What spec Mac Mini would you recommend for running XCode 4?

Our organisation is starting to develop apps for IOS and the first step is purchasing a Mac to run XCode 4 on.
We are on a budget and the Mac Mini is within our price range but after some initial research we are concerned that we would need more RAM in order to run XCode 4 comfortably.
Below is the spec of the Mac Mini we are considering using:
2.3GHz dual-core Intel Core i5
2GB memory
500GB hard drive
Intel HD Graphics 3000
OS X Lion
Just wondering what people use to run XCode 4 and how happy they are with the performance.
Many Thanks
Richard

If your development will be iOS apps, the base model
should be more than sufficient provided you bump
up to at least 4 gig RAM, preferably 8. However,
don't purchase the RAM from Apple as it is way over
priced. Go to Newegg or OWC to purchase it.
If the app requires some signifigant graphics development
and need to use image processing software to create them,
I would suggest bumping up to the next model with the
discrete graphics chip.

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What kind of camcorder would you recommend for FCE HD 3.5?

Hello everyone,
I'm very new here and have been trying to search for the answer to my question without having to bug anyone, but now I am under the gun, as it were.
I need to purchase something within a week and a half and would truly appreciate suggestions from anyone here. Here are a list of my questions and I hope you all will be kind of enough to help me. Thank you in advance.
1- I would prefer a camcorder that records to a DVD, but if tape is way better, please let me know.
2- I see that FCE does not support AVCHD. What other pitfalls are there to avoid in purchasing a camcorder that is compatible with FCE HD?
3- My dream is to have a camcorder that can record in 24p, but can't seem to determine whether FCE HD can support it. Please help!
4- Am willing to pay more for CCD sensor range - is this helping?
5-Would like to shoot in 16:9 ratio and with lines of resolution of 720 and higher, this possible with FCE?
5- With the questions above...what camcorder would you recommend?
I know some of the camcorders that have these features are ranging from $900 to over $1,000 but would consider it a good investment for things I would like to do in the future.
I hope the information I've given is enough for you all to give your suggestions. Thank you again.

They are not bad - just unsuitable for FCE and all good editing programs.
There are several totally different kinds of Digital Video - many people mistakenly think all "digital" is the same.
DVD, Flash Memory or Hard Disk camcorders produce video in a version of the MPEG format.
FCE etc. only handles video in the DV or QT format which is totally different from MPEG.
One analogy would be to buy a diesel powered car and then find that all the filling stations in your area only had petrol (gasolene) pumps. Your car would be pretty useless !
The only way MPEG can be used in FCE is by converting it to DV or QT which wastes time or money and results in slightly reduced quality.
All these cameras are produced for the mass market (where the money is), to be used by people with no knowledge or interest in film-making or editing.
Ian.

What Illy CS4 book would you recommend for the beginner to grow with?

Hello All,
I am looking for a good illustrator cs4 book for the beginner to grow with.
I have read reviews on amazon but thought I might ask the pros.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

The instructions that ship with the program: The Help menu.
I know it's boring, but if you want to learn a new program, the most expedient way is to work through the provided manual, cover to cover. Don't just read it, actually perform the operations it describes.
Third-party books almost universally involve these downsides:
They are expensive.
They are incomplete. They try to walk a fence-edge between rank beginner and intermediate user; between being merely a too-wordy reiteration of the Help files and next-level techniques for the more experienced user. The reason is obvious: the goal is to sell to as wide a range of users as possible. The result is often unsatisfying: They can't possibly include everything in the Help files, so they leave gaps for the beginner. But they feel compelled to appeal to beginners, so the experienced user has to weed through a bunch of entry-level bulk, just to get to the "juicy stuff" he's interested in. He pay's 100% price for about 15% of the content.
The are inefficient. They are full of unnecssary verbiage attempting to be clever, cute, hip, friendly, and thereby supposedly more "approachable." Most fail miserably at this, and the result is you have to read through endless passages of such original content as "this will knock your socks off" and "this is awesome" when what you really need is "just the facts, ma'am." The Help files fall under the stylistic guidelines of technical documentation: They adhere to "just-the-facts, ma'am."
They are short-lived. They go quickly out-of-date, which is one of the reasons why they are too expensive: They have to make their money quickly after release.
I'm not saying don't buy any. I have a small fortune's-worth myself, all but a dozen or so of which I wish I had never bought. With the money I wasted on them (plus interest), I could buy a new Honda Fury. I'm just saying do the included documentation--however painful--first. And keep doing it for new features when new versions are released. That will get you there the quickest, because it will lay the necessary foundations of overall interface scheme and basic object principles. Then, when you have that understanding, look only for books that are targeted toward an at-least intermediate level user. That way, your money will be spent, but it will be better-invested.
JET

What brand of printer do you recommend for my imac 27?

What brand of printer do you recommend for my imac 27 from 2009?

I bought a Hewlett-Packard M451dn color laser jet. I'm happy with it.
I selected it after having a horrible experience with a low-cost Xerox color laser jet.
The things I like the best:
Fast warm-up time. No waiting around like solid-ink printers from Xerox have.
No odor. Solid-ink printers have a smell like baked crayons.
Very good print quality - real Postscript.
Duplex printing (both sides of the paper)
I connect to it wirelessly through my Airport; I connect an ethernet cable from the printer to the Airport then my Mac communicates wirelessly.

Which iPad would you recommend for a college student, an iPad mini or full size iPad?

I already have the top of the line Macbook Pro 15 in ret display for school, but I'm also interested in using an iPad for school as well. Would the iPad mini be more convenient because of the small size or more of a problem? And would getting an iPad for school be really worth it? What could I do on there that I couldn't do on my Mac? If I were to get an iPad I would be looking into a 32GB, is that too big or too small? Thanks for the help ahead of time!

OK... here's the latest on my lab environment/server set up. We have a 17" iMac G5. It is connected to a 24 port 10/100 switch with two gigabit ports. The iMac gets a gigabit port; the eleven eMacs get 10/100 ports. There is an internal 160 GB SATA hard drive installed in the iMac, and a 160 GB external firewire drive connected to the iMac for back-up purposes. I haven't got the back-up software running yet, but plans are to back up user information on the external hard drive and create an archive of server OS set up and software on DVD in case of catastrophic failure.
Since our 30+ Windows boxes are served with your basic Dell Optiplex running Windows Server 2003 and an old, cranky Gateway running Linux, I didn't think our little Mac lab would suffer that much under an iMac server. So far it's been smooth sailing, and the whole set-up, iMac, server software, and external hard drive, were under $2000.

What database would you recommend for a beginner?

I'm learning to use Java by developing a database application and am considering design choices.
I started using a text file but, from an earlier posting to this board have now have been persuaded to move to a real database using JDBC. I'm OK with that and have been reading up , trying to understand the topic.
But can you recommend the database to go for? The considerations are:
1) I will create the original data in advance. The users will extract from this 'master' database (about 3,000 records) & query/edit/save etc. their own subsets of the data for use later.
2) The end users will probably access the database locally, rather than as client-server.
3) I don't want one where the end user has difficulty setting up , say , DNS links etc.
4) I wont know the end users configuration., so...
5) Do I try for a type 4 all Java driver? My textbook says these are the most portable
6) Low (preferably zero) cost. I couldn't spend a lot on (say) oracle.
7) Ability to password protect (and preferably encrypt) the data
8) I'm a bit confused on version numbers I am using JDK 1.2.1, there is a JDBC ver 2.0 , will the two work together OK ?
9) As this is a learning exercise for me , perhaps I should add easy to learn! I'm familiar with MS access , but understand there aren't any free type 4 drivers for it.
I've heard mention of Cloudbase and have downloaded HSQL to look at also have a trial copy of Interbase [which looks complex?]
Any views on these ?
Thanks in advance for any advice
Mike.
(For info the JDK being used is 1.2.1, the OS is windows 95 and the IDE is Jbuilder 3 professional)

My advise (and it's not a troll) is to use MySQL , which is a quite light Database and well embeded using java programming.
This database is free and is mostly used for developping dynamic web servers with PHP.
JDBC 1.2 and 2.0 and ODBC are available for free too.
You may use PHPMyAdmin if you want a distant admin to be done.
There are many other clients in different languages.
http://www.mysql.com

What photo album software do you recommend for CS4 and/or CS5?

I want to do pagination, design and layout in CS4 (multiple photos per page, text, etc.) to create printable albums. These albums could be either social event or documentary purposed.
Many such photo album software programs are proprietary which obliges you to use a specific printer or lab. Are there stand alone photo album software programs out there, CS4/5 which allow you to create photo albums and then print your own albums or use a vender of choice to print your albums?
I've seen everything from $29 thru $400, and some which are priced beyond $800.
What is your favorite photo album software for CS4 and/or CS5?
Thanks for any help you may provide.

It sounds like you are trying to create scrapbook pages ... if so then its quite easy just to create them yourself using Photoshop. You can purchase scrapbooking kits which will give you all the background papers and elements that you need to add to your page. There are also many free kits around ... a quick google search will show you lots of them
Sets of the pages can then be uploaded to sites that will print out a book ...
Wendy

What Mac specs would you recommend for a CS major (GHz, Flash Memory, etc)?

So, I'm starting college in the fall as a computer science major. I have decided to choose a Macbook Pro with Retina Display as my weapon of choice. The only remaining questions I have before I order pertain specifically to GHz and Flash Memory. I saw that for about $250, you could upgrade your processor from 2.7 GHz to 2.8 GHz, and for $400 extra you could upgrade your flash memory. To be honest, and this is an embarrassing confession for a CS student to make, but I really have no clue what either of those things do to the computer, and what impact they have. Before I ask you what you'd recommend, let me give a little more information.
Because I'm a CS major, the kind of work I would most likely be using the computer for involves creating iPhone apps, building websites, and building desktop apps using Cocoa or Qt. Now, I'm not sure how big these project files usually are on Macs, but I have done some programming before on Windows and know that they do have the ability to get rather large. My previous programming environments have included a Windows 7 Lenovo desktop PC with 1 TB of internal memory, and a Dell laptop running Linux Ubuntu with 2GB of internal memory and a 2.26 Intel Core Duo processor (runs much slower..).
So, I guess my ultimate question is, is the extra $250 or $400 really worth it? Would I be able to get by without spending all the extra cash?
Oh, and as for screen resolution, I was thinking 15 inch, due to the fact that this will most likely be my primary computer at college. Is that a good call as well?

TJNickerson wrote:
So, I guess my ultimate question is, is the extra $250 or $400 really worth it? Would I be able to get by without spending all the extra cash?
The CPU upgrade is only worth it for applications where the CPU is specifically the bottleneck. These days, not many are. The amount of RAM, the GPU, and the speed of storage often play into overall application speed.
You might want to check with upperclassmen in your program, though, because it is possible that some programming environments might benefit from it when compiling or something.
But for most people, $250 for another 0.1 GHz is a bad deal. On the 15-inch it is paying 9% more to boost CPU by just 4%.
If the storage starts at 512MB, that is a lot of space for most people. The $400 is for SSD storage which is expensive (compared to traditional spinning hard disks) so you'd better need it. The two questions to ask yourself are, do you need to carry everything around all the time, or can you keep some on an external drive? Because $400 would buy you a 4TB external drive with money left over. The second question is does that storage need to be SSD fast? If yes, then maybe the upgrade is good. If no, then you'd paying a lot more for much faster storage than you need.
TJNickerson wrote:
Oh, and as for screen resolution, I was thinking 15 inch, due to the fact that this will most likely be my primary computer at college. Is that a good call as well?
15 inch is a screen size, not a screen resolution. One way to think about it is, do you expect to be using one screen-filling window at a time, or seeing lots of app windows at a time? The 13-inch is a better size for single window work, but the 15-inch is better for spreading out your workspace with multiple windows and panels.

What mac os 10.8 - 10.10 would you recommend for an iMac from mid 2007

I have a mid 2007 iMac stock 2 Gb ram. What OS would give me the best performance for this older model?
I am running 10.7.5 and am planning a clean install.

OS X 10.10. Yosemite system requirements:
http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT6412
Application compatibility:
http://roaringapps.com
I would stay with OS X 10.7.5 Lion with only 2GB RAM installed.

What software would you recommend for an HP Z230 Workstation?

I just purchased a new Hewlett Packard Z230 Workstation with the intent to catch up on a big backlog (hundreds of hours) of family videos I want to clean up and edit. This computer is configured as follows:
Intel I7 4770 Quad Core running 3.4 GHz (showing 8 processors in control panel/system/processor)
16 GB ram
256 GB solid state C: drive
3 TB 7,200 rpm D: Drive
nVidia Quadro K2000 video card with 2 GB video ram
Windows 7 Pro 64 bit
When I bought this, I planned on using Cyberlink PowerDirector because they advertised it to run well with the features on this computer. I downloaded a trial version of Power Director, and it met my functional needs. But it locked up three times in an hour. When I wrote Cyberlink, they asked for information like the DxDiag.txt file that describes my computer, and the Windows Event logs of the lockups. Their response was BAFFLING, because they said they design their software for "consumer level platforms," and since they don't test their software on "workstations," they cannot recommend my using it on the Z230.
That said, I'm now looking for alternate software. I've used Pinnacle a lot in the past, but it has changed so much from the version I used, I'm not wed to any brand at this point. In addition to usual editing capability, I want to verify that the software I buy has some specific capabilities I need:
-- Ability to crop video clips and expand the remaining cropped scene back to 16:9 (because I have some incroachment in some video clips from the lens hood of a camera).
-- Ability to normalize audio levels for different clips (some too loud or too quiet) before producing the video.
-- Desired, not required: Ability to burn BluRay or DVD on a separate computer than the one where I am editing.
Most, if not all, editing software has these abilities now (PowerDirector and Pinnacle do), so this shouldn't be a problem, but I just want to check.
Any help or guidance would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Terry Quinn

Jim,
Thanks for the recommendations.
You'll get a kick out of this. I started with a Betamovie in 1984, switched to Hi8 in 1993, and D8 in 2005. My initial editing was from one beta VCR to another one. Then I bought a good Sony TR101 Hi8 camcorder, and soon bought a $1,300 EV-S3000 Sony Hi8 VCR that connected to the TR101 by wire, which gave some syncronization of the linear edits (about plus or minus 3 frames when it was happy). In 2004 I bought a powerful (for then) computer and Pinacle Studio 9, which with some upgrades is still what I've edited with until now. Some of all three formats of video have been digitized (or downloaded from the D8) as .avi using various hardware. I expect to complete all of that as .avi.
I've just bought a new Panasonic HC-X920 camcorder (very nice) that produces files in .m2ts, which I think is AVCHD. As you can probably tell from my history, that may prove to be my last camcorder purchase and format change. I have no plans now to shoot 4k.
I checked, and I've overstated the number of hours of video I have left to do. I recorded just under 200 hours total in all three formats. 45 hours of that (the Beta) are fully edited, and about 22 hours of the Hi8 are finished. So I'm looking at about 130 hours of video I still need to edit, plus whatever I shoot in HD going forward.
I appreciate what you say about stability. I fought that with Pinacle 9, and frankly didn't change from that because I finally got it to run stably doing what I did for years. (However recently it has started behaving badly again, which is another reason I'm upgrading).
The Quardro came with the HP computer. The Quadro and GeForce both are spec'd on nVidia's website, and I assumed that since its specs were higher than the GeForce and "matched" Cyberlink's specs for OpenCL, I would be better with the Quadro than the GeForce. From what I'm hearing here and your recomendation, it sounds like I should sell the Quadro on Ebay and buy a GeForce. In case I still might end up with Cyberlink, I'll run the card model you suggested by them and see if they "bless" it.
I know the HP computer supports RAID, because I've seen that come up during boot-up. I always thought RAID was only about reliable backup. Are you suggesting that if I put a second 3 TB hard drive in my computer, and somehow tie it into RAID, that will improve performance, too?
Terry

What would you recommend for this setup?

I just recently found Arch, and I love it so much I want to use it more.
I have been working on converting my media center pc's to Linux, and want some advice before moving forward. Here is what I have:
Living room (Main Media Center, 6 TB of storage, PS3)
Bedroom 1 (Media Center, Wii)
Bedroom 2 (Media Center, Xbox 360)
Bedroom 3 (Media Center)
Kitchen (Media Center)
I don't think the gaming systems matter, but wanted you to have the full picture.
What I would like to do is have a setup where the Living Room Media Center could be a media server for the other rooms, and also handle media for the TV it is connected to. Most of the movies we have are of two different formats:
VIDEO_TS folders for standard dvd's
MKV for HD movies
Is this type of setup possible with Arch, or should I use a Distro like XBMC completely?

I've been using several DLNA-servers on Arch for two years now. I started out with coherence (lacks transcoding support), fuppes (lacked surround sound support), mediatomb (no srt subtitles AND surround sound together), and now I'm using pms(-svn) that does all I've ever needed.
1 small problem: since an update several weeks ago, libmediainfo is not working together anymore with pms: pms crashes on indexing with libmediainfo and sometimes on playing a movie file. On the PMS forums, there is one other user complaining about the same problem, but that's about it.
That's why I recently installed minidlna and I'm very impressed by this little program, but it doesn't play MKV or FLAC iirc. For now I've settled on PMS without libmediainfo, which means from time to time, a movie isn't played in 5.1 (whenever a movie file has two audio streams, the first one is played instead of choosing the 6 channel audio as default).
Anyway: I'd recommend a dlna-server on arch anytime. The protocol is getting more and more support - even TV's are sold with good dlna-support out of the box... If all goes well, my new house will be ready next summer and it will be dlna-powered all the way.

What system would you recommend for CS5 Master Collection?

Hi All,
Hoping to get input on a recommended system configuration for having a computer that has enough under the hood to handle CS 5 in full.
I have been searching around and it seems like Adobe has links to three different suppliers:
Dell
HP
Lenovo
However nowhere in any of those links are recommended system configs for CS 5 with prices.
In reviewing what Adobe has to say they pretty much state to handle the full advantages that CS 5 Master Collection can offer you need:
16 - 32 gbs of RAM.
Beast of a Nvidia Graphics Card (only 5 models supported as of yet)
Lotsa cores like 12 or more...
Checking HP and a couple configurations with the HP Z800 shows a system that ranges $13k - $16K. Ouch ouch ouch. I haven't bought an HP in almost ten years because I always found they were overpriced with proprietary parts that made easy swap out of parts impossible. Don't know if that is still the case.
Haven't figured out how to get the Dell Precision 7500 configured the way I want it and can't really tell if it is designed to handle maximum firepower or not.
If there any Beastmasters out there who can chime in on recommendations and models, it'd be greatly appreciated.
Regards,
TCF

I say build your own. Get a semi good i7, stock up on several minimum gpus if you want multiple monitors, I'd say probably 12 gig of low range ddr3. Not hard to set up raid array. All for around 1800.

What book would you recommend for learning Logic EXPRESS 9?

Hello.
I'm going to be getting Logic Express 9 in the next few days. I was wondering if any of you can recommend a good, up-to-date, book for learning the ins and outs of Logic Express 9? I've seen a few on Amazon.com that are for Logic PRO and Express. My concern is that they'll spend a lot of time on talking about Pro functionality and I may be left up in the air with wanting to know what I need to know about Express.
Please let me know why you like the book(s) that you're recommending, too.
Thanks very much.
p.s. I used Opcode's "Vision" about 20 years ago. I'm hoping that I'll be able to pick-up Logic Express 9 fairly quickly.

Hi
You should not be concerned about 'Pro vs Express'.: they are essentially the same program, with the same functionality. The primary differences are listed here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4229
The general word seems to be that The Apple Pro Training Series book by David Nahmani is a very good place to start.
http://www.amazon.com/Apple-Pro-Training-Logic-Express/dp/0321636805/ref=sr_1_1? ie=UTF8&qid=1304612428&sr=8-1
CCT

What audio interface would you recommend for Garageband?

I'm a new Garageband user, and I would love to have some help in choosing an audio interface for.
Is there an interface that is widely considered the "garageband interface"? Are there interfaces for Garageband that have phantom power?
I'm looking for something that is reasonable in price. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks a lot!

I'm another "I'd stay away from Behringer" person!
For an inexpensive Garagebandy interface, I'd check out M-Audio and PreSonus.
You can peruse (/be overwhelmed by) a very complete selection at sweetwater:
http://www.sweetwater.com/shop/computer-audio/audio_interfaces/
Generally, firewire works better but USB is cheaper.

What RAM would you recommend for K8N Neo2 nForce3 ultra platinum?

Topic says it all.
I would like to have 2gb of good RAM.
Thanks in advance

myggahn,
Since you did not give me any info, I am going to answer this as if you live in the U.S. (For all I know, you probably live in Sweden):
mushkin High-Performance 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200) Heat Spreader color may vary Jet Black 6 Layer PCB System Memory $287.00
CORSAIR XMS 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200) Dual Channel Kit System Memory $238.00
OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200) Dual Channel Platinum System Memory $269.99
Take Care,
Richard

What spec Mac Mini would you recommend for running XCode 4?

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