Our company co-locates a server with his company, http://www.xmission.com/. They are great to work with. They were also the first ISP in Utah.
About the geekiest group of guys around. And I mean that as a compliment.
And, though it really shouldn't influence my vote here in UT another cool thing about Pete is that he is a vintage video game collector. For a while they were using an un-used part of the data center for storage of his machines. Plus, you can play a stand up version of one of the Donkey Kongs in the lobby of the data center.
The two Intel iMacs are not design machines. They are for the receptionist and an account exec. Everyone else (14 designers) has dual G5s with loads of RAM, HD space, etc.
Still, I should put 2 gig of RAM in the Intel machines.:-)
We got 2 Intel iMacs here at our graphic deisgn studio and I considered them essentially DOA until I got some more RAM for them. 512MB is NOT enough. Both those machines now have 1 GB and are acceptable and nice.
Don't forget that the Intel iMacs don't have dedicated video RAM. They share RAM with the system. I'm pretty sure that's a huge reason for the slowdown when it's "RAM-poor."
Well, I think I was admitting that I didn't really know squat about cryo, since I asked a question about it!
But thanks for the info on vitrification. I hadn't thought about frozen embryos, kidneys, etc. Obviously there is a way to freeze cells without them bursting.
I still like the word corpsicle better than cryonaut.
And in his future, it didn't work out so well for the "corpsicles."
Their heirs either made of with the dough or society cut them up to use as recycled parts (organ donation).
That's probably not the future the "cryonauts" would like to hear about. Corpsicle is a way better word than cryonaut anyway, and probably more descriptive, since won't their cell walls burst when frozen?
Though Dell's growth curve has tapered off a bit in the last few years. I think they probably see their market share for generic PCs as being about the best it can be. Which is why you see them trying to move into other markets like printers, network switches, crappy music players, etc. They still compete very well in the "white box" PC arena though and I agree, Apple and Dell aren't in the same biz.
Jon's not Hitler. I think what he did was Not Right, and will only further push corporations (Apple, MSFT, Media Companies) further down the road to Palladium-like crap. It was a stupid thing to do. Apple's DRM wasn't that bad. Easily bypassed and very not heinous. Heck, I did it the other day. My wife told me she liked a song, I "bought" it off iTunes, burned it to a CD, ripped it back as an MP3 and emailed it to her. Total time, about 4 minutes.
Apple's DRM is/was a nice balance of easy to use and acknowledging copyright holder's rights.
Which is the argument I think folks like DVD Jon and a lot of FOSS folks seem to forget. The folks that make the music and the movies? The hated RIAA and the MPAA who "represent" the artists? They are doing EXACTLY what they are supposed to do. i.e., protect the rights of legitmate copyright holders. Granted, they use some horrible and ham handed methods to enforce those rights. But they are only doing what they are supposed to do. They (the studio heads, the artists and every single middleman in between) are also SCARED to DEATH of almost all things digital these days. They know how easly bits can move over the wires, unencumbered by payment to the legitimate copyright holders. I'm guessing, but I bet the labels did not want to do something like the iTMS. But they knew they had to do something. The could not just do nothing and allow Napster (circa 2000), et al to eat their lunch. Once the bits hit the wires, any hope they had of maintaing control was gone. Apple's FairPlay DRM, like I said above, strikes a pretty fair balance between usuability and keeping the copyright holder happy.
In my opinion, actions like this will NOT get us, the end user, MORE rights. It will only get more restrictions on things like music and eventually movie downloads.
Slightly off topic,but now my mind has wandered a bit. I work on the fringes of the film industry (I work for a graphic design firm and we do almost all of our business with movie studios) and I get the feeling that those folks are just sort of hoping that Joe-six pack doesn't get Broadband, ever. Like the only thing really standing in way of all of the studios archives being turned into torrents, is the fact that not everyone has broadband yet. Still takes a ton of time to download a movie. It's sort of like security through obscurity, I guess. I just don't think that those guys are on top of the situation. They are seeing that their stuff is hitting the internet and saying,"Hey!! That's very bad! Stop that!" and the MPAA is sueing torrent operators, but they are NOT trying to come up with an alternative. There really does need to be some sort of iTunes for movies and TV. Eventually, bandwidth will be dirt cheap and moving a gig or three of HD data will be trivial. They need to be thinking ahead and saying, "we love making movies! We love that you love our stuff. Thank you. Don't steal! Here: buy the movie for your own personal use via our system. We get paid and you can see the movie/show relatively unencumbered." I think the success of the iTMS (over 300 million (?) song downloads) shows that people will be honest if you give the a way to be. Yes, I used ot use Napster. It was like being a kid in a candy store. But once the iTMS came around, I go there FIRST to get a song I want. And yeah, I might still go to the PtP networks for something I can't get off iTMS. But that's pretty rare lately.
So thanks, DVD Jon, hope you didn't blow it for all of us!
And the the booming voice will continue, "And Professor X has used more than his (her) allotment of toilet paper this week. Initiating emergency protocols."
And then they guys with shotguns come bursting in on poor Professor X.
Note: this is a list for Print Graphic geeks:-) Not FOSS in the slightest!
Adode Creative Suite (technically 3 programs (Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign)
Macromedia Dreamweaver
QuarkXPress (yuk, but I have too much old stuff done in it)
Folding@Home client
MS Office (yuk, because it's from the Dark Side, but it's not really bad software)
BBEdit (the one true text editor!)
Bunch of OS X Server GUI Admin tools
Yahoo Messenger
PC Calc 2 ('cause the icon is an homage to Douglas Adams the Ultimate Answer!)
And if fonts count as programs (which they do, I guess), then I'm doing a heck of a lot more than 10!:-)
Though now that I think about it, it's amazing how much stuff that I use daily is just there in the default OS X install. Mail, Safari, iCal, Terminal, iPhoto, iChat. Perhaps if the 80s and 90s had been different, we'd be complaining about Apple taking over all the world by integrating free (as in you didn't pay anything for it) software.
We just bought a Dual G5 Xserve. I set it up last weekend. In about 4 hours. From my house. In my PJs. All done via Apple's Remote Desktop and Admin tools over my cable modem. Designers came in Monday morning and all their stuff was there and working as if it had always been there.
I know most hard core geeks who regularly SSH into their servers and various boxen won't be impressed by that, but please understand that I work for a decently sized (14 designers) graphic design company. I admin all the G5s and our web server, FTP, mail, etc., in addition to my normal duties as a production artist. I am a "geek" who regularly reads slashdot, but UNIX is not really my forte. I drop into the Terminal occasionally and sudo, but it's not really my main gig. I know enough to be dangerous, basically.:-)
The G5 server is freaking amazing. Open Directory is very nice as well. Say what you want about overpriced hardware (though the G5 server and the X-RAID are pretty reasonable for what you are buying), but Apple does do things pretty well. You get what you pay for in my opinion. Could I have built or ordered a similar machine with Linux or Win2K3 and spent a little less? Probably. We spent about $5K and got 750 gig of storage and a gig of RAM. But the difference in the cost of my time (and headache trying to get it all running) is far outweighed by the simplicity of the Xserve. And the really nice thing is that there is a TON of usabilty built into the Xserve for those who need/want to delve deeper. PHP. MySQL. Open Directory (Apple's LDAP stuff). VPN. It's all there and easily configured or tweaked from the Admin Tools or from the CLI.
It wouldn't surprise me one bit to see more and more Xserves sneaking into data centers. They really do rock.
Hopefully I'll have time this weekend to pop it open and tack it down. I love the little guy, but I have sorely abused it! On a separate note, I don't know how many time I've accidentally yanked on the earphone cord while running on a treadmill and had the Pod go careening and land on the treadmill and then go skipping behind me across the floor. The two pieces of the scroll wheel flying in random driections. I should just find my belt clip.:-)
My original 5 GB iPod has the same problem. The FireWire port is *very* loose. I just haven't had time to open it up and tack it down.
It won't sync with my Mac and I have to twist the cable in order to get it to charge. It sucks, but I kind of blame myslef. I tripped over the cable with the iPod plugged in and the thing flew across the room. The iPod plays music fine, but it sure doesn't like to be plugged in! I think I scared it.:-)
I just checked the price of "Fly or Die" on the iTunes Music Store and the entire album was $13.99 and most tracks were.99 cents. The two "long" tracks (over 7 minutes in length) were "Album Only" as is usual with long tracks.
So I think the article may be incorrect. Though to me the disturbing thing is that lots of new albums with more than 10 tracks are NOT $9.99. Old stuff with 10 or more tracks are $9.99, but it seems that almost all the new stuff is more expensive.
You should be able to get a free (well, US$19.95 shipping) upgrade to Panther if you bought your Mac within a couple of months of the Panther update.
It's called the Mac OS up-to-date program. One quick search from Apple home page will get you a PDF order from. There was probably a couplon IN the box your Mac came in.
NO WAY!
I used to have that album on vinyl YEARS ago. Wonder what happened to it?
"Carpet of the Sun" is a great song. I used to play that one over and over and over again. Never could figure out what it was about, tho. But I was young. Have to see if I can get it on iTunes Music Store. Thanks for reminding me of it!
Just checked, not on iTMS. Bummer. Now I have to decided whether to violate my personal vow never to buy another CD again.
Now I eat a big breakfast, 2nd breakfast, lunch, snack, dinner, evening snack, mid-night snack.
I think you forgot elevensies. (token Tolkien reference!)
I started trying to lose weight about a year ago and I have had enormous success! I've lost over 50 pounds, 6 or so inches off the waist and I had to buy all new clothes. Which, for the first time in a while was actually fun! My wife thinks I look hot, which is also fun.
Basically, I did the "Body for Life" thing, with more emphasis on aerobic stuff. (I run over 30 miles a week, which is more than the Body for Life stuff would have you doing.) I don't really like lifting weights too much, but I like running, even on a treadmill. Though seeing muscles on my body is a weird thing. For a while I would catch a glance at myself in the mirror and not recognize myself. Very odd.
And, I've found that when you burn a ton of calories (like over 800 calories per gym session), it doesn't even matter what I eat. I can totally scarf down pizza and still not gain anything back. But I still try and eat healthy (salads, lots of water, etc.). Losing wieght and getting in shape has been the best thing I've ever done for myself. Hard to do at first, the first 2 weeks about killed me, but I'd never go back.
No, IIRC, the code came from Avid. It was going to be a "mid-range" product for Avid. Apple bought it (before it was done), finished it and intro'ed it at NAB a few years ago.
I could be wrong about the Avid part, though. But I do know that the code did NOT come from Adobe.
We haven't used Premiere in a while, but FCP is very nice. Does everything we need. We'd never go back.
You know, it's interesting, I bought my wife a Canon S400 digital camera for her birthday last month and after we had used it for about a week, she came downstairs with the box and a disk or two in it. She said, "Did you already install this software on the iMac." I said, "Nope, didn't need to."
Which got me thinking. Having been a Mac guy for a long time, I have come to expect things like digital cameras and whatnot to "just work" without much fuss or muss. My wife said, "so you mean you just plugged in the camera and it worked?" Me, "Yep." She, "Amazing." Certainly Windows has software like iMovie and iPhoto, but nothing seems to beat what Apple has churned out in the last few years.
Apple is NOT the savior of the universe, by any means. Be prepared to be somewhat exhasperated on occasion, but mostly they make nice hardware and have a set of software on the machine that really is great. Thousands of great mainstream apps (Photoshop, MS Office, a "smattering" of games, etc.) + amazing development enviroment a free download away + UNIXy goodness is a great combo. You'll never look back. Promise.
I work in a graphic design studio. I run OS X "Dual-headed" with a 17" LCD Studio Display and a La Cie 22" Electron Blue.
The La Cie is the "good color" monitor for Photoshop and palettes, Mail, iTunes, the Dock and everything else goes on the LCD display. It's a nice set-up. The color from the LCD takes a little getting used to, though like lots of folks who "do" color, I am looking at both the CMYK values in the image as much as the appearence of the image. I am much more concerned about the CMYK values. That is a "true" representation of what the image will look like. The LCD is brighter than the CRT by far. Interestlingly, I find that the LCD seems to represent halftones (greyscale images) better than the CRT. But again, I am looking at dot percentage values and thinking about dot ink gain, so the "numbers" of the image are far more important than how the image looks on screen.
Though the LCD color will change depending on viewing angle, they are not as bad as laptop LCD screens, for example. The desktop LCD screen is able to draw tons more power to drive the pixels and there is the advantage that the desktop display doesn't move. Plus I have the LCD screen plunked down right in front of me so I don't run into the viewing angle problems you are talking about. I end up doing all my web-surfing on the LCD screen since the type is TONS sharper than on the CRT. Much easier to read/. on the LCD.
Though I'd probably junk it all if I could get someone to throw a 23" Cinema Display my way. Or, two or three Cinema Displays snaking out of the G4, the geeky graphic designers equivilant of a Beowulf cluster.:-)
Slashdot Mirror
Our company co-locates a server with his company, http://www.xmission.com/. They are great to work with. They were also the first ISP in Utah.
About the geekiest group of guys around. And I mean that as a compliment.
And, though it really shouldn't influence my vote here in UT another cool thing about Pete is that he is a vintage video game collector. For a while they were using an un-used part of the data center for storage of his machines. Plus, you can play a stand up version of one of the Donkey Kongs in the lobby of the data center.
The two Intel iMacs are not design machines. They are for the receptionist and an account exec. Everyone else (14 designers) has dual G5s with loads of RAM, HD space, etc. Still, I should put 2 gig of RAM in the Intel machines. :-)
We got 2 Intel iMacs here at our graphic deisgn studio and I considered them essentially DOA until I got some more RAM for them. 512MB is NOT enough. Both those machines now have 1 GB and are acceptable and nice. Don't forget that the Intel iMacs don't have dedicated video RAM. They share RAM with the system. I'm pretty sure that's a huge reason for the slowdown when it's "RAM-poor."
Well, I think I was admitting that I didn't really know squat about cryo, since I asked a question about it!
But thanks for the info on vitrification. I hadn't thought about frozen embryos, kidneys, etc. Obviously there is a way to freeze cells without them bursting.
I still like the word corpsicle better than cryonaut.
And in his future, it didn't work out so well for the "corpsicles."
Their heirs either made of with the dough or society cut them up to use as recycled parts (organ donation).
That's probably not the future the "cryonauts" would like to hear about. Corpsicle is a way better word than cryonaut anyway, and probably more descriptive, since won't their cell walls burst when frozen?
Traveller!!
Man I LOVED playing that game. But we always cheated and gave ourselves a TON of money/XP so we could just start building a ship, etc.
Though Dell's growth curve has tapered off a bit in the last few years. I think they probably see their market share for generic PCs as being about the best it can be. Which is why you see them trying to move into other markets like printers, network switches, crappy music players, etc. They still compete very well in the "white box" PC arena though and I agree, Apple and Dell aren't in the same biz.
You had me until you pulled a "Goodwin." :-)
Jon's not Hitler. I think what he did was Not Right, and will only further push corporations (Apple, MSFT, Media Companies) further down the road to Palladium-like crap. It was a stupid thing to do. Apple's DRM wasn't that bad. Easily bypassed and very not heinous. Heck, I did it the other day. My wife told me she liked a song, I "bought" it off iTunes, burned it to a CD, ripped it back as an MP3 and emailed it to her. Total time, about 4 minutes.
Apple's DRM is/was a nice balance of easy to use and acknowledging copyright holder's rights.
Which is the argument I think folks like DVD Jon and a lot of FOSS folks seem to forget. The folks that make the music and the movies? The hated RIAA and the MPAA who "represent" the artists? They are doing EXACTLY what they are supposed to do. i.e., protect the rights of legitmate copyright holders. Granted, they use some horrible and ham handed methods to enforce those rights. But they are only doing what they are supposed to do. They (the studio heads, the artists and every single middleman in between) are also SCARED to DEATH of almost all things digital these days. They know how easly bits can move over the wires, unencumbered by payment to the legitimate copyright holders. I'm guessing, but I bet the labels did not want to do something like the iTMS. But they knew they had to do something. The could not just do nothing and allow Napster (circa 2000), et al to eat their lunch. Once the bits hit the wires, any hope they had of maintaing control was gone. Apple's FairPlay DRM, like I said above, strikes a pretty fair balance between usuability and keeping the copyright holder happy.
In my opinion, actions like this will NOT get us, the end user, MORE rights. It will only get more restrictions on things like music and eventually movie downloads.
Slightly off topic,but now my mind has wandered a bit. I work on the fringes of the film industry (I work for a graphic design firm and we do almost all of our business with movie studios) and I get the feeling that those folks are just sort of hoping that Joe-six pack doesn't get Broadband, ever. Like the only thing really standing in way of all of the studios archives being turned into torrents, is the fact that not everyone has broadband yet. Still takes a ton of time to download a movie. It's sort of like security through obscurity, I guess. I just don't think that those guys are on top of the situation. They are seeing that their stuff is hitting the internet and saying,"Hey!! That's very bad! Stop that!" and the MPAA is sueing torrent operators, but they are NOT trying to come up with an alternative. There really does need to be some sort of iTunes for movies and TV. Eventually, bandwidth will be dirt cheap and moving a gig or three of HD data will be trivial. They need to be thinking ahead and saying, "we love making movies! We love that you love our stuff. Thank you. Don't steal! Here: buy the movie for your own personal use via our system. We get paid and you can see the movie/show relatively unencumbered." I think the success of the iTMS (over 300 million (?) song downloads) shows that people will be honest if you give the a way to be. Yes, I used ot use Napster. It was like being a kid in a candy store. But once the iTMS came around, I go there FIRST to get a song I want. And yeah, I might still go to the PtP networks for something I can't get off iTMS. But that's pretty rare lately.
So thanks, DVD Jon, hope you didn't blow it for all of us!
And the the booming voice will continue, "And Professor X has used more than his (her) allotment of toilet paper this week. Initiating emergency protocols."
And then they guys with shotguns come bursting in on poor Professor X.
Note: this is a list for Print Graphic geeks
Adode Creative Suite (technically 3 programs (Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign)
Macromedia Dreamweaver
QuarkXPress (yuk, but I have too much old stuff done in it)
Folding@Home client
MS Office (yuk, because it's from the Dark Side, but it's not really bad software)
BBEdit (the one true text editor!)
Bunch of OS X Server GUI Admin tools
Yahoo Messenger
PC Calc 2 ('cause the icon is an homage to Douglas Adams the Ultimate Answer!)
And if fonts count as programs (which they do, I guess), then I'm doing a heck of a lot more than 10!
Though now that I think about it, it's amazing how much stuff that I use daily is just there in the default OS X install. Mail, Safari, iCal, Terminal, iPhoto, iChat. Perhaps if the 80s and 90s had been different, we'd be complaining about Apple taking over all the world by integrating free (as in you didn't pay anything for it) software.
We just bought a Dual G5 Xserve. I set it up last weekend. In about 4 hours. From my house. In my PJs. All done via Apple's Remote Desktop and Admin tools over my cable modem. Designers came in Monday morning and all their stuff was there and working as if it had always been there.
I know most hard core geeks who regularly SSH into their servers and various boxen won't be impressed by that, but please understand that I work for a decently sized (14 designers) graphic design company. I admin all the G5s and our web server, FTP, mail, etc., in addition to my normal duties as a production artist. I am a "geek" who regularly reads slashdot, but UNIX is not really my forte. I drop into the Terminal occasionally and sudo, but it's not really my main gig. I know enough to be dangerous, basically.
The G5 server is freaking amazing. Open Directory is very nice as well. Say what you want about overpriced hardware (though the G5 server and the X-RAID are pretty reasonable for what you are buying), but Apple does do things pretty well. You get what you pay for in my opinion. Could I have built or ordered a similar machine with Linux or Win2K3 and spent a little less? Probably. We spent about $5K and got 750 gig of storage and a gig of RAM. But the difference in the cost of my time (and headache trying to get it all running) is far outweighed by the simplicity of the Xserve. And the really nice thing is that there is a TON of usabilty built into the Xserve for those who need/want to delve deeper. PHP. MySQL. Open Directory (Apple's LDAP stuff). VPN. It's all there and easily configured or tweaked from the Admin Tools or from the CLI.
It wouldn't surprise me one bit to see more and more Xserves sneaking into data centers. They really do rock.
Actually, there is a Mac version of TurboTax.
I was just at CompUSA yesterday and the largish floor display read TurboTax for Mac. Right by the Quicken 2004.
Of course, they were sold out, so I had to buy H&R Block's crappy TaxCut for Mac.
Thanks for the "tip" :-)
:-)
Hopefully I'll have time this weekend to pop it open and tack it down. I love the little guy, but I have sorely abused it! On a separate note, I don't know how many time I've accidentally yanked on the earphone cord while running on a treadmill and had the Pod go careening and land on the treadmill and then go skipping behind me across the floor. The two pieces of the scroll wheel flying in random driections. I should just find my belt clip.
My original 5 GB iPod has the same problem. The FireWire port is *very* loose. I just haven't had time to open it up and tack it down.
:-)
It won't sync with my Mac and I have to twist the cable in order to get it to charge. It sucks, but I kind of blame myslef. I tripped over the cable with the iPod plugged in and the thing flew across the room. The iPod plays music fine, but it sure doesn't like to be plugged in! I think I scared it.
I just checked the price of "Fly or Die" on the iTunes Music Store and the entire album was $13.99 and most tracks were
So I think the article may be incorrect. Though to me the disturbing thing is that lots of new albums with more than 10 tracks are NOT $9.99. Old stuff with 10 or more tracks are $9.99, but it seems that almost all the new stuff is more expensive.
Spymac.com, running on Linux:
Courtesy of Netcraft.
Seems odd that they don't run on OS X server.
You should be able to get a free (well, US$19.95 shipping) upgrade to Panther if you bought your Mac within a couple of months of the Panther update.
It's called the Mac OS up-to-date program. One quick search from Apple home page will get you a PDF order from. There was probably a couplon IN the box your Mac came in.
NO WAY!
I used to have that album on vinyl YEARS ago. Wonder what happened to it?
"Carpet of the Sun" is a great song. I used to play that one over and over and over again. Never could figure out what it was about, tho. But I was young. Have to see if I can get it on iTunes Music Store. Thanks for reminding me of it!
Just checked, not on iTMS. Bummer. Now I have to decided whether to violate my personal vow never to buy another CD again.
Decisions. Decisions. Decisions!
Netcraft.com reports Apache/1.3.14 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.7.1 OpenSSL/0.9.6 PHP/4.3.2-RC on Linux for www.sco.com.
ir.sco.com is running IIS on Windows 2000 as you say.
Interesting, to say the least.
SCO definitely *is* a part of Canopy.
Novell is not.
Ray Noorda headed up Canopy at its beginning, I think. Maybe that is where you are drawing lines of familial relationship.
Now I eat a big breakfast, 2nd breakfast, lunch, snack, dinner, evening snack, mid-night snack.
I think you forgot elevensies. (token Tolkien reference!)
I started trying to lose weight about a year ago and I have had enormous success! I've lost over 50 pounds, 6 or so inches off the waist and I had to buy all new clothes. Which, for the first time in a while was actually fun! My wife thinks I look hot, which is also fun.
Basically, I did the "Body for Life" thing, with more emphasis on aerobic stuff. (I run over 30 miles a week, which is more than the Body for Life stuff would have you doing.) I don't really like lifting weights too much, but I like running, even on a treadmill. Though seeing muscles on my body is a weird thing. For a while I would catch a glance at myself in the mirror and not recognize myself. Very odd.
And, I've found that when you burn a ton of calories (like over 800 calories per gym session), it doesn't even matter what I eat. I can totally scarf down pizza and still not gain anything back. But I still try and eat healthy (salads, lots of water, etc.). Losing wieght and getting in shape has been the best thing I've ever done for myself. Hard to do at first, the first 2 weeks about killed me, but I'd never go back.
No, IIRC, the code came from Avid. It was going to be a "mid-range" product for Avid. Apple bought it (before it was done), finished it and intro'ed it at NAB a few years ago.
I could be wrong about the Avid part, though. But I do know that the code did NOT come from Adobe.
We haven't used Premiere in a while, but FCP is very nice. Does everything we need. We'd never go back.
Welcome to the Land of "Everything Just Works"
You know, it's interesting, I bought my wife a Canon S400 digital camera for her birthday last month and after we had used it for about a week, she came downstairs with the box and a disk or two in it. She said, "Did you already install this software on the iMac." I said, "Nope, didn't need to."
Which got me thinking. Having been a Mac guy for a long time, I have come to expect things like digital cameras and whatnot to "just work" without much fuss or muss. My wife said, "so you mean you just plugged in the camera and it worked?" Me, "Yep." She, "Amazing." Certainly Windows has software like iMovie and iPhoto, but nothing seems to beat what Apple has churned out in the last few years.
Apple is NOT the savior of the universe, by any means. Be prepared to be somewhat exhasperated on occasion, but mostly they make nice hardware and have a set of software on the machine that really is great. Thousands of great mainstream apps (Photoshop, MS Office, a "smattering" of games, etc.) + amazing development enviroment a free download away + UNIXy goodness is a great combo. You'll never look back. Promise.
I work in a graphic design studio. I run OS X "Dual-headed" with a 17" LCD Studio Display and a La Cie 22" Electron Blue.
/. on the LCD.
:-)
The La Cie is the "good color" monitor for Photoshop and palettes, Mail, iTunes, the Dock and everything else goes on the LCD display. It's a nice set-up. The color from the LCD takes a little getting used to, though like lots of folks who "do" color, I am looking at both the CMYK values in the image as much as the appearence of the image. I am much more concerned about the CMYK values. That is a "true" representation of what the image will look like. The LCD is brighter than the CRT by far. Interestlingly, I find that the LCD seems to represent halftones (greyscale images) better than the CRT. But again, I am looking at dot percentage values and thinking about dot ink gain, so the "numbers" of the image are far more important than how the image looks on screen.
Though the LCD color will change depending on viewing angle, they are not as bad as laptop LCD screens, for example. The desktop LCD screen is able to draw tons more power to drive the pixels and there is the advantage that the desktop display doesn't move. Plus I have the LCD screen plunked down right in front of me so I don't run into the viewing angle problems you are talking about. I end up doing all my web-surfing on the LCD screen since the type is TONS sharper than on the CRT. Much easier to read
Though I'd probably junk it all if I could get someone to throw a 23" Cinema Display my way. Or, two or three Cinema Displays snaking out of the G4, the geeky graphic designers equivilant of a Beowulf cluster.
An idea whose time has come!
Build a house entirely from materials "repurposed" and purchased via eBay.
Some one with too much money and too much time on their hands needs to get on this idea, STAT!