What do I need to do to become a web designer?

merryblue

Thanks to everyone who replied to my question - there are some really helpful comments in there. I don't plan on giving up my regular job just yet and hope to learn some of the basic skills in my spare time. I didn't realise what a contentious area PC/Mac discussion are! Without wishing to offend anyone I would definately get a Mac if funds allow but if not I will look into which PC would be best.

RussJK

k0nstantine wrote: »

If you leave a windows system running for days at a time, it becomes laggy and slow, yet a mac will work fine.

Wow that's old school 95/98 era thinking, haven't heard that in a long time!

I don't think it's such an issue for home users of Windows 7 really.

k0nstantine

RussJK wrote: »

Wow that's old school 95/98 era thinking, haven't heard that in a long time!

I don't think it's such an issue for home users of Windows 7 really.

So was XP out in the 95/98 era? As my old PC (high spec, home built) regularly crashed, froze, and lagged.


I've managed to crash pcs after 5-10 mins that are running either Windows Vista, or Windows 7. My sister's laptop constantly comes up with an error message every time tried to shut down (Windows 7 pro).

The only day I'd actually admit they're any good is when I can't do this, but until then, I wouldn't waste a penny to purchase either, heck i wouldn't even use them for free!!

Oh and to all you Mac haters, if PCs are so awesome and so much better than Macs as you all keep making out, why is it that so many posts on this tech forum are about PC problems and not Macs? :rotfl:

Lil306

k0nstantine wrote: »

As my old PC (high spec, home built) regularly crashed, froze, and lagged

I therefore put it that you know sod all when it comes to building PC's. I built my PC too, it runs Windows and it's stable as rocky horse poo

k0nstantine wrote: »

Oh and to all you Mac haters, if PCs are so awesome and so much better than Macs as you all keep making out, why is it that so many posts on this tech forum are about PC problems and not Macs? :rotfl:

I'm not a Mac hater, nothing against them. Just PC's are cheaper to build, cheaper to buy and suit the function I need them for.

Windows problems, not PC!!!!!!! A Mac IS a PC !!!!!!.

Anyway, probably because most of the people who post inside this section use Windows computers. Not Apple computers. :rotfl:

RussJK

Interesting, I don't really remember having much trouble on my own XP machine, similarly custom built. I don't remember it getting slower the longer it was on, like 95/98 machines did - which was all I was talking about here.

Since you brought it up, are you saying that you then Hackintoshed the unstable XP machine and then it ran perfectly?

Not had any problems with Windows 7 - other a BSOD and the 'freeze on install' bug, both due to known issues with Avast.

bushidodadon475

You need to have a good skills!

RussJK

Also perhaps someone here can troubleshoot the issue your sister is having, depending on what the error message is.

leemoss

I think you need your Windows machines looked at if you managing to crash them in 5/10mins.

The argument about Apple being better a graphic design is one thing, but your claims on Windows reliability/stability is rubbish in my opinion. I work in environment where I have to make sure we have 100% up-time. The need for such a high up-time is nothing to do with money, its life and death. As part of contingency planning, our command and control system was put under 24hours of heavy load. Its gone through and continues to go through ridiculous testing, everything from continuous heavy CPU load, memory leak testing, overloading the call handling systems, server fail-over etc. If Windows really crashed so easily, would the Fire Service I work for and numerous others around the country all be running Windows based command and control systems? There is alternatives out there, as we are migrating from a Unix based system. Even the MDTs (mobile data terminal) inside fire appliances run on Windows XP, these machines are used to deploy appliances to incidents and also provide GPS, real time tracking and display DWG diagrams of buildings for use in search and rescue operations.
Along with 4 other people, I support around 1000 Windows based systems everyday from desktops to servers and a number of Linux servers. If Windows was so unreliable we would surely get more support calls than we actually get. We have guys who work with land maps which are 10gb+ in size.

As mentioned in a previous post, a very large majority of the worlds cash machines all run on Windows XP. Pretty much all supermarket self service tills use Windows XP.

My home Windows 7 PC, runs GNS3 with 16 emulated routers (using a recent Cisco IOS, each with 128mb of RAM) 3 virtual machines (linux distros) and a few other apps perfectly fine.

RobTang

merryblue wrote: »

Thanks to everyone who replied to my question - there are some really helpful comments in there. I don't plan on giving up my regular job just yet and hope to learn some of the basic skills in my spare time. I didn't realise what a contentious area PC/Mac discussion are! Without wishing to offend anyone I would definately get a Mac if funds allow but if not I will look into which PC would be best.

A word of advice, DO NOT buy any hardware to start learning web design.

If you want a new computer thats fine, but if the primary reason is to learn web design you are wasting your money.

leemoss

RobTang wrote: »

A word of advice, DO NOT buy any hardware to start learning web design.

If you want a new computer thats fine, but if the primary reason is to learn web design you are wasting your money.

Good advice, pretty much any PC made in the last 5 years (and probably even older than that) regardless of OS will be fine for learning the foundations of web design.