No holy wars, please. Whatever works for you is the best for you. But I'm still curious.

I'm using a Windows2000 PC. A Pentium 4 to be exact. I do believe all the operating systems and hardware have their advantages, but I do think that Windows2000 (and now XP) is the best Windows environment to edit images in (if your hardware can hack it).

I've also used, and am comfortable with Macs. In fact, back in college I built and ran our Mac lab. I've also used, in fact I own, Linux/Unix machines, but I could never claim I'm comfortable with them. But, IMHO, the most productive machine is the one you're the most comfortable with, and I've been building and working on PCs for a long, long time.

NOTE: There's an interesting thread in this same forum called "What's your setup" where many forum members past and present spoke on this very subject.

No flame wars from me - I've used both over the years. Currently using a Pentium PC running Windows 98SE, and have used Windows for a number of years after moving over from DOS. Initially started with an Apple 2E (I think) many years ago, and lusted after the first Mac, but couldn't afford it. PC's were more affordable and I made the switch in the mid-80's. I did opt for a IMac last year, but found that it was too hard making the switch again - mentally and software wise. (now I have to find it a good home, but it's so cute!)

First became involved with computers using an Atari ST for packet radio* using a Sony TV as a monitor. Since then a variety of gear. Present system is a triple boot PC 98/2k and XP with 2K about to go.
I’ve always run dual boot systems as a safety measure and it doesn’t take up a great deal of extra disc space. The XP set up has gone well and I’ve attempted to crash it by various means but with no success, compared to XP 98 is like a vintage car that has to be tweaked and humoured on a regular basis. The CPU is an Athlon 1.5 gig very popular over this side of the pond Pentiums being considered expensive and a 19’ Mitsubishi monitor which is superb, no eye strain. Ram is cheap at the moment so there’s a 1000meg in the board but I doubt if it makes much difference over 500.

I’m very lucky to have a friend who’s an IT manager and actually enjoys working on computers in his spare time. I assemble the computer and he does the final tune up but not needed with XP. All the superseded bits are passed on to a backup machine which gets all the files as they are created. As regards components I’d say for graphical work buy the best monitor you can afford, compared with the other bits it will last longer and buying ‘last years’ top graphics card will prolong its useful life span. Don’t bother changing CPU’s and boards unless you can ‘at least’ double the processor speed.


*Essentially e-mail on the amateur radio network

I'm on the low end with a Gateway PC. It has a Pentium II, 256 megs of ram, two hard drives (5 gig and 20 gig) and a CD burner. I would love to upgrade to a faster PC, but I doubt that's gonna happen.

Ed

Mine is built from off the shelf components, 500 meg AMD processor, CD-R and CD-RW drives with 512 RAM. Windows 98 se. Iy works better that I do!! Tom

We had a Pentium II with Windows 2000, 500 MB ram and 109 gigs in 2 hard drives. Then we decided to upgrade without the great expense of getting another computer (Motherboard with new processors actually and possibly a new case) So in the proscess of trying to get dual processors to run we find out the current Motherboard doesn't support Win 2K. (Could've fooled us since we've been doing it since 2K came out) Then the mother board quits, and since we now have 2 Pent IIs with no board we order a new improved one. The new one comes and works ok for about 2 minutes and the powersupply goes, new one comes and the thing still won't run. Turns out the new motherboard is no good. New one due to arrive tomorrow. What is left to break? Anyway, since he's the guru (questionable) in this house I use what he sets up and now PCs are what I'm used to so I will probably stay with it as soon as we get it running again. I'm going through withdrawl without my machine. I'm torn between begging it to work or kicking the crap out of it. Borrowing is the pits!!!
DJ

DJ,

Cobble all your old parts into a backup machine and place in view of your no 1 machine, switch on occasionally. Number 1 sees alternative/rival nearby and never goes wrong.

To alleviate tensions brought on by your epistle may I suggest getting boyfriend, toyboy or even husband to gently rub large denomination banknotes on each temple I find this brings on a pleasant calming effect in proportion to denomination of the note. I use Bank of Ulster £100 notes but you'll have to experiment with dollars I'm afraid.

Chris
My experience with putting machines too close together is not that one will see a rival and shape up, but that one will see a partner in crime and both break down. It's the same reason why our cars usually break down the same time. :D And thanks to this technological money eating machine we only have one dollar bank notes to rub with. Not good. Maybe I will wake up tomorrow and the new board will magically appear and work and all will be right with the world. If not, oh well, good time to remortgage the house. Yup, these rose colored glasses are great. :)
But as much as this stuff costs, some how I can't imagine life without my PC. Thank God for computers. It's my link to the world, and my number one play toy.
DJ

Wow...I'm surprised at all of the PC users. I had thought Macs ruled the graphics, design, photo markets. I know my G3/400 blows away my P3 1Ghz at Photoshop. I use a Mac at home but suffer with this P3 here at work. Windows OS is just too buggy and jumbled I think. Mac is so easy to use and best of all, easy to fix...and NO DLLs! hehehe I don't HATE PCs....but I much prefer my Mac for my photo work.

I've always been a square peg in a round hole, so in a world of PC users, I will stick to Macs

I'm on a homebuilt P3 running a 700Mhz chip that I punched up to 933Mhz. Also running 512 Mb of High end RAM. Windows XP Pro for my operating system along with a Plextor CD Burner. I also have my Epson 1640 scanner that I now swear by. Never again with HP!

My one PC is a P1-150 running Win95! Has film scanner and Mitsumi CD-RW writer attached to it. In 25yrs in the computer industry, this is the most stable machine I've ever worked with. It's been thru' 3 hard disk upgrades with the same (cloned) version of Win95 since about 1997. My wife also uses it play Kyodai Mah Jongg amongst other things.

The second one is a P2-350 running Win98. Has flatbed scanner, Epson 800, Epson 1200, modem and pad attached (and when I'm in the mood to restore LPs, also the record player). Fairly stable - been about 18 months since I reinstalled the O/S.

My third machine is one of those DJ spoke about in her study - always open. Used for testing anything. Have a whole pile of old hard disks with O/Ss ranging from Linux down to DOS 5 (depending on what's currently interesting) which I swop in and out of the machine.

Personally, I hate WinNT and its derivatives, so I'll probably have to move over to Linux and the GIMP full time one of these days. Can't find really decent drivers for my printers though (haven't looked recently, I must add).

I'm using a MAC G4 on OS9.04. I have 768Mb of RAM to run Photoshop 6.01. I also have the 22 inch Cinema Display which is a beauty! My MAC is about 2 years old and I'm thinking of upgrading to the new G4's with superdrive, enhanced video card and gigahertz speed. I have no problems with my MAC. The only application that crashes on me is Netscape 6.2. I'm an "at home" user and I love my MAC!!!

22" Cinema display...Wow!

I had an imac for about 1 year. (could not afford a G4) I loved the mac OS, but I had so many problems with hardware that I nearly threw the thing out a window. The worst of the problems was the now infamous "imac flickering screen". Apple should have just admitted they made a lemon. My problem with Apple is they seem to have made some artistic decisions about the design of their products that end up causing a host of hardware problems. I am sure a G4 would have been a better buy but after my experience with Apple I went back to a PC.

My current setup is a 1ghz Athlon, 512mb of RAM and a 40 gig hardrive. I'm running Windows ME but am contemplating the switch to XP. I just hope my zip drive, Epson 2450 scanner and Wacom tablet will all work!

[QUOTE]Originally posted by G. Couch
[B]22" Cinema display..

The worst of the problems was the now infamous "imac flickering screen".

I had not heard of a problem with flickering display on iMacs. I love my iMac, but today I spent about 4 hours in front of it steady working on a photo and noticed some flicker.

Can you give me more info about this problem. Maybe I need some warranty on it.

Thanks,
Margaret

It was not a problem that affected all imacs, but trust me, if you had the problem you would know it! I know a large portion of the summer 2000 models had this problem. Basically, whenever you click the mouse or select a menu, the screen begins a very pronounced flicker as if the refresh rate is too low. Try using Photoshop when every time you click, the screen goes wavy! It gives you a headache after 15 minutes.

The real problem was not just the flickering but Apple's denial of it. When they finally (after a year) admitted it was a problem their "fix" did not actually work. Talking to Apple customer support was perhaps one of the most frustrating experiences of my life.

I still have never understood why Apple insists on not allowing other companies to make Mac clones. Their hardware looks great but the great design is also the source of so many problems. I crashed a Cube at Circuit City by laying a piece of paper over the vent...crashed from heat in under a minute.

I first used a G4 in the computer lab where I took a DTP course. All the G4s were networked. This is where I learned that networking Macs is a nightmare. Working on a G4 8hrs/day for 8 weeks we all experienced our Macs crash an average of once every hour for the entire duration. Now I realize this is not necessarily true of all Macs, but it kinda put me off. Also, I just could not get used to the inconvenience of having no right-click mouse. I came real close to buying a G4 anyways thinking it would be better for graphics but changed my mind at the last minute. I did plenty of research when shopping.

What I ended up with is a Dell Precision workstation with an upgrade motherboard, P3, 512MB of RDRAM, and an nvidia.g2force video card. I have no regrets. I run Win 2000 and I love it...no crashes EVER. Have a 2450 Epson scanner and an Epson 870Photo printer which I also love.
I must say though that what made me finally decide on the PC is the old adage "better the devil you know". In a past incarnation, before becoming a graphics type, I was a certified Windows/network support tech. (at HP)

I have some friends who bought Macs and are very happy. I've even gone over once or twice and did some troubleshooting and installing for them. I agree that it really comes down to whatever works for you and what you are used to. I can't for the life of me understand though when people say Macs are easier to use. I think what is 'easier' to use is what you know already.

PowerMac G4 400 Mhz 448 Meg RAM OS9.1. Died one week under warranty and has been fine ever since. I have an old 9600 that was my first Mac sitting here just in case. Before those it was a 286, before that a Commodore 128 and before that a Commodore 64. Did art on all of them in one form or another, and prefer the Mac I have now over anything else I have used. Way too much tied up in software to ever afford to make the switch to anything else and face the cost of all new programs. Not that I'd particularly care to, but that's the cold hard fact anyway.
:wavey:

Yes.. right... another big deciding point Blacknight... what about all that software.... which is often an even bigger investment than the hardware... at least for me it is. ;)

I'm with Ed here - low end Gateway, Celeron, 3G hard drive, 2xx meg ram (can't remember exactly), CD burner and WinNT.

I have a friend who says he'll build me a new machine as soon as I tell him I want in it, but I haven't a clue what to ask for. I know nothing about motherboards, video cards, or any of that stuff. This one works and that's about all I know.

I love my machine, though. I've been told I shouldn't be able to do the stuff I do on it, but shhhhh - don't tell IT that it isn't supposed to be this reliable...

(Oh, and a PS - mouse, not tablet)

Jak,

you've just perfectly illustrated that talent and skill is far more important than having the latest technology. If you can do the work you do on what you have described, that should encourage anyone!

Being a artisit/techie combination, I just had to have the latest stuff (at that time)... but it cost me plenty. But really, before this machine and a brief stint with the macs, I was running a Pentium 233 with a 2 gig harddrive, 64meg of RAM and a really really old video card. I produced the same work with it...

ok, maybe it's just more fun on on the newer toys.

:blush:

Thanks, Marie! What a nice compliment!

I'd really like to find out about the "Joys of Newer Toys" - maybe one of these days. But I'm happy with what I've got here so perhaps it's just that I'm in no great hurry to change something that works for me.

well... right off the shelfs of walmart.... a h/p pavillion 833 or another number close to that.. 383 mb ram (now) .. A $50 Mustex1200cp flatbed scanner.. a wacom2 pad (whose pen doesn't fit my hand).... oh and less then a sheet of plywood (tiered) for a desk.... now if I just had some place to sit.. :)

I use 2 PC's - one desktop and one laptop.
The desktop runs an Athlon 1400, 512Mb RAM, two 40Gb IBM HDD's, Plextor SCSI CD-ROM and Plextor 24/10/40 CDRW, 64MB GeForce 3 VGA, Wacom A5 graphics tablet, outputting to an Iiyama 19" Pro 450 monitor.
The laptop is an upgraded Sony Vaio running on a P3 650, 320Mb RAM, 30Gb HDD.
Both output to an Epson 1290 A3+ inkjet, and accept input from a very recently acquired Epson 2450 flatbed scanner.
Both run on Win XP, and consequently network very, very easily. I find that this OS is the best Windows yet.
Cheers,
Barry:D

Nice system Barry,

I have moved to the 'dark side' recently and brought a dual 800Mhz Mac G4 with 1Gb of ram dual video cards and monitors 1 x 21" Sony and 1 x 17" Sony. Wacom Tablet etc etc.. Having used PC's for years,(in fact I still have one networked to the Mac) I can say I am really happy with the Mac and it's OS (still using 9.1 untill I can afford the update to PS7). Still at time of purchase I could have gone either way, PC or Mac, it's just I felt in this particular city the Mac has a better support network.
The biggest joy I have got from the recent upgrade is the ability to work with out really thinking about the computer! With the sort of work I do I often end up working on large files (350 to 450+ Megs at times) so the ability to use lots of layers, non linear history and quickly try various filters, etc, with out even having a thought about the machine I'm working on is pure Luxury.

Still I don't think it's worth upgrading your system until you find your self thinking as much about the computer you work on, as the work you are trying to do.

my two cents worth!

Grant

Originally posted by Grant Hills
I have moved to the 'dark side' recently and brought a dual 800Mhz Mac G4
Please excuse my ignorance, but when moving from one platform to another like that how do you deal with the software issue (in that you have versions for platform A and are now using platform B)? Do you just buy the version for the new platform, or what?

And by the way, the change you have made is into the light FROM the "Dark Side!":tongue:
:wavey:

Hi Blacknight,

Re change of platforms - yes unfortunately with software most times (Photoshop for example) you have to purchase the application for the new platform. - Ouch!
And yes, after using the Mac for awhile now I am beginning to think I have moved towards the light as well.:)

Regards

Grant

I have 9 Mac working here for me.

Mac Baby! Ya! (You have to read it like you are Austin Powers.)

:lol: That's so funny. That was exactly how I read it in my mind before I even saw the bit about Austin Powers.

Hey Aric, you hit member status. Guess the magic number was 30 and not 50. Not bad for only being on for one day. :D
DJ

I have been sitting around at home for years retouching by myself. I guess I just have a lot to say.

Cool

I run a Pentium II 400,Windows 98SE, 320 meg ram, PhotoShop 6.01 on a 17" Princeton Graphics monitor. Although I would like to get a faster machine, this one WORKS. No crashes, freezes, or anything.

Until this one starts acting up, I'm not changing anything. :)

I use a PC 1.7 P4 with 936 meg ram. Viewsonic graphic 17PS, Aiptek tablet, Epson 2450 Photo scanner.

I use an iMac with a flat panel 15inch display.. it's the weird looking one that's the half globe base.. I'm just a teensy bit jealous now that the newer version announced at macworld has a 17inch display.. I only recently converted from using a pc... it took me awhile to get adjusted, but now I am a confirmed Macgeek. I have Photoshop 7, which is what I use for any retouch challenges, running on OS X.

I wouldn't even consider using anything but a Mac!

Phyllis :)

I'm using a Toshiba Satellite 1955-S805 notebook
2.53 GHz, 1GB RAM, 60GB Hard Drive, 160GB external hard drive, Windows XP Home edition
The notebook has a 16" screen. It would be nice to have a larger screen - ah, someday!

Bernie

I use a Ti Powerbook 667mhz for capture and editing on the road (4 Years no screen freezes or crashes!) For Home use a Dual 2.0ghz G5 with 2.5gb ram.
Both run Tiger 10.4.3 OS. The Powerbook also runs on a windows network flawless every week ....I find the Mac much easier and stable...Switched from PC 4 years ago after pulling my hair out with Buggy and crash prone PC's

I will say I also run a Dell 3.06ghz laptop and the current version of XP Pro does seem like a huge improvement....still I prefer the MAC

I use a mac for work with all the bells and a pc Compaq at home. At work I have all cs2's and at home still using photoshop 7 and trying to get indesign.
My wish list would be a better computer at home but there are more important things. I would like to know if any of you have had trouble with your macs and how do you clean up or defrag them.
ydelle

HARDWARE
Mac G5- 2ghz duelie, 2.5gig ram, 800gigs hard drive space (spread over 2 internals and 2 externals), 20" Apple 20" display.

SOFTWARE
Adobe CS1 & CS2 (Premier), FreeHand MX, FileMaker, Quicken, and tons of other stuff that gets used from time to time.

Ydelle... Supposedly, under OSX, Macs don't need defragmenting. Judicious use of tools like Cocktail, Onyx and a couple sharewares keep the caches and temp files cleaned out. I really don't spend much time "maintaing" my computer anymore since I moved from OS9 to OSX. I repair permissions about once a week. As far as defrgs, I back everything up (by cloning using Super Duper), wipe the original drive and re clone back to the original drive about once a year. Takes about an hour and a half round-trip. Done.

Mac Powerbook G4 1.5 gHz 17", G3 400 mHz Desktop, iMac Dv. Epson 2450 scanner, Nikon 5700 Camera......I have to much stuff. Need to liquidate and consolidate.

Photoshop 7, PSE 3, iLife etc......

3GHz p4 with 1GB of dual channel DDR 400 ram on both my work and home machines. Work PC has one internal 60GB drive and one external 60GB drive used for daily incremental backups with 30 snapshots saved per month before overwritting. Home has a single 300GB Primary drive and a pair of 120GB's set in a RAID 0 array for a total of a little over a half terabyte of space. My home machine has Dual 19" displays, one Mitsubishi DiamondPoint NX86 LCD and one Viewsonic P95f+. Work machine has a single dell 17" CRT :/

Work machine is a Dell (http://www.dell.com)
Home machine is an OPC (http://www.overdrivepc.com)

Both run windows XP professional.

I have been working with Macs for several years and am currently on a G4. I am also fluent with PC machines but perfer Mac's operating system and performance. I would like to upgrade to G5 soon...

I also work with a 12x12 Wacon tablet, Rev Drive, Microteck scanner and 21 inch monitor. I also have a laser printer and an Epson 2200.

I use both Windows and Linux for the stuff I do. As for Mac, I prefer Mac's software, but their hardware just doesn't cut it. I don't know the exact comparison of their gh compared to intel/amd gh, but when AMD's got 4.8 gh per core... how can you beat that? Both AMD and Intel sell 64 bit processors now, so you can't argue that anymore. x86 computers support more hard drives and RAID mode, not to mention Western Digital's 10,000 rpm Raptor! (Let's see Apple make that!) More optical drives (don't forget plextor's 18x dvd-rw!!!). Not to mention that everything you get for a PC is hundreds, even thousands, of dollars cheaper if you get your parts from NewEgg.com or iBuyPower.com. I have 1 GB of Corsair XMS RAM with a heatspreader, 74 GB 10,000 WD Raptor as primary drive, 400 GB WD Caviar as the secondary drive, 160 GB WD Caviar external, 3.7 GH AMD Athlon 64 processor, 11x USB2.0 ports, 2 firewire, Sony 16x DVD-RW, [PCI-Express 16x] ATI Radeon X550 256MB w/DVI + TV Out Video graphics card (my mobo supports SLI, but I don't need it, not a gamer), 12-1 media card reader, 5.1 surround sound, NZXT Trinity case with blue cold cathode light, 4x fans (2 120 mm), gigabyte LAN, my mobo is Gigabyte GA-K8N Pro-SLI nVidia nForce4-SLI Chipset w/7.1 Sound, Gb LAN, S-ATA Raid, USB 2.0, IEEE-1394 Dual PCI-E MB.

On a Mac, all of that stuff would probably run me $3,000. I got mine for $1300. Beat that!

However, I am hoping that OSX will work on my PC next year, because I like OSX better than both linux and windows.

As for comparing Apple to Dell and HP, you're talking apples and oranges. Dell and HP sell low-end computers. Apple sells high end. If you're using Dell & HP as your comparision to Apple, that's such a bias article. You gotta compare it to good custom built PC's girl.

Started with PC but switched to Mac in 1986.
MAC G4 dual processors, 20' sony flat screen, wacom intuos 2 (my mom just got the intuos 3- boy is it pretty!), Epson printer, hp laser, hp scanner, PS CS and CS2 (have had photoshop since 1st version), Painter (carpal tunnel), and Golive... which I use daily. Freehand, Illustrator, Flash MX, Quark, InDesign, lots of filters and plug-ins... also have a Toshiba satilite laptop to check my websites and now to play with Impressionist...
I would love a G5 so I can be in techno heaven again! ahhhh some day! :wink:
MACS RULE! ;)

I use G5 at work, and iMac g3 at my home, both under OSX Tiger. For me, system convenience is better, then performance of the hardware.

PC hmmm no way! If you are wanting to be a serious retoucher and have a system that never, and I mean never crashes than its mac or nothing. When I first started the digital world (many moons ago) of shooting digital and retouching I was running a pc and I can say nothing but problems and loads of wasted time and money.

Went to mac and its been smooth sailing ever since. Can handle mass amounts of data with out the system getting to messy until the next archive.

I am running a G5 dual 1.8 with a lacie electorn blue 5. 4 gig of ram.

Will be upgrading the monitor soon to either a dell ultra sharp 24" or a eizo 24" LCD.

Sorry pc users but I am saying this with over 10 years experience using both systems in a working evironment.

You're entitled to your opinion but you're wrong about Mac being the ONLY way to be a serious retoucher.
My PC is stable, versatile and NEVER crashes... and I dont need 4Gb of RAM and 2 CPUs to acheive that. I've been working with digital imaging for over 8 years and I've always used PCs, never had a single problem, admittedly I've always had a pretty decent spec machine but thats only because I'm a gamer too.
Macs are NOT the ONLY way for serious graphics users - that may have been the case a decade ago but its just not true today. PCs are infinately more flexible and customisable than Macs and can be just as good (and better) as macs for this type of work.

Lol I knew I was setting myself up for some back lash there.

I do find it hard to believe that your system never fails, but hey you could be one of the lucky few.

But seriously if you go and look at all the high level retouching labs, they all use macs. Everyone that I know who is a serious retoucher and working in the industry uses macs. Its not because they look pretty its because they just work. Stability rules over speed any day and macs have both.

Your right I dont need a dual processor for most photoshop applications but when it comes to using actions for processing jobs thats when it does pay its dues.

Anyway its a rounded debat we will always end up at the same spot! until you buy a mac :)

You can believe it or not but its true ;)
I havent bought an 'out of the box' PC in over 10 years. I built my machine from scratch, I know every bit of hardware and software on her and she never gives me any trouble. If I want to add sometihng new or take something away or upgrade a bit, I can do that - no problem ,just open her up and pug it in. Can you say the same of your mac?
Why big companies still use macs?
If it aint broke, dont fix it. As I said, a decade ago, if you worked in graphics, it was on a mac, it was the way of the world, they were faster, more stable and better suited to graphics work than IBM compatible PCs (macs are PCs btw ;)) and while thats not true today, the cost of replacing all their macs with PCs and retraining all their staff and any potentional staff far outweighs any benefits (if any) they would get from the changeover.
Its not an issue of macs being better anymore, its a legacy issue and will probably exist for at least a decade into the future.

The "my cable is longer than your cable", "my PC is better than your PC", debate has gone on for years, but with the introduction of the Mac with the intel chip and Apple's recent announcement that you can run Windows OR Mac OS on the same machine (plus the application from third party folks that will let your run BOTH OSs at the same time) will, over time, make the debate moot.

Buy one machine, run any software you want to, play your games, all on one CPU! What a concept!

Rumors abound, but I can't wait to see what Apple is going to offer this August when they traditonly anounce new top end tower units. I've heard an intel QUAD processor my be in the offing. Talk about some processor speed for PhotoShop filters!!!

Nancy...>>>If I want to add sometihng new or take something away or upgrade a bit, I can do that - no problem ,just open her up and pug it in. Can you say the same of your mac?

I'll take plug and play one step further. I started with an Atari 800 and went through all the mutations up to the Atari ST and bought my first Mac (Centrus 610) in 1993, I not only managed to plug and play every piece of hardware, I converted ALL my PostScript fonts and EPS and TIFF clipart to Mac format. I still use the clipart and Postscript fonts on my Mac G5 day in and day out. Some of that stuff is over 20 years old, but still usable. :-)

I'll take plug and play one step further. I started with an Atari 800 and went through all the mutations up to the Atari ST and bought my first Mac (Centrus 610) in 1993, I not only managed to plug and play every piece of hardware, I converted ALL my PostScript fonts and EPS and TIFF clipart to Mac format. I still use the clipart and Postscript fonts on my Mac G5 day in and day out. Some of that stuff is over 20 years old, but still usable. :-)
I'm talking about hardware ;) You cant take a screwdriver to a mac ;) Yet.

With all the changes that Apple are making to the Mac, they're just another PC, a pretty, overpriced PC.
Looking at the G5 specs, I could build an identical (and better) PC (for less money)
If you think about it, a mac running windows with an intel cpu and an nVIdia graphics card - thats just another PC. Saying Mac vc PC would be like saying Dell vs PC. Even OSX is just another glorified linux distro.
One thing all OS designers should realise (and this goes for M$ too) is that just because you CAN animate something, doesnt mean you should... anyone who has minimized windows on a default installation of OSX should know what I'm talking about there ;)

....yes I have XP set to windows classic mode :p

Nancy

>>>You can't take a screwdriver to a Mac....

I've swapped out hard drives, ram, optical drives, controler cables, video cards, and all kinds of hardware on my Mac(s). I don't understand your objection. I can modify my Mac as much as I want to.

We have a Sony Vio (less than a year old...all the bells and whistles) in the guest bedroom and trying to set that puppy up on the network was a real b*tch! Trying to get it to play well on a D-Link router with 4 Macs, two networked printers and an Airport wireless took two days. I had set ALL the other stuff up on the net in about an hour (and most of that time was spent running some wires through the attic and dropping them down in the closet that houses all the network stuff). I NEVER had to assign ID's to any of the Macs or printers until we added the PC. We'd just add a new Mac and the Net would see it and deal with it. It all just worked!

A house guest recently spilled a glass of wine on John's brand new 15inch PowerBook (he'd had it for about 10 days). The guest ordered a brand new one for John, it arrived the next day (Great service from Apple's online store!) and after upgrading the RAM (about 3 minutes with a screwdriver) and with the use of Apple's "Migration Assistant" and Firewire "Target Mode" booting ability, his new-new Powerbook was fully restored in about 15 minutes. (The house guest got the old-new PB and is currently using it to stream radio throughout his house using iTunes and an Airport Extreme. The screen still shows signs of liquid damage, but the computer is running fine.)

Hi i'm a PC Man :tongue:
Celeron D 1.2 Ghz processor with a gig of RAM, 80 gig hard drive with a Buffalo TeraStation. 2 21inch CRT monitors.
Windows XP Pro service pack 2

two computers - only LINUX on each :happy: since ever ..
today I use two Linux distributions : Fedora Core and Aurox,
and enjoy Open Source applications :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

two computers - only LINUX on each :happy: since ever ..
today I use two Linux distributions : Fedora Core and Aurox,
and enjoy Open Source applications :thumbsup: :thumbsup:


what do you do for photoshop? I hate gimp

who needs, run Photoshop on Linux via Wine (Wine is application,which
translates Linux-commands into windows-commands to run windows applications on Linux).
Of course , not every app will run under Wine, but many graphical will.
For example I use since some weeks Neat Image demo via Wine and it works great.

But my image editor is Gimp.
I use it and I like it :happy:

i used mac for a few years but they just cost to much to update!
i LOVE mac but use a PC.

PC: Athlon 3200+, 80GB Seagate Barracuda, 1GB 533 DDR2.

I use Linux Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) with The Gimp and I'm hoping to buy a cheap graphics tablet soon. I've read most of the threads and there's only one mention of Linux? Ah well, I'll live and learn!! :)

Currently running two PC systems.
Desktop
Homebuilt
P4 3.06Ghz
1.5GB RAM
300GB HDD
19" Asus LCD
Epson Stylus Photo RX530
Brother HL-2040
Windows XP
Adobe CS3

Laptop
HP Pavillion DV6000
Intel Core Duo T2350
1GB RAM
120GB HDD
HP Photosmart A310
Windows Vista
Adobe CS3