Welcome cross-post
I USED to do website design about ten years ago. Now I do motion graphics design for live shows and some work with online education.
Never thought this kind of producer wouldn't employ some large company for that kind of work. Eh, more job for you
As far as using a Windows machine during a live show, it would take me a while to enumerate the number of times a Windows machine has causes us problems, either because it failed during a show or caused issues in the setup for the show.
Isn't that called "VJ'ing" ? Surely the requirements of real-time effects are much bigger than offline edition. Just curious to know more about usage of Macs outside the scientific field (mine).
On the other hand, I also rely on my Mac for all my jobs, and I don't count the number of time it failed on me. Much less than previous Windows I operated (not necessarily owned), but still: freezing Safari, crashing LibreOffice, half-crashed Finder, frozen password box on screen, and that permanent bug with FireWire drives not restarting after a long idle (Apple and various disk providers keep on blaming each other), leaving me enough time to save everything before closing it, but a pain nevertheless.
I don't like the way Windows organizes files. I don't like the myriad of steps it takes to set up a network or change various other settings compared to how it works on a Mac. I don't have time to fart around with stuff like that.
I do now understand better what a mentor mine said a few years ago before I got my first full-time Mac, in more elegant terms: "I know how to operate a Windows PC, and actually am pretty good at it, but I am more efficient still on a Mac because it's so beautiful. Beauty gives efficiency". He had Tiger running back then.
I've also had many issues with trying to remove a piece of software I no longer want on a PC and I've also had to fix my sister's machine that became unusable because apparently a piece of software installed improperly and she (AND her son AND our brother who actually own pcs) couldn't figure out how to fix it.
Also my part-time job. Often, it gets so boring that I wish I could simply back up each home folder and reformat everything. For many software you spend so much time looking for a solution to cleanly remove them that you could spend less time reformatting.
Apparently you completely misunderstood the teardown because it quite clearly says the cpu, video cards, RAM and ssd storage are all upgradeable.
Graphics card and SSD have proprietary connectors. Therefore, not upgradeable by any standard mean. No room inside for existing hard drives you may have, and no proper Thunderbolt enclosure yet to put them in.
CPU is upgradeable, if you completely dismantle the machine first (losing warranty in the process I guess). Not sure I would want to do that on a brand new $3k+ machine.
American houses built in 1959 have normal wiring and started out with 60 amp fuse boxes but now I have an upgraded 100 amp box with circuit breakers and empty slots for adding more circuits. Wish I had 150 or 200amp boxes for when I fully finish my basement but it's fine for now. What you are describing is more like a 100 year old house.
As we tend to follow US standards very closely, I am surprised. This apt. is only 7yrs older than your house, and is far from uncommon a setup. A friend of mine lives in a early-60's apt. Has been cabled with a 240V input for the stove, but otherwise has 3 ungrounded circuits in a fuse box, but had seen a strangely high rate of failure in her electronic devices that ceased once she ran a large cord from the grounded, 120V stove output. And an electrician girl I dated a while back confirmed most apartments from this era in this city had similar, dangerous setups. I guess they're still acceptable though, as no fire marshall ever took the pain of at least calling me or my landlord back about them.
Never heard of Arecont, either. Tried Arecont.com and got a log-in for an energy company so couldn't look at it. Frankly, I don't know many all-Flash websites, except maybe design house sites... definitely none that are trying to sell things and reach the widest audience. Your favorite websites are very niche and not representative of most sites. Yes, craigslist has a minimal design totally appropriate for what they are trying to do.
Surely I don't consider my examples as being representative. Just sites I come across or have some key feature relying on non-standard technology.
Arecont: pages listing retailers are Flash-only.
The Register: videos can't play without Flash.
Radio-Canada: same.
No, I didn't build non-standards-compliant sites. I built standards-compliant sites that detected non-compliant browsers and used code to compensate for their non-compliance.
There's a limit to compensating IMHO. Standard website for standards-compliant browser, a more basic, but complete and still standard website when a non-compliant browser is detected. And provide manual override links if the viewer still wants to try.
P.S. I just had two bathrooms worked on in my house and both the plumber and the tile guy make way more per hour than I do.
Their max salary will probably much less than yours as you develop your business
