no name ... err didn't mean to specifically reply to someone.

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friend has used the 3 and prefers pentinum ... he says "it feels faster" ... oh well, I got oodles of mac friends but those who use and can use wintel are much fewer. The can use are about 1 in 10. The other 9 are stuck with what M$ gives em.

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openoffice + gimp + sketch ...

In the end, I ordered the following...

LG Flatron 17" [a completly flat monitor -- how cool!!! ! :-)]
PIII 866
40 GIG hard disk
512 MB RAM
Atron (?) graphics 32mb card (supposed to be good?)
Sound Blaster Pro (wish speakers)
CDRW/DVD
1 GIG Ethernet Adapter
Standard Keyboard
IntelliMouse
Minitower casing.

All for £610. A good deal, I think! :-) I'm happy with that. Can't wait for the delivery now! An early Christmass! :-)

- wil

Someone sent me this earlier:

IBM is extending the use of its "pixie dust" technology to a new line of
high-capacity drives to be announced Wednesday. Technically called
antiferromagnetically coupled (AFC) media, so-called "pixie dust" introduces
a thin layer of the element ruthenium onto the disks inside hard drives,
where data is stored. AFC disk densities are expected to reach as high as
100 gigabits per square inch by 2003, which translates to hard drive
capacities of 400 GB for desktop drives, 200 GB for notebooks and 6 GB for
IBM's one-inch Microdrive.

I've got one of those monitors... pretty good monitor.
What about a motherboard?
Atron? never heard of it. Get a GeForce 2 MX 200. Those are really cheap and good.
Sound Blaster Pro?! That's one old sound card ;) Get a Sound Blaster Live! Value
Why the 1gbit ethernet? Is your lan even wired up for 1gbit ethernet?


Adrian

100mbps should be fine for most lan's

Yes, the LAN is capable of that speed. I 'built' that LAN myself. We brought a few G4 Macs before building the new LAN, and as the new G4s have 1gig ethernet cards in them, we based the LAN around this. We do a lot of graphics work, and we need to be able to trasnfer large amounts of data and files very quickly. And, I was in charge, so I figured why not?

The hub has 20 normal 10/100Base ports and 4 gig ports. There's one gig port going free <g>.

Is that monitor decent enough? I've got a Sony Triniton at the moment, and it does tend to kill my eyes if I've been sititng at my desk too long. The flicker on it can become real bad. Tried adjusting the refresh rate but no joy.

The reason for the cheap sound card is that I do not feel the need for anything better at the moment. I never listen to any sound on my PC while in work. At home, that's a different matter.

Can you tell me more about the GeForce?

Wil

Currently, i'm at 1152x864@85Hz, and I can spend many many hours (like I already do) in front of the monitor But it's all a subjective thing. Some people can put up with 640x480@60Hz on a 17" If you do graphics work, why not a 19" or bigger?

Then just go with onboard sound. Most motherboards nowadays have sound built into the chipset.


Adrian

I'm not heavily involved with the graphics side personally. I'm more technical develoment and I don't really see the need for a 19" monitor at the moment. I might change my mind, though!

I'm going to go with this monitor then and see what comes from it. It seemed a really reasonable price for a flat monitor.

The motherboard does have basic sound support built into it, but the guy I'm dealing with threw in the SoundBlaster and a set of speakers as a bonus. I feel a little cheeky telling him to keep his soundblaster for a slightly bigger monitor ;-)

Thanks for the advice.

- wil

how about 2 monitors? I got an apple (not the flat one ) studio 17" and an old sony multiscan 17sfii to hold most of menus and and open windows.

the sony is getting old and is getting to stare at for a long time ... It's still running at least

I've sat behind 19"s and 20"s but ... I still like the dual setup situation.

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openoffice + gimp + sketch ...

Yeah, a few designers I know have dual monitors, and prefer this set up to large 22" monitors. Never tried it myself, and I don't really see the need to at the monent. I could of gone with a bigger monitor now, but feel that the 17" is more than enough for my line of work.

- wil

I stayed away from the bigger monitors at the time since production of 19"+ was still on the marginal side. I had to many friends that sent their monitors go haywire ... technology eh! I'm really glad I did 2 instead of one.

open up a terminal on 1 screen and have the other looking at a browser version, really nice to work on html / script work too! No digging around for those windows any more

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openoffice + gimp + sketch ...