no comment.......

I couldn't care less if it lit up like a Christmas tree, if it works for what I want then it'll do just fine.

dosen't matter if you run we will find you.

I really have no interest whatsover about the look of my computer case. It sits under my desk anyway, and I never look at it.  Now, a laptop, it's different, you see it all the time. Anybody modding laptops?

Brad, as I said. A Dual 500Mhz G4 running OS 9 is faster than a P4 1.4 Ghrz. Much faster. Opening Photoshop, openning a 1 Gig PSD, were 2 to 3 times faster on the Mac. But this could be in part because the speed of HD access is faster on SCSI. So we played the filter test. A large radiant blur on that same 1 Gig image. We figured that kind of operation was almost all processor power in action. Well, as I said the Mac did it rather fast, while I had to Ctrl-Alt-Del Photoshop on mine after a few minutes.

Faster at...what? It's definitely not faster in the universal sense. Faster at Photoshop when running OS9 vs. Windows XP, very possibly. After all, OS9 is an unprotected OS. No preemptive multitasking, no memory protection. XP has all that which takes deliver some overhead.

My 800Mhz Mac running OS X is most definitely slower for day to day use (opening windows, loading programs, converting video formats, importing and manipulating graphics, etc.) than my 700Mhz laptop. And it's much slower than my P4-1.7Ghz machine which cost noticeably less than the Mac.

Lindows 4.0 was released today. (www.Lindows.com) Walmart is selling a $200 machine that is loaded with Lindows. I subscribed after watching the site for over a year. For $99, I have access to a "warehouse" of 2,000 programs and the interface/installer at their end just installs it, no questions asked.

Yesterday, I saw that Tiger Direct is selling a Windows 98 computer for under $400. My little heart flipped and I thought of the $$$ of games in my hall closet that I can't run on Win2Kpro.

Then I thought about how I am spending much time planning on my next build, trying to keep up.

Then I thought about how Microsoft *talks* quality, but they had to build an X-Box when I thought a far superior computer ought to game like there's no tomorrow.

Then I thought about looking at cases that now have digital thermometers on the front, like *knowing* your system is frying will give you some clue as to what to do.

Then I looked at the technology under MS. I was going to say that this is going the way of TV, but let's get real and acknowledge that online porn was never ever mentioned by Microsoft -- still isn't.

I never saw an exploding banner or any advertisement until I started using Windows.

If I could be a Mac person, I'd jump, but they don't have "legacy" parts. Do they even have "parts?"

The difference is how you use your brain. You want to be a tweaker the rest of your life and build rigs and learn about water cooling and installing neon lights in your case, and be a MS Hell's Angel of configuration?

Or, do you want to write a book, or relax with something creative to do?

I started out to be an end-user and I never will be that with Windows; I'll be a crisis junkie who happens to like building stuff, but that is not computing. I'm always just "getting ready" to compute.

I'm going saving for the Lindows laptop, at $799. Linux stability in an affordable laptop... *then* maybe I'll take the money it takes to play X-Box and build a rig for all my "old" games.

I admire Mac, it's a class act. But, frankly, there are a bunch of us who could never compute if we didn't scavange the fallout from the Windows bloated and hyped race to sell more and more, faster and faster.

I'm worn out... feel insulted and disrespected by that company, and what am I really gaining?

I'd like to actually "use" my computer to be creative. heh.

Bess

PJ: we figured as much, so my co-worked had limited memory access to Photoshop to 300 Megs (I have 512 on my PC and no other programs running other than the OS itself and Photoshop), but still, I admit, memory could have still been an issue.

I'd have to check on this, Brad, as I'm not totally sure, but I believe lower end Macs don't have the same kind of processor than the higher end ones. Actualy, I remember reading that lower end e-Mac and I-Macs were total crap. Maybe that would explain why your Mac is slower.