Apple make quality computers, and you definitely get a quality machine, however they do come with a fairy hefty price tag. If you were to buy the components that make up a Mac Pro individually and put a similar Windows based PC together, you would save a lot of money- however, it obviously wouldn't be running Snow Leopard. This is where the Hackintosh community steps in. A Hackintosh is basically a PC that runs the Apple OS, but not on Apple hardware- the advantage to this is, you get basically an exact copy of an Apple machine (without the sexy aesthetics) but without incurring the large cost. Obviously to stay legal, you would need to buy a copy of the Snow Leopard DVD- and even then you would be breaking the EULA of the software- however whether this is illegal/legal itself is a grey area- it is deemed legal if only for personal/private use.

Theres loads of resources on this subject- for more information on how to build one of these machines, please visit http://tonymacx86.blogspot.com and  insanelymac.com

The best way to describe it is that it allows you to have multiple desktops, or multiple "spaces," which hold application windows, that you can switch between at any one time. It basically allows you to have many windows visible at once, without having to keep switching between applications on single desktop (something which is not as effective in OS X as it is in Windows 7). You can drag applications to each space, and force applications to open in one space only.

This is the best setup for me, and I find it very effective. I have 4 spaces, arranged in a square (2 columns, 2 rows.) To activate spaces, I use the middle mouse button. I force Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign to open in one space, my email (Thunderbird) Word, Excel etc to open in space 2, web browser in space 3 and FTP Client, print management client in space 4. I allow Finder to open up in any of the spaces, as I find I need to drag stuff from finder into each application quite often.

Having spaces activate on a click of the middle mouse button (in my case its a wheel as well) is essential. Unless I'm typing with two hands, one hand is always on the mouse, so it can be activated quickly.

Give it a try, it helps my workflow greatly, and keeps the OS organised!

Image by Balakov

Throughout my design career thus far sketching things out has always been a very important stage in the design process. To just sit infront of the Mac (or PC!) and wait for an idea to come to you just DOESN'T happen. - It gets the brain going. In my opinion it gets you thinking about the design problem quickly and effectively. – Creative work can be can be envisaged wholly or partially on the paper- i.e you can come up with exactly what you want to produce before you even touch the Mac. This keeps the computer as a tool and not the main focus of the creative process. – You don't need to be an amazing artist! Anybody can do a rough sketch, it doesn't need to be perfect, it just needs to symbolise what you want to do. – Make notes. If you can't show something quickly by drawing it, then making notes is just as good, it helps you remember what you want to do. – Keep it quick. Make sure you don't spend long time on one idea, its better to generate lots of ideas quickly to begin with. At some stage i'll upload some of my sketches to show people what I mean, hopefully it will help somebody out!

The Adobe Creative Suite is undoubtably the industry standard for any type of design work (some will also add in Quark for good measure!) However, as stupid as it sounds, knowing which program to use for what type of task can still be confusing. Lots of people will still try and use Photoshop of everything! Heres my roundup of what should be used when, and why.

Photoshop

In my book, Photoshop is an image/photo editing or manipulation program, and should be used for almost nothing else. Lots of people still use Photoshop to design flyers, leaflets etc. The way it handles type compared to Indesign is very crude and makes setting text hard for the user. Also, organising various elements on the page, and creating a grid structure for a design is very hard. Sure, it can be done, but it's a LOT less hassle using Indesign. Photoshop also is a raster graphics editor, not vectors. So once you've rasterized a layer theres no going back. With regards to laying out websites, Photoshop is also the program of choice. If there's a lot of shapes i'll sometimes use Illustrator and import into Photoshop for chopping up just for ease- but most people will find Photoshop easier to use. Ultimately it will have to be used for chopping up individual elements for a website, before being coded anyway.

Indesign

This is page layout program that Adobe produce (The Microsoft Publisher of the Office suite if you will) I spend the majority of my time using Indesign. I import all the elements for a design into this, from Photoshop, Illustrator etc and organise it how I want. It also has some pretty efficient Illustration tools, so you can sometimes get away with using this as opposed to Illustrator. This is what you should be using for most of your print design work.

Illustrator

As the name of the program suggests, this should only be used for Illustrations for the majority of the time. If you need to do any diagrams or vector drawings (logos), this should be used. Photoshop does have a Pen Tool, but try and avoid using it for any serious illustration. It just doesn't work as well as Illustrator. I hope that makes sense and helps some people out!