Switching from Windows to Mac

[Daniel Moore]

To replace Ram on the mini you rotate the bottom cover and let it fall away. There's the Ram, right there. couldn't be easier.

[Brian Ellis]

Well you would know whether it was relevant if you had read the original post, which asked about the new iMac, not the Mac Pro. But since you say you have no idea what a Mac Pro is, and apparently didn't bother to find out before posting, I guess nobody should expect you to have read the original post either.

As for the Business Week story, which you are referencing several weeks after it was published, despite not knowing, according to your own account, anything about the product that the story discusses, it is part of a media phenomenon that produces four or five Apple rumours per day. If your goal in life is to peddle rumours, cool, but if you're going to do that, maybe peddling current rumours, instead of ones that are at this point stale, might be more entertaining.

Good grief, relax man. I didn't say anything derogatory about Mac computers or Apple or anything related to Apple. There obviously are a number of Mac users here so I thought some might find the article interesting even though it deals with a computer other than the one the OP asked about. It never occurred to me that anyone would find it so offensive that they'd feel compelled to write a two-paragraph message castigating me for posting it. If you didn't like it all you had to do was ignore it.

[Daniel Moore]

I want to point out that with an i1 Display Pro, ColorMunki Display and Spyder 4, similar tuning of device to monitor (colorimeter correction, especially with wide gamut monitors)can be accomplished with Argyll CMS. Argyll is cross platform and has a nice GUI in the form of DispCAL, also cross platform. There's lot's to read to get this set up, it's not for the lazy, but nor is it particularly onerous, just need to RTFM. And boy is it powerful, not to mention flexible and capable of the utmost quality. Oh, and did I mention open source? It's that too.

Jim, the sensor you are speaking of is a custom calibrated iOne by X-rite for use on wide-gamut displays with SpectraView II. It is called the MDSVSensor. Calibration of a compatible NEC monitor with SpectraView is basically a hands-off operation. It even installs the resulting profile and sets it as the default in both Windows and Mac. I use SpectraView and the NEC sensor and my calibrations are right on the money, every time. It was worth the added expense, in my opinion.

The NEC P and NEC PA series multisync monitors use hardware calibration: the LUT's are stored in the monitor itself, so they are not dependent on the video card. The profile is stored on your computer in the default location for color profiles.

--P

[Daniel Moore]

Can no longer edit that post but I'd add, there are other compatible devices, but these are the easiest to do it with.
Now, what was that topic, again?

[Big Fish]

Greetings ....

In the event you're interested I just wanted to keep you posted on thinking process regarding switch from PC to MAC. I am well aware of the MAC advocates and the quality of MAC monitors. However, the cost to switch all software is a problem and the learning curve ( I am learning other things at my age and don't added activties...although I understand curce is not that big). Still underdecided but bottomline if I can deliver the same quality print with PC why change? The MAC selection is not difficult but reviewing PC and monitors has been a bit time consuming as I do not stay religiously abreast of computer/monitor technology. Currently interested in ASUS CM6830 with new i7 processer, 16 GB Ram, ITB hard drive and a NEC 27 " monitor PA271W. $2000.

Thanks fro comments.

Big Fish

[photobymike]

Greetings ....

In the event you're interested I just wanted to keep you posted on thinking process regarding switch from PC to MAC. I am well aware of the MAC advocates and the quality of MAC monitors. However, the cost to switch all software is a problem and the learning curve ( I am learning other things at my age and don't added activties...although I understand curce is not that big). Still underdecided but bottomline if I can deliver the same quality print with PC why change? The MAC selection is not difficult but reviewing PC and monitors has been a bit time consuming as I do not stay religiously abreast of computer/monitor technology. Currently interested in ASUS CM6830 with new i7 processer, 16 GB Ram, ITB hard drive and a NEC 27 " monitor PA271W. $2000.

Thanks fro comments.

Big Fish

Good greif thats a lot of money... i paid 800 for used MAC Pro and it is light years faster than my daughters i7 sony laptop. Photoshop taks 30 seconds to appear open on my daughters laptop. ....less than 10 seconds on my computer.... changes to very big picture files happen instantaneous.... it is just down right fast.

Well anyway consider a Apple monitor on your very expensive PC .... 23" Cinema cost me used 150 dollars and it "color tuned" really well for printing.

[Jim Andrada]

If you want an Apple monitor in the old fashioned wide screen format as opposed to the extreme wide screen the movies like, it will have to be used. They just decided to only make one form factor becaue - well they're Apple.

[Preston]

...MAC Pro and it is light years faster than my daughters i7 sony laptop. Photoshop taks 30 seconds to appear open on my daughters laptop. ....less than 10 seconds on my computer.... changes to very big picture files happen instantaneous....

I don't believe one can really compare a consumer-level laptop's performance to a machine such as Mac Pro. The CPU is not the be-all-end-all of performance. One needs to take into account the amount of RAM and it's speed, the video subsystem (upon which PS depends greatly), and hard drive speed and it's cache size. Also, a laptop, or any computer for that matter, will throttle back the CPU and video clock speeds and ramp up fan speed under heavy load so that they will remain cool. Laptops, in general tend to run hot, so even with a multi-core CPU, performance will take a hit.

My machine, a PC with an i5 CPU and 16 GB RAM, will open CS6 in about 1 second. A 1.2 GB PSD file will open and be ready to go in about 7 seconds. My PC, which was custom built by Puget Systems, cost less than $1,900, including shipping.

Also, the monitor the OP is considering is well over $1000, so the Asus PC itself is not really that expensive.

I think we need to be careful when making comparisons between platforms and form factors in discussions such as this.

--P

[Big Fish]

I don't believe one can really compare a consumer-level laptop's performance to a machine such as Mac Pro. The CPU is not the be-all-end-all of performance. One needs to take into account the amount of RAM and it's speed, the video subsystem (upon which PS depends greatly), and hard drive speed and it's cache size. Also, a laptop, or any computer for that matter, will throttle back the CPU and video clock speeds and ramp up fan speed under heavy load so that they will remain cool. Laptops, in general tend to run hot, so even with a multi-core CPU, performance will take a hit.

My machine, a PC with an i5 CPU and 16 GB RAM, will open CS6 in about 1 second. A 1.2 GB PSD file will open and be ready to go in about 7 seconds. My PC, which was custom built by Puget Systems, cost less than $1,900, including shipping.

Also, the monitor the OP is considering is well over $1000, so the Asus PC itself is not really that expensive.

I think we need to be careful when making comparisons between platforms and form factors in discussions such as this.

--P

Thanks to all. @ Preston. I am in NorCal and am comparing custom built with off the shelf desktops no laptops. A comparable custom built for what I mentioned above is about $1125 where as the ASUS is $825. The NEC is $1150. A CS one second opening is fine with me and so is the 1 GB file PSD. I would consider the Puget Sound shop but too far away with service if needed. The ASUS has been getting excellent reviews. MAC system not completely out but doubtful and definitely do not want used equipment as a primary source of reliablity.

Thanks.

[photobymike]

Big... I my opinion a used Cadillac is better than a new Chevrolet ..... Look up the reliability statistics on MAC.... You can buy a MAC Mini quite reasonable. Even the base price MAC Pro is about 2400 and it screaming fast compared to most PCs. Ok get a PC and put Snow Leopard on it. My son did this to his ASUS laptop..... he loves it

I have tried both MAC and PC side by side for 4 months. i5 Sony 8 gigs ram... and a G5 quad MAC with 16gig ram. The bigest problem the Sony had was it was not a 64 bit machine.... would only use 3 something gig of ram.....