Digital Arts Room: PCs and software

Creative Arts
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OR:: Vinyl in the year 2021.

@jrkriehn, yes this probably needs to be voted on at the next CA meeting, but I’d highly recommend we consider making vinyl on another “floating” cart similar to dye sub, so it could be easily moved. with vinylmaster and the silhouette biz edition, both can import svg so that machine wouldn’t need the full adobe suite.it would be just for driving the vinyl(s). Reimaging the HP win8 in my opinion can happen whenever infra wants to, because we have the installation files all saved on the share drive, notwithstanding the headache of the adobe seats, but @jast is already aware of that .

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I’m not following.

I don’t want the large vinyl cutters to become “portable” machines that people can roll around to their hearts content. That’s asking for trouble, imho. And would mean TWO computers, since there are two cutters.

I remember you’ve thought it would be nice to have a portable option for the Silhouette machines, which would be a reasonable option, but I don’t think there is enough demand to justify doing this right now.

I’m gonna add Andrew (@jast) to the discussion, as maybe he’ll better understand what you are proposing than I am.

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Of course. My thought was that the existing 2 PCs right now are going to be reimaged/replaced/etc. The digitizer screen / pen is a wonderful tool for designwork in Adobe Creative CLoud, and I don’t like the idea of that PC being blocked for vinyl.

Based on covid recommendations, if one were to teach, we’d be against occupancy rules doing it in the digital suite, while temporarily rolling into the multi classroom would allow more.

Putting the cameo 4 on a tri level cart with be great. I’m game for whatever lets more of tools be used concurrently.

Perhaps the more appropriate question is where to locate that 2nd screen with the pressure sensitive stylus.

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Are we looking to buy a new digitizer monitor? If so, just get a newer Huion or XP-Pen model in a reasonable size (15"-17") which is easier to move around as needed, but large enough for the bulk of needs. A XP-Pen 15.6 Pro is $400 on the direct sales website. Even the 12"-13" sizes are quite useable, and drop the price by at least $100.

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I dont think we have enough utilization during the pandemic to get a 2nd pen, but i’d like to see the current one not be tied up on the same machine that is used to do vinyl.

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Ah, my mistake.

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Digitizer monitor??
Pardon my French, but
What the hell are you talking about???

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Pen tablet monitor, Cintiq style monitor, etc. The monitor you can also draw on with a pen, like the one we already have.

The tech has greatly improved and prices gone down since we originally purchased our current monitor, with many new brands besides Wacom offering quality options in a variety of sizes.

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I know what they are, but the way Doug was writing it sounded like we have one. Which would be news to me.

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We do. We’ve had it for years, bought it back at Ladybird. If it’s in the same location as usual, it’s the second monitor on the right side for the computer on the back wall of the vinyl cutter/dye sub room.

Yiynona Pen Touch Tablet monitor model MSP19, bought in 2013 if my search-fu is correct.

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Okay. Ima gonna put my CA Chairman hammer down.

(1) We will not be investing in a tablet, some awesome pen or a fancy-schmancy monitor for CA. In case you haven’t been paying attention, THE. BOARD. IS. NOT. SUPPORTING. “FLIGHT-OF-FANCY”. PURCHASES. They have placed their fiduciary focus on keeping the space open.

(2) Please stop referring to the computer replacement as “reimaging.” In my parlance, “reimaging” refers to the process of erasing the hard drive of an existing computer and re-installing the software etc. therein fresh.
WE ARE NOT DOING THAT.
We are replacing the OLD computers with NEW computers. Two of the systems are the ones we approved in December 2019 for the digital room. The third, while we approved the purchase, is actually one of the computer lab systems, diverted to us for our use. This way, we get three computers that are exactly alike in terms of hardware components. Yeah, it may be a matter of semantics, but I’m the chair, and that’s the way I want it, so my brain doesn’t explode from confusing information.

(3) The vinyl software purchase is on the agenda for next Monday night.
But let me be clear: ONLY THE INFRASTRUCTURE GROUP MEMBERS WORKING ON THE MIGRATION TO THE NEW COMPUTERS WILL BE AUTHORIZED TO COMPLETE THE PURCHASE AND DO THE INSTALLATION. I want the admin logins, license codes, etc. to be archived in their records according to their procedures.

While “the old way” certainly worked in the past, DMS ain’t the same animal it was a year ago, much less the same animal it was in 2013. I took over chairmanship in the midst of the pandemic, and have found myself at a big disadvantage, since the former players were (and largely remain) holed up elsewhere, not responding to requests for information. Not a reassuring position to be in. Since we cannot foresee what future conditions might be, I do not want future CA committee chairs to feel like they are floundering unnecessarily over information that isn’t really germane to their job. (and knowing EVERYTHING is too much to expect a volunteer to acquire overnight.)

Trust me, I appreciate previous efforts to keep computers running and ongoing efforts to get the bugs out of same that you guys have made, and no doubt will continue to make. But I firmly believe this is the right decision to make for the current state-of-being that the space is in.

(4) Lastly, please refrain from starting new TALK threads for topics that already have threads with key information included. If you feel that a discussion needs to be moved out of a thread, please ask the moderators to make the split, so we can keep related discussion together. (when working on my agenda, I had to track down three different threads for a single agenda item issue.)

okay. stepping off my soapbox.

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Seeing as that system is not connected to the Titan vinyl cutter, why is there a concern about “tying it up” with vinyl stuff? I was under the impression that the new cutter was connected to the same computer that the Titan was?

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Ummm. Ok? I wasn’t calling for the purchase of a new one, just relaying info since I have just recently done the research and purchase of this type of hardware. Once my misunderstanding was cleared up that we weren’t looking to purchase new gear, I only supplied the info of what hardware we already owned to update your knowledge of what CA already had available.

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My comments were more of a pre-emptive effort. Over the past several months, I’ve noticed a trend that if there is discussion of some groovy thing, there is soon a flurry of “oooooh! Shiny! Want!!!” messages.

I’ve gotten tired, grouchy, and uninclined to entertain such discussions.

I apologize if I struck a nerve.

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And, in an effort to explain why I hate use of the term “reimaging”:

From the advent of the original IBM computers, the school district I worked at was a “PC” centric business. No Macs. I did desktop publishing, photo editing, illustration, etc. on a PC. Which was Okey-dokey. Until it wasn’t.

Sadly, the IT leadership adopted a “one size fits all” policy when it came to the systems. I was one of the first seven people to get a PC. A cutting edge system when it was assigned to me, it quickly showed its’ limitations. Then they started rolling out more systems to other administrators and secretaries. Cool, right? Except, despite the fact that everybody else was running word processing programs vs. the heavy-memory-using graphics programs I was using, they got more powerful systems, while I was left with my very rudimentary system. Requests for upgrades were met with “well, they don’t have anything, so they get the new computers. You’ll be upgraded after everyone else has gotten theirs.” (bangs head on desk repeatedly).

Eventually, I did get an upgraded system, and even a laser printer (woot!), but now with a lot of PCs out in the field with a lot of clueless, resistant, or over-confident users out there, there were a lot of breakage problems. So the next “one-size-fits-all” decision was that when a PC developed a problem, the solution was to re-image the hard drive.

That is a logical solution IF everyone is using the exact same software, and all of their information can be backed up to a few floppy disks. However, in my case, I eventually had multiple megabytes of data for complicated projects saved on my hard drive - that they did not really make floppy disks large enough to backup, and they did not provide any usable quantity of remote storage space via the network. Having my computer go down with a problem was a BIG PROBLEM, because reimaging my hard drive meant losing many hours of work on many complicated design projects.

When I was at the end of my rope, we had a new finance guy join the district who was a Mac guy. And he refused to be a PC user. The business office found some unencumbered money that they decided should be funneled toward migrating me to a Mac platform, to overcome the “we need to reimage your hard drive” problem.

So, in summation, the term “reimage the hard drive” is a term that really makes my blood boil. And the reason I don’t want to hear it. I embrace the fact that it is often the best solution when a hard drive has been loaded with too much crap (which even a rube like me can tell is the case with the digital room systems), and am also peripherally aware that the Infrastructure gang has developed a “standard burn” for the initial image of a hard drive that is being launched somewhere in the space. But calling it “reimaging” immediately leads me to the conclusion that somebody is trying to coax an old inadequate setup into being something it is not.

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As far as our circa 2013-ish tablet or whatever goes, I would question the reason why it remains in CA. Is it still functional? If it is, would it better serve the members if it were connected to one of the design computers in the Common Room? Or perhaps as part of a system in Digital Media, for photo editing use?

I may add that as a discussion item on our agenda. Not to foist it onto someone else, but to gauge the interest of it being in CA, given the perceived digital room focus on digital output rather than design.

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Judy, not to derail your topic, my mom had similar issues. She hates pc with a passion. She was also in the graphic design side of things until she retired 3 years ago. I have tried to talk her into joining and teaching. She is kinda sticking with her guns that she doesn’t care to work on any more design stuff. I guess 40+ years will do that to you.

I seem to remember her saying if she was interviewing at a new place, she would ask if they used PC or Mac. She would turn the PC job down.

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I don’t hate PCs, i hate beaurocrats who don’t understand that what works for one situation doesn’t necessarily work for everyone. It sucked when DART first launched in the Dallas area, and they put full-size buses on every route -despite the fact that many of those routes were in communities that had not had ANY bus service, so giant buses were rolling around empty.

I can relate to her “no more design” feeling. I still do some design, but I find I like choosing my projects vs having to do stupid projects for stupid people.

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Out slender blond friend has used the digitizer many times in its current location pre covid. I know Heather W. did as well. It can be very handy for “tracing” but not actual tracing when altering logos, etc.

I’m sure Carey, Paul, and I didn’t mean to rile anyone up. Just trying to ensure that 1 room is ready here in the year 2021.

I 110% agree we budgeted 2 pcs. We still need those existing machines reimaged because their operating systems are no longer supported.

Next time I’m avail I’ll ping you for a long in person chat when that is convenient.

We heart Judy always.

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Why would we (CA) keep old PCs?