What's Your Dream Computer Look Like? Or Brother can you spare $9000?

I just bought what is pretty much my dream computer, I switched to Mac as my primary computer and bought a the most powerful Macbook with 8gb of RAM.

Now that I don't really need Windows software that much, and now that virtualization makes it very easy to run it in the Mac environment anyway, I found it to be a significant improvement to switch and am loving it. I can dual boot to Windows 7 Ultimate for gaming, or just run Windows programs within the mac menu (they launch just as if they were a Mac program). Thing is, I just cut off the last bit of work software I use on Windows (switched from code coop to git) and really don't need any particular operating system anymore. Without needing Windows programs I can take advantage of the far superior (performance, usability) *nix/OSX Gui combo. It's by far the best computing experience I've had and Apple is really pushing things these days.

But I also got into screens and having more workspace to keep more work open at once, and am now surrounded by them. Within 10 feet of me are 7 screens I can extend to or control between various devices (e.g. ipad, wacom) and computers (windows, linux, mac).

I'm moving back to my apartment and now I have a dream desk, one of those U-shaped ones that will hold a lot of screen real-estate. Right now I am only mainly using two of them due to desk space reasons but my productivity would improve if I could switch contexts in work by just looking at a different monitor more often and not switching windows/spaces around.

So right now all I really want to add are some bigger displays, like the 27-inch or the discontinued 30-inch mac displays.

Mac certainly isn't the best for the money (you get way more bang for your buck with PC or Linux) but I think it's the best money can buy. If I were gonna blow $9k on computers right now it would probably be on a bunch of ginormous mac displays.

You must be a computer god!!

I bow to you my sensei!

No god, but you should check out synergy, it lets you control other computers from the same mouse/keyboard: http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/

for roughly the same price i'd buy, a top of the line mac pro, macbook pro and i mac

But where on Macs do they have the awesome glowing alien based logos?! They don't have them ergo they are useless as computers! Overpriced paperweights they be!!

my mac mini is a beautiful silver cube, with a slot and tiny white light on the front, pure simplicity

You slavishly worship at the bloody minimalist alter of cult leader Steve Jobs DJ!

actually it's the OS i like, i've never had a windows OS that didn't screw up within months of updating it, and continue to screw up until the next version, been through two versions of mac OS and no blue screens of death, no irreversible freeze ups causing me to hit the power switch because i can't log out normally

if i could get the OS to run in a paper bag i'd settle for that as the body of the machine

I have never had a Windows OS that did screw up, and I have been using personal computers of various kinds since 1980, (minis before that) and every version of MS-DOS back to 1.12 and of Windows since 3.0. Maybe I was lucky with my hardware and software combinations (but I have had a lot of computers) On the other hand I hate Apple with an almost religious fervour, but that's an emotional thing, not based on any evidence.

That sounds like what I would get if I had the money. Nice choice.

Thanks for the link. Looks like a good tool for controlling all my piece-o-crap machines

For mac you'll want this gui to make it easy to use: http://sourceforge.net/projects/synergykm/

It really is nice. You can set a laptop next to your monitor and control both etc. I also occasionally use AirDisplay (http://avatron.com/apps/air-display/) to extend my PC or Mac desktops onto an iphone or ipad and get a bit more screen real estate.

For a bit of a different setup (not KVM but using old computers and their displays as an extended desktop to one computer) there is also Maxivista (for PC only I think: http://www.maxivista.com/).

Between remote desktop/vnc, virtualization and stuff like the above I can have a ridiculous amount of computing connected to one keyboard and mouse. When I first setup all 7 screens it was neat to see the cursor jump across linux, mac and PC computers surrounding me and to be able to work on any of them from one input station. Synergy is a great program that can enable some very interesting setups.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/09/19/intel-selling-50-codes-to-unlock-parts-of-your-cpu/
This is like buying a car and finding out one can't use the installed radio or heater unless one pays an unlocking fee to get the password.

My G5 is obsolete and my titanium laptop a dinosaur. I'd like a quad-core MacPro, (although I really don't need that much power and could work quite comfortable on a 27" iMac) a 27" monitor, a 17" Macbook Pro and an iPad. Comes to approx. 6000.00 but add CS5 software at 2000.00 and a new scanner and we're sliding towards 9000.00. That must be the magic number.

What I really need is an easy way to control my PC desktop from my MacBook Pro. What's the best thing to use for that?

Depends how you want to do it. Synergy is like a software KVM for input only, so you control the PC on its own display, not on your Mac's display. Once you set it up it's pretty easy, and works like an extended desktop a bit (you can drag your mouse over to the PC screen but not windows and apps). But if you want to control the PC on your mac display (in a window, or full screen) then you can use remote desktop or vnc.

Remote desktop server is built into windows (you may need to enable it, and it is not available on some editions of Windows, i.e. the non-"pro" ones) and they have a free client for the mac you can download. If this is available to you and this is what you want to do (control the PC on your mac display) then this is what I would do for a PC.

Alternately VNC server is built into all modern macs, and you'd want a VNC client to connect to it. To connect from your mac to PC with VNC you need a VNC client on your mac and a VNC server on the PC. If your Windows version does not support remote desktop then this is what I would use.

All the above is free, but VNC tries to make free hard to find, so lemme know if you need a link to the free versions. The setup to all three can also be tricky, especially cross platform so let me know if you run into any walls.

P.S. you can then get rd/vnc clients for iOS (but not free) and control your PC or mac from your iPod touch etc.

Thanks. That helps. I knew about the various options but was unsure which was the best choice. If I have trouble finding VNC i'll let you know. Thx.