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The time-is-money equation hits home
March 31, 2008

I often lecture about the value of making investments in new technology. When time is money, and in premedia that is always the case, having the right technology is critical to profitability. In an earlier blog I described my two Cinema Displays, and the time-saving benefits they provide.

I found myself a few weeks back explaining return-on-investment to my students, and using the cost of a computer as the example. It made sense; it made money because it would be faster than the existing computer system. Then I went home and spent an arduous afternoon making web galleries in Adobe Photoshop from high-resolution digital images. My three-year-old Macintosh G5 computer was poking along, running CS3 rather badly on its Motorola processors (CS3 likes Intel).

It occurred to me that I was not practicing what I preach. So, I drove across town and negotiated the purchase of a new quad-core Intel Macintosh Pro – top of the line – with oodles of hard disk space and dramatically more memory than the older machine. It was expensive, but I did the math, and I am sure it will pay-off in a few months.

Now that I have been using that machine for a few weeks I am sure I made the right decision, and that my ROI calculation is valid.

Yesterday I made a web gallery from about 40 raw images. Instead of the 6-to-9 seconds per image that I have become accustomed to, it processes each image in 0.75 sec. That is approximately 89 percent faster for that activity, and I am impressed. The whole process was decidedly faster, and I was on to the next project much sooner.

I used to start a web gallery in motion, then I would go make a cup of tea, let the tea steep, and return to my desk to enjoy (?) the web gallery process. Now I don’t have time for the water to boil.

I may give up tea altogether.

Posted by Brian Lawler on March 31, 2008 | Comments (0)