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Hey Guys, been a while but I have a real "Sign Making / Tech" question. This is not a Mac Vs. Windows thing, just looking for serious input here:
For the past 6 years we've been printing our graphics on a JV3-160sp. I changed the docking station a few months ago and I keep the machine very clean, it still works great but we are strongly considering an upgrade. I've gotten very used to this printer, taking it apart, cleaning gadgets, even repairing parts myself. Because of this, the company would like to stick with Mimaki for printing. We looked around at new printers and are really impressed with the CJV30-130. We believe this will become our next printer in the next few months. The next issue is software for running the printer. At this moment we have been running the Adobe CS2 suite for all our graphic design, Dreamweaver for updating our website and Flexi 7.5 for printing. All of these programs are running on an iMac G5. We have no plans to buy new design software, our backup computer is a MacBook intel and all those programs run very well on that one as well.
The problem is, Flexi did not upgrade to version 10 for Mac!! I need at least that version to run the CJV30. The Mimaki dealer told me the printer does come with it's own rip software, but it's Windows only. Our plan now, is to get a new MacPro. Install all our design programs, then install Parallels 7 or 8, run Windows XP just for the rip software. I want to use Parallels because I would like to continue back to OS X, designing other jobs while running the printer. Our wide format printing has doubled in the last 3 years so it is important to multitask with photo editing, vector design, and printing. Today I do all this on one main computer and I would like to keep it that way. I want to avoid networking two or three computers (Mac to PC n' such) and I don't want to move graphics to a flash drive and transfer them to a separate computer to print.
My main question here is, could I connect the CJV30 to a Mac and run it on Windows using Parallels? Would there be a USB connection problem? If I set that one USB port to Windows, would I have to do that every time I start up? Have any of you done this before? Trying to find some answers before I go out to spend company money on this set up. I'm the only tech guy here, so they are leaving it up to me!!! Thanks for your help guys.
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I use Parallels occasionally on my Mac Pro. Although not printing to a wide format printer, I have no problems printing and scanning to a desktop printer. I have used both a direct usb connection and run it through a router where I also brought in my dsl. The only thing you might have to do after parallels boots up Windows is to choose a USB port in the Parallels window, but I never had to.
-------------------- Dave Sherby "Sandman" SherWood Sign & Graphic Design Crystal Falls, MI 49920 906-875-6201 sherwoodsign@sbcglobal.net Posts: 5397 | From: Crystal Falls, MI USA | Registered: Apr 1999
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ahhh, wow, that's great news Dave. Thanks for the reply. Hearing that you are printing even to a desktop printer is a sign that this would work. I have never used Windows on a Mac so I was not sure if it actually started up like people claim. My plan is to get two separate hard drives in the MacPro, 1TB for running OS X, another 1TB hard drive for running Windows XP. Connecting our old external hard drive for all the Illustrator / Photoshop files. I'm also wondering, have you had any problems opening a file created in Mac OS, in the Windows application? I'm assuming I can create an Illy file in OS X and save it to the external hard drive, then start Windows and select the same file on that external hard drive, importing it into the Windows RIP program?
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You mentioned above that you were running Adobe CS2 and I wanted to just mention an issue that I had a while back. I tried to upgrade my Mac OS to 10.7 Lion and when I did all my Adobe CS2 programs were X'd out and wouldn't run. Power PC programs are not supported in Lion (and beyond) so you will need to upgrade to CS4 at least to run it on a OS 10.7 or 10.8 system. I ended up upgrading to CS5.
So, you might have to load Mac OS 10.6.8 on the new machine if you intend to run older Power PC programs.
I wish I could help with the Parallels questions, but we have a stand alone PC for our RIP software and large format printer. Working between Window and the Mac OS is pretty slick but we are using VmWare Fusion. Flip-flopping CS files between the two Operating System is not a problem, I do it all day long.
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Dale's right about having to load 10.6.8 on the Mac to run CS2. Even with 10.6.8, you'll have to load Adobe's Rosetta as without it Illustrator won't do a lot of things like saving a file or printing. So I would definitely take Dale's advice and upgrade Illustrator.
I installed Parallels to run Quickbooks, bowling league software, and Artcam. Parallels is awesome with dual monitors for running Windows and Mac OS at the same time for all my programs except Artcam. Parallels (and VM ware fusion) use emulation for the graphics card. I upgraded my Mac with the better graphics card, then found Parallels doesn't use that hardware. I can do most things in Artcam running Windows 7 with Parallels, but I can't use the sculpting tools as they work in 3D in real time and Parallels can't handle it. (screen goes black while carving, not good) So when I use Artcam I just reboot the machine as Windows. It boots way faster than my Dell laptop, and absolutely screams doing intense Artcam stuff.
I have had absolutely no issues opening Illustrator files between the laptop and the Mac no matter which version of Illy I created the file in.
I would check with Apple first on using two hard drives (one for Mac and one for Windows) as I think I wanted to do the same thing and was told it wouldn't work. I believe it has to do with sharing system hardware like memory at the same time. I would be inclined to put a great big hard drive in there so you could have a very large partition for the Mac side and the Windows side. If I remember right, you load windows through boot camp, then when you install Parallels, it simply accesses the Windows partition for use. You might be able to go with 2 hard drives, put a fairly small partition for Windows on the Mac drive and then keep all the Windows programs and files on the second hard drive, but I'm pretty sure you can't set up 2 different drives to be used separately and at the same time, but check with Apple to be sure.
One thing you WILL want to do is get 2 external drives for backup unless you use backup services. Apple's time machine is great, it's included in the OS, works in the background, BUT, it will not back up the PC side. (3,600 PC files vanished through Windows. Never ever lost a Mac file, ever) Good luck.
-------------------- Dave Sherby "Sandman" SherWood Sign & Graphic Design Crystal Falls, MI 49920 906-875-6201 sherwoodsign@sbcglobal.net Posts: 5397 | From: Crystal Falls, MI USA | Registered: Apr 1999
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posted
Hmmmm, Thanks Dale and Dave for telling me about the CS2 issue with Lion. I kept my "home Macs" at Snow Leopard and the "work Macs" at Tiger... good thing I guess. I'll have to keep the new Mac at Snow Leopard as well, for now. We wanna keep all our files at CS2 if possible. I'll look into this with more detail. This really helped guys, thanks again.
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