Melting pot of questions - Cameras / Desktop / Banners / Advertising

[twoyguy]

Hey everyone,

Ok so I'll go on a shopping spree very soon and I could have used some advice... so that I don't regret my decisions later on :extat:

- I am about to buy the Canon EOS 20D for photo shoots and was wondering if there is a better alternative in terms of cost/photo quality.

- What kind of system do you use to edit photos, do web design and such?
At first glance the basic configuration of the Dell Dimension XPS looks like it could to do an OK job for me right now. But then again, what do you guys find most useful? A PC or a Mac? More RAM or a bigger monitor?

- What software do you use to create your banners?

- Which program is the best to manage advertising (for those of you who do have some) ? I was thinking of using phpAdsNew yet I heard some people mention that it's not robust/flexible enough for very large website.

Ok I think it's enough for now

Thanks!

[JustBryce]

Well, I can help with the last question just a tad. We use phpadsnew to run most of the in-house banners on justusboys.com (not the spotlights though). We've never had any problems with it and its handled over 9 million adviews for us since we upgraded it back in the spring.

I think if you let it run on a powerful enough server it has quite a lot of muscle. We have a dedicated mysql box with dual xeons and 4GB of memory. But, that server is also handling our forum. Still it never breaks a load of more than 1.5 and its handling 864,751.33 queries per hour. So, give it a try on a decent box. I think its a great product.

[Lee]

Righty lets hit these one at a time for ya

- I am about to buy the Canon EOS 20D for photo shoots and was wondering if there is a better alternative in terms of cost/photo quality.

No clue, perhaps Basement or Patti will be able to offer you some advice with that one

What kind of system do you use to edit photos, do web design and such? At first glance the basic configuration of the Dell Dimension XPS looks like it could to do an OK job for me right now. But then again, what do you guys find most useful? A PC or a Mac? More RAM or a bigger monitor?

We're actually in the process of getting some new office equipment and, the Dimensions are the machines we're looking at, we will most likely go to the high end of the scale though.

What software do you use to create your banners?

IMHO, Photoshop is the best but pretty much any half-decent graphics program will suffice

Which program is the best to manage advertising (for those of you who do have some) ? I was thinking of using phpAdsNew yet I heard some people mention that it's not robust/flexible enough for very large website.

PhpAdsNew is good for an entry level system we found the stats area a little frustrating at times though so we're currently using Adcycle however, last time i checked their site they are no longer offering support for that product so you might be best going with PhpAds.

Hope that helps some

Regards,

Lee