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I've made pro and con lists, tossed and turned, and fretted over my computer systems.
My HP media thing is behind my fav. Korg keyboard. I run Band in a Box, mess with funk Jazz a lot, and play classical arrangements of crazy stuff. I have stage lights, big amps, a Bose stick, a pair of huge speakers, power mixers etc etc.
My kids have left. It took some time. One in England, one a few miles away with his g/f.
So we renovated one room my daughter had pained bright red and dark black, with a very conservative grey. My desk is there, a filing cabinet, and my camera gear.
I have a laptop running Linux, works OK, I can't type well on it without a wireless keyboard, and then it gets far enough away I need glasses to see it, well....
So I was going to buy a new bunch of stuff and build a computer. Got the costs to where I thought it would be ok, and was going to put Linux on it.
But I kept coming back to the ipad. The upstairs computer would be for writing, and photo editing, which I now do on my HP media centre. Everything backs up to a 2TB hard drive sitting on the network as Z:/
So I went yesterday, got part what through the shopping cart at Tiger Direct with a list. I went to the counter and told them sorry about this, but I'm going to sleep on it.
So I'm off to Best Buy to buy a Mac. (shoot me now). I just have the cash. I don't want to mess with Linux and find there is no driver for the thing they sold me and I take it back.
The ipad and out music collection will be better there.
I really don't know, but I just need to have no hassles, good photo editing, and open office.
On the other hand a guy I know has a Risc based Sun workstation that runs Unix. It was bought to run training programs for dispatchers. They used it about 30 days. He wants $100.00 for it. I offered 60.00. I bet it ends up on the floor beside the desk, as long as the entire o/s and development stuff is on it.
Is this an extreme case of GAS? Geez...
John Conley
Musica est vita
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Linux is not "consumer-grade" gear. While I personally despise the proprietary nature of everything Apple they are certainly the consummate "consumer device." Solaris at home is definitely a hobbyist thing... but for $60.00 a stable file server is not a bad deal. I've spent so much time with Classic Windows mucking in registries, etc. I am pretty well stuck with it (unless windows 8 is SO tragically disconnected with its Metro interface that it ends up hard to multitask.
I recommend MAC or iPad to anyone who asks (including my family) not because I like them, but because they will leave my ass alone if they purchase one instead of cheap, powerful but woefully unstable Windows gear.
Jan - 12 Core AMD Ryzen 9 3900X
32GB DDR4
Win 10 64-bit
Samsung m.2 SSD Boot drive,other SSD internal and USB drives.
MOTO 2
Ketron SD90
Aerophone AE-30, Yamaha WX-7
Yamaha RX-v381amp
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From what I've seen I agree. My dad traded his selectric for a vista machine and he phoned me ten times a day for three months. I ran a unix turnkey operation for 15 my ears doing custom a/r systems, 30 60 90 days etc. I sold it in 96 because my doc warned me about hrs of work...
If I was starting out I'd try all Linux.
But I want to do things Not configure some w/d drive with beta drivers. Yada etc.
John Conley
Musica est vita
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John, you may have to retract some of the things you posted on the Mac forum?  [he says, ducking] Seriously, good luck with it. For me, Windows is so comfortable even with all its quirks and I've found Win7 to be pretty stable. I've gone much longer between rebuilding my systems since I went to Win7 than any other OS. My son has a Mac and loves it and he have his grandmother his old one, who loves it. It's all about getting the work done. So I guess in the future, we'll see posts from you asking how come notation doesn't work in the Mac version like it does in the Windows version and how come you have to pay the same money for fewer [translated as different] features. At least you won't have to worry about ASIO.
John Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 12TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 12TB SATA BB2026/UMC204HD&404HD/Casios/Cakewalk/Reaper/Studio One/Notion/Dorico/Noteworthy/NI/Halion/IK http://www.sus4chord.com (under rehosting/construction)
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JC, I was about to post here on PG Music forums for recommendations for a simple photo editing program. May I ask what you are using? Just yesterday, my niece in Minnesota sent me a nice group of family photos (about 40 pics) that I would like to add captions to and, after doing a soundtrack, emailing it to others in my family. I am hoping for freeware or open source.
TIA
PS: I'm running Win 7/64.
Last edited by Don Gaynor; 07/06/12 07:49 AM.
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I'm a huge Linux advocate, but I'm at the point where, if it doesn't work, I don't bother. There are enough excellent distributions that do work, and there's no point in beating my head against the wall with something that doesn't do what I want. Been there, done that, and don't want to do it again. That said, my PC runs Windows, because that's what music applications run better under. I'm in an IT shop, and a lot of my co-workers have gone with Macs when they want things to "just work". There's a lot to be said about guaranteeing a level of hardware compliance. If I had the money, I'd probably have a Mac... Well, except that the Mac version of BIAB lags a bit behind. As for free/cheap photo editing software, have you checked out Google's Picasa? It's web-based, and you don't need to load a Windows client if you don't want to. There's an option to edit with Creative Kit, a Flash-based photo editor. The free version only offers basic features, but it's simple to use. There's a list of free photo editor programs here that you might want to look at. GIMP has a bit of a learning curve. I've heard good things about Paint.NET, but haven't tried it for photo editing. I just got an email for the [http://www.magix.com/us/xara-photo-graphic-designer/detail/]Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 2013[/url] which includes "The Magic Erase logarithm", so it's got to be good! 
-- David Cuny My virtual singer development blogVocal control, you say. Never heard of it. Is that some kind of ProTools thing?BiaB 2025 | Windows 11 | Reaper | Way too many VSTis.
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Quote:
JC, I was about to post here on PG Music forums for recommendations for a simple photo editing program. May I ask what you are using? Just yesterday, my niece in Minnesota sent me a nice group of family photos (about 40 pics) that I would like to add captions to and, after doing a soundtrack, emailing it to others in my family. I am hoping for freeware or open source.
TIA
PS: I'm running Win 7/64.
Don, the free ones that can with my Canon T3I are pretty basic but also pretty good at what they do. The free Picasa photo-editing program is also pretty good. It does more than my Cannon programs and is great for sending pictures via email.
I just finish some research on the inexpensive programs and I settled on Corel PaintShop Pro X4. I’ve been using Corel’s PhotoPaint 7 since the Win 95 days and in fact it is installed on my Win7 system, however it lacks most of the newer features like layers etc. I chose PaintShop over PhotoShop’s Elements as it is cheaper and I think it does the same stuff. PhotoShop’s big program, Cs6, is way out of my league, both money wise, it’s around $700 USD, and feature wise.
You really can’t go wrong with PaintShop Pro, around $60, or Elements, around $100 if you need that kind of processing. However the free Picasa may be all you need.
I just remembered that there is a free big photo-editing program called Gimp, http://www.gimp.org/
This is supposedly to PhotoShop’s Cs6 what OpenOffice is to MS Office. I tried it but didn’t like it as it is overkill in my situation.
I don’t know of a free program that will add a sound track that you can use as an email. The free ones that I have seen are for youtube only and you have to purchase the full program to do what you need. Others may have more information on this.
I hope this helps
OK, a random thought;
Why does toilet paper need a commercial? Who's not buying it?
64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
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I've used Paint Shop Pro (PSP) since version 6. I believe that it is a much less expensive workalike for Adobe Photoshop. There was a big revision around version 8 or 9 which made it much more difficult for me to use, but that's probably because I never used the many advanced functions. PSP X4 Ultimate is on sale right now for $49.99 US. Not free, but pretty close for fully featured photo editing and image creation software. For very basic editing there is Photoscape. It has an image browser which will handle thousands of files and does all the fundamentals: Resizing, cropping, color/contrast adjustment, etc., etc. It's my go-to app for minimalist editing. It is free. There is pretty good documentation online. A small caveat is that it comes with a default setting to save the original of any file you edit in a special folder. That's probably a good thing, but if memory or disk space is limited you should know about it; it can get pretty large pretty quickly. R.
"My primary musical instrument is the personal computer."
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I really loved the feature / functions of PSP up until version 9. I'm still most comfortable with that, but it doesn't seem to recognize higher res color schemes beyond what XP had back in the day. Picasa does some amazing stuff for free. It has some very good retouch tools.
Jan - 12 Core AMD Ryzen 9 3900X
32GB DDR4
Win 10 64-bit
Samsung m.2 SSD Boot drive,other SSD internal and USB drives.
MOTO 2
Ketron SD90
Aerophone AE-30, Yamaha WX-7
Yamaha RX-v381amp
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Thanks all. I don't need most of the frills, just the ability to add captions and I have that with Gimp. You folks are wonderful!
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I stand by the statements regarding pg musics band in a box development. I will say, after getting the second largest all in one apple imac thing (no box just a bit thicker display), that the thing just works. It worked with my home network, I can go to the X or Z drives which are standalone things in a basement room that have my backups.
The system works well with my wife's ipad, the two sync with wifi. I can get an album on Itunes and it goes into the ipad3, and the next time the small device player is hooked up, the songs sync there also.
My epson printer (the photo one, 13" wide thing) is wi fi and it works fine. I have a Lexmark in the basement and the apple computer found that and it works fine.
So far, I'm not using anything much, just having trouble keeping warm and staying awake. (awaiting a visit to an endocrinologist to tell me that my thyroid is cooked. Oh well...
I've become jaded though. I expect all my gear to work together without looking all over for some guy in another country wrote a driver for device x that makes it work. It should just work.
John Conley
Musica est vita
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I just use google's free editing program. I should get something better but so far it's ok. Picassa.
Google is pervasive, yes, but when a company makes stuff that works it gets my vote.
I'm sure google knows my shoe size and hat size. What they don't know is what seems to concern them.
John Conley
Musica est vita
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Almost every one of these discussions come down to the same simple question.
What do YOU want to accomplish with it?
Hardware or software, the same question. What do YOU want to do with it. The computer that works for Granny Thelma who wants nothing more than dial up AOL so she can email her grandkids on the other side of the country is probably not going to work for me, but what works for me doesn't matter to Granny Thelma.
Graphics programs, word processors, music, accounting..... what do YOU want to do with it? You don't need to buy Photoshop to just look at pictures and occasionally add a caption. That is made for artists. If you write one letter a month, notepad is fine. You just want to PLAY music? Windows Media Player that comes with computer will play all day.
When you get into "I also wanna....." then you start buying software.
A great example is Don's "How do I organize" thread. 25 people have 25 opinions. What works best for Don is the right answer. On another thread, Noel told someone how he creates a folder for every song. For me, I don't want 250 folders. I have a RB Songs folder that has child folders in the parent folder. Same concept, each in it's own folder, but under another folder for cleanliness.
Go with what works for you.
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After seeing way too much of this error message: "Windows Media Player has stopped working..." I switched to MediaMonkey and haven't had the first crash yet. Plus, it has some very nice organizing/library features that I've never yet discovered in WMP and it's FREE! I didn't say that WMP doesn't have them but I haven't discovered them. Straightforward tag editing and Virtual CD for two. No, I'm not on their payroll I just appreciate the product.
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I use VLC for my media play, though I rarely play music on my computer. I have an internet ready TV and usually play my music though the TV via a media streaming program called Serve To Me. I run the server on my computer that I use to store and the client on the computer that is connected to the TV. Plus it being internet ready I can stream Pandora, Slacker... whatever. And with ALL the internet radio, Shoutcast stations that people run.... lots of choices. Love where technology has taken us.
WMP wants to take over, gathering your media on it's own before you ask it to, but that is the Micro$oft way.
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I ran a computer business for many years. It was concurrent with my job, but there were 14 employees when I 'sold' it. Everything was unix based. If I did put in a PC it had terminal software to the unix box.
There used to be good money in that, until people perceived that a computer was a computer.
Now I never needed a refrigerator size computer, but I did sell 2 that looked like filing cabinets and ran 80k, with 20k for me.
But all the employees, the need to do things today, and the stress led me to sell the company.
Those in Canada know it as Good Life Fitness, and the offspring. My wife went with the company and is a senior admin person, they now have 250 clubs. There were 18 or so when I got out in 96.
I know a whole lot about this, and I have always believed that you could get to a 100 buck computer.
But now I need big print, easy setup, I can't run 2 levels down to reset something, and I have an expectation.
If BIAB ran on Linux I might do it, but I have my music room in the basement, and my office upstairs. The old PC was junk, and the one on the computer downstairs is used for just music.
So far, I've decided that there are more advantages to the Mac platform than I gave it credit for. That said it needs some stuff to make BIAB work with it.
Ten years ago I would have thought this a terribly extravagant thing, but right now I just enjoy it. I'll keep you posted.
Another thing that started to eat me was the position and the ease of typing. I'm a bit crabby I guess, notebooks I dragged fingers on and messed up what I was doing, and I like the computer behind my keyboard for practice purposes.
Someday a keyboard will come with it's own mainstream computer built in and proper interfaces for everything. Except as I have said, midi, which I fear will go by the wayside very quickly.
I purchased a book for my camera, it was online download, pdf, and it sure looks very professional yet I know it was not a lot of work to make that way once it was written. Very interesting concept, pdf books on a mac are easy to read and transfer to the iPad easily.
If you said I could have but one computer for everything, right now it would be a pc. But once I get going I may change my mind.
John Conley
Musica est vita
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I know a whole lot about this, and I have always believed that you could get to a 100 buck computer.
OLPC
A worthy project created and sponsored in part by Nicolas Negroponte of the MIT Media Lab. $100 US was the goal. I think the number is now around $200 but they're going with it.
Last edited by Ryszard; 07/12/12 04:41 AM.
"My primary musical instrument is the personal computer."
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The cool thing about the OLPC was how they were able to get some really rugged gear that would function in extreme conditions. I saw one a couple months ago at a local pawn shop selling for over $200. I remember reading that perhaps the most innovative features was the LCD display, which supported multiple modes and resolutions. I believe the person who worked on that ended up spinning off her own company. The ideas behind their security system was also pretty innovative, a lot better than the digital signing direction that Microsoft has been going on .NET. Another neat project is the Raspberry Pi, a $35 credit card size computer which takes the OLPC idea in a different direction. Instead of making a rugged, all-in-one laptop, it assumes that you've got the peripherals (including a power supply), and gives you a unenclosed circuit board. Sadly, it's based on an ARMv6 processor, so it's not going to run Windows, WINE, or any x86-based software. Plus, it only has 256Meg, so going the QEMU route won't work, either. It might work nicely as a web-browsing PC, though. I think it shows that a $100 PC is basically doable. The real question is whether there's any demand for such a thing, since there will invariably be design decisions which will limit the device in some way (graphics, memory, etc.).
-- David Cuny My virtual singer development blogVocal control, you say. Never heard of it. Is that some kind of ProTools thing?BiaB 2025 | Windows 11 | Reaper | Way too many VSTis.
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