What kind of computer do you use?

[chauncey]

Danielle, you failed to mention your goals...are you an avid photographer with Photoshop skills or aspire in that direction. If so, follow Colin's advice. Going with anything Apple, IMHO, is a waste of money.

[ajohnw]

I would have thought 16gb of ram would be a sensible minimum for any heavy graphics processing application. My machine came with 8 so I added a further 16gb. That isn't possible on some motherboards due to the number of available memory slots. This can mean that the ram that came with the machine can't be used.

A number of motherboards support raid now. I have been pleasantly surprised by the speed it offers. This can just mean adding an additional drive which is the same as the one fitted to the machine but some very green drives do not work well like this. Western digital Red do.

If you are going to change the hardware configuration of the machine it would be best to buy one that does come with the OS DVD/CD's. My HP did but certain other things we have bought such as laptops didn't.

I don't run windows but wouldn't be surprised if you will need a 64bit professional version. In the past they have put some strange limitations on "home" versions.

John
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[Tord]

Danielle,

I think that the first question is, have you set your heart on a laptop? For any given price, a desktop(aka "real") computer will perform much, much faster. it's also easier to upgrade. My personal preference is for Windows - again, it's a matter of price; they're cheaper for a given level of performance. A good graphics card is a must(it's what I'm shopping for at the moment) as is a backup drive.

HTH

Peter

Peter,

Windows operating system is not cheaper than Linux, ever! Often the same hardware used, but the Linux doesn't cost anything (Windows always do). One of my ex XP machines runs Mint, one Ubuntu (Common Linux variants).

Like tw0bears below, I use windows at work and MacOS at home, but have two Linux machines for back-up. Hope to be able to afford an upgraded iMac one day, but for now I have maximum RAM, and a SSD, plus a number of hard discs, for back-ups, et cetera! Got Aperture (my favourite), LR5, Phocus (see more elsewhere), and a few more!

[Tord]

Chauncey,

That's a pretty weird comment as the world's advertising agencies use Macs. And if anyone knows photoediting it is those guys!

But there are various reasons:
Some use Macbooks for their low weight, which increases portability, some use IMacs, for less cluttter on their workbenches. If you need a lot of power I guess special versions of PCs are best, but with PCs you buy crashes (that's the main reason I converted my PCs to Linux machines). A brand new Mac, with pre-installed Iphoto (not my favourite!), or Aperture, will never crash. My Mac is old, and does occasionally hang up after software upgrades, but have never crashed as far as I can remember.

[dabhand]

Nothing like a choice of hardware discussion to start a 'war'.

Basically it's all about budget and where you invest the money - most important is the quality of the screen, unless what you are post processing is the 'real' image everything else is immaterial - good quality screens for general users are available irrespective of operating system or hardware vendor; they can be quite expensive but you don't need the mega bucks professional version unless that is your direction.

There are two basic old wives tales - windows crashes and apple is a superior environment. I run both plus Linux (and have done for 10 years or more) and providing you use up to date software / hardware and stay away from 'hooky' sites / software and use a good firewall / anti-virus suite, you'll be OK. Unless you are conversant with Linux I'd leave that alone.

Main thing for Photoshop on either apple or m/soft based hardware is plenty of RAM - 16GB is fine and given most motherboards have at least two slots that is easy to achieve, at least two disk drives so you can separate the programs, cache and scratch areas, after that it's down to the processor as P/shop is processor intensive - it only uses features of the graphics card (where available) for certain 3D aspects.

So unless you are technically confident I'd work with a local supplier to get the best balanced system you can for your budget - avoid the apple / m-soft debate by asking them to quote for both, see how the end result meets any other requirements you may have and select accordingly.

[RustBeltRaw]

To my mind, a highly capable, medium-budget photo editing machine would include 16GB of RAM, an on-board RAID 1 array for working drives, an SSD as a program drive, a quad-core (or more) processor, a calibrated IPS display, and a mid-range graphics card, all from the latest hardware generations by their specific manufacturers. That takes some research, and it's hard, though quite possible, to find a laptop which will fill those requirements.

The Apple/Windows/Linux debate will continue forever, but it's irrelevant. Computing power is largely OS-independent, and a photo is not better for being edited on one or the other. Your average Mac will have better build quality and an arguably-better interface than your average PC, and they are also least likely to require technical knowledge from the user. Naturally, that comes at a price. To me, the aesthetics and additional stability are not worth it, but that decision is highly individual. Ultimately, your budget and tastes will decide, and no one in their right mind should call your work crap because it was done on a particular system.

For what it's worth, I recommend Sager laptops. Highly customizable, with rare options like IPS displays, multiple on-board drives, cooling upgrades, and even de-branding. Aesthetics are basic, and ergonomics are middling, but in terms of performance per dollar and getting exactly what you need, I know of nothing better. They're retailed through Xotic PC.

Note that my personal laptop carries no branding - just a chunky, unwieldy lump of black plastic. It's a quiet, personal statement about my stance on function vs. marketing. If a tool fits your needs, who cares whose name is on it?

[Colin Southern]

I would have thought 16gb of ram would be a sensible minimum for any heavy graphics processing application.

The more the better, but general image processing isn't "heavy"; most of my images - even with many layers - aren't usually more than a few hundred MB. Even on an 8GB machine that's plenty.

A number of motherboards support raid now. I have been pleasantly surprised by the speed it offers. This can just mean adding an additional drive which is the same as the one fitted to the machine but some very green drives do not work well like this. Western digital Red do.

Just be careful with onboard RAID, for a couple of reasons;

1. RAID 0 is best for speed, but a good way of remember what RAID 0 offers is to think of "0" being the amount of data you're left with if EITHER drive fails. So RAID 0 - in terms of data protection - is actually twice as dangerous compared to a single drive. RAID 1 on the other hand is great for redundancy (and in theory read operations are faster, but write operations slower, but in practice RAM buffers both a lot anyway), but the downside is that if one drive fails, you generally can't boot from the remaining drive (or in some cases only one of the drives) (do you feel lucky?) (although at least the data is in tact).

Personally I use an on-board RAID 1 mirror for my 2x 2TB data drives and an SSD for my boot/working drive. We've also married SSDs to a RAID controller card, although it's probably overkill, as we've get to come across a single Intel faulty SSD yet.

I don't run windows but wouldn't be surprised if you will need a 64bit professional version. In the past they have put some strange limitations on "home" versions.

Don't confuse 32 bit / 64 bit with Home and professional versions - they're all different.

Basically, if you want to take advantage of more than about 3.2GB RAM you need 64 bit version. Pro -v- Home is mostly a restriction on whether or not the PC can be joined to a domain (home can't). Home x64 is all most home owners need.

[Colin Southern]

Peter,

Windows operating system is not cheaper than Linux, ever! Often the same hardware used, but the Linux doesn't cost anything (Windows always do). One of my ex XP machines runs Mint, one Ubuntu (Common Linux variants).

Like tw0bears below, I use windows at work and MacOS at home, but have two Linux machines for back-up. Hope to be able to afford an upgraded iMac one day, but for now I have maximum RAM, and a SSD, plus a number of hard discs, for back-ups, et cetera! Got Aperture (my favourite), LR5, Phocus (see more elsewhere), and a few more!

One needs to look past the initial cost and instead look at what the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) is in the long run. In that context Linux may still be a bargain or it may be prohibitively expensive; Case in point; both machines go down and paid staff are twiddling their thumbs. I can get an engineer qualified on Microsoft technologies onsite within an hour in my city; the same cannot be said for Linux. Applications like Photoshop give me a competitive edge both in terms of the quality of the finished product and efficiency by which I can obtain it. Not being able to run Photoshop on Linux would cost me dearly.

Generally I'd say that free products like Linux are only cheaper for those who don't quantify the value of their time. If they enjoy messing with computers (both platforms) then whoever buys Windows will be at a disadvantage (although I might add that the value of a windows licence in a retail system is very small) (probably adds no more than $50 to the PC), but if time is money - and they have to pay someone else for quality support - then the likes of Linux is a HUGE gamble for a business.

[Colin Southern]

Danielle, you failed to mention your goals...are you an avid photographer with Photoshop skills or aspire in that direction. If so, follow Colin's advice. Going with anything Apple, IMHO, is a waste of money.

When battle lines are drawn - at the end of the day - I'm a PC man too (albeit one who owns 4 iPads, an iPhone, and 3 Apple TVs), but in all honestly, Photoshop doesn't run any differently on a Mac than it does on a PC. Both are just hosts to the application and both are fast and reliable these days.

[Otavio]

Many years ago I was charged $850 for 8MB (not GB) of RAM; thankfully, those days are long gone and RAM is cheap -- so "load em up". 8GB absolute minimum these days (assuming 64 bit OS which everyone should be on by now).

Graphics card wise, Photoshop can use onboard GPU's, but I'm yet to be convinced of any significant real-world performance advantage when processing 2D images; what makes a bigger difference is tuning Photoshop's settings for History states and Cache levels.

In summary, you'll get the best bang for your buck in the following order

1. RAM

2. Solid State Drive

3. CPU

4. Video Card

I have to agree with Colin. Hi end graphic cards are required to run nowaday 3d games. These cards processes tons of poligons per second. This is not what happens on photoshop. It only works on one still image. And here the RAM is required. Of course a graphic card is desireable, but you wont need a high end one for such a task. A standard model, with a good processor and good amount of RAM will do a good job on processing.

I use a Intel i5, 8GB RAM, GTX550TI, and a Samsung 26"Led, but I am also a gamer. When travelling, I do the same on my laptop which is only a i3, 2GB RAM with onboard video card. So, I agree PS is not extremely demanding in terms of video hardware.

My 2 cents...

[Colin Southern]

Keep in mind too folks that this thread is 2.5 years old - and whatever PC Danielle bought is probably getting close to being obsolete now!

[mknittle]

Keep in mind too folks that this thread is 2.5 years old - and whatever PC Danielle bought is probably getting close to being obsolete now!

OMG mine is near 15 years old does the words molasses in winter ring a bell?

[Colin Southern]

OMG mine is near 15 years old does the words molasses in winter ring a bell?

In computer years or real years?

[Tord]

One needs to look past the initial cost and instead look at what the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) is in the long run. In that context Linux may still be a bargain or it may be prohibitively expensive; Case in point; both machines go down and paid staff are twiddling their thumbs. I can get an engineer qualified on Microsoft technologies onsite within an hour in my city; the same cannot be said for Linux. Applications like Photoshop give me a competitive edge both in terms of the quality of the finished product and efficiency by which I can obtain it. Not being able to run Photoshop on Linux would cost me dearly.

Generally I'd say that free products like Linux are only cheaper for those who don't quantify the value of their time. If they enjoy messing with computers (both platforms) then whoever buys Windows will be at a disadvantage (although I might add that the value of a windows licence in a retail system is very small) (probably adds no more than $50 to the PC), but if time is money - and they have to pay someone else for quality support - then the likes of Linux is a HUGE gamble for a business.

I have messed with computers enough (I must say I still love RiscOS, if anyone remembers that), so I eventually did what many others do, who want a rugged system — and where help is close at hand. So after having used PCs from DOS and upwards, I eventually got a modern iMac, now not that modern, but with hardware boost, and a SSD. If anything would really happen to it help is just a trip away (a few stops by bus).

When I had Windows my stepson was our own sysop, and as he is a software guru, so he fixed everything that did go wrong (frequent visitor!) so when he moved to Linux, our machines did that too, automagically.

Since a few years he lives on the other side of the world, so an iMac was the obvious solution, and I was mightily surprised when we visited him in his new home, and found that there were mostly Macs around. But nowadays he haven't time to bother about ailing computers, being a CEO of his own computer software company, so no more PCs, or Linux machines.

I own a Dell, & a HP, and have owned a few nondescript tower PCs, plus a couple of Sinclairs, Amstrads, and Acorns, but none has been so eventless as the iMac. In the old days Macs were extremely costly, but had a fairly nice graphic user interface, which PCs didn't (DOS had no GUI at all!)!

My Dell and the HP had Windows preinstalled, at least one of them some crappy ME edition, I seem to recall. Since they now run Linux I have had no issues of any kind — a bit weird, that the very same computers can now act flawlessly for years, machines that before that had a lot of problems.

The hardware is nowadays pretty much the same, no matter what OS you use, you can even run MacOS on PCs, if you have the right tools and knowledge! RiscOS can run under any of these OSes, by the way!

[Colin Southern]

I have messed with computers enough (I must say I still love RiscOS, if anyone remembers that), so I did what many others do who want a rugged system, and where help is close at hand. So after having used PCs from DOS and upwards, I eventually got a modern iMac, now not that modern, as help is just a trip (a few stops by bus) away.

When I had Windows my stepson was our own sysop, and as he is a software guru, and he fixed everything that did go wrong, so when he moved to Linux, our machines did that too, automagically.

Since a few years he lives on the other side of the world, so an iMac was the obvious solution, and I was mightily surprised when we visited him in his new home, and there were mostly Macs around. But nowadays he haven't time to bother about ailing computers, being a CEO of his own computer software company, so no more PCs.

I've owned Dell, HP, and nondescript PCs, plus a couple of Sinclairs, Amstrads and Acorns, but none has been so eventless as the iMac. In the old days MACs were extremely costly, but had a fairly nice graphic user interface, which PCs didn't (DOS had no GUI at all!)!

My Dell and the HP had Windows preinstalled, some crappy ME edition, I seem to recall. Since they now run Linux I have had no issues of any kind — a bit weird, that the very same computers can now act flawlessly for years, machines that before that had a lot of problems.

The hardware is nowadays pretty much the same, no matter what OS you use, you can even run MacOS on PCs, if you have the right tools and knowledge! RiscOS can run under any of these OSes, by the way!

Yep - been through much the same. I think my first PC was a Sinclair ZX80 - and now days I still have a ZX81 and a spectrum in my collection. Cut my assembly language programming teeth on the ZX80, and then refined it on the Osborne 1, before jumping to the then-released 8088 based IBM PC (I got the series II motherboard with 64KB on-board RAM) (up from the original 16KB), and twin 360KB 5.25 inch floppy drives (the 10MB PC HDD hadn't been invented yet!).

I've read a lot of "bad things" said about MS operating systems in the past; some of it deserved, most of it not. One of the biggest issues was people using the wrong tool for the job eg Windows 95, 98, and ME for business. PCs needed to perform roles for business and for games and at the time the hardware wasn't fast enough for games to run in a protected environment -- so any application (games or otherwise) enjoyed direct hardware access and was very capable of taking down the entire OS. It wasn't Microsoft's fault - they didn't have a choice at the time. Business products were Windows NT and Windows 2000 - but it wasn't until Win2K came along (which was consolidated more in WinXP) that we finally had technologies like DirectX that gave performance needed for games and protection for the OS - but even after that the OS remained vulnerable to buggy drivers (that operate in kernel mode). Again, Microsoft's position has always been - for those reasons - to only run their OS on WHQL certified hardware and software; they gave people the option of running it on non-compliant hardware and with non-compliant software if people wished, but only on a "at your own risk" basis ... and yet what happened is a great many people chose to run the wrong product - on low-cost non-compliant hardware with low-cost non-compliant software -- struck problems -- and then liked to blame Microsoft. Even to this day, WEP (Windows Error Reporting) shows that the VAST majority of issues are still caused by bad drivers and faulty hardware.

Apple on the other hand took a "closed shop" approach ("benevolent dictator" are other words used). Is that the "right" approach and is it a "better" approach? Dunno to be honest. At the time I sub-let office space to run my PC business from the city's Apple dealer (made for some great debates I can tell you!). On the one hand Apple had the advantage of controlling their hardware and (to a lesser degree) software, but at the time, I was told that most of their Macs crashed "about once a day". I also know that a replacement motherboard was around $1000 when the PC equivalent was around $350 -- and other hardware was as equally dis-proportionally priced. A lot of advertising was written with Mac -v- PC (Win95 era) and a lot of it was "dirty pool" (eg instruction for changing the trash can icon on a Mac -v- a PC; PC was hellishly complicated because it was practically the one icon that MS didn't want people to be able to change -- just about any other icon could be changed with the greatest of ease, but they didn't mention that ... only the trash can icon ...) Ultimately, over the years, both MS and Apple platforms have matured tremendously; both are reliable and both provide a great host to the desired app. Both are of course still different, but whether that makes much difference to the average user is probably moot these days. I still prefer the PC way of doing things, but if someone gave me a Mac (or a Nikon) I'm sure I'd have fun with that too.

With regards to Linux ... obviously it's a perfectly capable OS, but to be honest, a lot of the time I hear of it being used it's more often than not by folks who a chip on their shoulders regarding "evil" "Micro$oft", "crApple", Adobe, and any other successful business that has the gal to be - well - a successful business who charges for their products. Often a group who - in my opinion anyway - cut off their noses to spite their faces. They come up with a lot of justifications, but few are usually supported by any evidence (eg "it's more secure" when independent reports show it had more reported vulnerabilities that took longer to get plugged). Nothing against it personally, but despite what my customers pay for Microsoft products (and the cost of OS licences, Office licences, server licences etc is really scary), it still works out far cheaper than free alternatives; you just can't gamble a multi-billion dollar group of companies on things like Linux OS and Open Office etc - it's just too big a risk.

[davidedric]

A heck of a post from Colin, which very much mirrors my experience. I have never seriously used Apple kit, but I have found that up to date Windows (properly installed and protected, as described) does not crash. If we are swapping scar stories, I go back to a KDF9 and K-code (I think!) and certainly programming a PDP8 with paper tape to control a four circle goniometer inside a nuclear reactor (unseemly bragging alerts should now be sounding).

Conclusion - today's kit is just brilliant - thank you whoever you are.

Dave

[Traingineer]

I built my own computer, cheap/easy. Mainly for gaming but it does a gud job at everything else.

Specs:
AMD FX 8320 over clocked at 4 Ghz

Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo

2 XFX R7 260X 1GB in Crossfire mode

LG Internal Blu-Ray drive

Asus M5A99FX Pro R2 Motherboard

Seasonic G series 650W 80+ Gold Certified PSU

Seagate Barracuda 2TB Hard Drive

Team Vulcan 16GB Memory at 2133 Mhz

Cooler Master HAF 912+ with 2 200mm fans

[ajohnw]

I did build my own PC's based on work station motherboards. These days though these tend to be over priced and at least in the UK not that easy to obtain any more. Building PC's this way isn't a cheaper option but they tend to have adequate performance levels fof longer.. Wondering what to do when the last one was getting a bit tired and bits were beginning to fail I noticed ex demo HP workstations so bought one with 30 odd months of on site service left. I've re configured it a bit. Added 16gb ram to make 24, run the OS on a flash drive and my home directory on raid plus another drive for the OS to use for it's temp files to avoid ever writing to the flash drive other than for updates / new software. Also bought and added the ram cooling duct. The processor is a 3.6ghz Xeon so memory is parity checked.

People who just wont run Linux often have an odd attitude about people that do and pass some basically fallacious comments about it. And the people that run it as well. Take me. I dislike Microsoft because they stifle change. If a competitors product surpasses there own in some ways they are very likely to do something to cause them difficulties that they can't surmount. Something was sort of done about this legally some time ago but it was way to late. Also as it's an area I know a fair bit about MsDos was a load of junk. In real terms this is probably part of an unusual and very effective business plan.

There are several reasons I changed.

Microsoft publish security flaws before they fix them. I suffered a long period of my machine being attacked by some one. Many machines are but often people are unaware of the fact. Often these people are nosing around and don't cause any problems. The final straw for me was when a company offered some rather attractive free software that many people downloaded and ran. Some where in the usual extra ordinary long conditions which no one reads and just clicks accepts they agreed to have their internet software changed so that such things as dot law and many others would work via their servers. Virus people came near producing a fix but were threatened with legal action so never released it. Another aspect was the nature of the security flaws. Often on many of them making use of them is trivial. One interesting one still remains - spoof links in html emails. It still catches people out.

People who don't run Linux also don't appreciate what it is. No one actually makes any direct use of it. Other applications do. It's also has the nuts and blots needed to make up a server and is secure and also widely used for that often via an application called BASH. Linux itself is refereed to as the kernel. It does the nitty gritty bits. Other applications make use of it at various levels. A variety of graphical interfaces also make use of the kernel and there are several desktop applications as well. A desktop application is just a mechanism for running other graphical applications in. It looks after window maintenance and graphical effects etc. Just saying I run Linux doesn't really tell anyone what a person is actually using.

One nice thing I like is the maintenance. Some people like running the latest greatest. I prefer stable releases. I can reckon on 2 years of functional updates and at least another year of security update. The exploits are generally rather convolute in any case and probably not even of consequence to a desktop machine. Some things are blocked at times because they haven't had security audits done. Maybe 12 months after this I will have to upgrade to another stable release because of the way Linux systems work. Much use is made of things which are a little like DLL's but there are rather a lot of them. These evolve and at some point new releases of software wont run without more recent library files. There is also at least one other flavour of Linux itself.

John
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[Davey]

Thought I'd chip in more to say Windows version can cap the RAM so don't max it out going over 8Gb if you plan on running say win 7 home basic (64bit obviously), the table is here. As for Mac vs PC it's overdone thing and is down to preference. Macs use PC architecture these days and even most components are made by the pc manufacturers; they are essentially higher priced versions of PCs but you do get something with that money and that is it is a different OS which suits some more than alternatives along with a different style of support. Cost a bit more than a custom PC build to equal spec but apple stores and lockdown on stuff mac users wouldn't want to tweak anyway and support place knowing your particular hardware setup before you even walk in means a lot to many folks and understandably so. I'm a PC guy all the way but have mac all the way friends, we are each right as it is right choice for us, there is no universal best.

I am PC guy all the way and tend to build my own machines and make them to spec I need. The thing on graphics cards Colin nailed as usual BUT if you do vid editing or compositing then the cards are GPU hungry. Most software including adobe stuff (but not PremPro) runs MUCH better on workstation cards like a quadro rather than gaming cards like geforce. Cuda&geforce combo is fine in PP for some reason. Again you can get workstation cards on macs now so vid editing is the same on them since it is same hardware and the adobe software many use is available on both.

I'd keep away from Linux for photo editing alone, it does many things much better than macos and windows (MS desktop solutions anyway) but for photo and page layout it is awful and I've been a slackware user since mid to late 90's so it isn't biased to say it just true. Microsoft are solid these days with good product, their corp level support is awesome too but it is something user like me never see (level of support a sysadmin I know says they deliver is hard to argue with). Many of the chip on shoulder folks who bash microsoft, apple etc (Not saying anyone here is saying that) are also the ones who get annoyed on the linux forums over solutions being something they didn't like such as making their own config changes manually especially working in VI a lot rather than a nice fancy editor, use CLI for many tasks as it was just easier that way etc.

[ajohnw]

I'd keep away from Linux for photo editing alone, it does many things much better than macos and windows (MS desktop solutions anyway) but for photo and page layout it is awful and I've been a slackware user since mid to late 90's so it isn't biased to say it just true. Microsoft are solid these days with good product, their corp level support is awesome too but it is something user like me never see (level of support a sysadmin I know says they deliver is hard to argue with). Many of the chip on shoulder folks who bash microsoft, apple etc (Not saying anyone here is saying that) are also the ones who get annoyed on the linux forums over solutions being something they didn't like such as making their own config changes manually especially working in VI a lot rather than a nice fancy editor, use CLI for many tasks as it was just easier that way etc.

Seems like an extreme statement to me. One thing I would ask is what has page layout got do with photo editing?

There are some people around on here who do photo edit with Linux applications even on Windows. There are a number of applications that can be used on both. One main difference is that many assume some work will be done in the GIMP and not much instant gratification is offered. Slower learning curve in some respects. When people finally do a lot of editing using layers I feel there is a lot less difference. One problem for Linux users is that there are several photo apps and some tend to be better at certain things than others. It's easy to finish up using several of them on one shot. It's the usual Linux problem. Several groups of people working to the same end but not together. Good for different approaches and solutions though but not very productive in some ways. There is an interesting video on youtube called Why Linux Stinks if I remember correctly. Just look how many distro's there are let alone desktops.

Me well I am a different sort of Linux user. I drive the lot and change things from the desktop. I might use BASH a couple of times a year. Most use of the console is assembling apps. These days I don't have to assemble apps very often - more photo editing users about so often the latest version is a one click install away. There is no way I would use VI and off hand I can't think of an application where i have to use an editor to change the config if I did why use VI. No way there are far better alternatives.

Actually I don't have any axe to grind - I just choose to work purely in Linux. I have suggested that people should try running it at times and also mentioned apps that they could run under windows or even mac in some cases.

Unlike some I don't look down on dual booters etc either. Each to their own.

Oh yes - the video will also inform you that linux has 100% of the super computer market. Probably true too. They and Unix also have a rather large proportion of the server market. Must admit I can't find recent figures though, It's also about in peoples houses in places the wont even notice.

John
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