Over the holidays I reread The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey. The last chapter is entitled "Sharpening the Saw," which is a reference to a story about a woodsman who is busy sawing down a tree. He's been at it for hours, and he's exhausted. Someone happens upon him and asks why he doesn't stop and sharpen his saw. "I don't have time to sharpen the saw," he says, "I'm too busy sawing!" Sharpening your saw is a metaphor for renewal. Sometimes it's tough to pull yourself away from "work" – you know, like wading through quintillions of emails to find those three that actually mean something – but trust me, putting down the iPhone for an hour to read or do research won't set you back much more than turning off Oprah. An investment of just one hour a day will pay more dividends than Dell stock did in the 1980s. As long as you don't miss any cues because you decided to sharpen your saw in the middle of a show, you'll be fine.
I had an unplanned opportunity to sharpen some skills when the hard drive crashed on my desktop computer. Fortunately, it's not my main computer, and I didn't lose any valuable data. But I did have to replace the hard drive and re-install all of the software, including the operating system and all of the applications. I've been using this computer to edit a DVD about programming a lighting console. The software I had been using included a non-linear video editor (Sony Vegas 9.0), a lighting console offline editor (Hog3PC), Vectorworks 2010 and ESP Vision 2.3. I also use a graphics editing program (Corel Draw) to manipulate graphics.
Since this happened over the holidays, it gave me the opportunity to spend some time relearning a lot about computer hardware. and to update my knowledge of the software we use to do our jobs. This computer was one I built about a year ago, and it uses an AMD Athlon X2 6000+ dual core processor running at 3.1 GHz. I chose this processor because of the price/performance ratio. It cost $107 with tax in 2009, which was very reasonable for a 3+ GHz processor. I really wanted a quad core processor to render graphics faster, but at the time it was about double the price. So I opted for the less expensive but still powerful processor.
The processor speed, I'm told, has a lot to do with how well a visualizer can keep up based on the number of CAD blocks (fixtures, set pieces, design elements, etc.) in the file. Most of my projects have a relatively small number of fixtures – at least until Willie Williams retires and Bono calls me – so a 3.1 GHz processor has more than enough speed. I probably could have gotten away with a cheaper, lower-speed processor, but I would rather have too much power than not enough, especially for $107.
The motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-M61PME-S2P, which I chose based entirely on the recommendation from the owner/operator of the small computer shop down the street where I bought the components. The power supply I bought is a 650-watt Green brand, and it cost $96.12 with tax. It was also recommended by the computer shop owner, and it turned out to be enough power.
The mother board has two double data rate dual channel (DDR2) memory slots, and I bought two sticks of dual in-line memory modules (DIMMs), each of which has 2 gigabytes (GB) of RAM. I know from experience that more memory means better performance, especially if you're multi-tasking a lot. Each stick of memory cost $33.50, and if you know how much RAM cost in the 1990s, then you can appreciate what a fantastic bargain that is.
I could have bought two 4 GB DIMMs, but a 32-bit operating system (Windows XP) can only address a total of 4 GB of RAM (232 = 4 GB). Windows Vista is available in 32-bit 64-bit, so if you buy the 64-bit version then you can use as much RAM as the motherboard will allow (typically 8GB).
You can also buy DDR3 now, which is twice as fast as DDR2 and is available in modules of up to 16 GB. But they work in groups of three, so it would cost a minimum of about $300 for this RAM. It's tempting to find out how much that would improve performance, but that would also require a new motherboard. I think I'll wait a little while before I totally overhaul my hardware.
The only component I didn't buy down the street was the video card, because it's the most critical part for visualization in lighting design software. I approached it with a bit of trepidation. A few years ago, I was asked to review a new version of a popular visualizer, but my computer at the time didn't meet the minimum requirements for the video card. So I went to Fry's Home Electronics and found out that such a card would minimize my wallet by about $500. I ended up maximizing my opportunity to get out of there without buying it.
The landscape in video card world has changed dramatically since then. Now, a video card that cost several hundred dollars back then is much more reasonably priced. For this computer, I looked for, and found, a graphics chip that met the minimum requirements for ESP Vision – "a Direct X 9.0 compatible video card with at least 256 megs of RAM supporting vertex shader 2.0 or better and pixel shader 2.0 or better" – and for WYSIWYG – "PCI Express video card with Open GL-accelerated display adapter with 128MB (or better) of video memory, Open GL 2.0 Support." I found a brand new ATI Radeon X1900 XT with 512MB of video RAM on EBay for $97 with shipping.
I already had a tower case and a hard drive from an old computer, so I used them both. In retrospect, I probably should have bought a new hard drive, since they're unbelievably cheap and the one I used ultimately crashed less than a year later. But had the hard drive not crashed, I would have missed this learning opportunity.
After installing the new hard drive and the operating system, I found that I couldn't get on the Internet. I double-checked my connections, swapped cables, and I even tried to use a Wi-Fi dongle, but I couldn't get online. I spent about an hour on the phone with tech support troubleshooting the problem. We tried changing the IP address and reconfiguring the subnet mask, but nothing worked. Tech support finally declared that everything was fine on their end and that I would have to contact Windows tech support to resolve the problem. Since the OS was long out of warranty, I would rather take my chances against Elin Woods and her golf club than to face the long wait time and the high cost of out-of-warranty tech support. It turned out that the dongle manufacturer's tech support were right about their end of things. After poking around in Windows device manager, I realized that the Ethernet drivers were missing. It had been so long since I first assembled the computer that I had forgotten about the CD-ROM that came with the motherboard and had all of the drivers. Once I found the disk and installed all of the software, the Internet came alive.
I eagerly installed all of the application software and everything worked beautifully, executing commands quickly and reliably. The graphics card does a fabulous job of painting the screen, even in the most demanding applications. I pause to reflect on this little slice of heaven because I know it won't last. Once the Windows registry becomes clogged with residual 0s and 1s, the machine will slow down enough to make me long for a T-square and a mechanical pencil. To stave off that eventuality I reserve the use of this machine for graphics-intensive jobs only. I use my laptop for my daily tasks like email, word processing, and trying to keep up with all of the social networking sites. For that, I know I will eventually have to pay the piper and replace my laptop on an annual or bi-annual basis (News Flash – laptop ceased functioning, new one has been ordered with DDR3). But that's okay; the prices are falling like the autumn leaves.
This morning I opened the newspaper and found an advertisement from Fry's Home Electronics offering the very same motherboard/processor combination for $53.99 with tax. Some people go berserk when the technology they buy drops in price after they bought it. I paid $180.36 for the same hardware and I was thrilled. To get a state-of-the-art (at the time) high-end computer for under $500 made me giggle like a little girl.
Today there's an article in the paper about the new technology that Intel is working on. Remember that dual core processor I bought last year? Well, now you can buy a quad core processor for roughly the same price. But that's not what the newspapers are talking about. What they're talking about is – are you ready for this? 16-core technology. And 48-core technology. Intel, it appears, is making strides in multi-core microprocessor technology. How long will it be before we start talking about M-core (million cores) and G-core (billion cores) technology? It's hard to say, but this I know for sure; we all have to keep our saws as sharp as we can. There are some big trees growing in the forest.
