A 'puter, I has it
Sometimes I wish I was an OS-nazi. I'm not. I appreciate Windows and the abundance of software available to it as much as I like the neat structure of OS X. I admire Apple's design as much as I don't care about a tool's aesthetics. I like that you can buy an expensive beautiful, functional object, or go for raw power for peanuts. But it all makes it harder to choose what to buy.
I think the current iMac is ugly and the Mac Pro too expensive. I considered doing away with desktops completely and getting a really good laptop. The MacBooks are so tempting, but perhaps not powerful enough, the Pro's... really, I'm not prepared to lay down that much cash. And since I already have two (old) laptops, getting a third seemed extravagant. I want the old ones to break down before I upgrade. So... Macs were out, laptop out, PCs were in. A new dilemma. Intel Pentium, or AMD Athlon? Brand or brandless?
In the end, money talks and practicality motivates. 1. I didn't want to spend too much. 2. The only memory-sucking tasks I do are image editing in Photoshop and some audio encoding. 3. I don't play games.
AMD is a little cheaper, but the Pentium chips out-perform Athlon when it comes to Photoshop (even the Pentium D apprently does better than Athlon's dual cores), so I needed an Intel based machine with a card reader, a big harddisk, a run of the mill graphics card. No need for a sound card, I still have an unused Soundblaster Audigy 2.
After much agonising I decided I didn't want Vista on the machine. I have been using it at work and the number of programs that failed to work on it was frightening. So the Acer machines I'd been looking at were off the list. In fact, all brand PC's were off the list since they all come with Vista pre-installed.
I finally ended up with an offer from 'Computerland', next to 'Paradigit' and 'MyCom' and all the other hardware stores on Ceintuurbaan, Amsterdam's own mini-Tottenham Court Road. Conveniently located about three stops up the road, across the river, on the tram line that goes through my street. Yes, it did feature on the ' pro's ' list when I bought the house.
I think the current iMac is ugly and the Mac Pro too expensive. I considered doing away with desktops completely and getting a really good laptop. The MacBooks are so tempting, but perhaps not powerful enough, the Pro's... really, I'm not prepared to lay down that much cash. And since I already have two (old) laptops, getting a third seemed extravagant. I want the old ones to break down before I upgrade. So... Macs were out, laptop out, PCs were in. A new dilemma. Intel Pentium, or AMD Athlon? Brand or brandless?
In the end, money talks and practicality motivates. 1. I didn't want to spend too much. 2. The only memory-sucking tasks I do are image editing in Photoshop and some audio encoding. 3. I don't play games.
AMD is a little cheaper, but the Pentium chips out-perform Athlon when it comes to Photoshop (even the Pentium D apprently does better than Athlon's dual cores), so I needed an Intel based machine with a card reader, a big harddisk, a run of the mill graphics card. No need for a sound card, I still have an unused Soundblaster Audigy 2.
After much agonising I decided I didn't want Vista on the machine. I have been using it at work and the number of programs that failed to work on it was frightening. So the Acer machines I'd been looking at were off the list. In fact, all brand PC's were off the list since they all come with Vista pre-installed.
I finally ended up with an offer from 'Computerland', next to 'Paradigit' and 'MyCom' and all the other hardware stores on Ceintuurbaan, Amsterdam's own mini-Tottenham Court Road. Conveniently located about three stops up the road, across the river, on the tram line that goes through my street. Yes, it did feature on the ' pro's ' list when I bought the house.
Their 'Advanced Power' (made in China) machine offered a lot for its price, 499 euro. An Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2 GB of memory, a 320 GB HD, an NVIDIA GeForce graphics card (overkill for my purposes), the much needed card reader and a nice wireless keyboard. It comes without the monitor you see in the picture.
It's not even that ugly, looks better than my previous one. There's no OS on it, and I plan to install Windows XP Pro on it. Best of all... no delays, they had five of them in store and I carried the machine home on the tram.
I'm still typing on my old PC. I've yet to figure out how I'm going to transfer my stuff. Burn to disk, set up wireless network, buy cables? The motherboard has two SATA and two IDE slots, so I think that means I can install my old hard disks. (See, I don't know much about the inner workings of computers). I've also got to figure out how to switch off audio on the motherboard so I can install my Sound Blaster card. At first glance it seems a case of disabling it in the BIOS.
Anyway... that's how I came to buy my cheapo new PC.
I'm still typing on my old PC. I've yet to figure out how I'm going to transfer my stuff. Burn to disk, set up wireless network, buy cables? The motherboard has two SATA and two IDE slots, so I think that means I can install my old hard disks. (See, I don't know much about the inner workings of computers). I've also got to figure out how to switch off audio on the motherboard so I can install my Sound Blaster card. At first glance it seems a case of disabling it in the BIOS.
Anyway... that's how I came to buy my cheapo new PC.
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