Need a Mac

What to look for

[wfernley]

Hey,

I am looking to get a mac for doing web design. I have never really used one but I hear they are the best for doing web and graphics design. currently I am running............a dell :( but yes its not working to good for me when I am trying to edit large graphics. I was curious what to look for in a mac. the programs I use are Dreamweaver(only for the color coding ;)), photoshop 7 and illustrator 10. I was thinking about getting a used one but if I do what should the minimum or recommended specs be?

Thanks for your help :)

Wes

[lZakl]

The “Need” for Macintosh for web design, is an arbitrary argument at best. You should go with whatever you are comfortable with, and what your preferences are. Me personally? My preference is to use a Mac over Windows because of the simplicity of the UNIX operating system and the obvious security issues. Plus the look of an aluminum case and two aluminum cased monitors on your desk will get you the looks ;0)

Point being; If you heard that Mac is better for web design, this is simply untrue. They both handle web design equally as it is never a processor-intensive task. Now you may have a ‘preference’ as to ‘how’ you like your web design done, and this would be up to you, not popular opinion.

Now on to your question. For web design and no hard-core graphics (meaning the 150mb - 400mb range) a Mac Mini Brand new would run you a few hundred bucks, and you’d have a GREAT machine that would handle anything you wanted it to, unless you are prepress, video editing, hard-core graphics design, etc. The Mac Mini 1.42Ghz with 512mb (but preferable 1Gb) RAM would suite you just fine. Plus you’d have a cool little machine. We have a few for our admin staff here and the love them.

If you want anything more powerful then that, instead of looking used I’d look into the bottom-line G5 simply because of the throughput of the Front Side Bus. Believe it or not, it makes a BIG difference, that upgraded Bus speed.

Plus you are going to have to look at the cost of getting the Macintosh versions of all your regular software, Illustrator, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, etc.

-- Zak

[wfernley]

Thanks for the reply. You gave me a lot to think about. If I wasn't getting a Mac I could get a 4XEM mini pc. They have some too but you can put P4's in them.

[whoisgregg]

If you use Photoshop 7 and Illustrator 10, you will definitely want to upgrade the RAM of any computer you buy -- either Mac or PC. IZakl's preference of 1 gig is right on target.

The web delivers content and that content is pretty much all text and graphics. HTML, PHP, Perl, etc. all text. Everything else is GIFs, JPEGs, and (soon) PNGs. Put it all together and you can move it from Mac to Windows to Unix and back again depending on your preferences.

I could point out a lot of very skilled web designers happen to be using Macs, but that's probably a better reflection of the designers sense of aesthetics than an indication of the computer affecting their output. :)

I've also seen a few websites proudly displaying "Made on a Mac" that I found unattractive, so ::shrug::

[yosemite]

I have a Mac Mini with 512 megs of RAM. I get my work done, but as soon as I can, I am upping it to 1 GB of RAM. Don't get me wrong—I can still get my work done with 512 but 1 GB will be so much better.

If expense is an issue, I recommend a Mini. It will get your foot in the door with Macs at minimal cost. If you want a 1 GB RAM upgrade, though, don't order it through Apple—last I checked they were overcharging for that stick of RAM by a whole lot. Get the 1 GB RAM upgrade installed elsewhere.