Switching Platforms

innerSpaceman · 08-30-2013, 11:57 AM

I'm addicted to my optical drive. Those who know me, know I'm a mad music mixer - and no reasonable format comes close to the precision of CD.

Besides, my car is still old school and I don't plan on getting rid of it for years and years. It plays CDs - so I like a format I can take from my computer to my car, one that on occasion I can use on my old-school very kick-ass home sound system, and one that I can give to friends with - yes - cool cover art as a bonus, and know with a fair certainty they can play it in various places.

Being an old-fogey, I don't know how a memory stick would work for music ... but so far my experience with digital distribution and playback (such as on my iPhone for example) is that the playback time between tracks is not instantaneous, but rather varies greatly with each device and depending on many other operating system factors at the moment. This is completely unacceptable to me. Timing is everything, and my projects absolutely require there be ZERO time between tracks.

So you'll have to pry CD out of my cold, dead hands. And since I'm going to have an optical drive come hell or high water, I might as well have blu-ray capability.

On the Windows side, it looks like I'm going to be stuck with Windows 8 on pretty much any new computer - but I have such a big issue with Windows 7* that I'm actually not too apprehensive about this.

* customizing the appearance of folders is VITAL to me. It was a very cool feature of XP that they dropped for Windows 7, to my everlasting disgust. I work with lots of photo and music projects - and it was very handy for me to assign an image (such as an album cover) to a finished project and leave the unfinished ones without that embellishment. That way I could see at a glance which projects were done and which I was still working on. (Plus, it was pretty .... d'uh.)

I have no idea if Windows 8 allows once again for that type of folder customization, but I think I'll stop by the Windows Store at lunch and see if I can find out.

I've done a fair bit of research on Windows desktops in the last 48 hours, and I think I'm leaning toward the Dell XPS One 27 Touch. The screen is just too sexy, and only the Apple iMac 27 has that kind of high resolution. And that Dell seems to come out second only to the iMac in all kinds of 2013 ratings I've looked out over the past couple of days. I don't want to rush into anything, but being without my home computer is very distressing to me!

08-30-2013, 11:57 AM	#30
innerSpaceman Kink of Swank Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Inner Space Posts: 13,075	I'm addicted to my optical drive. Those who know me, know I'm a mad music mixer - and no reasonable format comes close to the precision of CD. Besides, my car is still old school and I don't plan on getting rid of it for years and years. It plays CDs - so I like a format I can take from my computer to my car, one that on occasion I can use on my old-school very kick-ass home sound system, and one that I can give to friends with - yes - cool cover art as a bonus, and know with a fair certainty they can play it in various places. Being an old-fogey, I don't know how a memory stick would work for music ... but so far my experience with digital distribution and playback (such as on my iPhone for example) is that the playback time between tracks is not instantaneous, but rather varies greatly with each device and depending on many other operating system factors at the moment. This is completely unacceptable to me. Timing is everything, and my projects absolutely require there be ZERO time between tracks. So you'll have to pry CD out of my cold, dead hands. And since I'm going to have an optical drive come hell or high water, I might as well have blu-ray capability. On the Windows side, it looks like I'm going to be stuck with Windows 8 on pretty much any new computer - but I have such a big issue with Windows 7* that I'm actually not too apprehensive about this. * customizing the appearance of folders is VITAL to me. It was a very cool feature of XP that they dropped for Windows 7, to my everlasting disgust. I work with lots of photo and music projects - and it was very handy for me to assign an image (such as an album cover) to a finished project and leave the unfinished ones without that embellishment. That way I could see at a glance which projects were done and which I was still working on. (Plus, it was pretty .... d'uh.) I have no idea if Windows 8 allows once again for that type of folder customization, but I think I'll stop by the Windows Store at lunch and see if I can find out. I've done a fair bit of research on Windows desktops in the last 48 hours, and I think I'm leaning toward the Dell XPS One 27 Touch. The screen is just too sexy, and only the Apple iMac 27 has that kind of high resolution. And that Dell seems to come out second only to the iMac in all kinds of 2013 ratings I've looked out over the past couple of days. I don't want to rush into anything, but being without my home computer is very distressing to me!
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