You may be better off thinking of computer technology the same way you think about renting equipment for conventions. How so? Unless your company is a  Fortune 500 company, you’ll probably rent what you need for that upcoming trade show. Why pay for equipment that won’t be used most of the time? This is analogous to the tech question you need to ponder, “Why pay for computer power that won’t be used most of the time?” Why, indeed?

Overselling as an art form

PC and peripherals manufacturers suggest that you need the latest, greatest, most powerful hardware (and software) at every employee’s desk. Not so. Basic, entry-level computers can handle all the normal “office productivity” tasks you need done – word processing, spreadsheets and charts, even presentations – so you do not need leading-edge tech for the bulk of your employees’ work. You really need to match the equipment to the job at hand, ensuring that each employee has enough power for their work. Having too much power means you are spending too much money.

Once you look at what you really need to run your business, you may find that you can save a good deal of money on hardware. Crunch the numbers and you may discover that half a dozen iMac rentals makes more sense than continuing to buy them on a regular basis. Likewise, if you have production bottlenecks a few times each year (pilot season, FY end, etc.), your bottom line may respond better to some short-term render farm rentals than to purchase orders for the same equipment.

Customize technology…consider rentals

Any plan to save money on technology implementation requires a good deal of study. Customer service reps typically don’t need $6,000 gaming PCs, just as iPad rentals are most cost-effective for your field personnel than rubberized laptops. Many employees will do just fine with entry-level devices. You may even find that certain models in CRE’s wide range of computer rentals are more cost-effective (and more powerful) than the plain vanilla solutions that you will have to replace down the line. Still, your situation is unique – so YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary).

Our expert Account Executives can help you figure it all out if you give them a call or send an e-mail. Know what you need? Then fill out the Quick Rental Quote form and we’ll take care of everything. We are always ready to help. It’s what we do!

Integrating personal and corporate assets

The average corporate PC is almost five years old. However, corporate workers have been buying all kinds of smart phones (with exciting 4G models), e-book readers, wireless doohickeys and potent little laptops for themselves, at constantly falling prices. As we head toward 2011, IT departments will feel increasing pressure from both managers and workers to tie personal tech into corporate workflows. CRE’s iPad rentals show that these devices can be true productivity enhancers, too.

Facebook fatigue

Facebook is going to level off at some point, as users are already reporting that cybertedium is setting in. Twitter takes time to use well, and LinkedIn works to the extent that you leverage the revamped Answers feature and position yourself as an expert. These social sites are in the process of evolving into corporate tools.

Staffing stalls (investment, too)

During times like 2010 (and likely into 2011) when hiring is flat and funds are scarce, managers continue to look for ways to get just as much, often more, from the same size staff and the same set of tools. CRE computer rentals are a proven way to increase productivity without investing precious capital in new equipment, with bang for the buck that continues to grow with ongoing technological advances.

The big loser of 2010

Amazon passes eBay: Amazon.com’s stock is higher than it was even during the dot-com stock bubble of 1999-2001. Because its vendor agreements require greater transparency than eBay’s, Amazon.com is a more secure buying experience. Just like CRE’s reputation for having the latest, greatest iMac rentals whether you need two or 20, Amazon.com’s reputation puts people at ease, too.

Big winners of 2011?

IT pros who live and breathe social networking: Social networking sites grew incredibly fast over the last several years, but individual users may be tiring of them a bit (see “Facebook fatigue” above). Corporate use, however, is on the rise, as witness by first-rank advertisers promoting their Facebook pages instead of their corporate sites in TV and print campaigns. IT workers who can combine their tech expertise with insights into social media marketing will become even more valuable over the next year. If you want to test those waters at your firm, CRE’s Mac Pro rentals pair up nicely with our Xserve rentals to create a workstation with which you can run all those ideas up the virtual flagpole.

No matter what the trends are, we are on top of them and know how to help you leverage them for your greatest benefit. Call or e-mail one of our seasoned Account Executives, or fill out the Quick Rental Quote form, and we’ll deliver the solutions you need, fast!

Step 1: The central server

The first thing you need is a way to share the same documents, as well as access graphics and company art. If you do not have much, you can probably make do with a standard office network with sharing enabled. However, it is more efficient to use a central server, which can be connected via Ethernet to your router, whether wired or wireless. The principles are the same with Macintosh, Windows or mixed networks. If you have video or audio files (which are huge), CRE does a lot of Xserve RAID rentals and can help you with this.

Step 2: Permissions and preferences

Project managers will need to decide who has the authority to do what on the network. Some employees may need to read and write to the server, as well as delete, add or revise stored items. Others only need read and/or markup privileges (more on markup below). If you do not establish a clear structure and hierarchy of users, anything could happen – and it will.

Step 3: Collaboration method

The next decision has to do with the way in which you will do the work. If a number of people need to work on the same document, natively (that is, in PowerPoint, Word or a publishing program), then they will all need a licensed, legitimate installation of the software being used. You can get site licenses and multiple-user discounts to save money. Your document creators can output PDF files that can be annotated and returned to them. GoogleDocs is also a way to collaborate via the Web, and will be the subject of a future blog.

Step 4: Markup methods

All major software in Windows will save to PDF, and all Macs, like the workhorse iMac rentals at CRE, can save any document as a PDF, right from the print dialog box. Newer versions of Adobe Reader (from 7 up) and the freeware FoxitReader, as well as the Mac’s Preview application, have annotation capabilities. In this way, revisions can be made without too many hands mucking things up.

Step 5: Oversight and approvals

Whether you use a wall-mounted whiteboard, printed documents or a Web-based tool, you need some sort of timeline or chart to track the project. This should be strictly controlled by the project manager, of course, but all participants need to see it to stay on track. It would be up to the managers to approve the various changes and versions leading up to the final document. At this point, the document can be output to hard copy, Web formats or a specialized output (Press-Quality PDF) that will be used for printing.

These are basic steps that you can tailor to your unique needs. For other unique needs, like office equipment rentals or interactive technology tools, CRE is your premier source. Fill out the online Quick Rental Quote form, and we will gladly collaborate with you to solve any problems in your workflow.

The tremendous punch packed by the new Mac Pro makes it, once again, the fastest Mac available, after losing its top ranking some time back to a Core i7-equipped iMac. The new tower Mac can access up to 12 processing cores for 50% more performance, now fueled by up to 32GB of RAM. This makes the Mac Pro the prohibitive favorite for audio, video, animation and post-production, and will bring a new rush to working with HD or SD in Final Cut Pro when paired with CRE’s AJA Io HD rentals. Digital artists and content creators will feel like their spaceship got a new rocket or two whichever CPUs they choose – Intel’s quad- and six-core Xeon processors, the quad-core Xeon Nehalem or the Xeon Westmere with four or six cores. Apple claims buyers can choose from “1.3 billion possible configurations of the Mac Pro” when ordering, and it feels like about half of the options involve processors!

Dual displays? Nope – six!

The new Mac Pro maxes out, as stated above, at 12 cores with two six-core Intel Xeon Westmeres running at 2.93 GHz. (Other CPUs may have faster clock speeds, up to 3.33 GHz, but the Westmeres are the most efficient, effective workers.) Apple has left NVIDIA behind, now offering the ATI Radeon HD 5770 or 5870 graphics card. Each has 1 GB of GDDR5 memory (fast!) and get this – support for as many as six simultaneous displays. Get one or two Xserve RAID rentals, some LCD monitor rentals and send for lots of take-out, because with this kind of setup you will get a whole lot done, and you’ll have so much fun you just might want to keep going.

The new Mac Pro also has a dual 16-lane PCI Express 2.0 slot, for expansion purposes, and can be configured with up to 8 TB of internal hard disk and SSD (Solid State Drive) storage, the latter offering a first for the Cupertino firm. The new models should hit the retail channel sometime in August, meaning CRE will soon offer the latest, greatest Mac Pro computer rental.

Apple’s been busy!

Apple has also revamped its standalone Cinema Display line (one model now, 27-inch), juiced up the surprising iMacs (available for rent), upgraded its MacBook Pro line and released a desktop Magic Trackpad. The company is also in the news with its iPhone, as the government has decreed that consumers can now “jailbreak” the device. All of this news and more will be in forthcoming blogs, so check out our new posts every Tuesday and Thursday.

Don’t forget that we’re here every other workday, too, with not just the best and newest computer rentals but everything you need to attend, produce or exhibit at a conference or convention, from Audience Response System rentals to plasma panels. Call or e-mail an expert Account Executive, or fill out our Quick Rental Quote form that’s just a quick click away. We’re here with solutions, so just let us know what you need to solve!

In the 1990s, Scott McNealy, a co-founder of Sun Microsystems, said, “The Web is the computer.” The ultimate dream of the cloud boosters is people accessing files stored “in the cloud” (“on a server somewhere”) with minimalist workstations called “thin clients” – a keyboard, a monitor and a network connection. Is this really how people would work, given the chance? Many of CRE’s creative clients doing high-end work on Mac Pro rentals would probably say, “No way,” at least for now.

Local = control

More and more people are becoming cloud-savvy, because that’s where their Web sites are located, of course. Many businesses also use online storage to archive materials. There is a good business rationale for this, as well as for storing many kinds of work-in-progress in the cloud, like projects that require collaboration for editing, design and/or distribution. However, the notion that all files are “virtual” – which means “unavailable” when the power goes out – scares the heck out of many designers, A/V pros and content producers. Is this really the Big Idea that McNealy and other cloud fans want to implement?

For this all-cloud-all-the-time scheme to work, we need far greater network speed and much more bandwidth. Even when these and other sticking points are unstuck, human nature is still blocking the road ahead, holding up a big sign that says, “I have trust issues.” If you just hired some extra artists and put them to work on  computer rentals to finish an urgent project, would you honestly trust the only copy to be out of your sight – rather, out of anyone’s sight? No local work copy? No way!

Step by step towards computing in the cloud

We haven’t space to cover all the security issues, but the phrase “heightened security threats” pops up a lot in cloud computing discussions. Local storage is safer than cloud storage for the simple reason that cyberspace is still a battlefield full of hackers, viruses and malware. “From the frying pan to the fire” seems an appropriate precautionary statement about moving prematurely to cloud computing – for now. So, consider Xserve RAID rentals – they are solid, tangible proof that you have your work at hand, safe and sound.

You can get acclimated to the cloud by getting a free online storage account (and actually using it). With each passing day, the Internet gets faster, safer and easier to use, but it’s still got a bit of the Wild West in it. Perhaps some people will be comfortable leaving their animation files on the cloud and using Apple’s imaginary Web app, Final Cut Virtual, to work on them (perhaps with their iPhones). Others may take a bit longer to feel safe doing that. Your mileage, as they say, may vary!

At CRE, one thing that never varies is the expertise and professionalism of our staff. Whether you need the fastest iMac rentals anywhere or a broad array of convention rentals, CRE is your one-stop shop. Call us, send an e-mail or fill out a Quick Rental Quote form and we’ll help you get where you need to go with the best hardware, software and services, bar none.

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.

Life-casting

In some markets life-casting is already possible. it will become a global trend as more of the world is blanketed with 24/7 cell phone users, who will use high-speed 3G (and 4G) networks to fulfill their craving to connect with others in every imaginable way. New Web sites like Qik.com enable people to stream live video from their cell phones to the Web with no glitches and a dead-simple setup. YouTube clips share captured moments, but are mere video snapshots compared to live streams that deliver real-time happenings. One question: Is everyone’s life really that interesting?

Body-controlled video games

The Wii devices started the trend, and now all the game consoles are at it. The new Microsoft Xbox controller, with technology called Project Natal, follows your dance moves, ball kicks and bat swings with an infrared camera and displays them on-screen. Voice commands are possible, too. Sony is releasing the PlayStation Motion Controller wand, to do the same thing as your body would (but it’s easier). With advances in remote control technology, we won’t be stuck with the same gamepads or joysticks popularized back in the Stone Age (the 1980s and 1990s). Graphic artists currently using CRE Mac Pro rentals with Wacom tablets should watch for new developments in input technology to grow from these devices.

Content aggregators for you

Digg.com and similar services help you locate related stories and images online. Others like YouTube let you share silly or serious videos. Toobla.com does both, but for a different reason. It’s an “aggregator,” like the others, but it works with videos, documents, Web sites, photos, images and e-mails, allowing you to store everything “in the cloud” but share it wherever you want. It is not another Box.net, just for storage, as it is made to display and distribute your digital assets. Companies planning a massive archiving project may wish to grab a few large-screen LCD monitor rentals and Xserve RAID rentals to ensure enough storage space – and enough screen real estate to see everything.

Satellite tape measures

GeoEstimator is a new service that uses satellites to make roof, lot and building measurements that are every bit as accurate as on-the-scene ones. This service promises to save a lot of contractors, estimators and insurance adjustors from possible falls. The same technology is being used to determine property boundaries, estimate public works projects and integrate more satellite data into daily life, including GPS positioning and atmospheric readings.

At CRE, we are innovators, too, and keep our eyes firmly fixed on the changing tech landscape. For all your needs, call or send an e-mail to our expert Account Executives, or use the Quick Rental Quote form, and get the latest gadget you need, quickly and easily.

There are scores of acronyms now being used by hard-sell business consulting firms, as if they represent breakthroughs of some kind. The trend may have begun with CRM (Customer Relationship Management) in the 1990s, but has since expanded into a long list of puffed-up phrases — Business Process Management (BPM), Enterprise Architecture Patterns (EAP), Business Process Transformation Framework (BPTF),  Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and the like. (Shouldn’t the Department of Redundancy Department be on there, too?)

Who holds the buzzwords keys?

Should you be concerned if you are not buying the books or paying the consultants who hold the keys to the secret meanings of these success formulas? No, you shouldn’t.

In fact, there is both a lot more and a lot less to this issue than first meets the eye. The “more” comes down to “more work,” as in, you need to do more work finding out what people mean when saying all these things. You will discover that there are really no startlingly new concepts being introduced, just different methods for accomplishing the same commonsense goals that businesses have been setting for centuries – efficiency, meeting customer needs, good communication channels, quality products, good marketing, attentive customer service, straightforward accounting practices, etc. And the “less” part? There is a lot less new thinking here than the consultants would have you believe.

CRE has a lot of different customers, in a lot of industries, but because of our Southern California location we are privileged to support many creative firms working in movies, TV, radio, the media and Web-related enterprises. Companies that need cutting-edge Mac Pro rentals for post-production or sleek iMac rentals for a new marketing department project are typically full of bright, forward-thinking, tech-savvy folks who are used to an acronym-heavy vocabulary (RAM, SCSI, SATA, HTTP, etc.) and may give unearned respect to the aforementioned business buzzword abbreviations. This would be a mistake.

Understanding the acronyms

The important thing is to look beneath the “marcomm” (marketing communications talk) and search for the actual, definable principles that are involved. You will find that BPM, Business Process Management, is pretty much just what it says – managing your business processes. Okay. If you have good managers, they are likely keeping up on the literature and using their heads as it is. Your IT people already know if CRE’s Xserve RAID rentals are what they need in a pinch, and won’t learn that from an acronym, no matter how expensive or impressive. If they think there is something worthwhile in a new BPM approach, they will use it. Trust your in-house experts to separate the wheat from the chaff – or get new experts, if you don’t think they’re up to it.

You probably don’t need to buy a Software-Enhanced Interdepartmental Efficiency-Boosting Total Process Management System, or SEIEBTPMS. You just need to stay plugged in, to the leaders of the industry you’re in, to the trade magazines, to the evolving best practices of your particular field. This does not mean there is no value to the business consultants who ply their trade with an ever-changing cast of acronyms and trends. There is much good sense and solid advice to be had there, certainly. The point, though, is that there are many less expensive ways to stay abreast of those best practices, from conventions and conferences to continuing education in the appropriate disciplines. You can do it yourself, most likely, and save money in the process.

CRE is in the solution business, and one of the things we help companies do is manage change – including sudden change, like getting a new production deal without having the eight workstations needed to pull it off. When you need to expand into a new project, equip a conference booth or outfit your convention team with WiFi-enabled tablet PC rentals, give our Account Executives a call, send an e-mail or fill out our Quick Rental Quote form online. We won’t bombard you with buzzwords, just straight talk that gets you the solutions you need.

Go with a Mac Pro

When the Mac Pro high-performance desktops like CRE rents get their next refreshing in early 2010, they may get Intel Xeon six-core processors, according to a recent unconfirmed rumor on the Web site, Hardmac. Reports from “an inside source at Apple” indicate that the firm wants the dual-socket, six-core “Gulftown” chip in its next Mac Pro.

The Core i9 chip will increase performance while decreasing power usage, or so the story goes. The Mac Pro might also have a modified motherboard with a 10 Gbit/second Ethernet port (a major increase) and support for 8 and 16 GB RAM modules (current maximum is 4GB). This allows a potential total of 128 GB of RAM.

A new iMac for you?

The iMac line has had two screen sizes in its modern (flat panel) version, now measuring 21.5 and 27 inches, but has new LED backlit displays with 16:9 widescreen ratio. A 21.5-inch imac rental has a high-resolution 1920 x 1080 pixel display. Movie lovers should note that the 27-inch model’s Mini DisplayPort supports bi-directional connections – just connect an HD source and your iMac is an HD monitor.

The iMacs now have 4 SO-DIMM slots supporting up to 16 GB of RAM, and four different Intel processors. The 21.5-inch models can be configured with 3.06 GHz or 3.33 GHz Intel Core2 Duo processors, but the “serious fun” starts with the 27-inch iMac. It is configurable with the aforementioned CPUs, a 2.66 Quad-Core i5 or a 2.8 GHZ Quad-Core i7 processor. The two Quad-Core options take the iMac to the level of performance first seen in the Mac Pro – very impressive!

Mini goes maxi

The Mac mini has two new configurations: one model featuring a 2.26 GHz Intel Core2 Duo, a 160 GB hard drive and 2 GB of RAM; the second has a 2.56 GHz Intel Core2 Duo processor and double the hard disk and RAM (320 and 4 GB, respectively). Both feature seriously upgraded graphics capabilities via an NVIDIA GeForce 9400M chipset. These minis are becoming very popular as “small-but-mighty” servers especially for small businesses or for off-site, temporary offices at a convention center.

Call one of our Account Executives today and find out how a Mac Pro rental  or iMac rentals can help increase productivity or solve those backlog problems. Give us a call or send an e-mail, or simply fill out a Quick Rental Quote form. We are Mac rental specialists and are here to help.

We recently ran a series on Web design tips (Part 1 and Part 2), so now it’s time to put your new knowledge to good use. Even if you don’t launch a state-of-the-art site, you can help your customer service staff out big time if you put up a site with FAQs, parts manuals, solutions to common problems and perhaps an online chat page.

Don’t worry about it!

Web sites can cost a lot in both time and money. If you don’t have a large monitor, consider renting a LCD monitor (or two) so you or your designer have plenty of screen real estate to handle all the pages, menus, art and tools that need to be right at hand. It might be easier to start with something a tad less complex than a full-blown site, too, since you can “scale up” gradually.

Glamorous corporate Web sites can cost a lot to develop. Do you really have to have a site in the first place? Probably. Does it need to cost a lot? No. Web presence is going to be important to your customers, but start out easy. You can get budget hosting plans for as little as $5 a month, and most of the offers today include everything you need, including shopping carts.

If you are considering getting new software and embarking on a Web project, you might consider a computer rental (Mac and/or PC) so you can dedicate a workstation or two to the job without interfering with other work. If you anticipate having a lot of photos, audio or video material, consider some extra storage like a Xserve RAID rental. You can never have too much storage—ever!

Now go get the customers

Now, you need to drive traffic (customers) to your Web site. Let’s face it, if customers don’t know you’re there, you won’t have a business, no matter how nice your site or how great your product or service. You need to invest what you can, which will mostly be time plus whatever money you can allocate, in promoting your site and your business.

You should devise an e-mail campaign, send press releases to print publications and online services, get trade links, create a Facebook Page, use twitter, post comments on online forums and generally sing a “one note song” about what you are doing. If you need wireless laptops for a “mobile campaign,” or plasma screen rental for a digital signage program, CRE rents all sorts of technology equipment.

Whatever you need, our expert Account Executives are here to help you. You can call us, send an e-mail or fill out our Quick Rental Quote form, and the solutions you need will be on the way. That’s what we do, after all—provide the solutions that keep you going and growing.