Need Expertise. Have sneaking suspicion I can get that here.

[stoaty35]

backtothemac,

it is a rev B. i wish I was so confident on Director coming to X soon. Macromedia are giving no indication (check out the Direct-L mailing list for this) at the moment, they just say they are working on it.

Not only that, but after initially saying a Flash MX import xtra would be available within 60 days of MX launching, they are now saying (months later) that it is further delayed and give no indication of when that will be.

Funny really - I've been working in new media since '90 and at that point you could *only* do it on the mac, nowadays new media is the one sector that is being punished by the X transition (us and those Quark dudes, who are still waiting).

 

[Backtothemac]

You are right, sadly you are dead on right. It will get better though. We just need to continue to support Apple, and everythign will work out fine.

 

[chmorley]

My 2 cents

Kait--

800 Mhz Powerbook
1 Gig RAM
External monitor (2 months down the road, if you need it)

I have a PB 667 with combo drive. It is more than fast enough (and should get faster with 10.2) for most of what I need to do (which does include some page layout). The PB 800 should be more than twice as fast as your 400.

Just to help you feel like you're not alone:

When I was a freshman in undergrad I was working in the computer lab (1986--before many people had their own computers), writing a paper. The power went out. The woman sitting next to me had been on the last page--page 34--of the first draft of her Masters thesis when the power went out. She was new to computers, and hadn't saved it to her floppy. She just started to cry. I stayed for three hours helping her type it (because she was hot).

The paper got done. We dated a bit. She never failed to save another paper.

Very sorry about your dead soldier. He/she didn't die in vain, though. She/he taught you a lesson that will stick with you.

Chris

 

[Moxiemike]

Originally posted by KaitlynT
To Railthinner:

Oh, how I wish "easily and cheaply" fit into my G4 saga. Here's the reader's digest version:

On the second day of my finals week last semester (Yes, I said finals week. Note Murphy's Law in action) my computer suddenly would not boot up. It was not recognizing my system disk, and giving me the HappyMac/Question Mark at startup.

Frantically, I lugged my tower into the computer tech guys and pled for help. They said they'd check it out and get back to me. Upon returning 3 hours later, with grim expressions on their faces, they informed me that it was gone. All of it .. that they'd never seen anything like it. They ran Drive 10, Norton's, etc ... to no avail.

(At this point, I had to breathe in and out of a paper bag)

The next day, I took it to professionals, the best guys in town. Here's the real kick in the pants: My disk was initialized while in the possession of the tech guys. Inadvertently, I would assume (I would hope!). They told me that by looking at the last date the hard drive was modified.

They tinkered with it, and said they could do nothing. My only hope of getting my data was sending my HD to DriveSavers. (Have I sent shivers down anyone's spine yet?) The diagnostics on my tower? A a failing hard disk and microprocessor.

I never sent my drive to Drive Savers, and just recently, the same computer guys obtained identical technology and offerd to run it on my system. Some stuff came back, not alot. And of course, none of what I desperately wanted came back.

This all makes me sound like an idiot, I know. I never knew the necessity of backup, because I never thought it would happen to me. Hence the need for a computer PDQ. I have only a few months until graduation, and need to recreate my entire portfolio. I have hard copies of everything, but what a pain in the arse. Timeconsuming and a constant reminder of my ignorance.

The only good thing from this is that I'll be the most conscientious backer-upper ever for the rest of my days. And as I'm going into design, that's a good neuroses to have.

Whew ... that felt theraputic. Haven't spoken about my trauma in ages because it's so awful. But this was rather cathartic. Just don't judge me.

Kate

Tech guys at art schools. I'm almost tempted to name names (doc teeth, you know what i'm saying!)

A lot of those cats at our school were VERY jealous, very bitter, very vindictive cats. I knew people who used to magnetize zip disks of kids who they didn't like.

These kids worked in the output lab, and if someone they didn't like came in, zip went blammo. And the resulting "Your zip doesn't work" speech... man. I seriously wanted to out those F***ers.

It happened alot. And it wasn't like this kids did anything to them other than be talented and driven.

Annoying. Maybe the same happened to you.....

Drivesavers must have charged you a mint...we had that happen to a drive at my old ad agency-- 20gb was like, 3500 bucks or something.

glad i didn't have to pay for it.

m

 

[D0ct0rteeth]

Originally posted by Moxiemike
Tech guys at art schools. I'm almost tempted to name names (doc teeth, you know what i'm saying!)

it was pretty bad... A few of them had their head on straight.. but overall they were just like you said. It was a small school and was as political as they get. My click of friends was referred to by many as the mafia .

One of my roomates used to work for the output lab and the thing was they had no work ethic at all. He would work on his own projects instead of printing "customer" jobs. 3 or 4 fourty-dollar large format jobs of star wars posters on a sunday afternoon. They were a bunch of Kinko's rejects.

Fun guys to grab a beer with but definitly not someone I would hire or recommend for a job. Ahh college days.

 

[D0ct0rteeth]

and to stay on topic:

You definitely want a powerbook as you will need the portablity to meet with clients and interviews. Moxie gave good advice. Drop 150 on a ADC converter and you can use your monitor.

I recommend asking Backtothemac for some prices, as he works for a mac retailer. I just bought an iBook from him.

Good luck. Welcome to the forums.

 

[peterjhill]

I don't think I will ever purchase another desktop machine. The luxury of a laptop is well worth the price.

If you have the money, the standard 800MHz Ti book is plenty fine. 40GB of diskspace is plenty, and 512MB of ram is pretty damn good. If you have the money to get more, go for it.

If you don't have the money, then you might consider the iBook. Of course it is only a G3 and only does video mirroring, but it is a laptop, and you can get a combo drive. I will probably get one for my wife. I will make it easy for her to hook up her 17" monitor and an external keyboard and mouse when she is at home. For things llke surfing the web and reading email, it is nice to be able to do that from your comfy chair. For running pagemaker or quark, you will want a bigger screen.

The Ti book is great on its own, but with an extrernal monitor, it is incredible. I am using a 21" flat trinitron (as in the glass has a flat front surface). It is amazing how high your can run the resolution up on an external monitor, 2048x1536@60Hz, or 1920x1200@76Hz.

You might like the desktop, but you will love the laptop.

 

[KaitlynT]

To MoxieMike:

Your post made me laugh ... but it also made me think that the student tech God-Complex must not be exclusive to my school. Of course, that's not meant to be a generality, it's just been my microcosmic experience. I try not to be cynical ... but the student who worked over my tower never seemed to like me, no matter how hard I tried. Must not think the worst ... I can't believe anyone capable of such malevolence.

To All:

I am so pleased at the positivity of all your responses towards a notebook. I really was leaning towards the tiBook, but was fearsome of a massive mistake. It's a big relief that I didn't receive a resounding NO from you all ... I would have been befuddled even more.

I am resolute. TiBook it is. I plan, in an 11th hour pipe-dream, to wait post-MacWorld Paris, just in case updates are announced. This way, I won't eat my head if an update is announced days after my purchase, but I can also take advantage of the edu. discount if not. But any longer, I truly can't put it off. C'est la Vie.

Kate

 

[Moxiemike]

Good choise kaitlyn.

You'll be thrilled with it.

And if you have any future tech questions, i speak on behalf of all of the users here-- ASK US before you go to the techie center at your school.

Those guys would rather pplay starcraft then work for you anyway, right doc teeth???


m