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Old, tired stereotype. And borderline offensive no less. The business we used had a nice office, several well dressed folks in their staff and even electricity and something better than dirt floors you may think us hillbillies are still using. Also anyone would be ridiculously stupid to assume...

You can get a very powerful system for under $2000. Just be sure to get at least 2GB of RAM installed, perhaps a 200GB or larger hard disc, a second physical hard drive for Photoshop scratch disc use and a dedicated graphics card of some decent type (Matrox is best for 2D graphics acceleration)...

Any application intended to utilize more than one CPU must be written to perform in that manner. This isn't any different from other software programming issues like the application being written in 16-bit, 32-bit or 64-bit code. A motherboard chipset is not going to do anything to recompile...

Alienware makes great stuff; just be prepared to shell out serious dollars for it. Dell just bought up the company, although the original guys who started Alienware will keep designing the systems. They needed the deal with Dell for a larger, more efficient supply chain of parts. You assumed...

One only needs to go dual core if multiprocessing enabled applications are in use. None of the vector-based drawing applications and none of the sign making software packages are multi-threaded. Adobe Photoshop is the most commonly available program that takes advantage of multiple processors...

It's probably best for a new user (provided you're working on a Windows-based PC) to go with CorelDRAW first. You'll get 1000 fonts and a whole lot of clipart. Version X3 even includes a good number of vehicle outlines, most at 1/20 scale. However, I strongly advise anyone to avoid a strictly...

Only two Dell Dimension desktop models lock you into having only integrated graphics chips on the motherboard (the B110 and E310). Certain configurations of the thin, space saving XPS-200 model have integrated graphics in their base configuration, but that can be upgraded. Currently Dell is...

My knee jerk answer is this: if you're running Windows get a Dell. If you don't like Windows anymore and want to switch get a Mac. Whatever you buy, just be sure you get a computer that has a dedicated graphics card. You don't have to buy a top end $600 graphics board. But just don't buy a low...

The Illustrator method of selecting objects (anything the marquee touches) is pretty handy when you are zoomed in tight on the artwork and/or working in wireframe view. You don't have to zoom way back out to select several objects with a swipe of the mouse or stylus. I'm more used to the Corel...

The publish to PDF step is worth a try, especially if you have a more recent version of CorelDRAW. The PDF export engine in version X3 is the best I've seen from the application (although one of my coworkers can't seem to e-mail some password protected PDFs generated from CorelX3...wierd). If...

It's definitely Optima, or a clone of it, distorted.....or maybe I should say font murdered!! There's a lot of common type families, such as Optima, with lots of slightly different variants from different vendors. Adobe sells one version created by Linotype, and Optima Nova is a newer drawing...

Are you talking about a "lens" effect of transparancy? If so, you'll have to do something different since that and a number of other effects only work from within CorelDRAW. I assume you're preparing a layout that needs to be digitally printed. If that's the case, I would either export a TIFF...

The smooth tool is only appropriate to use in certain cases where it doesn't kill the quality to have the paths altered slightly. I only use the smooth tool on items that have been auto-traced or manually digitized from scans of "organic" non-technical objects. If you're doing any sort of...

It hasn't been present in recent versions of CorelDRAW. But version 8 had a lot of military clipart licensed from One Mile Up -including the CIB.

I'm not sure I understand the "extra lines" comment. Very often when I work with customer provided .AI and .EPS files I find duplicate paths of lettering and other objects. To get things like certain outline stroke effects some Illustrator users will make multiple copies of the same object and...

Aldus PageMaker was the first Postscript-based page layout application, with its first version shipping in July of 1985. Adobe acquired PageMaker when Aldus' properties were split up between Macromedia and Adobe in the mid 1990s (Macromedia grabbed up Freehand, Fontographer and a couple other)...

One area Flexi clearly has over ALL other drawing programs is a larger workspace. The maximum workspace size in Corel is about 100' X 100' if even that. The maximum workspace in Illustrator is 227" X 227". Flexi's workspace can go a LOT bigger than either of those totals. I can easily lay out...

I use a Belkin USB to Serial port adapter for my notebook when I need to use it to connect to things that require a COM port (usually electronic message centers, but it will work for plotters and routers too). I think I paid around $30 for it at Staples. It works great.

I avoid letting customers pick out fonts. Unless they already have some pre-existing artwork (logo, type treatments, etc.) or have a specific font they really want to use, I'm going to pick the type that is most appropriate and practical to fabricate for the job. Most customers don't have a...

I'm not familiar with it. I would see how it compares to the CoCut Pro plug-in for CorelDRAW. CoCut seems to be the most popular bridge program for driving vinyl cutters from mainstream drawing applications. (I use Flexi 7 and EnRoute for getting artwork to vinyl cutters and routers.)