Some of y'all may remember me from way back before the Goog pulled the plug on the original forum after the acquisition. I've stayed away because my newfound freelance life (laid off in July '08) didn't afford me many SU opportunities, but I'm finally starting to sell those kinds of projects. Anyhow, I'm kind of amused to see that the pro vs. newbie thing is still a hot-button issue.

Speaking as someone who's been away for a while, I would lean towards the notion of leaving things fundamentally the same but maybe featuring some rockstar examples somehow. Here's why: I do landscape and architectural design, so tend to prefer the type of thing that marked001 or Tom do. Houses, site plans, I'm on it. WIP threads for a sniper rifle model? Don't care. BUT, occasionally I'll notice that the page count is creeping up on a thread I bypassed, and I check it out and I'm blown away by work outside of what usually interests me. If there was a separate gallery- be it for WIPs, n00bs, or non-architectural models- I'd probably only ever go there if I was on hold with a vendor for an hour or trying really really hard to procrastinate. That would be my loss.

If you're looking at it for school purposes, contact the architecture dept you're considering as they may have requirements for student computers. I've toyed off and on with going back to school to become a "real" architect, and University of Virginia is VERY specific with what they want your laptop to have. Configured per their wants, Dell came in around $4400, hP around $3000. Just something to think about, since I doubt you'll want to buy a second machine.

I've read some posts elsewhere saying that the quad core is ideal for PS because of how it draws from memory, but I'm a strictly 2D CAD user and my SU modeling isn't THAT intense. So that's cool... I just wanted to be fairly confident that I wasn't going to be shooting myself in the foot with this system. Thanks, remus!

I used to be somewhat knowledgeable about these things, prior to trying to get my design business off the ground...

Had a local vendor quote me a decent price on a Core 2 Duo system, but I was just wondering where this puts me on the arc of older v. newer technology. If you were a user who wanted to stay with XP, and used the machine for AutoCAD, Photoshop, and SU (in that order), what would you do? I'd love to save and buy the biggest and bestest, but now that I'm booking 2-3 jobs a week the old slow laptop with the 12.5" screen ain't cutting it.

Any advice would be hugely appreciated!

Will- thanks for making me feel better- it's so seamless, I was baffled at first as well!

Tom- I'm just dipping my toes in the market, but your price seems extremely fair. I guess the better question is, how did the client respond to the work and the price?

Dave

Fred, what about the foam used to seal waterfalls and fountains? I know it doesn't have a ton of give, since it has to resist settling boulders.

I'm not denying that at all, Todd- all it takes is a drive by the Wal-Mart parking lot on Saturday and you'll know where priorities lie for most folks.

What I'm wondering is if a marketing opportunity is showing itself for, say, upper-middle buyers? As I meet more and more tradespeople in my area (cabinetmakers, furnituremakers, etc.) I'm learning that while you'll never have someone saying "hm, local craftsman or IKEA," the price point on a lot of locally made furniture (at least around here) isn't that far off from Ethan Allen and those higher-end consumer galleries.

I just wonder if it's something that could parallel the growth of the organic food movement, with the right approach. Or, I could just be naively optimistic

The media reports make it seem as though there's a growing awareness of the problems with cheap, outsourced home goods (lead paint on toys, collapsing cribs). I wonder, does this have the potential to lead to more people of means placing a higher value on well-designed, locally produced products? It doesn't seem so far-fetched when you think about the success of organics in general, and the Slow Food movement in particular. At the risk of sounding crass and/or cynical, does anyone else think there's an opportunity here?

Awesome! Thanks so much!

I'm doing a SU model of an orphanage my boss's church group is building in Zambia. Does anyone know what sizes would be standard for dimensional lumber, either coming from Zambia or South Africa? I'm assuming it's in metric, right?

Thanks!

Dave