I hear GIMP is a bit of a pig to use, again no first hand experience with it though.

You could try ebay, had a quick check and there appears to be a few legit copies going. Not sure of the legality of it though.

Im almost certain you want your RAM in multiples of 3 if you've got an i7 processor, so in short the bloke in the shop was wrong. Something to do with it having a triple channel memory controller, or so my brief reading tells me.

http://techgage.com/article/intel_core_i7_-_choosing_the_best_memory_kit/
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/corsair-triple-channel-ddr3,6614.html
http://www.palicomp.co.uk/pc-components/motherboard-cpu-ram-bundles/intel-core-i7-bundles/prod_188.html

Thought id get in there nice and early

I suppose we should start with the usual suspects:
Improved performance
More Ruby API goodness
Improved UV mapping
Fix Shadow Bug

It should just install in its own folder without you having to do anything.

You could use the tape measure to find out how long the model is, then if you know what length its meant to be you can work out the scale factor you need to get it back to the correct size.

For example, say its 1.25m in the red direction and its meant to be 1m, then if you scaled by 0.8 in the red direction itd be the correct size. Rinse and repeat for the green direction.

You can work out the scale factor using length it should be/actual length.

Thom, i have recollections of jim running some tests after changing to 1.8.6 and finding it was indeed faster.

[flash=640,385:zxxq4ffl]http://www.youtube.com/v/3i-zYdOPG2k?fs=1&hl=en_US[/flash:zxxq4ffl]

Dale, i think thom is talking about a more powerful api rather than open sourcing SU, although that would be rather cool

With regards to the legal stuff you mention, carmacks reverse (aka the shadow bug fix) is still patented, so even if SU was open sourced youd have to break the law (or find an alternative fix.) Not sure what would happen with respect to patents, it'd probably depend on what license the source code was released under.

I dont think so. As far as i know there arent any methods in the api that allow you to capture whats on-screen, so its pretty unlikely such a plugin could be written at the current time.

Personally i much prefer it over the old version. Feels a lot slicker in use, especially once youve clicked on an image.

The latest facebook innovation:

Who said the parallel port was dead!

The amount of RAM youve gone for is a good compromise, in my opinion. I certainly wouldnt say youve over done it. I assume you know to get a 64 bit OS so you can access all your available RAM?

With regards to the HDD and SDD combo, it will help with the boot up time of your computer but probably wont speed up the overall running of your computer much, as it's too small to install all your programs on. Unless you can afford to get something with a higher capacity id ditch the SDD and save the money.

Ive always gotten on quite well with freecom stuff: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Freecom-31973-Hard-Drive-USB-2/dp/B002611YOM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1281432831&sr=8-1

@chris fullmer said:

I was just in Yosemite a week ago. I saw El Capitan and Half Dome and thought of you. I'll try to post some pics of it.

Lucky bar steward! Yosemite is very high on my list of places to visit! theres this really famous route straight up the middle of el capitan that i've wanted to climb since i was a wee lad. One day