I'm thinking about converting . . .

You guys disappoint me. I was up for a really good flame war, just like the good ol' days. Actually, g-guy, your absolutely correct, which is part of the bigger issue--you can't find good support people for macs, because outside of the grafx world, nobody uses them!

I can name 10 PC labs that run like junk, school labs often have a serious lack of money, thus machines are often serviced by under-trained district employees. I am not a mac head - I can run anything that is put in front of me, and I speak from experience - for GRAPHICS mac is best (as graphic guy already stated). Of course that is only my opinion.

However, I have come to realize that in my line of work (as a free lane designer - almost entirely for print) 90% of the disks that come to me from other designers are Mac, thus I began to research, read, and now am understanding why it may be smart for me to make the switch.

BTW - We are not bashing PC, everyone that has replied to this forum uses a PC, either at work or at home . . .

:D

malibu - sorry, sometimes I'm no fun. getting old.

as far as your last post, malibu:

see post #4 (deker) in the "Can't we all just get along" thread under Misc.

because outside of the grafx world, nobody uses them!

Sure they do - Engineering & Architecture, Music and Video fields all primarily use Macintosh. They always have.

But you're right, if I need one MEAN e-mail machine, you bet I'll be buying my happy ass a DELL!!

now we're cookin'...

Originally posted by malibu
Sorry, I just got tired of listening to you guys trash talk PC's for so long while us PC guys just lay there and take it like a 20 dollar hooker.

Let the flaming BEGIN!

Funny, everything I've always heard was more like:

PC guy: well Macs SUCK!

Mac guy: have you ever actually used one?

PC guy: I did in fifth grade and I HATED it, they suck, I'll never use one again...

:D

Chris

Well said FIG!!

There is absolutely nothing that anybody who uses photoshop on a pc is missing out on by not using a mac. The development environment is the same. I have always heard that macs are the stuff to use with graphics, but as of yet, I haven't seen anything I can't do on a pc. As for stability. I can attest that my own win2k machine has run for months without crashing or having to reset. Kept one instance of Photoshop running for 4 months straight.

If there actually was a reason to spend the 1/3rd or more extra cost of getting a mac, I would.

Macs offer limited configuration options compared to the thousands of possibilities you can put in a pc. Their processors don't offer much in the realm of increased performance unless you go to the high-end, high-price spectrum.

Put together a dual athlon 1.6ghz system, with win2k and I guarantee you will have the fastest photoshop machine out there. And if you don't buy generic ram, it'll be even more stable in operation than a mac. At $1000 less cost than a dual G4 to boot.

Mrbogus,

Convenience, familiarity, and comradery are the things I prefer on Mac platform. but here are a few instances I can come up with for MY OWN reasons to drop a extra grand on a graphics station:

You can't drag and drop files to open them as easy on a PC.

USB is more fluent with my Mac than my PC.

I really hate the gray window that harnesses PC Photoshop.

You can't see other apps running behind your open photoshop files on a PC.

You don't have memory allotment control on a PC.

Wacom tablet isn't as fluent on my PC as it is on my Mac.

It takes a Gig of RAM to do what I can do with 192 MB of RAM on my two-yr old G3 300. I don't know why, nor do I care.

The Pentium 4 1.5 Ghz processor is faster than my 300 G3, but not by as much as you might think. I don't know why, nor do I care.

I'll admit, the stability is better on my PC than on my Mac, but I'd still prefer a single processor 800 G4 than any dual anything PC, and I'm pretty sure it would be faster as well.

:D

Barefeats shows a different story about a dual G4 vs a single P4. The G4 is a bit faster in some applications, but not enough even begin to justify the extra cost. An even cheaper dual athlon system would destroy a similarly configured dual G4 anyway.

I don't like going by benchmarks, but I don't have a mac to compare a pc against.

The NT kernel is very good with memory. It doesn't need memory allotment controls.

Seeing other apps running behind Photoshop? Yeah you can if you don't maximize your PS window.

Having more afluent USB and wacom tablets isn't exactly something that can be quantified I think. Sounds like a more per-person thing to me. I could just as easily say that about a pc.

The only reason left that macs are better than pcs is the purdy aqua interface that surrounds its apps. You can change the look of a pc to match the aqua interface if you really want, but to me it doesn't matter.

mrbogus,

Personally, I don't think the dual processor G4's are developed to where they need to be -yet. I've heard some horror stories about them. I'd buy a single processor unit. The dual processors are geared more for OSX than 9.x apps, somehow.

I don't go by benchmarks either, even if a Pentium did "destroy" a G4, right in front of my eyes, I'd still take the G4. I just like them better, I've used mac since 1993 and I'm simply more comfortable that way, understandably. I'll admit it though, most windows fanatics won't. See Fig's previous post for an example.

NT is ok. I won't say 'very good' about my Win2K machine because the administrator thing and permissions piss me off on a daily basis. Again, a familiarity thing. (And too right-brained for me.)

oh, and I hate the aqua interface. The opaque "Carbon" is cool, but to me it's just bells and whistles, one of Mac's main trends.

(Steve Jobs is beginning to worry me with his priority for the afore-mentioned bells and whistles marketing approach and his ignorance to his existing creative professional customer base. - but that's a WHOLE different topic!)

Well folks, enjoy your right-clicking, I have work to do

If apple went back to allowing clones to be made. I too would be praising the mac, because I'm sure they'd be cheaper than they are now. My complaint with them is the cost required for the performance that I'm looking for.

I don't see how mac photoshop users work with photoshop without the ease of right-clicking on a layer if you need to. I'd ditch the mouse that apple supplies and stick a USB logitech mouseman straight into my mac if I had one. I love how that apple pro mouse looks, but one button, no scroll wheel, and a 3 foot cord just doesn't sound all that great to me. And I don't see how it can be effective with photoshop. Does every mac user switch to a 2 button or more mouse?