here we go again...

First off, I'm sorry, I'm usually the one to tap out of this argument, not fire one up - but I gotta platform rant - I fully expect you all to disagree, call me a whiner and much, much more. In that case, I'll write it off and call it a bad day. No replies necessary. It's mostly my experiences and opinons. With that being said... let the rant begin!

I'm at a new job, been here about a month. I was totally mislead that we would be using nice, new equipment to create some really killer special event graphics, as well as do some sweet large format printing, too.

I'm on a PC - you may know I'm a mac fan, but I can get along with a PC if I must... - not now. I'm f'n FED UP with PeeCees. Like most designers, we use peripherals - digital cameras, tablets, zip drives, inkjets, etc. - NOT ME! I have *one* USB port, a broken CD burner and a internal Zip drive that freezes my clunker whenever I put a disk in it. Furthermore, I can't fix it! - Not just that I don't know how, it's that I can't break the case sticker (one machine), or the chump rookie b*tch that build this pile of crap (my primary PC) went out of business 3 times since he built it in May. So, end of beef #1: my hardware sucks. no argument there. (I'm reminded of this each time I'm on my head under my desk trying to unplug the antique scanner and plug in my Wacom Tablet back in so I can edit the damn scan I just made). And, I won't even mention what happened yesterday when I tried to install some new Sony digital camera drivers. My GOD. Like watching old people screw.

Beef #2: performance. - Photoshop is slower than molasses. I'm expected to create high-resolution large format photoshop files for events and props. - NO CAN DO. At least not in a reasonable time frame. And, in this particular company, if you get an hour deadline, you're lucky as hell. Yeah, yeah, I've heard the same old, same old - you need more RAM - this is a 1.4 P4 with a Gig of RAM - "OVER-RATED," I say. I'll drive home and unplug my G3, drive back and plug it in in the same amount of time I save a 50 MB file here on this junk.

What I'm trying to say is this: I'm on a Mac from here on out. I recommend the same for professional graphics people. I won't even apply for a graphic design firm with a PC workflow. Unless they tack on an extra 40K to my salary and send me to IT school to fix whatever heap of crap they put me on.

...whew! I feel better. Oh, and I'll be buying a USB hub, a new keyboard with USB ports, a new mouse, and a copy of "IBM/PC's for dummies" on pay day.

Hahahaha. Sounds a bit like my computer. :o While looking for a new job, tell them to get better computers or you are leaving.

We all know computers can be a pain in the arse.... take a deep breath....

First of all, if its a Newer Pentium @ 1.4 gigs, should work fine. It's not a pc thing. It sounds like your dealing with idiot techs who put that pc together....

Update all the drivers.... (what is the graphics card? Maybe that is slowing down the machine?)

Really the best way to deal with it is convince (show them the cost of your time wasted dealing with this thang...) convince them that they need to invest a little bit of money into getting this machine running. I dont care who it is, if you show them precise figures (lost money that is.), they will listen.

and convince them to get new tech support, unless its like their buddy, in which case your screwed....

I have always worked on pc's and when there was one that was temperamental, I would just rip it apart and put it back together from scratch and re install everything....

I am pittying you..... good luck!

Not all pc hardware is created equally. You have to buy quality parts, or get parts from a company that creates reliable drivers for windows.

The thing with Windows is... Its an OS that can handle thousands upon thousands of hardware configurations. This can lead to problems. Macs, and to some extent, Linux, have no such issues because hardware choices have been limited according to what either Apple decides goes into their systems or what drivers the Linux community decides to create.

You buy a pc part with crappy windows drivers, you are gonna get a crappy windows computer. Granted, even the best manufacturers can make a lemon product, or you could end up buying a faulty piece, but that is one of the problems surrounding windows based computing and its multitude of hardware choices. I love the freedom of choice it gives me, but thats just me.

And a 1.4ghz P4 stinks compared to a 1.4ghz Athlon cpu. P4 floating point operations are very neutered compared to older generations of pentium chips. A P4 was stripped of most of its previous incarnation's components and built from the start as a cpu that only relied upon ever increasing megahertz ratings. And performance in Intel chips has faulted as a result. They have somewhat remedied this recently with some newer builds of the P4 cpu, but a 1.4ghz P4 is still one of the lame old ones that is slow.

Have your company buy better hardware and not the cheapest crap around. Especially if your work depends on it. And use Windows 2000, please. Only then will Windows work with you and not against you, but I don't blame the OS one bit in your case, graphicsguy. Sounds like crap hardware to me.

If you want to make a case against Windows. Please knock it for its lack of color correction, font issues, and the non-support some publishing software companies give the Windows platform. Hardware failure related problems cannot be blamed upon an OS.

*types as he sits on his windows xp machine at home that has remained on and fully non-faulty going on about 3 months now*

i agree w/ marble and bogus. dude, get a dell. :D

If you want to make a case against Windows. Please knock it for its lack of color correction, font issues, and the non-support some publishing software companies give the Windows platform. Hardware failure related problems cannot be blamed upon an OS.

ahhhh, I remember the days when my cpu would get me that far...
but hey, at least I still have solitaire!!!!


I feel better today, but I've only been here for 4 minutes.

It was a rant about PCs in general though, not just windows. So it is ok for him to blame the hardware and OS also.

I personally would rather have a limited number of choices that are guaranteed to work, rather than a billion choices with 3 out of 4 not working and causing problems.

I don't care what parts are in my TV... as long as it works... Or my microwave... or my toaster....

Macs and PCs are quite different when it comes to rating their RAM. Steve Jobs was saying in Paris that the new iMac with 800mhz (using it right now) is three times faster than a Pentium....and i agree with him. PS opens in 5 and a half seconds on this baby

Steve Jobs will say anything about his product to make it sell better. He'll even say one button mice are better than 3 buttons even though just about everybody on earth knows its not true.

If you want some performance tests, one simply needs to look at http://www.barefeats.com/pentium4.html. The G4 cpu is seriously under fire from Athlon cpus. And the Athlon is only getting faster while the G4 stifles.

Its a lot of different things. If you took the latest PC, Dual processors, Fastest Bus speeds (Not sure what it is cause I dont watch hardware much =\), etc. and pay the hefty price that a mac can set you back, then you would have a real fast machine. But spending $500 on a cheap PC wont get you a machine that can out run a G4. I will agree that macs are great and I work on pc's, but the higher ticket price also includes the fact that they don't skimp on parts to save on cost.... What I am looking at is the top of the line iMac on the apple site ($2k US) You could get a ***n good pc for that price.

I am looking on the Dell site and a cheap Dell(1.8Gig Celeron) can run $400 US. So if you invest just that few hundred extra, get dual processors, etc. You can see what I am getting at....

What i am figuring is that the pc he is about to send to the microwave is something you wouldnt want to do more than word processing and internet surfing on.... Let alone anything like print work.

Just a side note.... One thing I see in small companies is when they have a store build a pc for their purposes, it's easy to get ripped off. For instance, a friend of mine took over all the tech work for this company running a network for the store (Alpine X - for Alpha Cookie who would know where that is hehe....) and when the server hard drive failed, he took it apart and found out that the store sold them a $4k "server" (Old owners @ 4th Dimension computers - for Alpha again hehe.) that had the same components and all of their cheap pc's (which were a ripp-off anyway).

You can bash windows all you want cause I don't really care, but I don't think the pc versus mac wars are not that valid anymore.