>> ^budzos:

They left a $4200 (+tax) software delivery (IE they basically delivered a card with a serial # on it) sitting on the floor in the hallway outside my apartment as it was a copy of the local coupon rag.
From the same experience, I'll also never give any more money to:
3VIZ Software (Canadian distributor of Autodesk.. based on my dealings with them I'd be surprised if they're still in business... bunch of fuck-heads they are).
Autodesk (Makers of 3DS MAX... pick terrible distributors and now call me every four months to harass me about costly upgrades and "subscriptions" that I'll never buy.)(also consistently set deadlines for the upgrades and subscriptions that are totally imaginary).
FUCK YOU UPS
FUCK YOU 3VIZ
EAT A FUCKING COCK AUTODESK
>> ^Yogi:
>> ^budzos:
Something in this vein happened with UPS almost three years ago and it still makes me so fucking mad when I think about it... I will never use UPS again. Fuck you UPS you useless cunts.

One time a UPS delivery girl dropped off my package and as I watched her from the window, her not noticing, she walked by my sprinklers which were on and saw one was broken. She bent down and fiddled with it for a good 30 seconds until it was fixed and sprayed correctly, I thought that was the sweetest thing ever.



They must like me because I'm such a pleasant person...staring at them through my window like a creeper.

AFAIK, Keynote (and iWork) won't run on windows (your only option with Sony)
You can run windows apps on Macs using Parallels, VMware Fusion, or VirtualBox. (I've used all of them, the newest parallels is about the best feature wise, but costs money where virtualbox is free. Vmware has a free Player for other OS, but not for mac). You can also dual-boot a mac to windows, but this is less convenient.

The macbook air has a max memory limit of 4GB. This might limit your work in Matlab, depending on the toolboxes you use and the datasets you create. Also, the macbook air does NOT have a firewire 800 port, so if you want to use an external hard drive, you are stuck with USB 2.0. I also heard the new Airs have some technical problems, so I agree that you should wait a few months.

I would suggest a Macbook Pro, but this has 13" screen, and is over 3lbs.

So if those are both "must have" requirements, then the only thing you can get is the 11" MacBook Air. Those only have an SSD option, and between the OS, AutoDesk, and Matlab, will start to quickly fill that 64 or 128GB capacity (more like 120 after formatting).

Don't forget to buy the $29 mini-displayPort to VGA adapter if you are going to use this for presentations - most places still have VGA connections on projectors. (monoprice has one that is slightly cheaper and also works fine)

>> ^Stormsinger:
>> ^Croccydile:
I don't pretend to have any sense of entitlement as well, I know its wrong and I simply don't care.
I'd say you've pretty well disqualified yourself from any discussion of the ethics involved then...or even ethics in general. I know -I- have no particular use for the opinions of a self-professed sociopath...


I'm sorry you feel that way, but I find it difficult to believe otherwise when the opposite party does not care about the consumer in return. I can't be naughty on a professional level on the job but at the same time I can see why places, say, choose to use copied software when even if your 100% legit companies like Adobe/Autodesk still give you crap. I find it appalling that after spending tens of thousands in licenses a year a vendor can come around and say "Despite your loyalty for years were going to change what kind of deal and license you can buy from us. Oh, by the way, weve made all your current installs illegal. Uninstall them before we send the wrath of the BSA upon you." (This has actually happend to me) Yeah, no surprise there is copying.

My parents wouldn't get me a computer growing up. Their refrain was "you don't want to be a computer dork!" So I didn't really start using computers until part-way through high school when I got into Autodesk Animator on the Amiga in the communications lab. In that course I got so wrapped up in animation (which was not being taught, the program was just available on the Amiga if you wanted to play with it) that they excepted me from the curriculum and let me animate whatever I wanted for the entire semester. When I took senior level I never even joined the class on the first day, just plunked down at the Amiga and started a new set of animations, never even saw the syllabus.

Around the same time my dad started bringing home a ThinkPad from work which he literally NEVER used and so I installed the PC version of Autodesk Animator on it and started doing my thing. I basically animated a trailer for what in my mind would be the greatest video game cutscene of all time. At 18 I saved money and bought a 486DXII-66 with 8MB (big for the time) and a 28.8 (fast for the time). Never looked back since then, to the point I now literally spend all day, every day in front of my computers.

I love these things. I used to do similar sort of stuff when I was younger using Autodesk Animator in the early nineties. The key difference of course was that mine were terrible, and usually just one stick man punching another one followed by lots of red splotches flying everywhere. I devoted a worrying amount of effort into making sure the little blood blobs splashed just right on the ground.

Whomever made this ought to consider trying his hand at doing fight choreography for films.

I thought of a yellow black/silver lathe. Might be because I've started learning AutoDesk Inventor 09.