Thanks for the input liveacoustic! 
⌠By the way, I networked my home computers (by myself 
) and I wanted to know if I can still share printers on the network.
-Dan 
If you spend a ridiculous amount of time on your computer (like me) mostly doing graphic design I say get the Mac. I think itâs comparable to SUVs - you shouldnât spend so much extra dough getting an off-road car unless youâre actually going to take it off road! Other than that - I PC would do you just fine.
Sounds good, I am on my computer about 24/7âŚall graphic design, starting to music edit, and boy MAX PAYNE SHURE KICKS A$$!!! Nice, a nice mac with a nice mac flat screen with a nice STUPID ONE BUTTON MOUSE!!! Hahaha, no I will get the 2 button one 
!
PS: Gonna really take my mac off the road, maybe through it off a cliff or something (:lol: just kidding!)
-Dan 
After that post, Iâm 100% sure you need to get a Mac. Now buy it. Now, @#%$ you, now!
Iâd say if youâre limited on fundâs Dan, that you should either wait, or if you canât, get the Windowâs system as long as thatâs what all your software is. Without the dual processor the PC emulation software is not highly useful, and it cost bucks to boot anyway.
If all your software is Windowâs based, stick with what you know. The change over to mac is pretty pricy.
I am too poor to get the dual 1GHz processors, and there is no chance in hell that I am gonna rack up another $1300 dollars! But 800MHz is soooo slow!!!
-Dan
I wouldnât say that. I have been using 800 for two months now and find it perfect for almost anythingâŚ
A Macâs 800 meg can go toe-to-toe with a PC 1 gigger any day! I have worked on both systems; I think the Macs at school were 650 megs⌠no more than 700. It was much more efficient and crash-proof than my 950 meg PC at home. I was working in Final Cut Pro, Photoshop, Illustrator, Director all at once on those Macs. If I attempted the same feat with my PC, it would have committed suicide on me. I guess you could say: âIt isnât the size of the wave, itâs the motion of the ocean!â
Edit: upu, PC emulation? I donât think Dan would need that. Other than certain games, there really isnât any PC software that hasnât made the Mac transition and if it hasnât, there is usually an equal or better replacement.
I was working with Dreamweaver and Flash the other night, having both of them open. My computer, no lightweight @ 1 Ghz, 264 meg of Ram, kept freaking out, not crashing but freaking out. I know Unix systems will rock against PCâs as far as stability. Unix is the ultimate as far as stability, but who wants Unix? Too hard, too difficult to learn. Maybe its an issue with Macromedia more than it is with my PC with whats mentioned above, I dunno.
pj
:x
How is your computer freaking out!? I got a 500MHz compaq, (256 ram, 60 gig hd, windows xp), and my computer isnât freaking out at all when I run Flash 5, Dreamweaver 4, and Internet Explorer! Your computer is very strangeâŚ
-Dan
If I may chime in on this discussion with the observations of an artist who works exclusively on the PC.
First of all, this is extremely good advice:
"Iâd say if youâre limited on fundâs Dan, that you should either wait, or if you canât, get the Windowâs system as long as thatâs what all your software is. Without the dual processor the PC emulation software is not highly useful, and it cost bucks to boot anyway.
âIf all your software is Windowâs based, stick with what you know. The change over to mac is pretty pricy.â
upuaut8______
A little background:
I havenât used a Mac in a long time, 'tho I started out on a nifty little Apple II+ almost 25 years ago. That was a lot of fun. I had Computer Eyes, a Koala pad, and wrote my own graphics editors in Applesoft with machine language subroutines. Yep, I had one of those little multi-colored apples on my rear bumper and was a big fan of the Cupertino firm, to put it mildly. Then Apple came along with the Lisa, the Apple III and some other very pricey dogs, before finally producing the first Macs
About that time I got a contract gig with an engineering company. I used tech pens and traditional drawing media in those days, and stuck with that client for a number of years. Soon, the publications department where I worked decided to switch over to computers in hopes of avoiding the big typesetting costs we were incurring.
After evaluation, it was decided that âIBM-compatibleâ computers would fit in better with the companyâs existing engineering and stenographic systems, which were all PCs, mostly 8086s (XT) with a sprinkling of 286âs (AT) running WordPefect, DBase, and the like under DOS 3 or so.
Our departmentâs first PC was a Compaq 386/20 with about 2 megs of RAM and maybe 256K video. We used it to run Ventura Publisher for desktop publishing, and Z-Softâs Publisherâs Paintbrush for graphics (the PCX format). Output was to a LJ II, and we also had a Scanjet. In those days, Compaqs were very good, but slighty ideosynchratic machines.
I recall that somebody came over from the MIS department to see our set-up, and remarked with awe: âWe could run the whole company on that machine!â
I think our entire system was around $10,000 and we were paying that for typesetting every couple of months, so this changeover saved the company a lot of money right from the get-go.
We printed manuals from our 300 dpi originals on a high speed Xerox system. We had small runs of 20-100 documents, and the main issue was to get the information out to the users in the field, not satisfy a bunch of fussy art directors peering intently at kerning or serifs with a loupe.
Ok, back to the present.
If youâre going into graphic design, if you have a healthy bankroll, and if you prefer to swim with the rest of the fish, then there are strong arguments to get a Mac.
The graphic arts industry, especially print, is dominated by Macs, for two reasons: 1) They are arguably marginally superior to PCâs for graphics work 2) Macs are firmly entrenched in the printing business. No PCs need apply.
I did some work awhile ago for a local print house. They would not accept CorelDraw files, and wrinkled up their noses at anything which came from a PC, even if itâs Adobe. When I did some prowling around, I found the two primary reasons they wouldnât accept Corel files were: their software was several versions out of date, and none of their graphics experts had any competency with the application.
I think situations similar to this are commonplace in the print industry, and for that reason alone, an aspring graphic artist should probably go with Macs, especially if youâre a joiner rather than a fighter.
The counter-argument to this is that the PC, in capable hands, can match anything produced on a Mac. Period.
The primary variable affecting the output from any computer, in any application, is the skill of the operator, not the the speed of the machine. Stability plays a big role, it is true, and in that regard, again, Macs are arguably marginally superior. However, a strong-counter argument to this general truism is that there are a wide range of OSâs available for the PC - the many flavors of Windows and Unix/Linux, AND a lot of the stability problems with PCâs can be traced to improper installations, buggy drivers, DLL conflicts and the like. Many if not most of these problems stem from the fact that many PCâs are loaded to the gills with misbehaving âfreeâ stuff downloaded from the internet.
Most PC stability problems can be avoided by a little self-control over what you put on your machine.
Again, it is true that some applications on the PC are resource-hogs, and you just have to live with the reality of running that application all by its lonesome. Even with 384 MB of RAM on my Dell 866, 3DS Studio Max wonât share resources with anything else, and promptly goes belly-up if I try to start another ap.
BUT, for less than $2500, I was able to get not only the 866, but also a 766 laptop with 192 megs, and still have some $ left over for other stuff, like a Wacom tablet. True, my laptop is a Compaq, but itâs been reasonably well-behaved, especially since I started refusing cookies. Itâs easy to end up with many thousands of those little buggers bogging down your system.
So, when Iâm running MAX and need to, say tweak a texture, I just slide over to the little laptop and bring up Photopaint, do what I have to do, and deliver the result over my network. Yeah, I have Photoshop, but I prefer Photopaint for many things - better interface, imo.
So, to echo what was said above: if you have already invested $ in a lot of PC software (Max goes for over 3 grand, for example), and you are skilled in the world of Wndows, it probably makes more sense to dance with your existing partner, and network a new PC with your existing box(es).
If however, it is critical for you to be compatible with the print industry, then you should consider getting a Mac and Quark, because thatâs where a lot of the jobs are these days. When times are good again, Iâll probably consider adding a Mac to my stable, although not the fastest one.
For the best of both worlds, the ideal is to have both a PC and a Mac.
At the end of the day, Iâd rather have 3 Civics than one Porche. But if I have the money and the garage space, Itâd be nice to have the Porche too.
Thatâs the way it looks from here.
sp
good point Splinx, but its Porsche.
[Note: forgot to add the smiley ]
Yea, I never drive what I canât spell, so I donât have a âslightyâ or a âWndowsâ either, but I do have a Civic.
BTW, the prices mentioned above for the Dell/Compaq duo are from about 16 months ago, during which time the Dimension 4100 866 lost a hard drive (6 mo out) and monitor (9 mo). They both run under OEM Win ME with modest stability. After a while, Iâve learned that certain combinations of aps are more likely to cause problems. Interestingly, the two machines fail differently. On the Dell, applications just go bye bye - they wink out and disappear. This is always a signal to save out and reboot. Seldom does this machine lock up.
But my Compaq Presario 1200 laptop locks up when I overload it, and only a cold restart will bring it (slowly) back to life. All in all, Iâm relatively satisfied with both machines. Each was around $1100.
Actually, my most stable machine is an old DTK 166 running Win 95. Of course, it also barks at passing cars and howls at the moon, but once upon a time, it seemed swift indeed. I actually ran Max on that machine for a couple of years.
Also in the interest of accuracy, that $10 grand figure I mentioned included two oâ them Compaq 386/20âs with 120 MB EIDE drives, and (small drumroll) NEC Monograph monitors, which displayed in portrait mode for DTP, and were the source of many adventures in the days of DOS and Win386.
sp
Yea, I never drive what I canât spell
lol⌠Iâm with ya there my friend.
Did u know that they outlaw macs in South Korea and Iraq because the mac computer is too powerfulâŚthey use macs to launch off misslesâŚ(wow)! I think thats the first thing that I am gonna do when I get my G4 Power Mac! :lol:
-Dan
after using my new Athlon xp 2000 compared to my new g4, Iâd say that iâm switching over to mac. photoshop runs faster on pcs these daysâŚcheck it out. i was suprised on some recent benchmarking, that macs are losing their advantage. Pc also for 3d and soundâŚ
Dave-
Cute, very cute. Are those NY public johns by the way?
pj
If a picture paints a thousand wordsâŚ
Have I made myself clear?
pj
:lol: