New (Used Mini) Finally home and setup !

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Surrey BC Canada
Your Mac's Specs
Mac Mini 2.5 i5/16Gb/500Gb/Radeon 6630M-256MB
Well, I finally decided that the other day after returning from vacation, to get serious about buying a slightly more modern Mac than my eMac so I got a used Mini

Came with the following specs

1.66Ghz Core Duo
52Mb DDR2 RAM
60Gb Hard Disk
Combo Drive

Stopped by my favourite PC parts store(prices rock) and picked up a pair of Buffalo Select 1Gb DDR2 667 RAM sticks in SO-DIMM and a Seagate Momentus 160Gb SATA laptop hard drive (2 actually, one is going into my PC laptop and the price was extremely good)

Stuck the RAM and a HD into the Mini and restored it then upgraded it to Leopard, this little thing works great and looks killer set upon my slightly older HP w22 22 inch widescreen display and the Mini has more than enough juice to drive that monitor at it's native resolution of 1680x1050. This should of been my first Mac, not an olden iMac or the eMac....now to just get the courage to setup Boot Camp and really play with friend's heads !

Find attached my first full on screenshot from the Mini !

(Viewing screenshot in Safari or IE 7, just click on the image once loaded into a new window to make it appear normal, otherwise words will be garbled)

minissj.jpg
 
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13"/2.0Ghz/4GB/80GB/White Macbook
nice man, but what's going on w/ the font in finder? I've never seen it like that before,
 
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Feb 3, 2008
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444
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Location
Surrey BC Canada
Your Mac's Specs
Mac Mini 2.5 i5/16Gb/500Gb/Radeon 6630M-256MB
One Year on update.

Ok so it's been a little over a year but this little wonder is still cruising nicely, haven't wiped it since I initially set it up with it's new drive. Installed a whack of stuff on it including big ones like Office 2008, VMWare Fusion with XP to back it up, tried Bootcamp but something went wrong and figured virtulization was the better route, so far so good.

While not my main internet cruiser/system overall it does fill a niche in my daily computing life, it's still quick to this day. Also manages the iPod on a more consistent basis than the main PC ever could.

Overall impressions:
1. Kicks the eMac in the teeth as far as system performance goes.

2. Rock solid stable, no kernel panics to speak of even after going from the initial install of Leopard all the way thru the updates to 10.5.7.

3. It's tiny size still makes my real die hard PC user friends wonder why such a small box is pushing a large screen as easily as it does.

4. The remote is awesome, the Mini is hooked up to the home stereo using quality cables and well, iTunes and the remote, instant party with 5 days of music to choose from.

5. Just needs a SuperDrive to be perfect, plans are afoot to order one for it. As I removed the cover and installed a standard laptop DVD Burner for the time being. Looks odd cause the top can't go back on with this drive.

6. With the HP LCD I am using for it with it's silver bezel looks kind of Apple-ish as one of my friends mistook it for a iMac...

7. This might infringe on copyright laws but to quote Apple, "It just works".

Future Plans are the above mentioned proper slot loading Superdrive, Roxio Toast for honest CD/DVD burning, Possible HD upgrade.....laptop HDs are getting bigger and faster and this unit is getting more regular use and HD space is going down even with a 160Gb in it. I did first attach it to a new Aluminum board when I got it but found there is an issue with this Mini and that board as far as start-up key commands go so she uses a Apple Pro (the one with white keys/clear base) board swiped from the eMac, issue solved.

So one year on, I'm still content with my used Mac, Now waiting til Snow Leopard comes out.....hehe
 

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