Hey geeks!
Apr. 25th, 2012 02:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lizzie_and_ariI would please like to ask to impossible.
Ari's mum is doing one hopefully shoudl be the first year in a very long design course. At 50+, she is reclaming her life and retraining as an architect. Hurrah for her, woman power etc. Honestly it's such a good thing.
She is however facing the following:
1. Her computer is more shit than any of you can probably imagine. To be honest, she needs a Mac for the sort of work she's doing, but at the very least needs a new PC (laptop)
2. She really really needs the most recent Photoshop.
3. They have no money. Like, spent a year in the desert paying all their money to the Middle East kind of skint.
4. She deserves only good things.
So, how to get a state of the art Macbook with Photoshop and oh also Office 2010 by the way (she can probably get this from software4students) for no more than £400 at the OUTSIDE - or what to compromise on and what possible thing can possibly be done for her?
Help greatly appreciated darling folkses.
xx
Edit: Additional clarification: She has started the course (academic year starts in Feb here) and this is based specifically on what it is she needs. Office is a slight side point, so leaving that aside for now, she specifically needs the latest version of Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. She's currently using trial versions and even they are frustrating her.They do have computer labs but there's a lot of work she needs to do from home.
She needs to have a laptop, because of a) mobility and b) her lack of space for a desktop. They're free to use PCs or Macs but have been advised that Macs are the optimal OS. For some context, her current PC was bought in 2006 (maybe second hand). It has no battery, something very dodgy about the wireless card (internet keeps cutting out), is very slow, and has a 13" screen! ANY improvement on that really would be something!
She's limping along with what she's got and *can* probably get through the course if she has to - though I think her current laptop is at risk of sudden death - but she's wasting a lot of time and frustration. Essentially, what she NEEDS is:
* Abode Photoshop latest version
* Adobe Illustrator latest version
* A laptop computer that actually works in the way that the average person would expect it to.
Ari's Dad's been looking at the deals in Barry Norman and whatnot but that's exactly what we told him - something a computer shop tells you is a good deal is probably going to actaully rip you off a lot. Also, computers are generally much more expensive over here, so we're wondering if the thing to do might be to get hold of one in the UK and send it over. (Ideally, if anyone knows of anything going second hand but still perfectly fine...?)
Ari's mum is doing one hopefully shoudl be the first year in a very long design course. At 50+, she is reclaming her life and retraining as an architect. Hurrah for her, woman power etc. Honestly it's such a good thing.
She is however facing the following:
1. Her computer is more shit than any of you can probably imagine. To be honest, she needs a Mac for the sort of work she's doing, but at the very least needs a new PC (laptop)
2. She really really needs the most recent Photoshop.
3. They have no money. Like, spent a year in the desert paying all their money to the Middle East kind of skint.
4. She deserves only good things.
So, how to get a state of the art Macbook with Photoshop and oh also Office 2010 by the way (she can probably get this from software4students) for no more than £400 at the OUTSIDE - or what to compromise on and what possible thing can possibly be done for her?
Help greatly appreciated darling folkses.
xx
Edit: Additional clarification: She has started the course (academic year starts in Feb here) and this is based specifically on what it is she needs. Office is a slight side point, so leaving that aside for now, she specifically needs the latest version of Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. She's currently using trial versions and even they are frustrating her.They do have computer labs but there's a lot of work she needs to do from home.
She needs to have a laptop, because of a) mobility and b) her lack of space for a desktop. They're free to use PCs or Macs but have been advised that Macs are the optimal OS. For some context, her current PC was bought in 2006 (maybe second hand). It has no battery, something very dodgy about the wireless card (internet keeps cutting out), is very slow, and has a 13" screen! ANY improvement on that really would be something!
She's limping along with what she's got and *can* probably get through the course if she has to - though I think her current laptop is at risk of sudden death - but she's wasting a lot of time and frustration. Essentially, what she NEEDS is:
* Abode Photoshop latest version
* Adobe Illustrator latest version
* A laptop computer that actually works in the way that the average person would expect it to.
Ari's Dad's been looking at the deals in Barry Norman and whatnot but that's exactly what we told him - something a computer shop tells you is a good deal is probably going to actaully rip you off a lot. Also, computers are generally much more expensive over here, so we're wondering if the thing to do might be to get hold of one in the UK and send it over. (Ideally, if anyone knows of anything going second hand but still perfectly fine...?)
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[1 of 2]
Date: 2012-04-25 01:38 am (UTC)And as you state once she is a student then the both the hardware and software discounts start, if its Apple based I think there is still a massive discount on Apple hardware, if its PC based then as you say Software4students and let us know what software the course demands and we can spec up computers to match the applications.
Don't go buying a laptop, the software may require dual screens to operate at its optimum, and although most laptops do automatically handle dual screens they may simply not have the power to handle something like the latest version of AutoCAD or SolidOffice and become very frustrating to use.
[2 of 2]
Date: 2012-04-25 01:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-25 03:29 am (UTC)I'd be shocked if Photoshop was an integral part of an architecture course, rather than specific architecture software (which would be very different).
But step one is definitely asking the university what software is vital.
no subject
Date: 2012-04-25 05:50 am (UTC)She's doing design undergrad work prior to full-on architecture training.
no subject
Date: 2012-04-25 11:18 am (UTC)You can rent them by the month which was I believe around the $50 (US) mark.