screen while it's thinking. Meaning, the progress bar comes up, it flash back blue on both screens for 1 second or 2, then it brings up the wallpapers.
4. Even with the new Firewire audio interface, my system wigs out if I have the screensaver on both screens. I got some crashes until I told it to just turn the 2nd screen black and only do the moving screensaver on the 1st screen.

So there you have it. If this helps anyone with similar issues, I'm happy to share it.

1. 
   

Better than Iweb?

I've got a shiny new mac, and it comes with all this free softare. Having gotten over my initial aggravation with iPhoto (will retroactively post that stuff sometime), and gotten over my snobbery at the limitations of free software, I'm sort of leaning into it.

Iweb doesn't create real HTML. It isn't a real HTML editor. Coming from Dreamweaver and Frontpage, I was very snotty and horrified at the thought of using it. However, one day I needed to post some pics of a church event where everyone could get to them. And I wanted to do it fast. And here's the beauty of Apple: it's not always poweful, it's not always technically correct, but it's FAST, and fairly elegant to be slopped together. So with barely any effort, voila, I had a slideshow of photos and a website up.

Thus my initial complain about switching to mac: macs are for idiots. But guess what? I like the option of being an idiot if I want to. Now that I'm trying to be productive, rather than prove my mental prowess at untangling knots of computer logic, maybe being an idiot is a great luxury. It costs thought - macs are pretty damn expensive. That's why I never really switched before. Macs are definitely in the domain of the wealthy, but after my tour, I entered those ranks. So I pay for the ability to slop together a generic, yet elegant website in 20 minutes or less.

Now moving on. Iweb has converted me to the concept of simpler is better. If I can build something that's GOOD ENOUGH, maybe I shouldn't always be so quick to crack open Dreamweaver or Photoshop.

So I've played with iweb, and it's sort of created a monster in me. The mac side of me wants easy and pretty, but the PC side of me wants MORE. I'm bored of the templates, and modifying them officially to create more templates is SO much work and so esoteric that it'd be better to design from scratch in Photoshop, chop it up and code it in Dreamweaver. Also, there is a freeware/shareware alternative for Dreamweaver on the mac platform called Nvu which is pretty darn sexy (score 1 for mac).

I've looked into iweb templates from third party vendors, and I'll talk about that later, but iweb 2.0 broke a lot of vendor's templates, so that turned me off some.

So now I have the iweb mindset, with a pc hunger for customization. So I wonder outloud, is there anything like iweb, just better? PS - most mac users are SO complacent that the search for the phrase "better than iWeb" (for things posted w/in the last 6 months) only comes up with 7 hits on google!

Here's what I've come up with so far for WYSWYG editors most like iweb for mac:

Rapidweaver
Sandvox
Goldfish
Freeway
and
Shutterbug

Also just found out about
Galerie and
Joomla.

No reviews just yet. I'll revisit this and also revise some of this post before I go on to in depth reviews and screenshots etc. But this is what I've found to be out there. Y'all let me know if you find other stuff. So far, the order I listed them in appears to be the order I prefer. Although Sandvox appears to be stronger, it has less theme offerings than Rapidweaver. Shutterbug actually might be my fave, but it's more specific in it's purpose. I'll let you know.

In terms of more traditional approaches to web design, there are some more apps to consider:
SeaMonkey Composer - Mozilla
Style Master - Mozilla (CSS prog)
NVU - already mentioned
Good page and
Kompozer - apparently an offshoot/update of NVU

Hello mac world!

I keep waiting until the proper time to start my switching to mac blog, but I realize, the proper time is now while I'm learning! I wanted to predigest the food like a mama bird and spit it out once it's nice and masticated, but I might as well write while I'm still researching and struggling a bit.

I'm a singer, and went on tour for 6+ months with about 12 other musicians, 10 of which had macs, so I thought, maybe it's time to just consider getting a mac. Having had a past life as a graphic designer, I'd owned an old G3 before, strictly to use to check website rendering of my sites in mac browsers, but I wasn't particularly impressed with macs then. And I'd also worked at the Discovery channel using a mac, and although I was quite competent, still not that impressed.

So finally, practicality and peer pressure made me pick up a shiny, new Aluminum Intel imac. And although I still have gripes and am not a total switcher (didn't throw out my pcs or laptops), I've got to notice that I spend more and more time on this machine. And it didn't solve all my life's problems are was advertised by all my mac friends.

The deal is this: PCs are cool. Macs are cool. The existence of both, hopefully, will force each other to keep being cooler, in an effort to bash each other's heads in.

This blog is dedicated to all of the problems I've had as a power user of PCs, while switching to mac. As much as mac is the underdog and the trailblazer, I see so many things that could be better were it not for the stubbornness of not wanting to admit that sometimes PCs get it right. Bill Gates has no problem seeing something cool on the mac and imitating it. It's time mac does the same and takes the best of both worlds and propels it into new heights ala Apple.

So in breaking the tradition of mac users everywhere, I am actually going to COMPLAIN about mac! The heresy. But I'm going to do it, because if you never ask for more, you won't get more. And in the words of the Abraham-Hicks manifestation camp, I'm not complaining to complain, every time I blog about what baffles me in mac land, I am launching a little rocket of desire for what I DO want. And so it is and so it shall be. Join me on this ride into the cult known as Apple.