Wow! I am surprised at the lack of MAC lovers in the comments. In my past lives, I built, re-engineered, and managed support centers focused on PC and Microsoft products because that is what Corporate America focused on. During those years, we worked with Dell, HP, Acer, Compaq and Toshiba. Dell was the best deal, but HP and Toshiba had their niche. Dell had a great business model and whenever a friend would ask, “What kind of PC should I buy?”, I would immediately say, DELL. However, times have changed. In the past year, I have come completely over to the dark side to become an Apple follower and a Steve Job's disciple. Not because I think that the PC is a piece of junk, no far from it; and not because Apple is the best either. But because I got extremely tired of the overhead with Windows and other MS products and the hoops you have to go through to get it to Really Work.
In truth, Apple found a way to give me just what I wanted: to WIN at what I am doing. I define Winning as the fast and efficient path to producing the output I desire. In other words I want an efficient tool. I don’t want to have to learn the tool, but want the tool to perform for me intuitively. Another way to say it is: If my job is to win the race, I am not focused on the Craftman tools, just winning the race.
Well Apple gives that to me.
Alex, you mentioned you are a heavy Photoshop user, but all my friends who are professional photographers and graphic artist (and I have a few) use Macs. And you don’t have to have the big box mac to get the job done. Hey, I am not saying you cannot run Photoshop on a PC, I am just saying it was designed for the Mac and the graphics folks are all in the Mac camp.
When it comes to building PCs, I have to ask the question… WHY? In the days of the 8088 (yes I was there when the first pc came out) you had to know how to fix them, build them, and to make them more robust. As the processors changed and the video changed, you best know how to upgrade or replace them. I went to the shows at the Hampton Coliseum and bought the parts to make PCs. But that is because I had fun doing it.
But when it comes to my job, that is not my job, to build PCs. I would even argue that it is a waste of time, valuable time to be building these machines even for a dealership who can lease them and then refresh them on a regular basis (but that is a different discussion).
So I appreciate your comments on PC building, but I wonder why a guy in the automotive business is not utilizing the tools available today to seamlessly move data and information to our finger tips (iPhone type stuff) but would prefer to discuss building PCs.
