Considering OS X

S

scmca

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Hi, I'm a graphic designer that works for a small marketing co. and am responsible for all upgrades. Currently we have a G4, 533MHz Dual processor with 384MB RAM, 1MB L2 cache, OS 9.1 -- I do most of the production work on this system. I'm now considering upgrading the OS, but can't help being a bit nervous about the process.

I work mostly with Quark 4.1 and Photoshop 6 with ImageReady (I do pagelayouts/design catalogs/brochures/ads), and applications I use are Acrobat 5, Illustrator 9, Microsoft Word 8, Flightcheck 3.9, Suitcase 3.0 (I know this is really old but it works fine for me for now)... among others. Hooked up to the system are: UMAX Power Look scanner, Ezquest FireWire 120GB HD (for backup), 100MB Zip drive, 2GB Jaz drive (they are all SCSI except for the ezquest--I ordered the dual pc with a SCSI slot), and via Ethernet, Epson Stylus 3000 and Apple LaserWriter 630.

I know that some of the software are due for upgrades, and we do upgrade our hardware every 3-4 years or so -- we bought the Dual G4 about 2 years ago, so we'd really like to go for another couple of years without having to buy a new system.

I would really appreciate any input/advise on the following, given the system/peripherals above:

1) What sort of additional upgrades on software/peripherals, etc. am I looking at if I go ahead and upgrade the OS? What kind of complications should I expect?

2) Can(should) I wait another couple of years until I get a new hardware before making the switch to OS X without being "left out"?

Another reason I'm hesitating is because of the mixed reviews I've read regarding the new Quark version 6.0.... I'm looking into maybe learning more about Adobe InDesign, but at this point, our workflow heavily relies on Quark.

I've tried reading many articles/forums regarding the OS X, but the more I read, the more I'm confused on whether I should make the transition now or wait...

Thank you in advance for your help.
 
What I have advised most of my clients (pretty much all in the graphics industry) who, like you, have hardware that should run Mac OS X quite nicely is to work on a transition plan.

What I have them do is list the software they use in their work flow, and then have them plan on upgrading to as much software that works in both Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X as possible. In your case I would suggest the following software upgrades before considering a move to Mac OS X:

  • Photoshop 7
    Acrobat 5.0.5
    Illustrator 10
    Suitcase 10
All of these apps run in both 9 and X, which means that as you get them you aren't forced to move in order to use them.

And you should download a copy of InDesign from Adobe to try it for 30 days. I provided training materials for many of my clients so that while working on InDesign they would have a reference (mainly quicktime tutorials).

The problem with QuarkXPress is that it is either 9-only (like 4.xx and 5) or X-only (like 6). InDesign 2 runs in both 9 and X.

Adobe and some other companies have made moving from 9 to X much nicer, but it is going to start getting harder soon. Adobe's newest version of Acrobat is X-only and I think we can expect the next versions of other important software to not play with 9.

Only when you have as much 9/X usable software as you can get do you want to take the final step of getting X-only software and moving your work flow over to Mac OS X. As it stands for you right now, you would be spending most of your time in Classic, which is not a good transition to Mac OS X. One or two apps in classic is one thing, but other then the free upgrade for Acrobat 5 to 5.0.5, all of your current software is going to be run in Classic.

While you are working on your software upgrades you can take more time to find out what solutions are needed for your hardware peripherals. Right now, software is your main problem.
 
Thank you for your advise, RacerX... I appreciate it... You are right... it does make sense to start with the software upgrades. One more question... do you think the G4 we have now is equipped to be upgraded to OS X as far as RAM/processor speed are concerned?
 
if you have a more personal computer (no joke intended) that you can upgrade to OSX, then you can try it out and learn everything at home in your spare-time (in a more relaxing and fun way than when you are at work and got deadlines etc) without risking the network and workflow.
Illustrator X drains memory (i dont know why). It is cheap so i think you should get some more.
 
Originally posted by scmca
One more question... do you think the G4 we have now is equipped to be upgraded to OS X as far as RAM/processor speed are concerned?
Click to expand...

Your system is far better then any system I currently own and better then most of the systems I've seen running Mac OS X. I play games like Quake II
i and Ghost Recon on my iMac/350. Photoshop, Acrobat, InDesign, GoLive and ImageReady all run fine on that system. I'm quite productive. If you wanted more speed once you have Mac OS X on that system, I would consider a better graphics card as Mac OS X passes a lot of work off onto the graphics card since 10.2 came out.

Mac OS X should actually uses both processors much better then Mac OS 9.1 (as Mac OS 9 doesn't use both processors and only dual processor aware apps use both in 9). Pretty much everything in Mac OS X ends up using both processors. In 9 Photoshop is one of the only apps that sees both processors. An when 9 apps use both processors it is asymmetric multiprocessing and not symmetric multiprocessing like in Mac OS X.

In Mac OS X you would finally get your moneys worth out of having two processors.
 
I'm no expert on this stuff, but if you have a hundred dollars or so, I would upgrade the RAM. As far as you can. Within reason, OS X gives you more bang for your buck out of RAM than you would get with a faster processor.
Also remember that many of the programs you use have demos of their OS X version. :)
Good luck!
 
Thank you, Decado for your input... although I hardly have any spare-time these days... so your suggestion wouldn't be an option for me right now... but I appreciate your time and thought.

RacerX, you have been extremely helpful. You seem very knowledgeable.... Thank you very much. I'm now glad that I talked my boss into getting the dual...

Although this could be a new topic, since you have clients in the graphics industry (consultant?)........ Do you see many of them switching from Quark to InDesign? If they have, were they happy with the switch? Any problems with their printers/publishers? This is another one of my dilemas... I will try the trial version as you suggested... but even if I love the program, this could be a tough switch, Quark being the most accepted desktop publishing program still...
 
Yes, I'm a consultant.

Of my clients who have made the switch, most of them did it so they could stop designing in Photoshop. Most of the features they seem to love best are ones you could never do in QuarkXPress and would have to have done the effect in Photoshop.

Main points (that I know of):

  • (1) ability to use just about any type of image file format, including layered photoshop files without having to flatten them (changing the Photoshop file changes it in the document in InDesign) and native Illustrator files,

    (2) typography in InDesign is just incredible,

    (3) built in distiller for saving PDFs (this could mean that many of my clients who only have Acrobat for Distiller, won't need Acrobat after this).

The examples of people's work I've seen is quite nice. And the tabling features which were shown to me last week are incredible. The control and time saving for people who do large catalogs that use tables of information is amazing.

Purely from a consultants point of view though, I want to see InDesign make a large impact on the market to force Quark to bring their prices down to something more realistic. No area should be as completely controlled by one app the way QuarkXPress does now.

Of my clients who are still using QuarkXPress, none of them is using 5. And the fact that QuarkXPress 6 can't save as a QuarkXPress 4 file only makes it that much harder to get people to up grade. If you plan on moving to QuarkXPress 6, you should get 5 now so that you have some way to save files down to 3.x and 4.x.
 
scmca, I'd echo RacerX's point about InDesign. I made the switch to OS X on the back, so to speak, of also switching to InDesign and, despite some teething problems with both, not regretted it. I'm a typesetter so my requirements are slightly different, of course, and Photoshop doesn't figure in my work, but Illustrator certainly does, and so does the requirement for pdfs. I had been using QXP 4.1 and PageMaker. It's not an exaggeration to say that OS X and InDesign have transformed my working day! While you're over at the Adobe site getting the trial download, check out the InDesign forum so that you can look for any potential conflicts, problems and solutions. Be aware that if you decide to switch, you will not be able to open your 'old' Quark or Word files in InD without upgrading both of those, though, so if you don't want to do that, you might find it necessary to run 'old' and 'new' alongside each other for a while.

At first I did indeed spend a lot of time in Classic, now - about 18 months later - it's seldom necessary, and once Acrobat 6 is released in the UK I can't think of anything I now work with that will require Classic.
 
The only problem I can see in upgrading to OS X after what has been discussed is hardware compatibility. You mentioned a number of SCSI products that you use; how much do you depend on these products, and how viable would getting USB/Firewire equivalents be? I don't have firsthand experience with SCSI in OS X, but I've heard both sides of the coin: some people have trouble, and others do not.

I know for sure you can get a USB Zip drive for cheap (but avoid the 750 MB, as it doesn't write 100 MB disks), but I haven't seen anything about the Jaz drive for a long time. This you could replace with a DVD burner if you go that route.

Scanning is its own issue altogether. Mac OS X is not completely scanner-reliable yet, although hopefully it will be with Panther. You might want to get a new scanner if you make the change, especially if your old one doesn't work (duh!).

Panther is just a couple of months away, so you should wait until its release to upgrade to OS X. Then you can see about upgrading the rest of your stuff.
 
Thank you all for your input and advises... I feel now that I have some sort of idea on how I'm going to make this transition.

I will probably start with upgrading some of the essential applications, add more RAM, better graphic card. Meanwhile, I will talk to our printers/publishers and see where they stand on Quark vs. InDesign issue and also try the trial version of InDesign.

Since this transition will have to occur sooner or later, I will do some research on upgrading drives/replacing peripherals--perhaps Panther would be out by then. Zip and Jaz, I could probably live without since our other Mac(G3) has them and the two macs are networked (although this networking could be another issue I may need to look into).

You've all been very helpful, and I'll be sure to check back in with my progress if anyone would be interested. I'd also very much appreciate any additional input or thoughts on this issue.
 
Not to contradict Racer's comments, cuz I agree with many of them, but I just have a different perspective that might be worth throwing out there:

For me personally (and my company) anything less than a DP 867 is not tolerable for efficient production work in OS X. I know that's a subjective opinion and can change depending on a lot of variables, but I stick by it.

I am a card-carrying CPU-Upgrade Hater. Don't waste your money and time. Minimal gain, overhyped effectiveness. Others will argue otherwise, but after two CPU upgrades myself, I find them nearly useless.

I'd recommend waiting for Panther at this point, then install it and 9 on your machine(s). Use OS X as much as possible, when it gives you trouble during your transition, boot to 9. You're no worse off.

I as an early adopter of X and InDesign, so my transition was fairly painful as I waited for each stinking app to slowly get carbonized. They're pretty much all here now, so your transition shouldn't be too bad.

Quark vs. InDesign: Trust me, ID is better. Nuff said. As for working with printers, you can always output EPS or PDF files even if they don't have ID. Now if Adobe would just clean up their Postscript/PDF mess...I can get several different results by printing to Postscript, saving as PDF, Distilling Postscript or saving as EPS. Very dangerous if you're not paying attention. Also, in spite of Adobe's claims about the universality of the PDF format, many printers still have trouble. I can blame the printer, but the fact is still that the printer has trouble, which means I have a problem.

Now I'm babbling, <end babble>
 
Thanks for your 2 cents, mindbend... I agree with your comment on the Postscrip/PDF mess... we have many printers/publishers of various magazines we have to supply files to, and they all have their own settings and preferences that they require you to follow when creating PS/PDF files, accepting applications... don't even get me started on creating a 2-color pdf file from a quark file!

Also when working with printers, you'd be surprised to know that some of them still prefer native application files especially when it comes to printing publications with large number of pages.... they need to be able to edit things easily without having to go back and forth with the file creator...

As far as cpu-upgrade is concerned, I guess I won't know until I actually install all the things I need to install and see how it takes.......
 
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