What kind of computer setup do you do restorations on?

[Kenny]

Tell us what your setup is, or tell us what would be your dream setup....or both :P



Mine is an HP Pavillion. 2.9 ghz P4, 512 mb ram. I run dual hard drives. My monitor is a standard 17 inch crt. I use an HP cordless laser mouse.



My dream setup: Custom built by me with an AMD dual core 64 processor, 2GB ram, dual 250 GB hard drives, GeForce 7 series video card, 30 inch monitor and an Intuos graphics tablet.  (I can dream, can't I?) :p

[glennab]

Hi Kenny

I'm struggling right now with a Mac G3 300 (gHz) that I bought 8 years ago.  I have a Viewsonic 17" monitor and am working in Photoshop 7 on OS9.2, because my processor won 't accommodate OSX.  It all gets the job done, but definitely in slo-mo!

If one is going to wish, it might as well be BIG.  I'd love the Mac G5 Pro.  If I remember correctly, it's a quad processor CPU and each processor is about 2.5 gHz.  I'd max out the ram (I think they can accommodate a gig and more) and get the latest operating system, which I believe is Tiger (OSX.4).  I want an Apple 30" flat screen monitor (I have a 23" at work, and it's incredible), a Wacom tablet (I understand 6x8 is plenty large) and Adobe's CS2 Graphics Pro Creative Suite.

I'd have an office in which I could, as I do now, be with my cats -- but sans the fur balls! (That's just asking to much, but since I'm dreaming...)  And Smoke, my silver girl, would learn NOT to jump on the back of my chair and startle the daylights out of me while I'm working on restorations. And Aaron Neville wouldn't walk on my keyboard constantly.  (And yes, I do have a cat named Aaron Neville -- ironic, since the guy who's named after my cat has been a New Orleans fixture forever.)

Let's see - winning lottery ticket, more time, 30 again -- Oops!  We were talking computers, weren't we!

Anyway, I hope Santa is paying attention!

Best to you!

GG

[Kenny]

The G5 Pro sounds awesome. What got me to thinking about what kind of setups we have is an article I read the other day. It said that most computer people think about the processor, etc...but the monitor, keyboard and mouse ends up being an afterthought most of the time. The article went on to say that those three items should be first on the list, as they are the three things that you come in contact with most.

I would love a wide screen monitor. On my 17" monitor I find that my palettes cover up my image a lot. I can always hit the Tab key and make them disappear while I'm working, but it would be so much nicer to have more screen space I would think. I do like my laser mouse as far as mouses go. My wife says it's too touchy for her liking, but I love the precision. My keyboard...blah. It's the stock HP keyboard, and now that I look at it...it could use a good cleaning (yuck)

As far as keyboards go, I prefer a standard layout. I've worked on Ergonomic keyboards and liked them, but never felt compelled to buy one for my own computer.

I'd love to see some screenshots of Photoshop in use on a big monitor.

Maybe Santa will be good to me too!


Kenny

[Veronica]

Hi Kenny,

I have an HP Laptop 3.20 ghz with 512 ram.  I love it!  It is kind of large for a laptop with a wide screen, but I enjoy it.  I have my home wireless so I can compute from anywhere which is nice.  I also use a WACOM tablet for graphics.

My dream computer would be the same...just newer.  lol  :funny:

[Kenny]

I'm glad at least someone has their dream system already  ;D

I've used a few laptops. I absolutely despise using a touchpad for a pointing device. I just can't get used to it. Still, there are times I could really use a laptop.



Kenny

[glennab]

Kenny:

I wonder about the concept of the article you mentioned.  Yes, the items with which we communicate to and received information from our computers are important, but to not first consider the CPU to me is like saying, "oh, yeah, I work great - I have strong arms, nimble hands, sharp eyes, a large head - but no brain!"

Well, on not-so-good days I DO feel like saying that (without the superlatives!)!

Seriously, without the "brain," what could we do?  And darn it, I want an Einstein!!  I'll still try to get the best equipment I can to talk to him, but HE's the one I want first and foremost!


GG

[John]

The G5 Pro sounds awesome. What got me to thinking about what kind of setups we have is an article I read the other day. It said that most computer people think about the processor, etc...but the monitor, keyboard and mouse ends up being an afterthought most of the time. The article went on to say that those three items should be first on the list, as they are the three things that you come in contact with most.

I would love a wide screen monitor. On my 17" monitor I find that my palettes cover up my image a lot. I can always hit the Tab key and make them disappear while I'm working, but it would be so much nicer to have more screen space I would think. I do like my laser mouse as far as mouses go. My wife says it's too touchy for her liking, but I love the precision. My keyboard...blah. It's the stock HP keyboard, and now that I look at it...it could use a good cleaning (yuck)

As far as keyboards go, I prefer a standard layout. I've worked on Ergonomic keyboards and liked them, but never felt compelled to buy one for my own computer.

I'd love to see some screenshots of Photoshop in use on a big monitor.

Maybe Santa will be good to me too!


Kenny

I read that article, too! http://www.slate.com/id/2149179/?nav=tap3  (I think it was the same one anyway...)

[Kenny]

What the article was talking about is computer geeks who only focus on how fast their machine is, while at the same time they have really crappy keyboards and a monitor so small you have to squint to see it. They were basically saying "spend just a little bit more money to make sure you have a decent keyboard, mouse and monitor and things will be so much easier".

I've been guilty of it too. I was using a ball mouse that was so worn out it skipped all over the place. A nice mouse isn't that expensive and if your'e going to go through the trouble to build/buy a nice computer, go the extra mile and get nice interface devices too.

I can't find the article now or I'd post it, lol.


Kenny


*edit. While I was typing this, John posted a link to the article. Thanks John :)

[milanab]

I have an Emachine with an integrated graphics card.  I am getting ready to install a GeForce 6600 graphics card, I am told will make my graphics much better than they are currently.
current system:
Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2800+
Memory: 960MB RAM
Card name: NVIDIA GeForce4 MX Integrated GPU
Acer AL1914 19" LCD Monitor 
Her name is Mabel 
   :)  I call her the exiled computer due to the fact that I am in room with no tv...no company...)except for a moon crab missing a leg, I will picking up tomorrow to replace a goldfish of 7 years :'(  )  The rest of my household is in the in the geek cave  :loveit:  with 2 new computers, a tv, and various aquatic life.
The  systems in there  are pretty powerful
19" monitors,
AMD Opteron dual-core processors,
Radeon 1900XT graphics accelerators,
2,046 MB of RAM each,
DirectX 9.0c,
and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion disks soon to melt into the DVD drives.
They, hubby and son, are gamers - can you tell???

[Kenny]

Nice setup, Milanab.

My poor computer has 512 MB of ram and I sure could use more. If I'm working a lot in photoshop and then quit, my computer lags really badly and usually just log off and back on to fix it. I know there are plenty of RAM tools that would help with this, but I really haven't hd much luck with the ones I've tried. The easiest fix would be more memory, but I don't have the coin right for it. One day, though....



Kenny

[milanab]

the "new" graphics card is coming off of my sons old gateway that we upgraded before purchasing the new ones.  hubby was leaving one job and thought he  was going to another.  we got a decent check to sort of purchase some " dream items" and found a local computer shop who built these two systems for what one was going to cost through alienware or a similar place.  then the job fell through... but now he is back to work full time and the thing i was dreaming of has to wait a while ...i destroyed my digital camera about the time i got accepted at 2 stock photography sites...so i need my camera.  but we have bills to catch up on first.  we wouldn't have had the extra to do it either had this check not been there.  he had saved all his vaction and sick time and got a pay out when he quit.  but COBRA insurance took care of over 3500.00 of that check so there wasn't much left to splurge with after all.

[Kenny]

The GeForce 6600 is a nice card. Your son must be a gamer. I play Wolfenstein ET and my integrated graphics get me killed a lot  :funny:

[milanab]

i get killed alot in the games and it has nothing to do with the computer... :mad:  yep hubby and son are big gamers.  oblivion,world of warcraft,star wars galaxies,half life2 .  right now oblivion is the ruling world.

[SoleAngelus]

I have a self built P4 3.0Ghz, 1Gb of RAM, dual 250gb SATA drives (faster than IDE), AGP GeForce 6600GT, and a 17" CRT all that is running windows xp Pro.

My dream machine would be an over colockedd AMD chip to 5Ghz, with 3gb of RAM, Directx10 graphics card, and a physX card.

Plus maybe one of these moniters : http://www.seamlessdisplay.com/products_horizon320.htm

:P :)

[Kenny]

I have a self built P4 3.0Ghz, 1Gb of RAM, dual 250gb SATA drives (faster than IDE), AGP GeForce 6600GT, and a 17" CRT all that is running windows xp Pro.

My dream machine would be an over colockedd AMD chip to 5Ghz, with 3gb of RAM, Directx10 graphics card, and a physX card.

Plus maybe one of these moniters : http://www.seamlessdisplay.com/products_horizon320.htm

:P :)

I like the cut of your jib  :up: