Quicksilver shopping list!

[eyoungren]

Two or three times a year my wife and I get an extra paycheck because two or more months are 5 weeks and not the standard 4. So that gives us a little extra.

This week was the first one of the year. So, I went shopping…

Here's what I've picked up yesterday and today.

Now, when we get our refund…the going rate on eBay for 23" acrylic HD Cinema Displays seems to be about $75. Hehehehehehehehe. I WILL eventually get my dream of 6 HD Cinema displays!!!

 

[catzilla]

Nice! I'm pondering one of those ATI Fire cards for my MDD.

 

[robertdsc]

Two or three times a year my wife and I get an extra paycheck because two or more months are 5 weeks and not the standard 4. So that gives us a little extra.

This week was the first one of the year. So, I went shopping…

Here's what I've picked up yesterday and today.

Now, when we get our refund…the going rate on eBay for 23" acrylic HD Cinema Displays seems to be about $75. Hehehehehehehehe. I WILL eventually get my dream of 6 HD Cinema displays!!!

I've had two on my desk and I don't know how you could pull off six of them. The monitors were perfect but the borders around them gobble up so much real estate.

 

[eyoungren]

I've had two on my desk and I don't know how you could pull off six of them. The monitors were perfect but the borders around them gobble up so much real estate.

Well…in the style from JAWS…I'm gonna need a bigger desk!

In any case, here's what I have now. I'm just waiting on one more video card and I can light up the last two displays.

EDIT: I could easily just use some inexpensive modern displays that have larger screens (say 30") but I decided when I got this QS that I wanted to stay period (externally at least). That means 23" HD Cinema Displays at the largest.

I'm cool with that though as I've always liked these displays.

My once concession externally has been my Mighty Mouse. And soon, once I get my USB BT device it'll be the Magic Mouse that I have. I also plan to get a Magic Trackpad at a certain point. But that's about as far as I am going to go.

I thought I'd get an aluminum wireless keyboard, but there is not one full size and I prefer the period keyboard I have now to the plastic white one's (the DNA collector keyboards).

 

[bunnspecial]

I was quite surprised at the size of the 22" ADC display I picked up last weekend-the screen bezel on these does eat up a lot of real estate.

I briefly(for less than 24 hours) owned a 20", and the 22" is noticeably larger. The sad thing about this too is that the 22" is actually lower resolution.

I'm too keeping my eyes open for a 23", since it is indeed the "king" of these.

Some of the Korean LED IPS displays that are(supposedly) rejected panels from other big suppliers look very tempting at a very tempting price. I've been tempted to pick up a matched pair to use with my work G5, especially since the mismatched Dell and Gateway LCDs are driving me crazy. I think they're probably the same panel, but the backlight color is just different enough to be noticeable.

 

[eyoungren]

I was quite surprised at the size of the 22" ADC display I picked up last weekend-the screen bezel on these does eat up a lot of real estate.

I briefly(for less than 24 hours) owned a 20", and the 22" is noticeably larger. The sad thing about this too is that the 22" is actually lower resolution.

I'm too keeping my eyes open for a 23", since it is indeed the "king" of these.

Some of the Korean LED IPS displays that are(supposedly) rejected panels from other big suppliers look very tempting at a very tempting price. I've been tempted to pick up a matched pair to use with my work G5, especially since the mismatched Dell and Gateway LCDs are driving me crazy. I think they're probably the same panel, but the backlight color is just different enough to be noticeable.

I had two displays go out a couple of years back at work. My boss replaced them with cheapie 22" Samsungs. Had them hooked up to the work G5. About a month later one of them developed a white cast to the entire screen. Everything on that display is duller in color that the other. So, I used that one just for palettes and windows.

Cue the MBP, where I discovered that the stock graphic card on it could drive three displays (some Radeon HD thing). Anyway, I managed to wrangle a couple of mini-port to VGA adapters out of my boss and as it turned out our Ad Manager was trying to sell her HDTV that she was using at work. So, I bought it off her for $40 and that became my third monitor at work.

Later, when I got the QS I brought one of my Gateway monitors to work so I could bring the larger HDTV home. Then, when my boss was forced to buy a new display for a new hire who later quit, I snagged that LCD and brought home my Gateway display.

Now, the Editorial Assistant because she used InDesign CS2 on her PC quit at one point and the guy that replaced her lasted only six months or so. So, the day he was fired, I swapped out that LCD for the 23" Samsung that was sitting there.

I find this hilarious because after all that shuffling I ultimately ended up with three Samsung monitors at work. I wasn't trying to get all Samsun, it just ended up that way!

 

[Altemose]

My once concession externally has been my Mighty Mouse. And soon, once I get my USB BT device it'll be the Magic Mouse that I have. I also plan to get a Magic Trackpad at a certain point. But that's about as far as I am going to go.

The Magic Mouse has full support under Leopard 10.5. I wrote a program a while ago to enable Momentum Scrolling like under Snow Leopard and later. The Magic Trackpad however will only work as a basic pointing device on a PPC Mac.

 

[poiihy]

Why do you have so many displays? Do you even use all of those displays at all or are they just for decoration?

 

[eyoungren]

Why do you have so many displays? Do you even use all of those displays at all or are they just for decoration?

Yes, I use them all. Just not always all at the same time.

I'm a Graphic Designer. I work in InDesign, Acrobat, Photoshop and Illustrator all day.

At work I have a three display setup. Main display for documents, left and right displays for palettes.

When I'm in Finder, I have all of my common folders that I need to access at various times to do my work, on the left display. My right display is for my email and folders that I am only opening temporarily.

At home I have the same three display setup for design. Commonly used folders again on the left and right. I intend to use the farthest away monitors for folders that I do not access all the time but want to keep open.

The display that sits above the rest has my email while the other displays will have iTunes and any other stuff I need them for.

Sure…I could stick with just one display, but I don't have to and many designers do not.

Lastly, when I'm all done I can say I have twice the displays the Mac Pro has at work.

 

[Altemose]

You know you are a PowerPC enthusiast when you specifically customize your Mac with a card in every slot to start a home IMAX theatre on your desk...

 

[bunnspecial]

You know you are a PowerPC enthusiast when you specifically customize your Mac with a card in every slot to start a home IMAX theatre on your desk...

The empty PCI slot in my Quicksilver has been bugging me for a while

When I get the one that I just bought from Gavin and get it switched over to where my QS currently is, I may throw a SATA card in it. I don't necessarily need a bootable one, but given what I use the computer for(scanning and photo work) some high capacity storage-especially relatively new production and not the increasingly aging IDE drives we are using- would be welcome.

 

[Altemose]

The empty PCI slot in my Quicksilver has been bugging me for a while

When I get the one that I just bought from Gavin and get it switched over to where my QS currently is, I may throw a SATA card in it. I don't necessarily need a bootable one, but given what I use the computer for(scanning and photo work) some high capacity storage-especially relatively new production and not the increasingly aging IDE drives we are using- would be welcome.

Worst case scenario, just throw in another USB or FireWire card. I have one in my G5 for connecting all of the external hard drive for backups of my photo work.

 

[eyoungren]

The empty PCI slot in my Quicksilver has been bugging me for a while

When I get the one that I just bought from Gavin and get it switched over to where my QS currently is, I may throw a SATA card in it. I don't necessarily need a bootable one, but given what I use the computer for(scanning and photo work) some high capacity storage-especially relatively new production and not the increasingly aging IDE drives we are using- would be welcome.

LOL!

Every slot I have is filled. SLOT 1 (AGP) for the FireGL X3. SLOT 2 is the 9200, SLOT 3 is the 7000, SLOT 4 is the USB 2.0 card (soon to be replaced with a Sonnet USB 2.0/FW 400 card I snagged for $20) and SLOT 5 is my SATA card. Bootable.

I debated getting the USB/FW card because I'm losing 4 ports (2 external, 2 internal). However, I have two USB 2.0 hubs and I would gain 2 more firewire ports. So, that sold me.

 

[bunnspecial]

Worst case scenario, just throw in another USB or FireWire card. I have one in my G5 for connecting all of the external hard drive for backups of my photo work.

Not a bad idea. I have a card in it with 3x USB 2.0 and 2x Firewire 400.

It would be really nice to put a Firewire 800 card in it, although I haven't researched the viability of that.

 

[bunnspecial]

LOL!

Every slot I have is filled. SLOT 1 (AGP) for the FireGL X3. SLOT 2 is the 9200, SLOT 3 is the 7000, SLOT 4 is the USB 2.0 card (soon to be replaced with a Sonnet USB 2.0/FW 400 card I snagged for $20) and SLOT 5 is my SATA card. Bootable.

I debated getting the USB/FW card because I'm losing 4 ports (2 external, 2 internal). However, I have two USB 2.0 hubs and I would gain 2 more firewire ports. So, that sold me.

Since I'm good with two displays(for the time being), here's my current lineup:

Slot 1(AGP): Radeon 9600XT now, although it might get the FireGL X3 when I get it flashed.

Slot 2:empty

Slot 3: Adaptec SCSI card. The external port is connected to slide scanner. I did have a tape drive in the chain at one point, but took it out since I never found any software for it. It also has an internal 50 pin connector that I occasionally use for a quick and convenient hook-up for 50 pin drives(never permanent-mostly just to test or move files around).

Slot 4: Adaptec combo USB 2.0/Firewire 400 card

Slot 5: Motorola WPCI810G Wireless card(Airport Extreme equivalent, and functions just as one would)

I've been informed that my computer desk is getting relocated soon to a large walk-in closet . This actually may work out well-the interior wall actually lines up with a downstairs wall, so it will actually probably be a pretty easy job to drop Cat 5e or Cat 6 cable(leaning towards the latter) between the studs to the crawl space, and then bring it back up against the outside wall where the modem and router are located downstairs. I'm going to pawn the job off on my electrician cousin who owes me a favor and hopefully have two or four cables run(might as well go all out) with the requisite wall plates both in the closet and downstairs next to the router. If I do that, I can dispense with the wireless card and get more reliable internet too.

 

[eyoungren]

Airport cards are pretty cheap now, but I decided against getting one for a couple of reasons. One because of my own download usage and two because the Quicksilver is also the Mac where Time Machine on all the other Macs backs up.

So, I ran a long ethernet cable and put a switch in by the front window. My QS is the only one hooked up to it, but it does provide a convenient wired connection in the living room should I need one.

I had a couple of other USB wireless options but they never seemed to work so I stick with the ethernet.

 

[bunnspecial]

Airport cards are pretty cheap now, but I decided against getting one for a couple of reasons. One because of my own download usage and two because the Quicksilver is also the Mac where Time Machine on all the other Macs backs up.

So, I ran a long ethernet cable and put a switch in by the front window. My QS is the only one hooked up to it, but it does provide a convenient wired connection in the living room should I need one.

I had a couple of other USB wireless options but they never seemed to work so I stick with the ethernet.

The standard Airport card in the QS(the one that goes in the designated Airport slot) is all but useless if you have a relatively new router that uses modern encryption. Airport can support WEP(only) under OS 9, and under OS X 10.4 and later are limited to WPA with TKIP encryption. If your router uses WPA2 and/or CCMP encryption(or some encryption other than TKIP), forget it.

Airport Extreme cards can handle WPA2 and pretty much every modern encryption just fine, hence my using a PCI card that's equivalent to an Airport Extreme in my Quicksilver. I have the QS plugged into a gigabit switch, and it serves as a bridge to a couple of other computers(my G5-in a totally different physical location-is set up the same and is used for the same purpose).

If I can get the Cat 5e drop, though, I can just put the GigE switch in the now "computer room" and plug my QS and a couple of other computers directly into it.

By the way, with regard to the Airport cards, I'll also add that when I take laptops to school, the Airport cards can't even see the schools heavily-managed 802.11x network. My various AlBooks and iBook G4-with Airport Extreme cards-can see them just fine. I have a broadcom-based 802.11g PCMIA card that also acts as an airport extreme card and I transfer between my TiBook and my Pismo depending on which(if either) I'm taking. These cards are handy, and are about $10 on Ebay. It also precludes me from using my iBook G3 at school, since the lack of a PCMIA slot means the add-on card is not an option.

 

[Cox Orange]

I had the same experience re WiFi and encryption, but in my case it had to do with 10.2 by the time, that didn't support the encryption type of the new router with the old USB stick. So for me a low budget USB stick that came with the router works without problems (since I updated to 10.4 a long time ago).

RE: displays, I was investigating displays, too lately and I decided to look out for an IPS panel that is flicker free (doesn't use PWM), because I heard you can work longer with those, because the eyes don't get tired as quick. But it might be a bit of voodoo, because only some people see an advantage, could be, that it has to do with wearing glasses (I do). People with glasses to recognize other effects of displays easier, too.
An architect lately told me, that the newer Apple displays (iMac and MBP) have a stronger blue, hence he uses a BenQ display for work.
I suppose that bluish thing isn't the case in the old cinema displays.

RE: ATI 9200

I have an ATI 9200 PCI original and a flashed 9200 AGP. Erik, didn't you once try the Geforce 5200? Do you see advantages over the 5200? I'm interested, because I played with the idea of getting one some time ago and have no comparison. Maybe a scenario to see a difference would have to be found anyway.

Not a bad idea. I have a card in it with 3x USB 2.0 and 2x Firewire 400.

It would be really nice to put a Firewire 800 card in it, although I haven't researched the viability of that.

I am still searching for a FW800+USB2-PCI-X card. Because my eSATA ports tend to be unrealiable and FW is always reliable. Also PCI-X, so that in Firewire800 I get the full 65MB/s. For FW400+USB2 PCI is ok.
I lately found a FW800-PCI-X card for 8,-EUR (are sold new for 50,-EUR usually ), but I didn't buy it, because I actually don't really need it.

 

[eyoungren]

I had the same experience re WiFi and encryption, but in my case it had to do with 10.2 by the time, that didn't support the encryption type of the new router with the old USB stick. So for me a low budget USB stick that came with the router works without problems (since I updated to 10.4 a long time ago).

RE: displays, I was investigating displays, too lately and I decided to look out for an IPS panel that is flicker free (doesn't use PWM), because I heard you can work longer with those, because the eyes don't get tired as quick. But it might be a bit of voodoo, because only some people see an advantage, could be, that it has to do with wearing glasses (I do). People with glasses to recognize other effects of displays easier, too.
An architect lately told me, that the newer Apple displays (iMac and MBP) have a stronger blue, hence he uses a BenQ display for work.
I suppose that bluish thing isn't the case in the old cinema displays.

RE: ATI 9200

I have an ATI 9200 PCI original and a flashed 9200 AGP. Erik, didn't you once try the Geforce 5200? Do you see advantages over the 5200? I'm interested, because I played with the idea of getting one some time ago and have no comparison. Maybe a scenario to see a difference would have to be found anyway.


I am still searching for a FW800+USB2-PCI-X card. Because my eSATA ports tend to be unrealiable and FW is always reliable. Also PCI-X, so that in Firewire800 I get the full 65MB/s. For FW400+USB2 PCI is ok.
I lately found a FW800-PCI-X card for 8,-EUR (are sold new for 50,-EUR usually ), but I didn't buy it, because I actually don't really need it.

I don't know about the displays you mention. I hadn't heard of that. I do wear glasses, but I've been behind a computer screen of some sort for hours on end since 1980. I suppose you could say I should be able to recognize a bad display then and I suppose that's true. I can certainly see the bad one at work with the white tint to it.

However, I'm a big fan of f.lux, both on my Macs and my iPhone. So blue light has been much reduced. And I do wear glasses.

As to the NVIDIA card, yes, I picked one up. For some reason though every time I try to flash it in a PC it does not work.

The directions I received from Intell were clear, but some sort of variable keeps cropping up that is not anticipated. I've just put it down to the fact that the PC I was using was old. Around that time my 9800 came in though so I set that aside.

In regards to a FW800 card, I didn't realize those existed. I might have looked for one, but then I realize that NOTHING I own is FW800. I don't even own a FW800 cable, so getting that would be fairly useless to me. Maybe at some point, but it's defintely not a priority for me right now.

 

[eyoungren]

Yeah, I know. Overkill. But I like it anyway.

 

[eyoungren]

Because, MR only lets you upload 5 at once.

 

[catzilla]

What is that, about half the resolution of a 5K iMac?

 

[poiihy]

Because, MR only lets you upload 5 at once.

That may change when MacRumors switches to XenForo.
Speaking of which... when is that supposed to happen?