MacMini

I will post a picture soon honest.

But first I'd just like to make a couple of people happy by posting my first negative comments about Apple.

Basically the way I'm feeling at the moment, if whoever at Apple is responsible for the following enters my house they will find themselves the owner of a nice new defacatory oriface.

1) 18.5v. What the bleep are they smoking! Every component inside the box uses 12v, 5v or somwhere between 1.45v & 3.3v (depending on what chipset they've used for RAM control and the like) so why on earth have the voltage going in 18.5! This has me snookered well and proper for my in-car/boat plans as I have some very nice little 12v->12v/5v regulators with under/over voltage protection, surge protection and switch off delay and in order to wire up the Mini I'm looking at some minor surgery which wll invalidate the warranty.

2) I've spent the last couple of weeks sourcing OS X drivers for the touch screen and GPS receiver which now work wonderfully with 10.2.8 and a variety of software but what do I find, they won't work with the Mini (not sure yet whether it is a software or hardware issue, I'm assuming software as none of the drivers work.

3) USB sockets. Why not put a couple on the front! With all the sockets on the back in use the cables get in the way of the fan outlets, after a few hours use I have some nice hot USB extension cables.

4) For a computer aimed at PC users or people who have spare keyboards and mice why not add simple keyboard mapping to the preferences? Virtually all the keys I use daily in unix commands are not mappable (or if they are I can't figure out where - don't tell me I need some shareware thingummyjig) even the F12 key doesn't work as eject. (I am trying to use a tiny "Zippy" keyboard which matches the Mini perfectly as it is brushed aluminium with white keys.

OK, rant over, I'm injecting the valium now ....

If anyone knows any fixes to the above problems please let me know before I run out of hair! I suppose I could install 10.2.8 on the Mini but that seems like a step backwards (kinda like I have to install ME on my car PC's because they can't handle XP and still play DVDs smoothly, does anyone know why ME is faster than 98SE and XP? Doesn't make any sense to me).

Oh well, I suppose my 2 years of smoothness with OS X had to come to an end at some point.

Amen-Moses

Here is a piccy, sorry it's so dark but I wanted to show off the keyboard.

Amen-Moses

Thats nice. I like how eveything glows. How small is that screen though???

shaun89 said:

Thats nice. I like how eveything glows. How small is that screen though???

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7 inches, it has a real pixel count of 848x490 but handles a presented resolution of 1024x768 (which is the minimum for running iMovie and GarageBand). It has a built in touch screen which in theory should work extremely well on the Mac (if I could get the d*mn drivers to work). The fonts are a little fuzzy but readable but it is a superb display for watching DVDs or playing games on.

For in car use I plan to have a 15 inch repeater display in the rear of the car so that my kids can watch movies or play games with headphones on while I listen to the radio in the front. When it is in my boat I plan to use it as my main GPS and other instrument processor but it will take some work.

Amen-Moses

btw, for those wondering why there is a 40Gb iPod in that photo, when it is in-car I plan to cleverly switch the audio around so that I can drive the main stereo from the iPod while it is charging in it's dock whilst feeding headphone sockets in the rear of the car from the Mini, that way although both iPod and Mini have the same iTunes library we can be listening to two different songs at once.

When I get to my destination both the Mini and the iPod will travel with me whilst all the rest stays in the car (the display will either be permanently mounted in the dash or tucked away in the glove box).

Amen-Moses

im jealous.
I cant wait for my tax return to arrive so i can buy one.
All i got is pc machines, although about the last year i haven't use windows at all. got suse linux pro 9.2 installed on my laptop and desktop (started with 9.1 and recently upgraded to 9.2)

I can not wait to get one... I also want to get an iPod 20GB after I sell my iPod Mini 4GB just isn't cutting it

**** u guys, i want to get a mac mini - a co-worker just got his from the apple store and i was kinda shocked because i thought i heard there is a waiting list to get them! He hooked his brand new mac mini to his old DELL 17" monitor and bought a Apple Keyboard and uses his exsisting mouse. He told me, THIS IS THE BEST THING EVER CREATED!!!!!!!

Well I guess you can say he is a happy switcher! I think Apple done good with this one. Even though its not a very powerful computer its getting a lot of Windooze people to switch. I wonder how this will effect Apple, hopfully good yes?

Oh and is there really a waiting list across the country?

pscl227: That looks sexay as ****! ****, I only got my iBook 2 months ago and now I want a Mac Mini too! Man, I just wished I could go and sell my 2 PCs right now and get the Mac Mini with a nice TFT to go with it!

mangoSharingan said:

pscl227: That looks sexay as ****! ****, I only got my iBook 2 months ago and now I want a Mac Mini too! Man, I just wished I could go and sell my 2 PCs right now and get the Mac Mini with a nice TFT to go with it!

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thanks man!....well a little update....i just wacked in a 1GB stick of kingston cheapo ram and WOW what a difference!!!......now i have a question for all you mac buffs.....if i were to take out the existing 40gb hard disk and stick in a 80GB 7200rpm 8MB cache blank laptop hard drive, would the mac autmatically boot osx from the dvd and start installing it? becasue i cannot see any options to select boot devices anywhere

thanks, Paul

No, you will need to insert your install disk and hold down the c key on startup.

I got mine from a local apple store (Short Hills Mall - NJ). Took 2 weeks of me calling all 7 local apple resellers (5 apple stores and 2 compusa) I finally caught them on a day that they got a shipment. This was on 2/10/05.

Amen-Moses said:

Here is a piccy, sorry it's so dark but I wanted to show off the keyboard.

Amen-Moses

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Hey I know this might sound ridiculous but what keyboard is that? I know that looks like the standard apple mouse, but does the apple keyboard glow like that?

itloser said:

Hey I know this might sound ridiculous but what keyboard is that? I know that looks like the standard apple mouse, but does the apple keyboard glow like that?

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No, it's not the Apple keyboard, it doesn't even look similar to the Apple keyboard. Check pscl227's picture, a few posts earlier, THAT's the original Apple keyboard. And no, it doesn't glow, it's not illuminated in any way.

are the mac minis still in shortage? in my area still no word when they will get them. they are all out of Powerbooks as well. Only thing in stock is a 17" Powerbook w/super, iBooks, and iMacs and a few Powermacs.

code777 said:

are the mac minis still in shortage? in my area still no word when they will get them. they are all out of Powerbooks as well. Only thing in stock is a 17" Powerbook w/super, iBooks, and iMacs and a few Powermacs.

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Well the wait time on apple store is 1 week shorter than it was.

I ordered mine on 1/29, it shipped out on Saturday AM, and right now it's at the sort facility in Alaska... hey, at least it's not being help up in China like some were!