[jstein]

Hello everyone with all the ranting and (crying) going on in here about PB specs and updates or lack of. I thought it was time for us again to see what everyone uses his or her PB for. Not that I am anti specs person or anything but real world application or actual computer usage goes a lot further than specs. Case in point Walter Murch who I am sure everyone is familiar with and how he edited the movie Cold Mountain using Final Cut Pro. Murch using FCP to edit a full-length motion picture sent shockwaves through the industry as everyone and their Avid was paying full attention to see the outcome. Needless to say he pulled it off but out everyone who said that it could not be done you may be really surprised at who said that FCP would not be able to pull off this feat…

Again all of this was base on specs… and since Murch pulled it off that says a lot for specs…

Moving on back to the main point what do you use your PB for?

As for me I have the 15-inch PB 1.25 with 1.5Gb of RAM, my PB serves as my mobile studio I use it for everything from editing movies (FCE), graphic design (Adobe CS2), music production (Reason, Logic, Cubase), 3D (Bryce, Lightwave) and now thanks to Blender since I cannot afford Maya yet animation, screenwriting and of course your basics spread sheets, word processing, email, surfing etc…

So everyone please tell what do use PB for….

[Kyle Dreaden]

I have a powerbook G3 500Mhz (Pismo) that I use exclusively for browsing the net, e-mail, itunes, etc. when on the run. My powerhouse is my Dual G4 Powermac.

[phazedowt]

Professionally I'm a physicist, which means that for the most part I use my PB as a terminal over X11 and for writing documents and making presentations (both done with LaTeX). All my heavy-duty computing is done on farms with hundreds of CPUs. Why a PB insteand of an iBook? Almost entirely because of the screen: two Emacs windows side by side are much easier to read on the widescreen than on a cramped 1024x768 screen. As a hobby I've recently acquired a digital SLR and so I use photoshop and canon's digital photo pro (a RAW workflow program) on my PB as well. Aside from that, the usual web surfing, email, chatting, etc. that everyone else uses their computers for these days.

[MovieCutter]

Ironically...editing full-length movies, commercials, trailers, marketing materials, documentaries, etc. Using Final Cut Studio...my Power Mac G5 rigs helps with this as well (soon to be a Quad )

[iomatic]

Art direction (scanning sketches, comping, storyboarding, printing (external monitor), graphics), web design, identity, estimates, planning, budgeting, scheduling, Flash. On a 12" 1.33, soon to be 15"--yes, the new 'crappy' one.

[tracemhunter]

i use my powerbook for basic things (web, word, music, watching movies), the occasional photoshopping, reason 3, and i excel myself to death with accounting. i could have gotten the ibook but i wanted the sleek factor and hate waiting for anything. i use my pc for intense gaming and what not so this gets me by. i love the graph util because it makes things so much faster without having to get it to work in the y= screen on my calculator.

[CrazedVW]

I'm a high school social studies teacher. My 15" 1.5/1GB/80GB/Combo functions as my sole computer. When I get home from work in the afternoons I hook it up for use it with a 19" LCD, external kb and mouse and in the mornings it comes with me to work where I use it for Keynote2 presentations/lectures (hooked to one of the school's LCD projectors), creating lesson plans, showing movies, etc. I've got a BT Microsoft house that is awesome for doing presentations and allowing me to constantly move around my room talking and keeping order.

[capuchin]

I use it at work as a sys admin at a large graphic design agency - a little photoshop, indesign, acrobat, and a whole lot of command line and scripting stuff. At home I use it to surf imdb while watching bad, bad tv.

[SVass]

Genealogy including document preparation, data entry into databases, dna probability calculations for "relatedness", photo editing, and email preparation on the road and around the house. The powerbook was bought because it had a dvd burner which could back up irreplaceable data and it had a pc slot that held a compact flash reader. (Note that I prefer the AppleWorks spreadsheet to Excel because so far I have found no math errors similar to one I found long ago in Excel and the interface doesn't change everytime Gates has an inspiration.) sam

[ism]

Actually a (mechanical) development engineer, but I'm interested in video so I mainly use it for that. Also a bit of web design (in the broadest sense!).

I've occasionally used it for work, but try to avoid it!

[alphasubzero949]

My Rev. A 15" Al PB is my primary machine. I bought it mainly for the screen real estate, S-video out, and dual display support. I grew out of my 12" iBook G3. Even with exposé, 1024x768 is not practical.

Uses:
Basic web (browsing, e-mail, etc.)
Photoshop
Flash (though I haven't been using it since)
Research (sequence and protein analysis)
Master's Thesis (Office for the paper, data spreadsheets, and presentations)

I recently swapped out the OEM combo drive for a Pioneer DL DVD±RW burner.

[fisherKing]

12" 1.33 alubook.

pro music production (logic, reason)
screenwriting! (final draft)
graphic design (inDesign, photoshop)
webdesign (dreamweaver, etc)

the usual surfing, email, etc etc

& a lot of experimenting with the os...

great os, great time!

[photoeditor]

1GHz TiBook.

Photoshop 7 (just fine). Nikon Capture 4.3.2 (trouble). Stata 8 SE (pretty good except with big social science datasets that push the 1GB memory limit, and complex regressions get a bit slow). Excel (see Stata), plus the usual Word/Powerpoint/web/e-mail stuff.

[Moon Potato]

I just picked up one of the new 1.67GHz 15" books.

It's great for photoshop (I just did a project with 30 layers last night, and the only time I had to wait for the machine was while rotating the canvas). Final cut pro runs fine, as long as there's no major rendering involved... It seems a bit lacking compared to the 2.0GHz G5 I have at home, but it beats the hell out of the 800MHz iMacs at my school.

[Darthmaul4114]

i use mine for net, chatting, mail....

i also use it for photoshop cs2 and i store all my music and pictures on it for portability reasons. its pretty much my everyday computer. i also take it to school to take notes (...well sort of).

i think i use it for everything i do except for torrents i leave to my pc, and also i store a lot of stuff on my pc.

speaking of photoshop, Moon Potato i did a project about two weeks ago with like 70 layers and it held up pretty good. probably had a lot to do with the 1.5gbs of ram i shoved in it.

[Randman]

PB17. Professionally, I use it for page and graphic design as well as editing and writing.

Adobe's Creative Suite, Quark, Word, Pages and TextEdit all get a good workout.

[JoshuaZ]

A lot of internet stuff, video chatting with my friends and family, e-mail, working on my webpage.

I use it every day at work. Either mixing stuff up in photoshop, or making worksheets, or working on the defunk city English Teacher page.

I use it for hobby stuff. Photo and video editing. I really need to make video podcast with my friends

I use it for entertainment over here in Japan. Getting TV shows and movies what I can not get here and watching them, or just watching the large number of US DVDs I brougth with me.

[mattsgotredhair]

I mostly use mine to surf the web and do the casual everyday thing, but the main reason I got it was to be able to do mobile editing within ProTools. I wanted the portablilty of a laptop, but enough power to be able to edit easily. Being able to record with a cheap portable interface anywhere I want is nice, but I really just wanted to edit anywhere. My main machines for recording and mixing are a few G5's run HD at work, and those suckers get the jobs done.

[Ryan1524]

i'm in univ. for Elec and Biomedical Engineering.

i use it mainly for:
-coding (XCode)
-report writing (Pages/Word)
-presentations (Keynote)
-web
-mail
-photo post-processing (i i have a feeling Aperture won't run too nicely on my measly PB though, and it's missing the dual 30" Cinemas. lol)
-Music/iTunes (vital to univ survival)
-movies
-and the random school related odds/ends

[jmgriff]

I'm a PhD student (Neuroscience) ... my 12" PB is my main computer. It gets used for web, email, office, data analysis (R, Matlab, Octave), figure preparation (Omnigraffle, Illustrator, Photoshop), and video editing and DVD authoring (Final Cut Studio). The ability to run X11 and aqua apps side by side is very nice. The powerbook isn't the fastest machine, but thanks to OS X it is very stable and multitasks well. I can run a lot of applications simultaneously without significant slow down and that boosts my productivity quite a bit.

[Byte of Apple]

My new 15" PB is on the way, and I plan to use it for email, web surfing, Photoshop, DVD burning and watching while travelling, but also to have at home as a second Mac computer (my other one is a recently-purchased iMac). As a newbie to the world of Apple I am ready to leave Windows in the dust!

BOA

[Sijmen]

The reason for buying the powerbook in the first place was that I could type on the road. I used to type on a Psion 5MX, which isn't a bad device if you haven't used anything else, but typing for a long time does tire my hands. So I needed something that was non-microsoft, for my writing. The PB is one heck of a nice machine to work with, the keyboard is so much nicer than anything I've tried before, and my typing actually goes a lot faster.
And secondly, I use it basically for everything else, from gaming to watching DVD's. It's more of a second desktop now than a portable computer. The only time I touch my PC is when I download stuff, that's it's function these days

[jstein]

Wow! I am truly amaze though not surprise at the responses let us see here so far we have a physicist, a few educators, some engineers, a couple of scientist in the making, of course a gang of artist and last but not least a Mac Specialist. Man the synaptic Gods are smiling. So I guess our overprice under performing machines are good for something other than aesthetic value ……. Geesh

[madmanXwater]

Wow! If those 15 people use PowerBooks, then they must be great!

Just kidding, I know lots of professional people that use PowerBooks (and PC laptops). I just think it's funny to post a question like this on a PowerBook Forum and expect any other answers than the ones you got. I do see you're point that it's good once in a while to talk about the good things instead of complaining all the time. I've done my share of complaining about the specs!

I have both a 17" PowerBook 1.33 G4 and a new HP zd8225 3.2Ghz P4. I'm trying to convince myself that I should only use one laptop, and stop messing around with both platforms. That's kind of why I purchased the HP, largely based on its specs and performance over the PowerBook, but I'm finding that I am more productive on the PowerBook. I know I'm spoiled and shouldn't complain, about having both, but I'm trying to "simplify" my life and focus on my work instead of the technology. My problem (at least one of them) is that I've used both platforms for many years and have found that each does some things better than the other, and I guess I'm just having a hard time letting go. Virtual PC doesn't cut it either. I'm really hoping that the Intel based PowerBooks will allow me to run both OSX and XP, I know, it's sad.

Mike

[jstein]

Originally Posted by madmanXwater

Wow! If those 15 people use PowerBooks, then they must be great!

Just kidding, I know lots of professional people that use PowerBooks (and PC laptops). I just think it's funny to post a question like this on a PowerBook Forum and expect any other answers than the ones you got. I do see you're point that it's good once in a while to talk about the good things instead of complaining all the time. I've done my share of complaining about the specs!

I have both a 17" PowerBook 1.33 G4 and a new HP zd8225 3.2Ghz P4. I'm trying to convince myself that I should only use one laptop, and stop messing around with both platforms. That's kind of why I purchased the HP, largely based on its specs and performance over the PowerBook, but I'm finding that I am more productive on the PowerBook. I know I'm spoiled and shouldn't complain, about having both, but I'm trying to "simplify" my life and focus on my work instead of the technology. My problem (at least one of them) is that I've used both platforms for many years and have found that each does some things better than the other, and I guess I'm just having a hard time letting go. Virtual PC doesn't cut it either. I'm really hoping that the Intel based PowerBooks will allow me to run both OSX and XP, I know, it's sad.

Mike

Very true MadmanXwater nice sig by the way... I agree with you on everything I was just trying to bring some joy to a somber rant that is all... Also I am far from saying the PB is perfect and could not stand an upgrade like more battery power and I do mean more. Moving on hey if you can afford to have HP and PB laptop that is even better because there are programs that work on one platform better than the other... A lot of times I am in that same position when I have to go back to PC land to use 3DS Max and then back over to Mac land with Maya and a few other programs. Hopefully with Autodesk purchasing Maya maybe 3ds will become multi-platform or even better I should learn Linux and go with Yellow Dog oh my fault that's another post... I know we are all keeping our fingers cross on the MacIntel PB but until then let us enjoy what time we have left with PowerPC PB...

[urrl78]

Small time Wedding videographer, usually getting jobs by recommendations from others (word of mouth), as well as other video gigs; My last was making a music video demo for an aspiring Gospel soloist. I charge usually $100 per hour and it more than makes up for the cost of the Powerbook. I have 2 Canon GL2 cams to work with. It's fun and possibly a nice gig to really get into after retirement from my real job. I edit with a 17" 1.5 Ghz Powerbook.

[Orion27]

I'm a consultant and broker for big boats. I use my Rev A 1.25 Al Powerbook to track clients -DayLite- Photoshop to process photos for my website, email and
advertizing. DreamWeaver-webdesign- MS Office-documents - Acrobat Pro- documents-Acquisition -p2p- Final Cut Pro-Video- ITunes-podcasts-radio-music-Safari-web surf- Mail-mail- Airport to stay mobile- .Mac to keep synced to home office- Expose' to the rescue! Home office set up Dual
Power Mac with a 20" Apple Display cable broadband and wireless network. Looking to upgrade my Powerbook when it feels right.

[iREZ]

i use my powerbook for school work, im in my last year of gettin my BA in graphic design n use my book for just about everything design orientated.

adobe creative suite 2, quark, freehand, and the occasional dreamweaver. i do run more stuff, but those are my main reasons.

i dont complain by the way, i just think its rather foolish to call these 'new' powerbooks on the front page when absoulutely nothing was updated to the 12" model other than a slight price drop.

[giggs11]

Basic internet stuff (web, e-mail, Adium)
iTunes
Audio editing (converting cassettes to CDs recently using Amadeus)
Photo editing and organization
Video capture and editing
DVD authoring
Simple HTML for maintaining my website
Downloading and watching foreign television shows

[I was David B.]

I am a physicist working in a science team that builds an astronomical research satellite for the European Space Agency. My special task is writing software for the processing and analysis of the science data. Since our project is java only I use my powerbook whenever I can or want or have to be exceptionally productive or creative (which is often).

Although our reference platform is linux, Mac OS is fully compatible. Even more, yesterday during a meeting I used photoshop and powerpoint to create some graphics for presentations. These are tasks where linux lets you stand in the desert.

Privately I host my audiobooks on the powerbook and write some shareware apps, ripping dvds (for private use of course) and all the other stuff you use a computer for.

[Randman]

Originally Posted by I was David B

Although our reference platform is linux, Mac OS is fully compatible. Even more, yesterday during a meeting I used photoshop and powerpoint to create some graphics for presentations.

*cough* Keynote. *cough*

[jmgriff]

Originally Posted by madmanXwater

Wow! If those 15 people use PowerBooks, then they must be great!

Just kidding, I know lots of professional people that use PowerBooks (and PC laptops). I just think it's funny to post a question like this on a PowerBook Forum and expect any other answers than the ones you got. I do see you're point that it's good once in a while to talk about the good things instead of complaining all the time. I've done my share of complaining about the specs!

Well I guess that is true ... But I find it interesting that many of the people here, who could probably afford to switch to newer faster laptops running Windows or Linux, prefer a powerbook despite the performance defecencies. Or indeed the many people who own faster PCs, but find themselves still using their older Macs out of preference. I think that says something about the qualities of the platform (and of Mac OS X in particular).

[I was David B.]

Originally Posted by Randman

*cough* Keynote. *cough*

No Keynote, because our presentations go into a project-public database and have to be readable for everyone.

[Randman]

You can build in Keynote then export it into a PowerPoint file.

[PrOeliuM]

Graduate Student (MS) in Computer Science,
12 inch PB (1.5Ghz) is my primary computer. I use it for all school related stuff, which includes heavy development and compilation in both XCode, and the good old terminal + emacs combination. I also make frequent use of the X11 capabilities of OSX. I use TeXshop as a LaTeX front-end for all my technical reports, research papers, etc, and Pages for small document layout like making flyers about group meetings or talks being given in the department.

In terms of personal use, I use GIMP and iPhoto for various picture-related tasks, iTunes for music, AdiumX for instant messaging, VLC for movies, Mail, Camino, and a few other normal applications. My PB is not the fastest for all of my tasks (and lags in some of my coding projects by a fair amount), but being able to do all these things on the same machine and have everything work smoothly is worth it for me.

[songoku912]

Everything. It's my only computer.

[songoku912]

Everything. It's my only computer.

[songoku912]

Damn double post.

[songoku912]

Damn double post.

[templetalker]

Macnn Is Going Crazy?!!!!!???

[templetalker]

Fer food and uh downloading iron chef!

[templetalker]

Originally Posted by songoku912

Damn double post.

Right! For double posting, mmmmm....

[templetalker]

Originally Posted by songoku912

Damn double post.

oooooh yeah, nothing is sexier than a slow mo double p on a POWERBOOK PC...(insert Curtis Mayfield)

[mdc]

I have a 15" 1.25ghz powerbook and a 17" 1.8ghz iMac.

i find myself using the imac due to the screen size and resolution, since besides all the regular internetting, i do web design, and i really like the larger resolution.

this week or next i will be buying a new 17" powerbook. i have always wanted the 17" and now that the resoltution has been upped to a 20" monitor resolution i have no more use for the iMac.

[betasp]

I use my 12" PB for everying I have to do running the IT Department of a large printing company. I am responsible for the help desk people, the developer and the network guys. I handle the two main servers myself (keeps the skills sharp). There is nothing I do on a daily basis I can't do on my PB... although out phone system admin software is PC only, so I have to work through the terminal.

I am one of those people that believe that the average user does not need more than a P3-700 to do their daily work and Windows 2000 is sufficient for most business apps. I don't think most people need the latest computing power. Who cares how fast your computer boots as long as you never have to reboot (stability rules).

[epsionbass]

Hey jstein just to let you know, Walter Murch did it again also. A movie was just released, Jarhead, that was edited with FCP hd.

I'm a film major, and i am soon to be having either a 12" or 15" pb. I am still deciding. I will be using for mainly screenplays (final draft), FCP (i'll need an external monitor if i go with 12"), bbedit, photoshop, flash, probably in that order of affording these things haha.

[epsionbass]

Hey jstein just to let you know, Walter Murch did it again also. A movie was just released, Jarhead, that was edited with FCP hd.

I'm a film major, and i am soon to be having either a 12" or 15" pb. I am still deciding. I will be using for mainly screenplays (final draft), FCP (i'll need an external monitor if i go with 12"), bbedit, photoshop, flash, probably in that order of affording these things haha.

[stewart.phillip]

I am a under-grad Pharmacy student and my 15" 1.5 Ghz PB gets used for...

-Powerpoint and Word (the notebook layout is really useful for note taking)
-Internetting (I'm in the library as I am typing this), iChat
-Audio Recording (I play drums and GarageBand is great. I sure would like
ProTools though...)
-iTunes (There is no earthly way I could survive without my extensive music
music collection)

I've always had a laptop but this is my 1st Mac and I feel fairly confident in saying that I will nevr buy another PC again.

[stewart.phillip]

I am a under-grad Pharmacy student and my 15" 1.5 Ghz PB gets used for...

-Powerpoint and Word (the notebook layout is really useful for note taking)
-Internetting (I'm in the library as I am typing this), iChat
-Audio Recording (I play drums and GarageBand is great. I sure would like
ProTools though...)
-iTunes (There is no earthly way I could survive without my extensive music
music collection)

I've always had a laptop but this is my 1st Mac and I feel fairly confident in saying that I will nevr buy another PC again.

[GlobalNomad]

- Hold my Music
- Hold my pictures
- Web/Email/Chat (adium)
- Video (VLC, mostly TV shows)
- Printing out Lectures
- Writing notes
- Azurus
- Reading journal articles

My temp always sits around 50-60C (i changed preferances fan so it only comes on at 62).
My battery has gone threw 1200+ cycles.
Always plugged up to my external 17" philips lcd monitor.

Right now I'm using; adium, Azureus, Safari, Quick Silver, Mail, Temperature monitor, Menu Meters.
CPU: 85%

I probably should have gotten the iBook but at the time there was only a g3 iBook and I really wanted a g4 so I went with the 12" Powerbook.
867 Mhz, superdrive (region free and dvd-rw added), 640mb, 60Gb.
I'm actually surprised it has still lasted. I have really thrown this little powerbook around.
Awesome build quality.
I actually wish I had a Pismo, mostly because well its so damn cool.