See my post above.

I assume from what you've said that the flash fires when you press the Test button on the Cactus triger.

What is your shutter speed? It used to be that anything past the sync speed would cause a portion of the frame to not be illuminated by the flash. To eliminate that problem, Pentax has disabled the hot shoe at shutter speeds faster than the max sync speed (1/180?).

This limitation can be used quite effectively for creative effect when you know how. Sadly, Pentax no longer allows people who know what they are doing to make use of this "feature".
To completely turn off the flash is just irritating!! Argh!!!


Other than that, if you're in Manual mode, the flash should trigger every time you take a photo.

Please do. I may give that a go as well. Thanks for the link.
If I can dump Windows and Microsoft products altogether, I'd be quite pleased.

I could not find anything that could replace MSMoney, and every search I did on the subject results in the same thing... no replacing MS Money.
I, as others, hate Quicken. So we're really out of luck.

Therefore, I use Virtual Box to run Windows and that one application.

OK, I know I'll finally shut up at some point, but one more thing...maybe two...

Startup time for CS4? eh, probably about the same. I had fast SATA drives in my Windows machine too.

CS4 seems to run slightly faster on my Mac. probably partially due to having a full 4G of RAM available rather than 3.5... of which the software only gets 2-3 on Windows.

More importantly I had daily issues, no scratch that, hourly issues with the GPU integration failing on Windows. CS4 would also crash completely at least every other day on Windows.
I've only had CS4 crash once in the past three months on the Mac.
OK sure, I can't attribute the crashes to any proven deficiency in Windows, but the trend is that nearly everything "I" do on my Mac is much more stable than it ever was on Windows.

Don't know what to say about that, but I know my blood pressure had dropped considerably since switching. My wife has even commented on the lack of four letter words in my daily vocabulary.

Oh yeah... check out Sun's Virtual Box. It is FREE and works great.

There are some additional features available in Parallels and Fusion,such as hierarchical snapshots, but I find I don't need it. Virtual Box handles USB, network, and sound just fine.

One of the only Windows software I cannot find a near equivalent for my Mac is "MS Money", so I have little need for multiple snapshots, nor the $80 price tag.

Can't support your desire to switch enough...
I bought LightRoom 2 and it was a complete DOG on Windows. I really thought I wasted all that money! On an similarly equipped Mac the software flies! It is actually usable on a Mac!!

Now that you can get an iMac with 8G of RAM, you should really do well.
I do find 4G starts to slow down with both LightRoom, PhotoShop CS4 open, espcially if I have more than a few RAW images open in CS4.


1) Get "NTFS-3G" with "MacFUSE" to get full NTFS support. MAC by default reads NTFS but cannot write. This third party software gives seamless integration. (no problems for what I do)

2) I have most of my data on a Linux server over SAMBA. No problems.

3) I have the 24" Mac. Bought it in early feb, so prety new. The color is fantastic!! Very Sharp. One propblem is it is Very bright, even when turned way down. Calibrating/profiling with Eye-One is fine, but I have to keep in mind that things will be less bright on paper.
I send out to MPix and print on a Canon pro9000, and colors look quite accurate, aside from a bit of brightness issue.

4) SilkyPix charges FULL rice to change from Windows to Mac. There is no rate cut on the transfer of license. I no longer use SilkyPix. ARGH!! I love that program but will not pay full licensing when I do not even have my old Windows hardware!!!

Boot time is hard to compare.
Windows speeds up the perceived boot time by bringing the desktop up very quickly, THEN loading all your background processes.
Mac does that to less of an extent. I think by the time everything is stabilized and ready to go, the total time is probably about the same.
I am still in awe of the speed and stabality of the Mac, so I seem to "think" it boot faster.

Of course, I've only had to boot my Mac twice since I bought it in early Feb. So I do not have much experience with boot times. (Yeah, I am SOOOOOO happy since I quit using Windows!!!)

Giclee - another name for ink jet printing, isn't it?
It is supposed to be better ink and process than desktop printers. But a rose by any other name....

Don't flash memory cards loose data if not used in a relatively short span of time... e.g. a few months? I thought I had read that the data would essentially fade away if the card was not given some power once in a while.
I cannot find any references now, of course.
Is this 100 year life span supposed to be in reference to archiving the card without power? That would be pretty sweet.

Have yet to see linear polarizers give any problems on my K10D. Everyone I have spoken to have not seen problems with this on other current models or brands either. This may have been a problem with older style of auto-focus and metering but does not seem to be much of an issue now.