unimatrix

Yeah, you haven't spent much time in a corporate data center have you? That company purchased $12.9 Million dollars worth of equipment & support from IBM. They still had some machines From SUN that were still running Solaris 2 and still supported by Sun Microsystems almost 15 years later! The version of Linux they were running was also SuSE Enterprise with Oracle. It was almost a joint version of Oracle 8i with SuSE at the time. I think they spent almost $1M on just the Oracle software. In the past year we had watched SGI go from a major player in the market to almost out of business. Redhat was still questionable. They were still massively in the Red. SuSE also was still in the Red, but IBM put in writing they would continue to support the Linux Platform through at least 2011. (2001 at the time). With the burst of the tech bubble, there were serious doubts whether Redhat would be in business in the next five years. They are, but I don't hear nearly as much about Red Hat and Linux as I do IBM and Linux these days. Why is the one advertising the E-series on TV? Linux has killed IRIX, put Solaris on life support, and turned AIX into the high-end speciality Unix when stablity and security are the priority. Linux has not dented the SMB market hardly at all if you exclude web-servers. That market is still pretty much dominated by Windows. Why? They already have it and there are far more MSCE's that Linux certs running around. Contrary to popular belief, most small businesses have not had many issues with the NT series of products. There is a serious problem in the Linux community of people seeing it as being the "Elite" OS. Well guess what? Nobody is going to use it if it is for "Elitest Nerdy Smucks". (I would look up the song "Every OS sucks" by the comedy troupe Three Dead Trolls in a baggie. It is a free MP3 download and so very truethful). People use Windows because that is what they are used too. They've used it before and they can go to Best Buy and purchase anything they need, click two buttons and then use it for something. The majority of users don't want to have to bother with some of the problems with Linux. If they want to buy printer, they don't want to have to worry about not having drivers. If they by a program, they want to to put in the CD, have it install it's self and then use it. Despite the flaws of Windows, Windows is the only platform that offers that today. Until someone offers something easier and better, they will continue to use Windows. Linux is the Commercial Server Unix killer, not the microsoft killer. If you look at that 5% - 8% market share of Linux, how many of those units are servers? Probably a large share. When Linux goes up against Apple OS X for home users, OSX usually comes out ahead thanks to iLife and other budled Apple software even though the hardware is more expensive.

The major techincally issue is backwards compatiablity. There are a lot of people with a lot of DVD's that are not going to want to abandoned their movie collection. That alone is what makes HD-DVD a real contender for the next generation of DVD's. Working in the video production business, we are drooling over the thought of 25 or 50GB discs. That would be great to have! But just because it is the choice of the PS3 does not mean it will defeat HD-DVD as the format of choice. Take the number of houses with both a PS2 AND a dedicated DVD player. How many PS2 owners do you know actually use their console for playing DVD's? How many more straight out DVD players have been sold compared to PS2's? I think the big issue they are working on is somekind of transitional technology that would be able to select laser type and play Blu-Ray and older DVD's. If sony can do that and then LICENSE the technology, they will be ahead of the game. Just remember, most people considered BETA MAX to be a far superior technology to VHS, yet which one won out in the end?

Generally around here it is because of kids wanting to be special and like they know it all. Personally, I stop reading any response that is not typed in proper english with proper spelling. Now I will overlook grammer and spelling errors as I mistype more than I care to admit. But as soon as anyone starts using numbers instead of letters trying to be "cool" I ignore them. Another factor is that people that bash newer users have little else to be excited about in their life. I wonder how many of these bashers really have a life outside of their computer screen? I work around computers all day long and the last thing I want to do when I get home is play on them. Hell, I barely check my personal email anymore. When I get home, I want to watch TV, go play hockey, or do something else. Back when I was in college and had more desire to play games online, I played Rainbow 6 online, I used to host a lot of games. As soon as some punk kid would enter and boast about how drunk he was or how "elite" he was using numbers and letters I'd boot him. Other more casual players that were there to have fun loved it and I got a pretty large following of people that enjoyed the fact I controlled my game room trying to have fun. ======I was just in a popular forum for Blender 3D users (won't name it here). I was reading a thread where the someone was complaining that all the users work there was "crap noobie work" and that it really hurt Blender as a professional 3D program. It really ticked the crap out of me because Blender is a great learning tool and there are a few users that can do some amazing work, but most of the people that use Blender 3D do so because it is free where most other 3D animation programs cost hundreds and even thousands of dollars. Anyone interested in getting into the 3D field, I recommend take a look at Blender and try to learn the basics of how Keyframing, rendering, IK engines, and particles work. While those features may have different keystrokes in say Lightwave, the basic principles on HOW they work remain the same. I started with 3D Studio Max in college, then moved on to Lightwave later and came to blender for personal use. Now there are some people that seem to have a gift with these programs and can do some wonderful things. Most others it takes a longer period to learn, especially with blender because the program has extremely poor documentation when compared to commerical applications. Most of the Tutorials are written from the perspective that you already know blender and have been using it since version 1.8. Anyway, the user was complaining until someone when and dug up some his early work from two or three years ago that was pure crap. People start getting egos and want to be known as the king of the mountain. True in any line of work. Most often, the ones that are sucessful are the ones that can make complex things simple. That is basically what I do now. I the technology of our business simple for the office people to understand. "We have no pressing need for the features of Lightwave 9. Let's wait until version 9.1 comes out with any bug fixes before upgrading." "These quad-core Powermacs offer the same power as 5 Xserves on the render farm for one third the price" etc.. One a more personal level, we usually have to trasition office people over to Mac OSX from Windows when they first come here. Some of them can be annoying, but they appreciate it when you will spend time and help them understand why. If anyone remembers the "Nick the computer guy" scetch from SNL a couple years ago...well that is how so many IT act that when true professonals come along, it makes us look like heros...

I work in the video production industry and having a burnable 25GB disk would be nice when dealing with large uncompressed projects, but as far as HD content goes, we're not buying yet.Why? Because the P0rn industry hasn't decided yet whether they are going with HD-DVD or Blu-ray. While Blu-ray offers more storage at the computer level, the fact that HD-DVD players are backwards compatable might be a deciding factor since there are a lot of people with lots of DVD's. This is an issue that we are waiting on the side-lines until we know what our clients will be using and what format will eventually win out.

Here, from my understanding, are the reasons why Apple is moving away from PowerPC to the X86 and specifically Intel. The PPC is a great chip, but IBM is fundamentally shifting its business away from hardware development and production to a consulting business that also does technology R&D. Frankly I believe we will see the day in the next decade when IBM no longer builds hardware. Apple had been frustrated with constant production problems from IBM/Motorola in the G4 series. They both let Apple down consitantly in Quality and speed not being able to deliver either as promised. IBM was really wanting to get out of the PC business altogether. Now I think there are some personality conflicts between Jobs and some of the senior management of IBM there too.During the last few years, the Graphics industry (which traditionally had be dominated by Apple) was loosing ground as more products were tuned for the x86 chips. The fact that IBM could not deliever a G5 for the laptop was the final straw. We are going to a moblie processing user base where Laptops have now outsold desktops. So why Intel? From a business perspective, I would choose Intel too. Why? They can meet the production demands for Apple without any problems. AMD currently is selling every chip they make. I remember reading about 6 months ago in a legal article about the latest AMD anti-trust suit against INTEL that AMD did not have more than a 15% marketshare because they couldn't build any more chips. Even if 30% of the market wanted AMD, AMD could not meet the demand. Their plants were running at capacity and they were selling every unit they were producing. Simply put: Intel can build more chips than AMD. Given that situation, I would have chosen Intel as well. But the real reason was the mobile chips intel is producing and have in the pipeline. For Laptops battery demands life tops performance, but the newer intel chips offer a good combination of both. This is why Intel began stressing performance per watt. As more and more people purchase notebooks rather than desktops, this is the feature that is going to be in the most demand. AMD might be producing the gamers paradise right now, but if a majority of users switch to laptops and will be on the go, as our soecitiy increaseingly becomes more mobile, then battery life is going to be the number 1 feature that businessess and home users will look for in the product. Just remember that for every gamer, 20 times more computers are sold to businesses and regular home users. Basically, if I was forced to buy stock in AMD or INTEL, I'd choose intel.

Listen up kiddos and Uncle Unimatrix will explain what makes the iPod such an attractive device to so many people.First off: Apple created a device that originally did one thing, did it extremely well with an interface that the average user could use. This was a big plus. When iTunes for Windows was released, suddenly 98%+ of computer users had an easy to use Digital Music Package. This included an easy to use player, doesn't take years of programming and computer skills to use, Simple and effective jukebox software, and the iTunes Music Store with simple $.99 per track downloads. Basically Apple was the first ones to get all three right.At somepoint, the iPod also became a fashion assessory. Why? Ask someone that works at a fashion magazine because I can't answer that. I know why it became popular from a techical standpoint: easy to use system, but the fashion aspect just increased sales as it became the "must have" item for many, many people. While other players exist, Apple got it right first and are gaining the rewards of being first on the market with a complete package that offers a fair price for songs with a common sense and well balanced DRM solutiuon so that the studios and consumers both win. Yes, the players cost more than rival units, but we are talking about a luxury good to begin with so people are willing to spend a bit more for quality. You have to understand that the people that use these boards are a tiny fraction of computer users and more at the point tend to be more technically adept. Go up to people on the street and ask them what Org Vorbis is. I'm serious. I bet 1 in 50 know, probably even less than that. Outside of the corporate IT server world, those taughting Linux are often those that are "Anti" anything that is deemed to be "popular". There are also a healthy dose of those that use it because it is free as in beer. Also I am willing to bet that a larger percentage of home linux users are also P2P pirates and commit copyright infringement on a regular basis with movies and music. This comes with over a decade of personal experience around computers geeks. Not to say that there aren't a fair share of Mac users that have pirated copies of Office and Photoshop or Windows users, but there are a lot more grandmas that use their windows computers for email and internet than there are using Linux or Mac.

I am still using Photoshop 6 on Mac. It does everything I need so why spend the money on the upgrades?GIMP 2 has gotten a lot better, but still Photoshop is the hands down winner...

Call me more cynical by the day, but Linux seems to be popular more and more because of a loud screaming geeky fan-base. I used Linux starting back with Slackware 2 on a 486 DX4. Got it to install, but then what? there wasn't a whole lot of useful things I could do with it at the time since I wasn't running a server. Fast forward to SuSE 6.4 (the last Linux distro I used) with the nice GUI installer and useful productivity tools. Still my sound card and printer didn't have drivers, so it wasn't much use to me other than to write and test LAMP scripts. Basically I used Linux to learn Unix basics 101. But it's like drinking fake beer, after a while you want the real stuff. Linux was really my crutch into the world of Unix when I settled on the FreeBSD and OpenBSD operating systems for web-server enviroments. Linux, to me, is a cobbled together hacked mess. BSD is far more structured in development and designed to usually to do one thing and do it well. In FreeBSD, that is as a server. For OpenBSD that is out of the box security. Plus, read the BSD licenses against the GPL. Tell me which product offers more freedom? Linux has seen popularity in the server room of companies because of three letters: I.B.M. If IBM wasn't taughting and offering products and support, Linux would be a damn hard sell to most businesses. I worked at one company that knew that the days of their Sun Microsystems were numbered. They would never have looked at Linux if the equipement and service contracts didn't say IBM on them. They bought into Linux NOT because of Linux, but because of IBM. I think many in the Linux world don't put two and two together on that front. In 2002 I left the world of Linux pretty much for good. The only execption is that our company website is hosted on a shared Linux server from 1and1 internet. But considering my interaction with that is pretty much limited to FTP....Now I use Macintosh. Just about every web developer I know has made the move to Macintosh. Why? Now they could write and test Apache/MySQL/PHP(or PERL) scripts in a native Unix enviroment AND have their Photoshop/Dreamweaver all on one box in one boot. Now they could buy a Powerbook and work from their local coffee shop in bliss. (thanks to WiFi). Manyof the companies that used to purchase Sun workstations have purchased power macs, especially after the G5's came out. A 4Ghz system with 8GB of RAM for USD 6,000 each? Damn that was a bargin considering I remember spending upwards of $20k a seat for Sun Workstations with a quarter of that much horse power. I think it would interesting to do a survey back when Apple was running the switch ads and see the percentage of people that "switched" from Linux to OS X verses Windows to OSX...I think one would be surprised.

I still use Office version V.x. Why? I bought a copy beacuse I needed Excel and Powerpoint. Apple Works' spreadsheet would not save formulas in Excel exported files. And PowerPoint was a must have for me. Keynote wasn't out yet and even with Keynote 2, it is nice, but I still find that Powerpoint has more themes and is a popular business format. So even if my laptop would die, most companies would have PP on a computer hooked up to a projector. Now I didn't upgrade to 2004 simply because I really didn't need too. But that's just me.

I know a lot of people that have PC's for gaming and a Mac Mini linked via a KVM switch for everything else. Although if you want a cheap copy of FCP 4...that isn't such a bad deal (even if probably less than legal technically...

I am sure I ahve weighed in on this topic somewhere else but I will agian.I use Mac OS X on Intel now on a daily basis (we have the developer's boxes). A year ago when this thread was launched I would have said wait for the Mac Mini's with 512MB of ram, well those are here now. I am going to say: wait: the OS X on intel will be out by Feb. So long as your not going to be running Pro Apps (Final Cut Pro et. al.), wait for OS X on Intel.All the iLife Applications work fine, some hiccups, but again, we have the developer's edition...it is supposed to have hiccups.I really can't see spending the money now knowing there is going to be an entire shift away from PowerPC to Intel based chips. People can complain about Apple's Premium Price, but you pay more for a BMW rather than a VW too. Personally I like OS X better than Windows XP. Microsoft is about to release like a dozen versions of Vista in Q2 2006...that is going to be a damned nightmare, but I am looking foreward to the consulting revenue from businesses going, "Okay, now what the hell do I buy?". There is only two classes of OS X: 10.x and 10.x Server. Unless you really need the server side tools, OS X 10.4 will do you justice.

I work at a video production company. It really depends on what your rendering and for what kind of distribution. Now 95% of our stuff is for DVD. Sometimes we do trailers for people to place on websites. We use Sorenson 3 in a quicktime (.mov) wrapper. If you look at QuickTime movie trailers, that is still the codec of choice for online movie trailers.We like QuicktTime because it's a pretty universal format. Windows and Mac users have no problems and linux can get Quicktime content to play if they know what they are doing. Again, we are a nearly 100% Apple shop even to the point where we are using Shake more and more over After Effects. I have never been a great fan of Divx because it requires people to download the Codec fist. Granted you have to download QuickTime player for the .mov, but most computers come with Quicktime, and most users get it with iTunes now in the PC. The number of general users that will go out and download a Codec to watch a trailer, especially for our client's market base, is very small. Since most of the video's we produce are marketing related for businesses, they use these sales videos to try and get more clients and often times the people looking at these videos are not techies and don't even know what a Codec is let alone have admin access to install it. If you say, "You need Apple QuickTime Player", most people either already have it or at least know what it is and most system Admins will allow the program to be installed. Then there was the whole thing about Divx and OSX not always getting along all that well too...

sounds like it could have a lot of practical application for small devices, think iPods etc. For laptops, I can't wait for the Fuel Cells to come out...a little watter, a small bottle of Butane, and 20 hours of computer life...

I don't want to know what his liquid nitrogen bill is....It doesn't surprise me that you could boost a Pentium that fast. I remember seeing the first 1Ghz chips in 1997 when I worked for a small DOD research company. I think the average PC was around 100Mhz iirc. We get sales people into our company from Intel and AMD about every month or so trying to get us to switch from PowerPC Macs to anything based on their systems. Since we are in the video production business, Final Cut Pro is a staple...Lightwave rendering times on a PC vs. Mac doesn't pay enough to warrent us using more than the 4 PC's (including the 2 OSX on Intel boxes we have)...Anyway, the sales folks have hinted that they most Pentium IV chips could be clocked to 5 or 6 Ghz with proper cooling. 7.1 doesn't sound out of the realm of possibility either and that some of the stuff in the development labs can run at 10Ghz+ now. How much of that is true, and how much of it is sales BS....Our Front Office staff now either have iMacs, Emacs, or even Mac Mini's now. 1.25ghz G4 with 512MB is plenty to run Quickbooks and MS Office for their needs and should be for a few years to come. Now our video editors and animations gurus can always use the latest and fastest...anytime you can shave an hour off of rendering or more, that's an hour that a project is completed and we're on to the next project. But unless your an uber gamer or just want bragging rights, what's the point? My Dad still checks his Email on a 56k modem and an AMD k6-2 400 with 96MB of shared ram and Windows 98. Most of us would scoff at that, but it is good enough to check his email, stocks, and read up on the latest news. Processor speeds today are at least 4 years before mainstream applications become bloated enough to require a faster processor.

Try opensourcecms.comThey have a bunch of free CMS's that you can try before you download.If your looking for simple and flexible, I highly recomend taking a look at AngelineCMS at angelinecms.infoMake sure it is AnglineCMS 0.6.5 or 0.8.0 not AnglineCMS-Lite. THe Lite Version is a simple blog tool not a full featured system.0.6.5 seems to have a few more features like a built in image gallery and forum system. 0.8.0 is the latest and seems to be aimed more towards blogging.One of the pluses is it has a flexible template system. I recomend 0.6.5 for the templates as 0.8.0 don't seem to have a lot, but it is really easy to take a basic HTML template and apply it to the sitr with a little CSS.

We have used powermax.com before. They are reliable nad have been in the business a long time.

Really it was Apple that designed computers to be user-friendly so that people could use computers without knowing the ins and outs. I grew up in the DOS/GW Basic days before this point and click feature became available. Hell I remember MS Works 1.0 that you couldn't use a mouse with and had to do everything by keyboard. Microsoft has pulled bad business practices in the past. There were convicted of being a monopoly even if they really weren't punished for it in the US court system. That can all be documented and true. But what Microsoft into some technical trouble was trying to be all to everyone and ending up with a bloated system that did nothing great, but was okay. It wasn't until Windows 2000 that most of the PNP issues were resolved and they had a stable OS. I happily ran Windows on my last PC. Now I'm over on OSX and love it for a number of reasons, but I've had some problems with Apple too. (iBook Logic Board)I've used XP very little, but seemed okay once I changed the theme to the original style. Where Microsoft is going wrong with the next generation of products is that they are confusing things up with all these different "Price levels". Vista basic you can do this, but you need Vista level 2 to run media app, Level 3 for games, level 4 for office apps, level 5 for adanced featuers, etc. Not exactly how it's going to work, but you get the idea. Some people think its' great to have a lot of "choices", but it is going to confuse the hell out of people.Just look at the Xbox360 Basic, Advanced, Complete (system, 2 controllers, games $1,000).I compare this to how Compaq screwed over the DEC ALPHA pricing structure back in 2000ish. We used to use Alpha computers for rendering because they were 64-bit and had high clock speeds. We had 500Mhz machines when most people were buying Pentium 133's. Where are the ALPHA systems today? They are gone. Compaq seemed to have a differnet price for every system that seemed to change weekly (Cisco and Oracle have done this in the past too) . HP finally killed the ALPHA unit a couple years ago because they didn't know what to do with it really. One thing I do like about OS X is that there is two versions: OSX for Towers/Laptops and OSX Server for servers. Frankly OS X Server is really just OSX with easy to use tools. Any OSX system can be turned into a server if you know what your doing (like me from my days as a Linux and FreeBSD admin).And with OSX pricing, if you by an Xserve it comes with unlimited connections, then there is a cheaper 10 user licenes for smaller businesses. That's it. Simple, easy to deal with. That is why I like Mac's at the moment (that and I work for a video production company that uses Final Cut Pro, so we have to like Macs).

http://www.devshed.com/ - although they do a lot more in depth articles and stuff now.Perl.org - well duhPerl is a powerhouse tool. I used it back in the day before PHP because it was the only tool really for CGI programming that was easily available. Still, all our in house OS X applications use PERL installer scripts (okay a couple are python). You can do a lot more with PERL than just web CGI stuff, it is an excellent log/text parsing language...I should say a powerful one. If your looking to do dynamic webpages, PHP I think is the way to go these days, but I havn't touched PHP in a couple years other than installing CMS systems like Mambo.

Depends on what your doing. If your at home and have several computers spread out in the house, say one in the den/office, another in the basement, another in the kids room, then a wireless lan might be the best solution. Certainly the easiest to set up.In a small office, I always advise clients to work with wired networks. It is faster, but mainly the reason is security. It is much harder for someone to get into a wired network that a wireless network because they have to have a remote connetion or be in the building.If your operating wirelessly and things are not configured securely or your in a building where signals can leak, you might get leeches or at worst some one might be able to get an easy in to your systems and sensitive information, like customer information.For that same reason, if your in an apartment, I generally recommend wired because it is more secure and distances are fairly close. In my world of renderfarms, we have to use wired optical connections because we are transferring Gigabytes of data on large video projects anymore.

I played the Rainbow 6 series on computer up until my PC died about a year ago and Ghost Recon. I then got the Ghost Recon 1 and Island Thunder for the PS-2. Loved the games because they were extremely realisic tactical simulations of combat. Graphics were good, for their day, but the game play was fantasic of your a military sim (tactical sim) lover like myself. Then Rainbow 6-3 came out for the consoles. I felt like I was playing an arcade game, not a tactical simulation. The level of customization for the missions, mission planning, the fact in the PC and previous console versions you could carefully choose your team for each mission, all of that was gone in favor of better eye candy. I played the Tom Clancy series of games for their detail to accuracy and once Red Storm sold out to Ubi and Ubi began farming the work out to other studios, the style of the game changed.The very fact that Ghost Recon 2 was never released for the PC really irked me. My friends and I couldn't wait for GR2 to come out. We rented the week after it came out and were horribly disapointed. In games modes you respawned, it was just the two of you, no AI back up. Before, if you died, you could switch to another AI player (if available), once the entire team was wiped out, you lost. Just like in a real mission, once the team is dead, life (game) over.One really couldn't plan missions well in advanced, everything seemed like it was a SOCOMM knock off on Splinter Cell's game engine. The level of detail given to accurately simulating military combat was lost. None of us bought the game and we didn't even bother to rent the next version that just came out. Sorry, but Ubi soft didn't understand what made Rainbow 6 and GR so popular to many people was that it was accurate to the name Tom Clancy. It had a certan feel that was different than most FPS games because you had to think before you shot. Most of the people, like us that like military/tactical sims, have gone to the mod community, but I guess the teenagers with the money that want more Socomm got their game.

I see this alot. I've worked around 64-bit systems (DEC Alpha and Sun Ultra Sparc) systems in the graphics industry for nearly eight years now. People think that 64-bit buys you power and speed, but that is not necessarily the case. First off, to take advantage of 64-bit processors not only does your OS need to be 64-bit, but programs need to be optimized for 64-bit systems. While high-end software, like the Mental-Ray rendering engine, Final Cut Pro, Avid, and other such programs can benefit from the extra horse power, you will actually see a decrease in performance from your old 32-bit applications like Office and most games. We learned this early on with SUN systems. Most of our workstations we purchased were 32-Bit. Why? The Applications we used for design work were horribly slow on 64-bit workstations. In fact we ordered a batch of 5 64-bit work stations, it sucked so bad that within six weeks we ordered 25 32-bit workstations for the department. Now our servers, on the otherhand, were almost all 64-bit systems. Why? Because the 64-bit systems did number crunching extremely well. So in our case, we would model on the 32-bit systems and render/simulate via network on the 64-bit render farm. People that claim that 64-bit chips are "faster and better" oftentimes mistake the 64-bit performance for improvements in clock speed. Back when I worked around ALPHA machines the debate amoungst the techs was what made Alpha so fast. Was it the 64-bit processors or the fact they were 500Mhz or 650Mhz when your average home/office computer was a Pentium 166? Personally I am looking foreward to the next generation of Intel chips. Why? Because of the performance per watt they are aiming for. Everyone that I know with AMD64 systems, and many with Intel P4 3Ghz+ models too, are having major system cooling issues. Just about everyone I know that built a new PC for BF2 had heat issues reguardless of being home built or an ordered custom machine. Most people wonder why I like the performance vs. watt, but I work in an office with over 300 servers in a special climate controlled room about 1800 sq. feet. It costs more to regulate the tempature and humidity in that room as it does for the rest of the 7500 Squarefoot office. When I had a one bedroom apartment, I rarely ran the heat in the winter, I had it set to 65 and rarely ran. But I did run three computers, 1 Dual Pentium Pro 200 server, 1 Quad Alpha 500, and a 1.2Ghz AMD T-bird (With the side off to help cool it). Those three systems put out enough heat to keep my 650Sq. Foot apartment comfy when it was 10 degrees F outside. Personally, I would get an Intel 32-bit machine and wait until there are enough programs and a really good OS to take advantage of the 64-bit system.

We just added six new Dual Core G5 Macs at our office. Each system is like having 4x2.3Ghz chips and the systems scream. Three went to our 3D animation (lightwave 3d Users) and the other three to video editing/rendering tasks. These things scream and the price tag wasn't too bad either (3500 each). Light wave folks picked up 55% performance boost rendering their output and the FCP editors love the systems. They don't have to send their smaller tasks to the Grid anymore, they can render in their booth while taking a long lunch, or midnight snack in some cases. That's good news because then it frees up our Xgrid for other tasks such as Screamernet (lightwave network rendering engine). I wish I had one, but I got the two intel developer's boxes so I guess its even...

Personally I could care less between between ATi or Nvidia these days. For what I need, either card will generally do well. Also note that I use Macs. Generally we've always gone with the ATI cards over Nvidia unless of some technical reason (like the new 30" display requires a Nvidia card). We've never had any issues with the video cards. ATI drivers have always been good on Mac OS X, so I can't complain. On the PC side, ATi has for years produced the best hardware, but crap drivers. Used to have to wait six months for decent drivers for Windows to be released. Also Ati and some AMD mobo chipsets (VIA in particular) don't like to get along with each other.

The flickering sounds like a bad logic board. That is exactly what my old iBook did each time before having its logic board replaced (3 times I might add)A bad contact would be something on the motherboard or logic board was loose. I've seen this with many types of computers and electronis were things get loose and they won't work. Someone with a solder gun that knows what they are doing can be a big help. Fortunately I live around a retired electrical engineer, so I buy him lunch every once in a while for helping with electronic repairs and with my pet projects. I think he just gets a kick out it just to give him something to do.

I am going to do continue to do what I am doing now: For my computer I use an iBook. (Although I might get a Powerbook when the Mactels are released next year). Why? For my email and stuff, the iBook works, it is affordable, lasts about 3 - 4 years before it is time to upgrade, $120 half way through that cycle for a new battery, it is mobile and with the spread of WiFi, I can use it on the road to surf the net or if I just want to get out of my office or house for a couple hours and get a cup of coffee and do work. It is for work and internet/email use. It is for productivity, not entertainment, and it works extremely well for that task. My current generation of Mac towers will probably be my last. Now for games, I bought the PS-2 mini when it came out. I am going to stick with it until no more titles are released and the prices of the next gen consoles come down in a year or two. I don't buy games usually until they are in the $20 value bin either. I am going to wait and see what titles are available when I go to buy my next console. The one with the better titles that I like will get my money. Clear and simple. Sometimes my friend and I will exchange consoles (he has an X-box) for a month or two at a time so that he can play SOCOM and I get to play Halo and KOTOR.