New computer rambling

[jnantz]

Yup, I bought my first Mac in 1987. Currently have eight Macs. Guess they're still committed to computers other than handheld.

we stick with macs here too ...
got our first in 86 and have had ... a bunch of them .

[Tin Can]

Just in case you didn't notice. I use both Mac and Win.

Neither is perfect.

[Jac@stafford.net]

we stick with macs here too ...
got our first in 86 and have had ... a bunch of them .

For the most of my last position before I retired my employer made certain that I had the top-of-the-line Mac every year, and let me keep the ones I found most useful so I ended up with a few at a time. What a roller coaster ride! It was pretty good until Apple lost its mind after Jobs left and Apple had an irrational line with some poor components. So, since 1963 when I met personally with Steve Jobs and his friend, Bob Noyce a couple times for brain-storming sessions, I've been a hands-on Mac guy.

Today at home it is much more modest with a laptop air, an iPhone and an iPad.

Remember the Macintosh IIfx of 1990? $12,000!
The Power Macintosh 6100 DOS? (I think I got that right) Yes, DOS as well as Mac, shared RAM and disc. I still have that one in storage.

I put up our first web server in 1995 using a stack of 'pancake' Macs that handled demand using DNS Load Balancing, a tactic that worked very well for the early, simplified NCSA clients, and was not good later with more sophisticated clients. Funny, because that year our Internet connection to the world was slow 64 kbit/s X.25 that was rather familiar since I had much earlier programmed the billing system for a (or the) major phone service provider.

Ah, the days when I had a brain.
Today I am fond of slowness. Film for the most part. Simple.
.

[Tin Can]

I am transitioning to stand up computer bench, with adjustable stool for occasional sitting. It is working out well and I save space by putting the box, second scanner, drives, below and have my V700 on my right ready to use anytime. I will be using twin ASUS monitors on a double arm stand, perhaps one vertical and one horizontal. I am waiting for the stand. The bench is 16" X 65" and 39.5" high. It's mounted to a hallway wall, in unused space. Tripods store underneath.

Made from free 1-1/2" bamboo, all I did was round the corners. This Italian modern stool was free also. I scavenge most household items.

[Corran]

...perhaps one vertical and one horizontal.

I've tried that before, didn't like it. But maybe it'll work for you.

Right now I'm considering buying a Surface 3 Pro tablet for on-the-go computing, especially audio/video/photo editing. I have a lot of work coming in. I would like to make it work as a wireless second monitor with my computer at home, but I don't know if it's possible! I have big pro audio speakers setup in an equilateral triangle at my desk, which precludes using dual monitors in the normal fashion.

[Leszek Vogt]

Randy, you could go to nearest Fry's (@Downers Grove, IL), which appears to be 15mi W. of Chicago...and likely find something digestible there. I got a real nice Acer and they stripped all the bloatware and installed 32GB of memory (max that the machine can take)....and they tested the rig repeatedly....soo I wouldn't have any issues with it. So far so good...and it's been around a year since. Good luck.


Les

[Tin Can]

Randy, you could go to nearest Fry's (@Downers Grove, IL), which appears to be 15mi W. of Chicago...and likely find something digestible there. I got a real nice Acer and they stripped all the bloatware and installed 32GB of memory (max that the machine can take)....and they tested the rig repeatedly....soo I wouldn't have any issues with it. So far so good...and it's been around a year since. Good luck.


Les

Thanks for the advice. Fry is about 45 minutes each way. I have bought from them in the past. Costco delivers, gives 2 year warranty and will take it back up to 90 days.

I ordered it NYE, should be here in 10 days. I have had good luck with all my computers, over 18 years, never a hard drive failure, one motherboard fried, that Sony replaced in my kitchen in 20 minutes. I used to use the buy at work program and bought a new one every 18 months. They had great deals with interest free automatic payroll deduction. It was their way of getting their workforce computer educated. It worked! But I'm retired.

I will burn it in immediately and make it work hard for at least a month.

I am way over due for a new box, and this one is the cheapest yet, even all maxed out with upgrades.

[Richard M. Coda]

Go to an Apple Store and have a look at the new Retina iMac... very impressive. I bought a 27" iMac Christmas 2013 so I'll have to wait another year, but bought the 15" Retina MacBook Pro this Christmas to replace my aging 17" MBP. The retina display is beautiful, especially for photography.

[Tin Can]

Go to an Apple Store and have a look at the new Retina iMac... very impressive. I bought a 27" iMac Christmas 2013 so I'll have to wait another year, but bought the 15" Retina MacBook Pro this Christmas to replace my aging 17" MBP. The retina display is beautiful, especially for photography.

I'm done with new apples. Too expensive and too closed an environment.

I am on my AIR 11 right now, maybe I will replace the SSD, as it's old.

Since Adobe is now cross platform and I can buy a way faster and cheaper Win box, that's my path forwards. Speed is what I want for affordable rendering.

The OS no longer matters. They are nearly the same.

Monitors I have are great.

[Tin Can]

Took 10 days to get the Costco HP Envy 700. Since I have never done any of the mods I just did, it has taken me several days to do it. I installed a 500 GB SSD $200 and a GEFORCE GTX 750 graphics card $130. Lot's of tips online that omit basic ideas for newbie. I wrote replies to MS help as they were obscure also. Cloning drives is phooey and a waste of thought.


Several tips that are not obvious.

Do one change at a time. I did, but in the wrong order, read on.

You can turn off and disable your old video drivers and the display will work good enough to use the monitor and install new display drivers after you physically install the new card. This freaked me out as nobody says the darn monitor will continue working if you remove and disable drivers. DUH! One sentence would have saved hours. Experts are blind.

Next install the SSD, connect it up as a spare or slave. Leave the main HD alone. Now FORMAT the SSD.

Don't clone, just find the obscure WIN8.1 widget where you copy your recovery files to a bigger than 16GB USB thumb drive and then leave that USB plugged in the computer. Shut down, swap the Sata data wires between the old drive and the new drive and THEN allow recovery to re-install everything onto the new SSD from the still plugged in USB. Once you click that final recovery button it finds it own way. Wait for a while. Go watch TV. Then check it works all a few times and finally reformat your old drive to use for backup.

Before I did all this I backed up all my pictures and video to Google Drive and a local NAS.

However do the HD swap first as the old display drivers will be re-installed and confuse the new graphics card until you repeat all my first steps.

Now this thing works very well.

Tonight I install all software. AND I need to remember on this box to allocate Lightroom and Picasa storage to USB 3 external drives. LR and Picasa can get crazy if you don't save to the permanent storage place.

This is my first USB 3 computer and external USB 3 storage drive and they are amazingly fast. The NAS is on the ATT dog slow wired network. But it works and will be the primary backup, then Google cloud and lastly the internal spare drives. The USB3 external will be for active use.

This probably is no help to newbies and a joke for experts, but it works for me.