PC or Mac

[DarkPenguin]

Try mozilla thunderbird for email.

[Craig Lamson]

One more update:

All printers and scanner drivers have been loaded, tested, and work great!
CS3 loaded and works great!
MS Ofc 2003 (Word & Excel) loaded and works great!
Reloaded Avast and it works great!

Now for the other stuff….

Eye-one display 2 failed ….
Spyder 2 failed ….
There’s no way in hell that I like the “new improved” email and will just continue to use the old system on my XP Pro machines.  Very minor problem…

Did some more research and found that Spyder 3 has been released (yes it runs on VISTA 32/64) so just ordered it $198 w/shipping.

All told this little experiment has cost me the price of VISTA Ultimate ($250) and a new color calibration tool ($198).

The system has been up and running now for 2 days and it appears to be running faster than it ever did in x64.  I opened CS3, loaded all the updates, set my preferences, open a couple images and just generally kicked the tires a bit this afternoon.  I’m impressed!  If thing keep going the way they are I think I’ll finally have a decent stable system to do my work on.

Tomorrow I still have to load LR and 1 or 2 other programs.

One of the great things that happened when I ordered this system from Dell last year is that it came without any bloat-ware – I installed all the programs I wanted and didn’t have to uninstall any that normally comes with the computer.  Might have helped that I ordered this through their small business section…..

Okay enough for now.  As I told a good friend of mine earlier this evening I’d rate the experience so far at around 9.25 out of 10.

Thank you all for all the responses and advice given, it looks like I’ll be sticking with the PC after all!

Best to all

don
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I thought that eye-one had new vista 64 drivers available?

[Richowens]

I thought that eye-one had new vista 64 drivers available?
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 Yes, version 3.6.2, available on the X-Rite web site for download.

 Rich

[dandeliondigital]

Hi Don,
I have used Apple Mac's a long time. It's never been as good as it is now! For me, with Tiger X.4.11. (Others with the newest OS X.5.1 Leopard may have other thoughts).

I've run all major Adobe Graphics apps since about 1987, and use CS3 Suite and some other apps like Corel Painter XI. Also use a lot of Photoshop Pluggins (and unfortunately there are a few that I can't run, but the good news is those pluggins are being updated for the Mac OS X in the near future). I also use Color Management Software for profiling monitors and printers. Plus all the usual Apple iLife and iWork apps which take care of fun and business. Oh, I left out FileMaker Pro for databases. itunes for my entire CD collection runs on a dedicated Mac Mini that I run headless and control with Apple Remote Desktop. Apple provides powerful disk utilities to set up RAIDs, and it's all been great. I hear that running Windows under the Mac OS is better than Windows ;-)

I have one production machine running without a crash (major or minor) for 5 + years, and the newer one for 2.5 years which is on 24/7, and I only reboiot after software installs, and all the while I've been using Apple's Software Update to keep the Systems at the latest iterations, and they perform virtually flawlessly. I do make sure the latest system software is stable by first installing it on a less important iMac first - just to be sure I don't get sniped by a rogue update.

I have a lot of friends and they all use Windows and (it seems to me they wish it were either 1995 or 1998 again). What stories they tell!  Every one has lost their entire computer because of fatal crashes. They all have lost data, and their attitude is usually oh, well, it was bound to happen. (I can't believe how afraid of computing they all remain - hello, it's the 21st century).  I'm sure problems happen on Mac's too (maybe I'm extra lucky), but I am very impressed with Apple's latest Hardware and Software offerings. I am much happier on a secure platform that btw has just been purchased by the US military because they are sick of playing with the pirates and hackers.

Good luck with whatever you decide to purchase. At any rate it will be work. New equipment always is, but from personal experience, I know Macs are much less IT and a lot more ART. I am into ART, and IT for me is a necessary evil that is wearing a friendly face thanks to the hard working and skillful creatives at Apple, (and Adobe).

So long for now, TOM

[Don Libby]

This will be my last update:

All in all I’m pleased and surprised with the results.  While most of the surprises have been in the plus side there were (as in all endeavors) a few on the minus side.

I started this upgrade path late Thursday afternoon and by this afternoon (Saturday) I would say that I’m 99.99% complete.  All my drivers for the printers, scanners, fax, monitors have been installed, tested, and work as they should.  I still have some minor tweaking to do but as it stands now, if I had to produce a print for sale I’d say that I could.  I’ve installed CS3 and LR both of which are now updated with my preferences in place.

The negative side (if you care to look at that way) is that I’ve had to upgrade my DVD burner and printer software, but I needed to do that anyway.  Thanks to Rich, I did find the patch to my Eye-One Display 2 software and was able to calibrate the monitors but have decided to still upgrade to the Spyder 3.

Speaking of monitor calibration:  I have 2 graphic cards each capable of 2 DVI connections.  In the past (Win x64) I could only calibrate 1 monitor on each card.  Now with VISTA Ultimate 64 I am able to calibrate each monitor connected to every card, what that means to me is that my 2 Dell monitors (both connected to the same card) are now calibrated individually as well as my Wacom on the other card; great for my workflow.

I’ve said it before and I think it needs repeating, the system appears to be running much smoother and faster.  This was not an easy exercise to do and not for the faint of heart.  I had decided early on that I needed to at least attempt doing this while I had a window of spare time.  I thought I had a large printing job (a 30x60 canvas panorama) to do shortly after the holidays but have since learned this afternoon the client can’t make up their minds and may order more than one!

I’m tired of being the IT guy for Iron Creek but I guess that comes with all the other perks.  I’ve had this system now for about 18 months; I’ll wait for another 18 months before deciding if I need to switch platforms.  Unless something changes in the meanwhile, I think my next production system will be an Apple – got to make my life easier!

So this is the end of my updates.  Once again, thank you all for allowing me to share my pain.  

Happy and Safe Holidays!

don

[Tim Lookingbill]

Don,

It's always satisfying to hear a system update go so well.

Now clone that entire HD to an external HD and keep it safe so when things really go wrong you don't have to long for the good 'ole days of December 2007 several years from now.