I love my Mac Mini

[E1uSiV3]

Well i finally took the plunge and bought myself a Mac Mini...

 

So far, i havent been able to fault it, it runs incredibly fast for its size and spec, (ive even been playing games on it, lol) tons of eye candy from aqua too if thats your thing and it looks so damn good sitting on my shelf lol

 

You can even get a bash terminal so you can do things the *nix way if you wish to and being built on BSD, ive got a good foundation from using FreeBSD 5.x

 

The only gripe i have is the keyboard... its like some USA/UK evil hybrid with the @ keys in the wrong place, and keys missing like the # key is actually alt + 2 (i had to google to find that out). There is no home/end buttons either which is a bitch (unless im missing something).

 

(excuse the poor picture, was taken with my phone and the projector screen tends to screw up photos)

[kingswood]

Welcome to the "Mac user" club :-)

 

Minis are really nice. I've had mine since February, and it's never failed me (with only 512MB RAM). The kids at home love it, and it runs 24/7 without a whisper!

 

Enjoy.

 

Paul :-)

[Guest]

Yeh Awsome piece of kit

 

Use mine as an itunes media server / web server with gallery2 / Joomla.

 

Only thing that dissapoints is the fact it can't handle Hi-Dif. But hay, will be getting that from sky next year.

[DMcCoy]

I got one as soon as they were released. I am one of the poor sods with poor DVI and low output power from VGA.

 

This means on my crt monitor the picture is utterly crap. Apple will not acknowledge that it exists and seems to think that ignoring it will make it go away, despite hundreds of posts on the apple forums. It doesn't work with a large number of vga monitors and has dvi issues with some tfts.

 

It affects any of the mac mini versions released so far. If you are lucky you will have something that works with it. I would like my mini so much more were it not for this problem.

[russdev]

gits

 

ordering mine next week....

 

but gf is making me wait till xmas day before i can use it

 

Russ

[pshuttle]

Bought one and sold it within two months. It was just far too slow after having been used to using G5 duals. Shame though as they look lovely

 

Pete "mac monkey" Shuttleworth

[russdev]

well as first mac cant see there being much of problem as not use to speed of g5

 

russ

[E1uSiV3]

well as first mac cant see there being much of problem as not use to speed of g5

 

russ

 

lol my mac mini is stupid fast imo for the stuff im doin on it, im used to waiting for windows tho and have never been graced with using a G5 like you russ so i think we wont mind

[russdev]

its on its way....

 

how sad is it tracking the parcel...

 

 

Russ

[indie]

its on its way....

 

Personally I would have waited till the new year for the DVR version running on intel... oh well!

[russdev]

yes problem is indie that the new intel mac is going to be buggy and buggy as hell due to it a being new product and b mac not being used to producing intel hardware based systems.

 

so why maybe wait then got to deal with all problems and want a working system instead...

 

 

Russ

[indie]

So you're dismissing the intel macs before you've even seen them?

 

Just because it's a new product doesn't mean it's going to be plagued with bugs on release, Jobs knows what is riding on the transition to intel.

 

Apple have been playing with intel hardware for a while now and have kept mirror versions of x86 OS X internally up to date with the PPC releases.

[russdev]

no not dismissing

 

But experience has shown any new produt not just apple but every sofware and hardware has bugs even mr jobs can't stop that nature of development and at moment the current mac is more than what i need it for.

 

also not just that but third party software has to work as well and until a mac intel out there no developer is going to know what problems are there are?

 

Also not going to use it as tvo style at all so for me so current mac is best solution not to say best solution for you is not the new one due out.

 

Russ

[indie]

The developer mac's have been floating about since July and will run PPC code on the intel chips.

 

Since 10.4.3 for intel, Rosetta has apparently been upgraded to support all the G4 instruction set including Velocity Engine which the Pro apps need to work.

 

I don't think the Intel macs will be as buggy as you think they will be, yes most software has bugs, but we all know what Apple has riding on this transition.

 

OK, you don't want to use the mini as a media hub, but other people read this and they might!

[russdev]

i agree

 

i think it depends on want you want to use it for

 

russ

[Geoff]

I don't think the Intel macs will be as buggy as you think they will be

 

Have a pirate copy of Intel OSX running on VMWare Player if anyones interested.

[russdev]

tut tut.....

 

yer will have a copy

 

Russ

[kevinmcaleer]

*** Obviously edugeek doesn't support or condone software piracy. ***

 

I think the idea that intel based macs will be buggy is rather strange.

 

Apple have always engineered their hardware and software to work together well. Most problems with software that people see as bugs are usually due to either 3rd party drivers or software, or the fact that the operating system has to run on an almost unlimited number of configurations. Only Apple makes Apple hardware, so the chances that their software will have less bugs and problems is much much higher.

 

Incidentally, since the release of Mac OS X in 2000, Apple has been working in secret with Intel based Macs: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/ZDM/story?id=1314325

 

So its not like its a new product. Its a mature 5 year old product. As for the comparison between Motorola chips and Intel chips ,I don't think one is more buggy than another.

 

Thats my 2 cents.

-Kev

[russdev]

want trying to say that mac will be buggy but all new software is and for me this is me only i dont see benefit of waiting for new version and with problems that will have even if only part of life dev cycle better for me to buy one now.

 

But then someone else may better for them to wait..

 

and of course i was only joking i would never condone software privacy...

 

russ

[Geoff]

i would never condone software privacy

.

 

Freudian slip?

[ATOM]

most reports i have read seem to imply that desktop mactels will be behind the poratbles as the pentium m is to be the first pro being worked on to improve powerbooks power consumption. If true then plenty of life in existing apple desktops

[Geoff]

IBM has already fixed the power/heat problems with its new PowerPC chips. Meanwhile, Intels new chips suck. AMD is trampling all over them.

[E1uSiV3]

TBH, i quite like the feeling of owning something a lil different (ie a PPC chip), cus i dont throw away my old hardware, i like to collect it. Ill prolly buy a new mac mini in a few years to save buying a new version of OS X lol.

[Geoff]

My fileserver at home is Power. Running Gentoo Linux atm.

[kevinmcaleer]

I think Macs will remain 'different' even though they use Intel chips. I know what you mean though, having a completely different chip than the average PC owner does make you feel special.

You'll have to start saving for an SGI workstation! They use MIPS processors.

 

http://www.sgi.com/products/workstations/

 

-Kev