We are often asked about the hardware and software to do our work. First of all we use Intel based Macs for both our laptop and desktop solutions. We do however run Windows XP on the Macs we own. One reason we use Apple computers is they help us get our work done faster, are more secure (however we do not let our guard done as far as security goes) plus since we can run both Windows and the Mac operating system and browsers on the same machines we can guarantee the maximum number of users can view our customers web sites no matter what computer they are using. We also have a computer in our home office running Debian Linux for testing purposes.

The servers we use for our web hosting are Linux based in a virtual private server environment which basically means we have total access to an open source solution in a protected environment. We do have a few web clients who are already paying for hosting with other providers but we still maintain those. A couple of those are on Mac based servers. We also maintain one web site on a windows based server. Needless to say we prefer the flexibility of using a Linux based server for our web projects.

Our company makes full use of the Adobe Suite of products including Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Acrobat, Flash and Dreamweaver but a lot of the back-end work is actually done in powerful text editors such as BBEdit and Textmate on our Mac desktops and laptops. Some people think we use Macs because they are “good for graphics” and while their is excellent software for Macs we love to use Macs because of the combination of a mature unix like core and an easy to use interface that doesn’t get in your face or forces you to be a technician when you need to get design work done. The reason we only feature Apple computers in our Amazon affiliate store is because that is what we use and have experience with an feel it’s the better choice for the average computer user who doesn’t need to use Windows specific software.

You may have also seen recent posts where we mentioned we invested in an iPhone for our business. I’m happy to report that this decision has so far proven to be a good one as we make future plans to develop and optimize future products for the iPhone and yes competing products that have similiar features and interface.

In our research we have discovered and have been actively using RSS Newsreaders to keep up with new information, tips and ideas within our industry. This is one reason we are promoting this technology on our web site and in business meetings and presentations.

Our current databases of choice are, Filemaker Pro on the desktop and MySQL on our web servers. Filemaker is an extremely user friendly database that works on both Macs and Windows based PC’s. On the server/Internet side we make use of the MySQL database.

The camera we use for most of our still photography projects is a Canon Digital Rebel Xti.

We feel confident that by combining the use of open source software on the servers, working with a user friendly desktop environment and cutting edge design solutions we will be able to bring to best solutions for our customers in the upstate of South Carolina and Beyond.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, July 19th, 2007 at 3:30 pm and is filed under Internet, Photography, Print, RSS, blogging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.