OK - I'm going to have to suck it up and re-purchase Photoshop. Yanno, I wouldn't have upgraded to CS2 if I had really thought about it. I'll have two Photoshop machines instead of one. I guess I can figure out some good from that.

That RAM is pretty expensive. $400 extra to give a Mac Pro 4GB but $1400 extra to give it 8 GB?!? That's...steep. It's all in 1 GB increments so I don't understand why the second 4 GB is 2.5x the price. How many GB do you have? Does it run Photoshop comfortably or do you wish you had a little more?

Thanks for the link! I used to be a Mac person and I wouldn't mind returning to the fold. It's just that I've gotten used to the WalMart prices; I'm having Neiman Marcus sticker shock. ;-)

Apologies - I should have added, "Never buy the additional RAM from Apple." Try here (http://dealnews.com/memory/) first.

I have 2GB on my work MacBook Pro, and it's pretty darn swell. I would always like more, but - not on my dime. :)

At home my 1GB of RAM on a 4 year old computer is rather tired, but I still get by.

lol! I would heartily agree with you after looking at their pricing.

Do you have a docking station for the MacBookPro? I've been pondering a laptop/docking station combo vs. new, tricked-out CPU and a used, minimal laptop for trips. (I didn't bother mentioning that part earlier because if it was going to cost what I was now fearing, the laptop was not going to happen).

By tired, does that mean you have long delays for graphics to refresh on your screen? What if you're applying a filter or doing an operation on a large photo file in Photoshop? If current Photoshop taxes 1 GB, I definitely want more because Photoshop is never going to get less resource intensive.

ditto on "don't buy apple memory". I use memoryx and have found they have reliable memory.

BookEndz is the name of the 3rd party docking stations. We thought about one for Ginger's PB, but never got one. A work I couldn't live without, since I move the laptop too much to waste the time, but at home, we haven't gone there.

Good to know I can stop freaking over Apple's memory prices.

I was pondering the laptop/docking station combo because I want the full-sized keyboard, a couple of monitors, and a real mouse. I would also like to be able to join Joe in the living room while he's watching some John Wayne/Bond/violent movie and still play on the internet. Right now, I'm cut off completely from him if I want to play on the computer while he's relaxing in the living room.

I have a lot of wants -- I just need to prioritize so that I don't spend far too much.

Given the layout of the ports on a MBP, docking stations (http://www.bookendzdocks.com/Docking_Stations-Docking_Station_for_15_MacBook_Pro_Firewire_800.html) are fairly impractical. I tend to prop mine up (http://www.plasticsmith.com/loft) and just plug in the dangly bits by hand.

If I had the $$ right now, I would be buying a 24" iMac. They are more than hefty enough to do the high-end apps, and the screens are beautiful. (Brief editorial aside: Really, the "non-pro" Macs are excellent machines. And unless you're a graphics professional or a broadcast DV editor, they will be perfectly sufficient, especially because you can afford a couple extras like an external monitor or more RAM.)

By "tired," I only meant that my 4 year old 1GHz G4 Powerbook with 1GB of RAM is a weebit slow by today's standards. But I have done all of my graphic editing and video composition on it. It's still a great machine. Rendering tasks might take longer, but not in terms of screen refresh - only in terms of processing time.

Hm. The plasticsmith link doesn't seem to be working right now. But you can see the general idea here (http://www.lapvantage.com/).

I like that idea; I really haven't paid any attention to laptops so it's a whole new world to me. There's a lot for me to sort through and I need to sit down and prioritize my "want" list.

Huh. I was avoiding the iMacs because, pretty though they are, I'm leery of having everything housed in one box -- kind of like I never wanted a combo TV/DVD even as I understood the appeal.

I have to admit that the thought of a 24" screen is VERY appealing, especially since I also have my brand new 19" LCD screen. That seems very decadent. :) Lots of room for all the tool palettes on one and the image I'm working on on the other. I wonder how hard it would be insert memory bits in? I think there's a trip to the local Apple store in my near future to check the options out in person.

OK, so 2 GB is a reasonable amount of memory to make Photoshop zing along. That's a number I can work with. Hell, if 1 GB is enough for doing video editing, then I'm probably over-worrying the memory thing. It's just that I'm really tired of waiting while Photoshop loads a different set of brushes or patterns.

I've supported literally hundreds of Macs of various flavors for the past 8 years, and intel iMacs are exceptionally reliable boxes. In any case, you get huge bang for the buck.

2GB of RAM will serve you very well to start, and of course you can consider upping that later. Installing more memory actually couldn't be easier. You pop a panel off the bottom and plug it in. :)

You know I'm going to end up with an iMac, don't you? And it's all going to be your fault. ;-)

You know I'm going to end up with an iMac, don't you? And it's all going to be your fault. ;-)

For which you should say "Thank you" to the nice lady. :) I think an iMac might be a REALLY good choice for you.

Very good point. :) I shall do so now.

*SMOOCHES* Thank you!!!!! ♥

The reason the RAM escalates in price that way is the difference in what kinds of memory chips you have to use to increase the memory that much. To upgrade a Mac Pro to 4 GB of RAM, you use (I think?) 512 MB chips. But to upgrade to 8 GB, you use (again, not positive) either 1 GB or 2 GB chips. The larger chips are more expensive per MB than the smaller chips.

Now, I would HIGHLY doubt that you need more than 4 GB of RAM. Hell, on my MacBook I upgraded to just 3 GB in order to be sure I could run Final Cut Studio well. And Final Cut Studio is a MUCH bigger memory hog than Photoshop.

Seriously, the more I think about it the more I think a Mac Pro is overkill for anyone who isn't using any of the apps Mac designates as "pro apps" - Final Cut, After Effects, Pro Tools, etc. I'd suggest looking at the Mac Mini and iMac to see if they'll suit your needs. And the pricetags are MUCH lower.

That would make sense except that it's 4x 1 GB vs. 8 x 1 GB memory...uh, modules? I understood why there was a $1800 price jump to get 8GB when it was 4 x 2GB but that wasn't this case. :) However, it seems that 8 GB is more than I can reasonably expect to need, even 4 years hence, so it's no longer a point of extreme annoyance.

The price tags ARE much lower. I just looked at a "fully loaded" MiniMac with 20" monitor (because I really want the dual monitor thing) and it's much more in the range of what I hoped to spend on the CPU.

I still remain a little concerned about underbuying because I don't replace my computer on a 3 or even 4 year cycle. My current one is 6 years old and I'm only considering replacing it because I've maxed out its memory options and it's still underpowered for today's Photoshop. But if a MiniMac will allow me to get a good enough processor and enough RAM, that's probably what I should be looking at.

To give you a data point, my Powerbook is...3 years? 4 years?...old, and I wouldn't have replaced it if I weren't using Final Cut Pro. Everything else I do it does beautifully. My experience has been that Macs don't need the same kinds of upgrades/replacements that PCs do. Though, to be fair, when I bought my Powerbook it was near the high end of what Mac sold for notebooks at that time.

Happily, Photoshop is the piggiest program I use (well, actually Firefox can be pretty damned piggy if you're shy of memory). I do use it from time to time to deal with the pics from my 8MP camera. That's the outer limits of what I currently do...but I like to have some padding because who knows what I'll do later?

But this laptop does sounds VERY interesting to me because it could well solve my two largest complaints about my system: memory and that it doesn't travel. I look forward to getting your e-mail when you have the time. :)

We find that our macs last about 5-6 years between replacement cycles. And we usually find that we want to do something cool with the old one when we retire it from desktop use, like make it a central music server.

Joe already has his eye on "My Little Sony That Could" for use in his studio, in fact. :) This will undoubtedly lead to another round of expensive toys that would freak me out if I knew how much they cost.

5-6 years sounds about right to me, given the way software bloats to fill capacity. Also, once I get the thing set up to the way I like it, I'm really not eager to go changing machines.