Macbook Pro vs. Dell Inspiron 9400

This was a burning question for me. I recently had an opportunity to purchase a new PC and I had decided that a mobile solution would best suit my needs. I was in the market for a laptop specifically intended for use in my work in the graphics industry. I thought long and hard about the Macbook Pro, and eventually decided to go with a Dell Inspiron 9400. I could get the exact same hardware specs for less money, and although I couldn't get iLife with my purchase this was not a great concern because of the numerous freely available applications available for Windows that served the same functions. I use Audacity, for example, instead of Garageband. It's not as good, maybe, but it serves the purpose.
I love Apple computers, and I love OS X. I would trade my Dell for a Macbook Pro under ordinary circumstances. But Boot Camp was not yet available, and Parallels wasn't either. So I made the right choice at the time. And the Macbook Pro wasn't shipping with a 1920x1200 widescreen either.
Now that it's possible to boot Windows on the Macbook Pro, and Parallels has made it possible to run OS X, XP and Linux simultaneously, I might be regretting that choice. But not so fast - let me tell you abouyt my experiences with my Dell.
It rocks. I got the model with an ATI X1400 256 video card, its not as good as a 7800 but I recently took my Inspiron to a LAN battle and kicked ass. And all of the apps I use for graphics are available for Windows. So what are my regrets? None.
I have a rock solid mobile graphics workstation and APlle missed the boat when I had money to spend. Sorry, Steve. Maybe if you hadn't been so secretive about Boot Camp I might have gave you my money.

PC Help

HELP for Windows XP users

I am not going to try to help users of Windows 98 or any earlier version of Windows. Anyone who got sucked into buying an old machine loaded with '98 gets my full sympathy, but you're on your own. Especially if you are using a dial up modem. It wasn't too long ago I was running '98 with a modem, and I spent more time troubleshooting and fixing these things for my friends and family and their friends and family that I was putting the local PC retailers out of business in their support business. It was horrible. So, my sincere apologies but you'll get no help from me. Upgrade to Windows XP (or get Linux or a Mac) or go home.

Windows XP users

I am a Mac user at work, and I'd run a Mac at home if the price was right. In the meantime I am running Windows XP and I have a few "standard" suggestions for others using Windows XP.

1. Hardware - You NEED high speed internet. And you NEED at least 512MB or RAM. If you don't have these two things you'd better upgrade, because there are mountains of Windows updates to install (thus the need for High Speed internet) and Windows uses up a 256MB RAM stick without blinking.

2. Installation - at last count, installing and updating Windows XP leaves you with 26 vulnerabilities and viruses. That's no joke, you'll need to install antivirus and ad-ware and spyware protection software right away. FIRST, however, is to get rid of Internet Explorer IMMEDIATELY. Don't uninstall it, just don't use it. Fire up Internet Explorer one last time, point your browser to Mozilla.org and download the latest version of Firefox.

3. The good stuff. OK, now you should have Firefox installed. Always use Firefox. There will be times when a link or application launches your internet browser and chooses Internet Explorer instead of Firefox - whenever you get a popup that asks you always choose Firefox. After a while the Internet Explorer links will all be cnverted to Firefox links. Once in a while Internet Explorer will run. Be very careful when using it - hackers love Internet Explorer and it's far easier to hack than Firefox.

4. Antivirus, adware and Spyware - Launch Firefox and go to www.snapfiles.com. Click on the freeware link. You will see categorized listings of all kinds of software. Choose Security software and ther are headings for Antivirus, Specialized antivirus, Adware etc. In these sections you will find several helpful little programs. AVG Antivirus. Avast Antivirus. Antivir. Spybot Search and Destroy. Adaware SE Personal Edition. Spyware Blaster. I personally install all of these and run them for a full scan after updating. Then I disable them all in my msconfig setup. Then I run regular updates and system scans once a week. I also scan EVERY download, EVERY email attachment, EVERYTHING that is even remotely unknown in origin or intent. I have been wiped out by a virus only once in my life, and it was from a virus on another user's machine on my home network. And I was completely unprotected and never had a virus before that. Careful surfing and browsing will keep you relatively safe. Having a router is crucial. It provides a HARDWARE firewall to protect you against intrusion.

5. Common Sense. As I eluded to in the last paragraph, you have to pay attention. Don't download attachments from email, and don't open email from people you don't know. And don't open FORWARDED email from people you DO know. Often these are sent by email worms that your friends have on their computers. Delete them, and tell them to follow the steps in this blog entry.

Ill be back later to add more to this topic.

What to do with my old PC?

My old PC sat on my desk for over two weeks after I put Morrowind Oblivion on my new laptop. I started to wonder if I was ever going to use it again. Fact is, I want to spend my time using my new machine, not that olld clunker.
Specs: AthlonXP 2600+, on board video (I fired my GPU and I am waiting for a hand me down GPU to use as a replacement -->got a 5700 Ultra coming soon!). 2GB of DDR, 160GB HD, M-Audio Delta1010LT sound card, Roland reference monitors, LG 15" LCD, BenQ dual layer DVD burner, firewire card.
Normally I would have sold this machine because it is still relevant and could be a great machine for many users who would be happy to pay afew hundred bucks for it, and that's a lot of beer for me.
But no. I need that Delta1010LT sound card for playing and recording music. And that 160GB hard drive would be great if I could store files on it over my wireless LAN.
Enter XAMPP. I had tried a CD bootable Linux disk in my desktop PC a while back, and after figuring out how to convert German nto English I was mildly impressed. After throwing that away, I decided I would try running Linux as a dual boot, just to "experiment". Unfortunately I messed up the install process (Fedora is not a smooth installl for "new to Linux" users) and lost my Windows partition. Thank your god of choice for DVD backups! Anyway, I ended up running Fedora on my desktop for about a month or so and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Then I started to miss some of my favorite graphics apps that were PC-only and I put Windows back on.
XAMPP lets me run Apache easily under Windows. It also comes with PHP 4 and 5, an FTP server and a mail server. Once I got the laptop I didn't want to spend too much time setting up the server so XAMPP was a fast and easy way to get it up and running. In the near future I will think about going back to Linux, but for ease of use I will be using XAMPP for now. Thank you, apache friends!!!

My Rig

I just got a new Dell Inspiron 9400 about a month ago. It is a sweet machine. Those who know me might be aware that I have been somewhat critical of Dell for loading up their computers with Windows and a truckload of memory-hogging applications before shipping them out to consumers. I wonder if they include that same software bundle that was using 480MB of RAM when I first booted my Dell, in the Dimension XPS gaming machines they send to PCGamer and other reviewers...?
Anyway, I got a Dell in this case because they were first to market in Canada with Duo Core processors and 1920x1200 17" widescreen laptops. This is not a blazing fast machine and was never intended to be. I use my computer a lot, every day, usually for 3 or 4 hours a night after work (I know, I have no life), and I wanted something comfortable to work with. I also wanted mobility, so I can digitally record y Band, Twefth Replica, and so I can hang out at my co-producer's house so we can work on our animated film. I also wanted mobility so I can attend LAN battles at my boss' house a couple of times a year. It will also come in handy if another teaching gig comes up.
Now for the machine itself. For $2700 CDN including taxes and shippinng I got a 17" WUXGA (that's 1920x1200 folks!) screen with a nice coating, an Intel Core Duo 1.83ghz (times that by 2), 1GB of 533mhz DDR2 RAM, a dual layer DVD burner, wifi, an ATI X1400 256MB video, a laptop case, power supply and XP Home license.
The first thing I noticed about this machine was that it was extremely bogged down out of the box. The software bundle and Windows install as configured were using 480MB of memory. After a half hour of uninstalling and restarting I got that down to 155MB. That's not as good as my desktop tower PC that runs at a nice smooth 97MB on boot, but it gets me in the ballpark.
Right away I was blown away by the screen. I had forgotten that the screen on this thing was the reason I gravitated towards Dell in the first place. The picture is rich and vibrant, there is no "ghosting" in any games, and the amount of screen real estate that 1920x1200 prvides is enough even for me, and I'm a guy who has had as many as three monitors on my home desktop at once! (Currently I have four screens at my workstation at work).
The next thing I noticed was the second day I had my Dell Inspoiron 9400 was that the ATI X1400 graphics card was more than I had expected. I am a guy who used to rave about ATI when I had a P3 800mhz with an ATI All-In-Wonder Rage 128 with 32MB of memory. But then I "fell into" a Radeon 7000 series card and I did a complete 180. The Radeon cards were terrible when they arrived, with buggy drivers and huge memory problems, including a tendancy to overtax the CPU when gaming. When I got rid of my radeon I went to GeForce MX 64MB of some kind and it slaughtered the Radeon in every way. Since then I have had a few GeForce cards and all of them have served me well without a hitch. I also find that GeForce cards are more "upgrade friendly", meaning they are usually compatible with future generations of games long after an equivalent generation ATI card becomes extinct. The ATI X1400 in my Dell Inspiron is NOT a great gaming card. It can't even be called a gaming card. It's just a low-end (albeit "next gen") graphics card for laptops and was never expected to perform well in gaming. Back to my story, the night after I got my Dell I was at my friend's house watching the Chronicles of Narnia with his family and I dowloaded the Narnia game demo from NZone and started it up while the movie was still playing. Needless to say I was blown away by the graphic quality and the smooth playback. I immediately ran out and bought Morrowind Oblivion and two weeks flew by before I knew it. I have just added Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter and all my friends are freaking out because it won't even run on their machines. I would have been disappointed if it didn't work on mine, but I would not have been surprised. So I installed GR3 and it plays great. can't run ot at 1920x1200 with full screen antialiasing, buty by keeping the resolution medium-low I can play with full graphics effects and get pretty smooth gameplay. It's a sweet game, by the way.
Pros: WUXGA screen is gorgeous. ATI X1400 surpasses expectations. (A coworker5 has the 7800 Geforce version in his single core Inspiron 9400 and it is slightly better than mine for gaming).
Cons: Loaded with crap from Dell. Delete and uninstall is time consuming. Heavy to carry.

Mission

I am going to try to cover a few different subjects with this blog. First and foremost is to provide a sort of FAQ, actually more like a checklist, for novice and intermediate PC users to check when they are having trouble with their PC's. This is not a help FAQ for Windows XP, but I have to get that out of the way. I get a lot of help requests from friends and family, as well as co-workers, and the vast majority of them get the same stock response from me.
Other uses for this blog are to review the hardware and software that I use, as well as to provide tips and tricks for various graphics applications, and also to showcase some of my work, including test reels for an independant animated film I am working on. Ultimately this blog will be a good starting point for those who are new to computer graphics. If only I had a way to make them find it easily...?!