Creative professionals weigh in on the age old question…Mac or PC? An unscientific sampling at a designer site indicates that between 70-80% of designers use Macs, compared to the 80% of “regular Internet users” who use  PC’s.

Although most designers acknowledge that the same design tools are available on both platforms, many tout the Mac’s ease of use and superior build quality. One respondent summed it up by saying that “the platform has nothing to do with the outcome of design. But designing on Mac feels a lot more natural to me. I’ve used both PCs and Macs extensively, each has its own advantages. For design, multimedia and other creative work, I personally feel more at home on a Mac.” Although some PC partisans – and, honestly, plenty of good work is done on PCs – brought up some good points about cost differences, it is clear that there remains a solid majority of Mac-using designers.

Some professionals use both-Mac and PC

Within that complement of Mac users, of course, are plenty of people who use both PCs and Macs, just as most companies do these days. It is not uncommon to see a Fortune 500 firm with PCs in the accounting department (although that’s changing slowly) and Macs in the art/marketing department. And with the cross-platform programs and ease of PC-Mac networking, there is no reason that both kinds of computers can’t co-exist peacefully. It’s just that when it comes time for entertainment professionals to edit the movies or master the records or finish the magazines, more of them reach for a Mac Pro rental than a PC, although CRE Rentals does rent both.

Another important development is the power of the Macs. The fastest Mac ever tested by Macworld, by the way, isn’t an eight-core Mac Pro, but the top-of-the-line iMac with the new Core i7 Intel chip. The rest of the iMac family is similarly potent, making CRE’s iMac rentals a sensible alternative to the Mac tower. However, the Mac Pro has the advantage in many areas, like PCIe slots and other expandability options, that make it a continuing favorite for use with Final Cut Studio and other audio-visual software. CRE can equip any kind of Mac, any kind of way you need. Of course, if you need a PC to run PC-only software (certain accounting packages, proprietary builds, etc.), then CRE can outfit you with speedy PC computer rentals, as well.

Which one….Mac or PC?

Comparing Mac and PC computers makes for interesting reading. The bottom line is creative professionals  should use “the best tool for the  job. Nowadays the OSes aren’t different enough to make the decision for you based on features. If you already know one OS, stick with it until you have a very compelling reason to switch.” This is a reasonable position however, some Mac loyalists point out that Macs can run both Windows and the Mac OS. If you need desktop rentals for your post-production work, and want to use both OSes, then you really do have just one choice – a Mac (learn more about which Mac to rent).

CRE’s Account Executives are experts at getting you what you need to push through your bottleneck of backed-up work, take on that new project or bring in new clients. Send an e-mail, make a call or fill out the Quick Rental Quote form, and you’ll be sailing smoothly in no time.

An Introduction to Render Farm Rentals

Huge numbers of processor hours are needed to “render” the special effects and animations in the latest hit films and TV programs. For Monsters vs. Aliens, a total of 40 million hours of processing was required. Even a mostly-live-action movie like Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith included almost 7 million hours of rendering. The technology behind the process is pretty impressive, and you will find a tremendous amount of cross-platform research and cooperation. Even Microsoft studies ways to get PCs and Macintosh computers cooperating in a render farm setup, while some rendering solutions require third-party software and hardware.

A frame at a time

Rendering times differ according to the medium, the budget and the deadlines. Thus, one frame of TV special effects typically takes from 30 minutes to an hour, while many hours per frame is required for feature films. IMAX resolution – such as rendering the Devastator character in Transformers 2 – can take as much as 70 hours per frame. The solution to this immense computational challenge is a kind of distributed computing where entire banks of networked computers do nothing but render final frames. In a state-of-the-art setup like George Lucas’ Industrial Light & Magic the artists themselves have some 2000 cores in their workstations, connected to a render farm with almost 6000 processor cores (at the time of Transformers 2).

Even a small special effects firm with a half dozen animators will likely have 100+ processors working for them. The maker of the South Park cartoons, South Park Studios, now has a 120-processor render farm with over 30 Mac workstations (similar to Mac Pro rentals from CRE) along with some 10 terabytes of storage using the same technology CRE can provide, Xserve RAID rentals.

Do you need a render farm?

Compositing, motion graphics work, architectural visualization and digital audio recording can all be accomplished with render farms. If your firm is working in any of these areas, the answer to the question is, “Yes, you need one!” Small studios or companies that don’t have the money to buy the computers they need can use computer rentals for rendering.

In the “old days,” there were few options on connecting the devices that make up a render farm. Today, however, many of the leading 3D and compositing software programs include built-in networking/rendering functionality, and some even have a rendering controller. This means that the additional “nodes” (distributed PCs or Macs) can be managed right from your main workstation with a Virtual Network Computing (VNC) arrangement, meaning that you can run them as “headless systems” without a keyboard, monitor or mouse.

CRE is an expert in providing render farm rentals and setups to companies of all kinds and sizes. Our Account Executives are up to date on all the render farm specifics, and can get you on your way in no time if you need to set one up.  Simply call or e-mail, or complete the  Quick Rental Quote form -  we’re ready to render assistance.

Today, companies of all kinds need to consider security. It used to be large firms or retail stores that used video surveillance and other tools, but with lawsuits concerning hostile workplaces, harassment and on-the-job injuries, more and more companies are equipping their properties with security cameras. Originally, systems were clunky and hard to control, but with the continuing progress in computing and communications, new technologies emerged to combine the speed of computers with evolving camera and motion/heat sensors capabilities.

First things first with security systems

Do not go too fast when you decide to get a CCTV (Closed Circuit TV) system for your business. Approach the decision as any other, with research, study and plenty of poking around the right Web sites. You need to learn about pan/tilt/zoom cameras, wireless technology, DVRs and NVRs (Digital Video Recorders and Network Video Recorders), and the ways in which they work with computers as a central “command post.”

As with many first-time projects, it might behoove you to get one of the CRE Mac Pro rentals to use for your first setup, so you don’t have to ‘borrow’  other workstations from their current and ongoing duties. If you have PCs, you have even more choices of software, as Windows is far more widespread than the Mac OS. In that case, consider one of the CRE desktop rentals like the HP 8600, a powerful computer that can accommodate any surveillance setup.

Security offers multiple benefits

When you do decide to make the move to installing a system, remember that even the sight of a few pan/tilt/zoom cameras outside your business has a deterrent effect. You should not gamble on dummy cameras for an entire installation, but you can add a few in non-critical areas to buttress the message sent by the real ones. Software from commercial packages to freeware are available, and there is a particularly high number of shareware specialty programs for the Windows platform. Mac users have multiple options, too, as do users of Linux PCs.

A CCTV system, in fact, can safeguard your business in many ways. You can document accidents or other incidents involving customers, employees or both, and simply having the cameras can reduce your insurance premiums, too. Of course, having a safe, secure store environment – or office building, warehouse or studio – can be used as a selling point when promoting your business, too.

If you want to do a “test run” for a new computer-based security system, or need high-tech help for any kind of project from animation production to audience polling, our expert Account Executives will get you set up right. Call or e-mail for assistance, or fill out our Quick Rental Quote form, and you will be assisted swiftly and effectively. We’re here to support you, every day, in every way.

There are a few types of businesses that don’t need a Web site—really!—as well as a growing number that do business only over the Internet. Whatever business you are just starting—with a few computer rentals from CRE and a dream—you may be tasked with building a site yourself. Just how do you go about it if you’re not a design pro?

Keep it simple

Your site needs to communicate your business’s mission and “value propositions” clearly—and cleanly. Give visitors what they need to make the decision that you want, whether it’s to purchase a product, engage your services or donate to your nonprofit. Although Flash animations are entertaining, they are no longer cutting edge. Minimize the “eye candy.”

Whether you are testing your new company intranet with an Xserve rental, or refining the site you already have, some basic design rules will help. It is easier to warn you about common “Web site woes” than teach you good design in a couple of blog posts. We will give you 10 great tips today, and 15 more next time around, to get you thinking (then doing).

1. Some Home pages make visitors click “Enter” or “Continue” to get to the real Home page. Home should be, well, Home!

2. Don’t waste space with an array of badges, Good Housekeeping seals or other certificates. If they are important, include them on your About page.

3. Be sure to include contact information. You’d be surprised how many sites leave out the most important details, like how to reach them or store location.

4. Visitors will leave in a nanosecond if they can’t figure out, immediately, what your site is about. Tell them clearly.

5. Do not “auto play” your favorite tune. If you really do need music, put “mute” and “off” buttons in plain sight.

6. Everybody speed-reads on the Web. Use short sentences, headlines, bullet points and lists to assist readers in “finding and filtering” your site’s content.

7. Forget fancy fonts, six different typefaces or eensy-teensy 5-point type. Don’t make visitors use the zoom control (which many don’t even know about).

8. Limit the Flash animations and video clips. Pages take longer to load, and overuse can irritate people.

9. Don’t go crazy with the color scheme. Super bright or very dark colors take some skill to use correctly, so stay in the “muted middle.”

10. This is your company’s “virtual face,” so no spelling or grammatical errors are allowed. If you’re not the best writer or editor, get professional help.

Above all, don’t let the Web work worry you. Just keep your cool, do some research, look at what good sites do (and don’t do) and do your best. CRE is here to help businesses, with everything from comprehensive office equipment rentals to high-powered workstations for exacting work in science, IT, the visual arts and audio engineering—as well as your bookkeeping and e-mail, of course.

Whatever you need, from laptop to computers (including Mac Pro rentals), our expert Account Executives are here for you. You can call us, send an e-mail or fill out our Quick Rental Quote form online, and the solution is on its way.

Do you want your company to stay ahead in today’s high-tech business environment? Then, you need computer- and Internet-savvy people—and you need to make sure they stay up-to-date. How? By offering in-house training that teaches employees new business applications or software programs.

Allocating your company resources is tricky when new, special, short-term projects start stacking up. If just a few employees need training, why not rent  desktop computers from CRE? It’s more cost-effective than buying a new PC. Then, the question is whether to offer online or offline training.

Logistics of Online Training

Today’s office applications, including the reigning champ Microsoft Office, usually have built-in tutorials, some of which are animated and include graded testing. There are also free online training packages, ranging from computer applications to marketing.

Naturally, you must evaluate the source of online training since not all programs are created equal. If a company employee has sufficient technical expertise, it may be a good idea to combine that expertise with some additional low- or no-cost online materials. If the presentation is to a group, you can easily connect a PC or laptop to a CRE projector rental and test their knowledge during the training with an audience response system rental. A few high-tech gadgets will help you train a room full of employees.

Low Cost Training Alternatives

If you don’t have a qualified employee up to the task of training, consider talking to your high-tech vendors in IT services or telecommunications. You may find a software geek or an IT service tech that can come in to train your people at a great rate. You might also benefit with the recent news about Utah’s abandonment of its OpenCourseWare Project, which folded because of the economy. Download what you need before it goes to cyberheaven for good.

Consider finding a training course on DVD in the bargain bin at the electronics store (or online). You can create an in-house, cost-effective course by hooking up a DVD player to a projector and projecting onto a screen rental that will handle any size audience.

If you don’t ask around and do some online digging, you will never find these inexpensive training opportunities. You really do have lots of options.

Whatever you need, CRE’s Account Executives are ready with expert guidance, so give us a call, send an e-mail or get a Quick Rental Quote in a snap. As always, we’re here to help.

One of the main marketing phrases for the long-awaited Windows 7, officially released today, is, “Your PC, simplified.” This seems to parallel one of the main themes of the recent Mac OS X upgrade, Snow Leopard 10.6, which simplifies and accelerates many basic operations like starting up, opening folders and saving documents. Windows 7 is claiming better, faster ways to find and manage files, with handy tools like Jump Lists and improved taskbar previews. Computer desktop rentals available from CRE Rentals have already proven the stability and usability of both Mac and Windows for scores of customers doing every conceivable type of work, and we will continue to do so with all new OS releases.

CRE will evaluate the Windows 7 software with its computer and laptop rental inventory to ensure that the speed improvements, a big part of the hype, translate into stable support for both 32- and 64-bit applications. Windows 7 PR releases claim it will help you take full advantage of high-end CPUs. If true, this will give businesses doing CPU-intensive work—animation, video editing and audio engineering—a compelling reason to make the transition.

Good looks, good features

Windows Vista’s signature feature, the colorful Aero environment, was a resource hog that barely worked on some early-2007 PCs promoted as “Vista-capable.” Windows 7 should perform well even on small, low-horsepower netbooks. CRE will be testing Windows 7 on its desktop and laptop rentals, but will make a measured, transparent transition and keep all modern Windows OS installs—XP, Vista and Windows 7—available for its diverse customers.

Operationally, the taskbar has been revised, and the thumbnail previews improve on Vista’s and work well even with multiple windows open for one program. The system tray offers far more user control and customizing, while User Account Control (UAC) is now usable—whereas the Vista version was so annoying that “off” was most users’ default. Another new feature, called Libraries, uses “virtual folders” to combine the contents of specified folders into a unified view. If you’re using Sony Vegas or other high-end video editing program on a powerful PC like H-P XW 8600 computer rental, this will really help keep your video clips at your fingertips.

There’s always something

Reviewers have pointed out a few disappointments. HomeGroups sounds great—it lets you share media and documents across a network—but it doesn’t let you make your own password, making you copy its 10 auto-generated characters of alphanumeric nonsense. To top it off, Microsoft takes a giant step away from interoperability by requiring all HomeGroup-connected PCs to run Windows 7. Not only is there no Mac compatibility, there isn’t even Windows compatibility. On the plus side, there should be no problem at all installing Windows 7 on an Intel Mac, like the Mac Pros, MacBooks, MacBook Pros and iMacs that CRE rents.

Windows boosters are hoping that “7″ is the lucky number that finally earns Microsoft-powered PCs parity with Macs among the creative pros. Whether you need a powerful PC, a legacy PowerMac G5 with Kona card, an Intel Mac or a special-use t0uch-screen tablet PC, CRE has you covered. Call or write our Account Executives for expert advice, or fill out the Quick Rental Quote form. At CRE, we keep you working, no matter what.

Is “7″ going to be lucky for Microsoft or not? Let us know.

When Apple announced its new Macintosh in the legendary “1984” commercial during the 1984 Super Bowl, it positioned the diminutive computer as the “anti-PC.” It boasted point-and-click simplicity with its novel “mouse,” a graphical user interface with “folders” and “windows,” and the desktop “look and feel” that redefined the relationship between humans and computers.

Now, 25 years later, that little breadbox with the 9-inch grayscale screen has evolved into the potent Mac product line of laptops. iMacs, servers—and the creative pro’s number one favorite, the Mac Pro. Add Apple’s Final Cut software and an AJA Io HD rental from CRE Rentals and you have an editing and post-production solution that puts you in the big leagues. There are certainly some cutting-edge PCs out there, and some very good Windows software, too, but somehow the Mac made a splash with creative types, from art directors to filmmakers.

Chips and dips

The 1980s and 1990s brought one pitched battle after another, which grew into a war between the Mac and everything associated with the PC. Apple’s CPU maker, Motorola, today a major cellphone maker, was the good guy, and even made a short-lived Mac clone. Intel, CPU maker for PCs, was the bad guy, but Microsoft, as the power behind all the various PC brands, was the chief villain in the eyes of Apple partisans.

And today? Today, all new Macs have Intel CPUs, and powerful ones, at that. On Intel Macs, like the iMac rental available from CRE,  you can run Windows both natively and under virtualization (with such products as VMware and Parallels Desktop). If you have a business and you’re upgrading workstations, you only need a couple of iMacs to replace whatever office PCs you’re running.

Covering all the bases

If your demands are a little greater, upgrade to the Mac Pro rental to keep all your work going forward in both OS environments. The quad- or 8-core Mac Pro will fill the bill no matter how much horsepower you require—for animation, video and audio work, Web and publishing layouts, 3D, texture mapping and the whole range of high-intensity creative jobs. In fact, no matter what the job—on a Mac or PC, for office applications, interactive presentations or video editing—CRE has got you covered when you need a potent computer workstation rental.

Truce time

There is little left of the bitter Mac-PC war. Apple’s devices, from its computers to its non-Mac products like the iPhone, iPod and iTunes money makers, prove their productivity every day. In addition, all tech professionals respect the power, affordability and utility of the best PCs, like the powerhouse HP XW 8400 that CRE rents.

Macs are shining so brightly these days that they may steal a little bit of the late-October limelight that Microsoft was hoping to keep focused on its Windows 7 release (learn more about Windows 7 features). Apple sales are big, for Macs, iPhones and iPods, and ongoing improvements to the MacBook line (like MacBook Pro rentals) have lifted Apple’s laptop sales figures to double that of its desktops.

Our expert Account Executives can show you how two former foes, the Mac and the PC, can work together to bring you solutions for events, trade shows, rush jobs and creative “crunch time.” Contact one of our Account Executives by e-mail or phone, or use our online Quick Rental Quote form, today.

Who do you think won the battle? We would love to hear from you.

With all the talk about how prices on this, that and the other thing are always going up, let’s stop a moment and bow, or at least give a polite nod, toward Silicon Valley, Poughkeepsie and Boston’s Route 128. Over the past 40 years, the tech titans of the FPCE (Founding PC Era) have given us the greatest ongoing upgrade at the biggest continuing discount ever. The saga of the personal computer is as fantastic a tale as any sci-fi story ever. Truth isn’t just stranger than fiction—it’s often got more magic and miracles in it, too.

The longer you’ve been using computers—and some of us had the original Apple, Tandy (Radio Shack) and Timex Sinclair models in the 1970s—the more you can appreciate the astonishing speed of progress. This is a tale that everyone working with computers really should know, and uses terms that everyone really should understand. If you don’t understand a kilo-this from a mega-that, you will never get the full impact of this amazing tale. So read on—you’ll be glad you did.

You can consult the accompanying Glossary whenever you see a new term (in red for its first appearance), but we’ve written the blog in such a way that you should understand much of it in context. Some of you, of course, are true experts, so if we’ve erred in any way, by commission or omission, drop us a line. We’re going to demonstrate just how much technological progress has been made in “personal computing.” It really is an awe-inspiring tale.

Basic computers in 1981

IBM introduced its first consumer-level personal computer in August of 1981, running on an Intel 8088 CPU with a clock speed of 4.77MHz, or 4.77 million cycles per second. It came with either 16 or 64kB of RAM, expandable to a whopping 256kB. It connected to a TV or a monitor, and gave you storage options that included one or two 5¼ -inch floppy drives, an optional 10MB external hard drive or your own cassette recorder. The software bundle? It came with an operating system. Nothing else.

With a monitor and a single floppy drive (giving you 180kB storage per single sided disk) it cost $3005 in 1981 dollars. Depending on how you figure it—Consumer Price Index (CPI) is one common method—today it would take about $2.50 to buy what a dollar bought in 1981. Translation: that IBM-PC computer would cost $7,512.50 (in today’s dollars). Now let’s see what type of  desktop computer you can get today.

High-end computers of today

Entry-level computers today are thousands of times faster and more productive than the IBM-PC. The H-P xw8400 workstation that CRE rents is a high-end model – it comes with dual 2.66GHz quad-core Xeon processors, meaning eight separate CPUs. A single one runs almost 600 times faster than the IBM CPU, so we’re talking almost 5,000 times as fast with a rough clock speed comparison. Its 160GB hard drive holds close to million (932,000) times as much data as that single floppy. There are now hard drives 2TB in size selling for $200, a cost per MB of 1/100th of a cent, versus the floppy’s $30 per MB. That’s 300,000 times less expensive.

For the  monitor, the comparison is between today’s 16 million crisp clear colors, precisely displayed by about 2.3 million pixels, with about 9,700 pixels per square inch—and a black-and-white TV with 480 wiggly lines for the entire screen.

Bottom line on PC’s Today

Today, you can store a million times as much, crunch numbers thousands of times faster and watch videos in beautiful, high-definition color. For a few hundred bucks you can buy a pocket-sized netbook incalculably more powerful than the room-sized, air-conditioned behemoth that helped send Apollo 11 to the moon—and you don’t have to be a programmer to use it, either.

If your needs are a little more down-to-earth, like a kiosk for a trade show or some extra video-editing workstations, CRE is here with solutions. Fill out the CRE quick one-click quote, call us toll-free at (877) 266-7725 or send an e-mail for a swift, thorough reply.

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Glossary

bit: abbreviated lower case “b”; the smallest unit measure for area occupied by data, measuring both where it is processed (RAM) and where it is stored (memory “media” such as tape, floppies, hard drives, SecureDigital and other flash memory, etc.); 8 bits = 1 Byte

Byte: abbreviated upper case “B”; 8 bits = 1 Byte; 1024 Bytes, in metric terms, is a kilobyte (kB, see below)

clock speed: CPU speed as measured in hertz (Hz), or cycles per second

CPU: Central Processing Unit, a computer’s “brains,” the fancy calculator

FPCE: Founding PC Era, a name and acronym for the years circa 1970-1985; we just made this one up, how do you like it?

GB: Gigabyte, 1024MB, or 1024 x 1024kB (1,073,741,824 Bytes); often considered “a billion” Bytes

k: lower case “k” means “kilo”; often considered a thousand (more precisely, 1024) of a unit

kB: kilobyte, or 1024 Bytes; often considered “a thousand” Bytes

MB: Megabyte, 1024kB, or 1024 x 1024 Bytes (1,048,576 Bytes); often considered “a million” Bytes

medium/media: a substance used for electronic storage of audio, video or data, from wire in early wire audio recorders to such magnetic media as recording tape; computer media progressed from soft-sided to hard-sided floppy disks, then to hard drives with multiple platters, Compact Disc (CD), DVD and, now, Blu-ray

memory: a term for both RAM and storage media, measured in Bytes

pixel(s): term created from “picture element” to describe the basic unit of programmable color in a computer image or display

RAM: Random Access Memory, the “head” or space where the CPU “brain” does its calculations

TB: Terabytes, 1024GB, or 1024 x 1024MB (1,099,511,623,680 Bytes); often considered “a trillion” Bytes

Now this was a fun blog to write. Actually, “assemble” might be the better word, as it has little bits and pieces from all over the tech landscape. Be forewarned, however—you’ll only find it fun and interesting if you’re into PCs, Macs, the Internet, low-cost flash memory, high tech storage solutions, and the new solar-powered cell phones.

Okay, so the last one’s a ringer (pun intended), but the fact is that we will have photovoltaic cells 100 times as efficient as today’s models by 2016 or so, the prognosticators say. Until then, you can make do with the latest generation of lithium-ion (Li-Ion) cells that are rechargeable hundreds of times, with each charge lasting four to six times as long as a comparable alkaline battery. Isn’t progress great?

High-tech traveling using Flash Memory

If you are traveling on business, and your destination is amply equipped with Internet-connected computers, you can leave your laptop behind. Just open a free online storage account from one of the many vendors and upload your working files for later use. MediaMax, File Qube, Mozy and ADrive all offer from 1 to 50GB, absolutely free.

When you can’t use that web-archive option, perhaps for security reasons, then the next best thing is to take your files on flash memory. Sure, there are small form-factor hard drives, even ones that run right off USB power, but with SecureDigital (SD) and SD High-Capacity (SDHC) cards hitting 32GB in capacity—and the size of a postage stamp, or smaller—there is no more efficient storage.

There’s always more to store

Speaking of flash memory, for Pete’s sake don’t buy “thumb drives” with permanently embedded chips. They come in all shapes, colors and (mostly small) sizes, but the common factor is that they are not upgradeable. When you bought your  cake-slice USB thumb drive, it had an insanely huge 256MB of storage. Definitely not up to today’s storage options.

Need a cost-effective solution? Try the SD card and get 128 times as much storage and pop it into an SD card reader or carrier. This alone will upgrade your  solution.

Strategic Rentals – Laptop & Projector

If you are traveling to make an important presentation, you need to be prepared for anything. First, will a projector or large-format display be available? Do you have everything to make the appropriate connections from a laptop? If unsure, play it safe, and rent a projector and laptop rental from CRE.  There are a number of persuasive reasons to do so.  One, the laptop will be set up with exactly what you need—PowerPoint, the proper ports, the correct cables for the connections, etc. Two, it will be running perfectly. Three, your rental will be delivered where you need it, when you need it and backed by CRE’s 24/7 technical support.

Using your own laptop for an all-important presentation? Don’t leave anything to chance – why not rent a laptop to have as back-up, in case any technical issues arise during the presentation.

Whether you need two identically prepped laptops or a single AJA I/O HD rental for that looming post-production deadline, contact one of CRE’s knowledgeable professionals today and get what you need, when you need it and exactly where you want it. CRE sweats the details so you don’t have to.

DAC  – Moscone Center, San Francisco

The 46th Design Automation Conference (DAC) is scheduled for July 25-31 at San Francisco’s famed Moscone Center. Known as the premier show for designers of electronic systems and circuits, Electronic Design Automation (EDA) and diverse “silicon solutions,” a worldwide community comprising representatives of 1,000+ companies, universities, research groups and technology organizations attends each annual event.

Participants range from logic and circuit designers, system designers and architects, validation engineers and CAD managers to senior managers, executives, researchers and leading international academicians. Nearly 60 technical presentations will offer news of recent developments, insights into management practices and the introduction of new products, processes and technologies. Interestingly, when top firms want to outfit their booths with the most powerful presentation devices, they can work with CRE for DAC rentals.

Comic-Con – San Diego, CA

Comic-Con 2009 is taking place at the San Diego Convention Center from July 23-26, with the ever-popular “Preview Night” set for Wednesday, July 22. This is Comic-Con’s 40th birthday, so promoters promise the “biggest and best convention ever” and are commemorating the event with a new collector’s book of “rare photos and art from 40 years of Comic-Con.”

At the junction of popular culture, graphic arts, filmmaking, literature and technology we find … comic books! From its beginnings in 1970, Comic-Con has been the world’s leading “comics and popular arts convention [for] comic art, films and science fiction.” As fascinating as the graphic novels, TV shows and movies are, the technology behind them is a key focus the “efx” masters that create realistic “new worlds” with powerful computers and 3D modeling, texture mapping and animation software. Any number of Comic-Con veterans have availed themselves of CRE’s powerful workstation rentals to finish a film special effects sequence or an entire movie, just as special effects, animation industry and computing exhibitors rely on CRE for Comic-Con rentals to outfit their booths. This is a can’t-miss event for creative professionals.

NAMM – Nashville, TN

The National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) is a not-for-profit association that represents the $17 billion global musical instruments and products industry. Its 2009 Summer NAMM trade show runs July 17-19 in Nashville, Tennessee, with a Pre-Show Party on Thursday, the 16th at 7pm. Some 15,000 industry professionals, from over 30 countries, attended the 2008 Summer NAMM, and the 2009 show promises to be even bigger and better.

Like last year, this year’s show—for which CRE is the official rental vendor for NAMM—will continue to celebrate and support the crucial role of community music stores. NAMM members that take advantage of the opportunity to meet with suppliers, as well as peers and consumers, will come away with valuable knowledge for positioning their businesses for successful fall and holiday sales efforts.

The fabulous NAMM University will hold free breakfast sessions on all three days of Summer NAMM.  These sessions feature industry professionals with firsthand knowledge about music products retailers and the challenges they face. Current trends in social marketing (“How Tweet It Is: Using Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Other Social Media to Build Community and Drive Store Traffic”), as well as ways to support traditional music education, are among the many timely topics.

CRE is intimately involved in the entertainment and music industry. Everything from commercial jingles to punk rock records have been recorded on the same Pro Tools HD 3 systems that CRE rents. It is the ultimate for studio recording, fieldwork and post-production chores, as many NAMM members know quite well. They also know that CRE is the “go-to firm” for event management, A/V equipment and top tech expertise—and the message seems to be spreading!