Mac Mini
Archives Forums/MacOS X Discussion/Mac Mini
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| £339 No excuses left. http://www.apple.com/uk/macmini/ |
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| Yeah, pretty cool, and the specs are much the same as my eMac (though with 256MB less), so it should perform fairly decently too. (I'd want a proper Mac keyboard if I bought one, though, and those ******s ("fellows") charged £40 for my last one! Mac keyboards can't even handle a little beer.) Still, one of these should do the trick nicely for many people... |
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| Well given that I'm looking to buy a dual G5 in the not too distant future I reckon the mini will make a nice litte AV server under my telly :) |
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| Woohoo, this is perfect for me - cheap and small - just what the doctor ordered :) |
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| How much ram does a MAC need? The cheapest verison of the MACmini comes with 256 mb but it sounds like that isn't enought these days. |
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| Mac uses standard DDR Ram ;) |
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| How much ram does a MAC need? (That's Mac, not MAC. A MAC is a network adaptor unique ID :) ). I do all my objective-C/Cocoa development on a laptop with 512MB and it is fine. 256MB would not be enough if you want to do development or run something heavy like photoshop. I have never seen my Mac turn into a swapping-out beast like my Windows machines do. |
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| (I'd want a proper Mac keyboard if I bought one, though, and those ******s ("fellows") charged £40 for my last one! Mac keyboards can't even handle a little beer.) Hehe. Last time I had to replace an Amiga keyboard, they were pretty hard to come by. The one store I found had the choice between two models: de standard International version (this was in The Netherlands) for $50, or one with a French layout for $2. Got the french one, and replayed the key-caps with the ones I popped off my dead keyboard. :-? By the way: £339 No excuses left. How about: "I have no desire to own a Mac"?. Sounds like a valid excuse. (finally a step in the right direction price-wise though, although I seriously doubt apple will be able to 'convert' many people. The majority of apple sales are replacement systems for long-time apple owners. IBM/Microsoft won. Most people simply aren't willing to give up their legacy applications. I would throw windows out the window in a heartbeat if I could pick up all my applications and run 'em under Linux, but that's not going to happen. Don't forget that apple has a global marketshare of just 1.7% or so. (Source: http://www.macobserver.com/article/2004/10/29.6.shtml ) It's a little higher than that in the US, but outside the US apple is completely insignificant. Anyway, while this certainly present a cheap way to get a basic mac starter system on the side, there are other options as well. If you have a fast computer, you can run OSx under PearPC emulator on windows XP. Software OpenGL emulation so very low framerates for anything graphically intensive, but no problems porting/compiling programs in BlitzMax. |
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| Why do people have to slag off apples? I've never used one in my life but the prospect of doubling my game sales for 400quid is very appealing. So I've just ordered one of these. |
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| I've never used one in my life but the prospect of doubling my game sales for 400quid is very appealing. I know I keep quoting this, but I find it very interesting. The online publisher GarageGames says, Your game must run on MAC and WIN. We have found that the Mac market is very receptive to indie games and 65% of our game sales are for the MAC. Linux is a little more of a labor of love, with only 7% of our sales coming from that market. Unless your WIN game is extremely hot or it has the capability of being ported to the Mac or Linux, GarageGames is not the right place to have it published. If that's representative of the shareware market in general, having a Mac version is a no-brainer. http://www.garagegames.com/index.php?sec=mg&mod=resource&page=category&qid=124#5507 (But then you could always compile your game under PearPC just for the cost of OS X) |
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| Yes. I *could* compile with an emulator but I'm not really happy with selling a product I can't support. So owning a real Mac is necessary for me. |
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| Just purchasing OSX is nearly a quarter of the price of a Mini Mac anyway... |
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| If you're looking for a RAM upgrade, try http://www.crucial.com/ . I bought a 1GB RAM upgrade for my iBook through them and it was totally painless. They were helpful with my questions and their process for determing the RAM you need is excellent. The iBook was doing fine with the standard 256MB RAM but upgrading it to 1.25GB is really making it sing... |
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| Yes. I didn't like the price for 1Gig ram (290quid extra) so I went with the minimum 256meg. I'll upgrade later if necessary. |
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| Well, the last thing you want to do is order RAM direct from Apple. Places like www.crucial.com are much cheaper and deliver quality parts... I'm running on the assumption that this mini is expandable that way though. My iBook was/is, but I'm unsure about the mini. |
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| Actually, you'd better let Apple upgrade the memory for you in the case of the Mac mini. It says at the bottom of the tech specs page: "Memory upgrades must be performed by an Apple Authorized Service provider." So I'd assume that trying to put new memory in it yourself would void the warranty. It's a miracle they can even get all that stuff in there anyway, so I wouldn't expect that you can do much in the way of upgrades on it. |
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| Memory upgrades must be performed by an Apple Authorized Service provider. If you're worried about it, nothing stopping you buying the memory yourself and getting a AASP to install it for you. I'm sure they wouldn't grudge the business. |
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| That's standard practice - they don't want you opening the box but there's no reason you can't. However, Apple then goes and includes step by step instructions on how to upgrade the memory in the back of the iBook manual, complete with pictures... If you're worried about it, nothing stopping you buying the memory yourself and getting a AASP to install it for you. I'm sure they wouldn't grudge the business. Actually, in Apple's case, they would. I took mine to a Mac store - just to ask questions about it - and you would think I was trying to peddle cocaine the way the guy was looking at me. He told me what size screwdriver to buy after some coaxing so I could install it myself, but he didn't even want to look at/touch the RAM module I was holding for "legal reasons". |
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| I wish they had release osX Tiger with the mini mac, that'd be a nice combination and extra incentive. Otherwise you may want to think about waiting up to 6 months before you buy one so that Tiger comes free with it at probably the same price, rather than then having to buy it as an upgrade. It looks like a nice piece of kit, but I thought the case design is a little bit boring. Still, I wouldn't mind one ;-) |
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| No idea what Tiger is. All I want is a cheapish Mac so I can compile my game on it. |
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| What's the Radeon 9200 chip like? I've got a GeForce2 on my PC at the mo - anyone know how the 9200 compares with this? |
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| I also would like a comarison of 9200 to GF2. As a small format (which I think everyone conveniently forgets to factor-in) it would be an ideal replacement for my pc. The 256M and 5400rpm drive is what will prevent me buying one until the price goes below £300 - stoopid Apple marketeers! |
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| The Radeon 9200 can probably shift well over twice the number of polygons that a GF2 Ultra can and it also has pixel shader goodness. Put it this way, I can run Half Life 2 on my 32MB Radeon 9000 very well and it's not on the lowest detail settings. |
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Looks like adding your own ram might be a bit of a pain. It takes a standard DIMM but the case is clip together and probably needs a special tool.. |
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| teamonkey, thanks for the comparison. Rik, probably a bunch of tooth picks will do the job ;-) |
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| I was running my PC on a Radeon 9200 for a while recently (my 9600XT decided to blow up the day after I installed Sims 2). It's not *fast*, but it's not totally sucky either. About half the frame rate of the 9600XT. I think it's a good test too - if you're writing a game and it runs okay on the Mac Mini, it should work for most of your potential audience. I'm going to get one of these puppies myself. With 512MB and the Superdrive, I think. :) |
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| This really rocks. I would like not to have an iBook ;) ... |
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| The Mac mini interests me. I've wanted a mac for ages, and the small form factor is really a treat because I hate computer hardware. I'm totally sick of big clunky ugly buggers in my office and I'm on the streamline move. Want my office to be an empty desk, monitor and a little computer sitting somewhere hidden away. While this might mean I get an ibook (I like portability) asn't a PC of similar specs and size a hell of a lot cheaper still? Guess it's just life, if I want a Mac I have to realise that I will have to pay for that priviledge and it will never be as cost effective as a PC. Aaron |
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| osX Tiger is the next version of osX - 10.4 which is coming out in the next 6 months with bunches of new features, something to keep in mind if you are buying a new machine soon. New machines will include it instead of `Panther`, you'd make a savings. |
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| asn't a PC of similar specs and size a hell of a lot cheaper still? Same size? It's only very slightly bigger than a DVD drive. Can you even get standard PCs that size? |
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| asn't a PC of similar specs and size a hell of a lot cheaper still? I think it is very difficult to compare Mac's and PC's. Looking at raw specs is very misleading. Ideally you should try the model you want to see whether it meets your needs. I prefer to use my 867Mhz Mac rather than my 3Ghz PC (whether running Windows or Linux). The Mac seems at least as fast, if not faster, than the PC for all normal tasks (i.e. except for playing the latest games), including development. Given that, the Mac mini would be just fine (yes I want one too!) |
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| not saying its better but its as small and has a funky keyboard and monitor built in lol http://www.flipstartpc.com/  kind of cute, shame about the intel video chipset. |
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| Same size? It's only very slightly bigger than a DVD drive. Can you even get standard PCs that size? Of course. For example, the micropc has been available since at least 2001 that I know of, and is even slightly smaller than the mini-mac. First google link I found: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/07/02/jadetec_micropc/ There are a bunch of other more recent makes & models available that are significantly more powerful than that. The only difference between these and 'normal' desktop PC's is that they are using slower 2.5" laptop harddrives (for obvious reasons) and laptop CD/DVD drives. You can find a ton of PC's in this formfactor by googling for 'micropc', 'nanopc', 'nano-itx' or 'mini-itx'. You can even build your own, there are standardized motherboards and cases from multiple manufacturers. |
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| ...but how many have 3D gfx? |
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Hmmm, pity they did not spend any time on design...Ugh! Interesting to note that from www.jadetec.com: MicroPC 4 Barebone Unit You add CPU, HDD, RAM, etc. £395 (i.e. this does NOT include CPU, HDD, RAM) And people say Mac's are expensive! |
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| xlsior, Everyone knows Macs are poorer value than PC's. So what? Most people on here will be interested BECAUSE it's a Mac. Which represents a new platform and audience for our games. I don't see any point in comparing it to a PC. |
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| I'm mainly a Mac user, but I've been known to buy the odd PC in order to play the latest games. I'm currently looking into buying a new one now. But I reeeeally don't want to buy a huge beige box like the last PC I got. I'd love one of these micro PCs, but I'm worried that a) they won't have the latest 3D tech and b) they'll actually cost quite a bit... |
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| Yikes - just noticed the bundled gfx card only has 32MB of memory - I would have expected at least 64 on a modern card. |
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| Phish, the shuttles SFF PC's are prety cool, I'm going to get one for my next PC. I'm probably going to wait for the new PCIE models coming out next month though so you can have top of the range video cards that are more or less futureproof rather than AGP. [img http://www.pricewatch.com/ri/T5584986-1109.gif] [img http://www.pricewatch.com/ri/T5440534-1109.gif] http://global.shuttle.com/Product/Barebone/SN95G5.asp Processor AMD Athlon 64 (Socket 939) Processors Memory Dual-channel DDR 400/333 (2) DIMM slots (2GB max) Motherboard FN95 (proprietary) NVIDIA nForce ultra chipset 1GHz HyperTransport enhanced System Bus (2000MT/s) 1 x 32-bit PCI slot Graphics 8X AGP Slot Audio 6-channel audio Digital (SPDIF) audio ports Analog audio ports Network Gigabit LAN Storage 2 x ATA133 headers 2 x Serial ATA 150 headers 1 x FDD header 1 x 5.25" storage bay 2 x 3.5" storage bays Front-panel I/O 2 x USB 2.0 ports 1 x FireWire mini port 1 x Microphone port 1 x Headphone port Power button Reset button Rear-panel I/O 1 x PS/2 Keyboard socket 1 x PS/2 Mouse socket 2 x USB 2.0 ports 1 x FireWire 400 port 1 x Gigabit LAN (RJ-45) 6-channel audio out SPDIF I/O ports Coaxial Audio port Line-in Serial port CMOS Reset button Optional Parallel port Silent X (system cooling) Integrated Cooling Engine (ICE) Intelligently-engineered airflow mechanics Power Supply Silent X 240W Dimensions (L x W x H, mm) 310 x 200 x 185 Weight (net / gross; kg, lbs) 3.6 (7.92) / 5.2 (11.44) |
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| Phish is right - SFF PCs are hugely more expensive than full-sized ones for the same amount of grunt (I just bought one). Micro PCs are even more expensive. The Mini Mac is the cheapest micro PC on the market at the moment. |
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| nobodys arguins teamonkey, but I know which I'd rather have any day of the week. I'd never buy the mini/micro, but the shuttle I'd buy any day. And they arent that expensive. you could build a ok SSF for about $500 older SSF Nforce 2 barebones case can be as little as $150, 512mb ram $70 160GB SATA HD $70 and an ok Video card $150 2Ghz CPU's start at about $90 DVD writers $50 and those aren't the cheapest prices or parts. |
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| I think John's rights in most cases. Macs are more expensive for equivalent power machine, full stop. But if people are looking into a Mac, it's because, as he said, it's a Mac. The Panther OS which is sweet from what I've played with it, and the fact that they are generally a lot sexier looking than PC's. The only hole in the argument, is that the average consumer generally cares more about money than those things. they walk into a shop and go "I want to get in the interweb" "I want to do this email thingy to johnny" "I want to type a letter" "OK, we have this Mac here, far nicer and a great machine for $1000 (And you don't support Bill Gates and his monopolistic behemoth) and we have this PC here, as grunty but not as user friendly and generally crapper for $500. They both will do what you want..." "OK, first, Who the hell is Bill Gates? Second gimme the $500 one!" Aaron |
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| It's like getting a Porsche instead of an Accord. |
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| It's a shame in New Zealand there doesn't seem to be many good secondhand ibooks etc... Aaron |
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| For me the mac is more like a kit car that looks like a porsche on the outside, but underneath its about a year or two behind the PC in whats ultimately PC developed hardware and very much aimed at the casual computer user. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I don't think the porsche fits. |
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| Nah ... the Mac is the Porche and the PC is like a hot rod. One comes smooth and nice from the factory and one you build yourself. Wouldn't call it a kit car ... have you seen the innards of the G5 that's really sweet. |
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| http://www.apple.com/powermac/gallery/open.html 'nuff said really |
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| Yeah isn't that bad@$$! I love that! |
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| It looks like a radiator... |
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| yeah, but most mac components are aged PC ones, minus the CPU. Old ram and disk controlers, dated HD. It's beena long time since apple made an effort. Most of what you find in the mac these days are generic parts a generation behind an equivalent PC's. I don't recognise a pretty box and interface as anything other than mutton dressed as lamb. Nice CPU's though, compatrable to athlon64's. And there are a lot more Cases for the PC many nicer than the mac ones if your willing to pay for them. Just so much choice that sometimes they are hard to find and you can expect to pay a premium since they are sold in fewer numbers. Rather than everyone having the exact same case, I'd rather have an exotic PC case if I want a nice looking PC. A few years ago when Apple did try to put their money where their mouth is, you couldn't get a mac without SCSI, these days they are no different than any cheap generic PC inside. |
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| I guess they keep the hardware relatively unchanged so the OS and applications have a fairly stable platform to work on and so can be optimised to make the best use of what you got. Unlike PC's where the software is constantly struggling to keep up with the latest hardware and still be compatible with all the old PC some of which have been known to contain hardware thats over a year old! Anyways... I might just get one of these just to see what all the fuss is about :) |
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| yeah thats a good point, allthough its double sided. I'm the first to recommend a mac to someone thats a casual office computer user that want's something elegant looking and no fuss. Still got Office and the usual web browsers and email and thats about all the majority of people use or need. I like the choice that PC's have, and have never had many problems since 6 months after win2000 came out. Win9x was the one thing that in my opinion stifled the PC in the mid late 90's. Fortunately OS9 was as bad and often worse, particularly compared to NT. In my opinion there isn't really much in it now, appart from software choices, and some missing hardare on the mac front. Can't afford a Mac or PC at the moment, and wouldn't spend less than $800 excluding monitor/keyboard and mouse, just doesn't make much sense to buy something that won't last more than a year. Not for what I need computers for anyway. |
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| @Evak You hit it, it's the software choices. OS choice, and App choice. For me, if I didn't already have a lot of $$ invested in PC software, I would love to have a Mac as my desktop machine. I do video editing mainly and Final Cut Pro sounds like a dream compared to PC stuff. And I really love the Mac OS. Aaron |
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| yeah Final Cut pro is cool, and Combustion came out for Mac too a while ago so its good for video editing, compositing and is popular for music. Allthough the standard audio isn't that great it does have a lot of support from the music industry if your into the pro music scene. |
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| Well I think the mini mac looks pretty cool. I would wait till I have something I wanted to port to mac tho :) Getting stuff to and from your pc/mac version of the game shouldnt be too hard tho, a pendrive would be handy, just plug it in the pc usb, copy the files over, stick it in the mac, copy them off :) If anyone gets one let us know how well it handles BlitzMax stuff, what extras you had to buy (mouse, keyboard that kinda thing). Cheers |
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| I used my digital camera a few times for this kind of thing, and you can probably use an ipod which are pretty popular these days, don't know if all cameras behave as a removeable drive but mine does and I take everywhere incase I find some nice textures :) |
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| In theory, Window and Mac machines can talk to each other across a network but I've never been able to make it work. |
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| @CyBeRGoth I have an iBook pretty much comparable to the Mac mini and I can say it handles BlitzMax very very well, no problems so far (I would suggest you take at least 512MB instead of 256MB though). If you have a PC you dont need to buy any mouse or keyboard. Just buy one of the switches apple offers and you can use your PC keyboard and mouse with both PC and the mac. For myself I now work with OSX for a few months now and have made the decision never to buy a new PC again. There are so many nice features OSX provides and if you see what the next major release OSX Tiger brings along... Windows XP is far behind OSX. And no actual PC can competete with a G5 2.5Dual regarding speed. So Mac isn't that bad as some of you say (I think you never worked with OSX). The Mac Mini is a very nice computer, design and powerwise. Of course it is no high end mac or pc, but beats every pc in the same price range. That is of course only my humble opinion. :) |
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| I know I keep quoting this, but I find it very interesting. The online publisher GarageGames says, Your game must run on MAC and WIN. We have found that the Mac market is very receptive to indie games and 65% of our game sales are for the MAC. Linux is a little more of a labor of love, with only 7% of our sales coming from that market. Unless your WIN game is extremely hot or it has the capability of being ported to the Mac or Linux, GarageGames is not the right place to have it published. If that's representative of the shareware market in general, having a Mac version is a no-brainer. It isn't. Garage Games' visitors are predominantly Mac owners and that's not something you can say about many websites. If, however, the MacMini is similarly successful as the IPod was ( and that does look likely ) it's going to remain an interesting new market. |
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| @Mraven. Sure a PC can compete with a G5, the athlon64 3200+ is often slightly faster than the G5 2.5Ghz. At least at XML processing and Java compiling, was slower in Itunes though, not sure if that was due to the Mac using dual CPU's by default as it was more than 2x faster in that one test. the 2.0ghz athlon64 was neck and neck with the 2.0 Ghz G5 too, and that was on a mac site. Sometimes the PC had a 10% advantage sometimes the mac but overall they were about even. |
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| @Evak the 2.0ghz athlon64 was neck and neck with the 2.0 Ghz G5 too, and that was on a mac site. Where on the mac site is it? When I look at: http://www.apple.com/ca/powermac/performance/ I only see the Athlon 64 limping... |
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| Dear God, what does it matter if one of the top-end machines out-performs the other? It's only relevant if you have those high-end machines, and most people can't afford either option anyway. The point of the thread was, I believe, that if you want to 'instantly' port your games to another market with little to no effort, you now have a relatively cheap option... |
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Yup, that was indeed my point. Thing is, no matter what apple do if you just don't get what it is that makes them so good then no amount of argument over specs or clock speed is going to make any difference. |
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| lol, yeah I know perfectly well that apple make great computers, it's just the way that apple market stuff and then place misleading benchmarks that completelly distort and mislead people, in order to get more sales, If they told the truth people wouldn't slam them so much. http://spl.haxial.net/apple-powermac-G5/ Here's a benchmark from a site with a mac bias that is probably closer to the truth, and shows that they are pretty evenly matched (athlon64/G5 clock for clock) at the end of the day. http://www.barefeats.com/g5op.html Here's probably the best and most extensive unbiased review I have seen of the G5 from a PC users perspective. Where the pro's and cons of Mac's are brought up in an impartial way that shows the mac in an overall positive light. Might help mac and PC users understand one another a bit better lol. http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2232 And another review that shows some of the problems that people that upgrade their systems would have with a mac, since the nice case and clean motherboard put form ahead of function and doesn't allow for much expansion inside the box. http://reviews-zdnet.com.com/Apple_Power_Mac_G5_dual_2_5GHz/4505-3118_16-30912295-2.html?tag=tab |
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| Interesting links.... I like Mac especially the OS and Multi-Media Apps. I always get a chuckle when I get an email containing a Win32 virus. I think that the Mac Mini is cool--can't wait to try it out. |
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| Hilarious!!! |
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| Yeah at the end of the day, you just have to decide what your requirements are. I can't live without being able to upgarde my system easily and relatively cheaply, and like to push my ram etc to the limit and prefer to build my own systems from choice components. Couldn't afford mac as I couldn't buy one without ram, video card and HD, and thats ultimately what I'd need to get the system I need without spending a fortune to make it useful. Plus I love PC games over console games, and 3D apps and game dev tools for artists are better catered for in windows. |
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| Speaking of 3D Apps has anyone used LightWave before? I am trying to find out the difference between it and 3D Studio Max. |
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| I used both lightwave and 3dsmax, of all the 3d apps Lightwave is the most different. It's better than it was but still a bit odd if your not used to it. Most 3D apps today have modeling, materials and scene building all in one. Lightwave originaly split all these things into modules. It's become more integrated since v6 but you still have seperate modules for layout and modeling. Lightwave is a good product, I've used it on and off since the Amiga days, however I do prefer maya and max to it by some margin, particularly for game development. If this is Mac related and you want a 3D app to use professionaly I'd probably get Maya as it has more industry wide support. Lightwave would come second. I'm not sure but I hear that 3dsmax 8 is being written from the ground up, as it's been around the longest and Discreet feels that an overhaul of the core would be a good idea. The rumour is that 3dsmax will then go cross platform, much like Combustion which was for PC only for the longest time. I think Joe Hocking uses either Lightwave or Maya on the Mac these days, he might be able to give better advice. |
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| From my limited experience I found the modelling tools in Lightwave to be absolutely stunning. I have a good friend who is a 3d animator by profession and he swears by LW. His website is a bit basic (http://www.imaginetix.co.uk) but his artwork is awesome. |
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| we did some pretty good stuff at work in lightwave a few years ago. http://s93153354.onlinehome.us/jrelief.mpg http://s93153354.onlinehome.us/tngo.mpg these were done in old Lightwave 5.x around 1999/2000 things moved on a lot in later versions once they got LW stable again around v6.5. I moved on to another developer in 2002 and used maya and max and never looked back, found they just seem better suited to realtime games. But if your modeling or doing FMV LW is great Just different. In my experience a lot more developers are using 3d apps as their level editing tools these days, and being able to model and arange your scenes in a single interface has a lot of benefits. Probably how 3dsmax originaly got ahead in game development. Then maya came along a couple of years later, and more recently XSI. I'd imagine that XSI is the most modern of the 3 apps, but its only just starting to make inroads in game development. I saw that the people making Project gotham racing 3 for Xbox are now using XSI and looking for a new artist :) |
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| Man what game were those videos for ... nice ;) |
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'course, there's always the other side... |
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| Those ads are hilarious, I saved them both -- where are they from? The remarks about driving Yugos and using a Daewoo toaster are, I think, very much on point. I spend 2h a day commuting in my car, and maybe another 4h running errands, which is something like 14h out of 112h spent awake per week -- or over 10% of my waking life. So it makes sense that I want a car that's comfortable, has good sound, and so forth. I can understand why someone would spend, say, an extra $10,000 to get a car that makes them more comfortable for 10% of the time. Heck, I spent $3000 on a couch that makes me comfortable say 3% of the time. I spend 8-12h per day using a computer of some kind. I earn my living by it, and I spend quite a bit of my leisure time using it. And folks say that I should buy a computer that costs $1000 less and suffer from all kinds of daily inconveniences and productivity loss (e.g. if you're doing graphic work, the OS provides a stable underlying color model used by most apps). What's more, every TCO study shows that a Mac is cheaper to own than a PC (how much do you value the time you spend tinkering with your PC?). If you pay $10,000 more for a car, you generally pay proportionately more for service, and quite possible fuel. (That sexy BMW costs a lot more to service than a Taurus, and uses a lot more gas than a Honda.) Don't ask whether you'd buy a Mac Mini for yourself, because chances are you wouldn't use one as your main PC. Ask what you'd recommend to some computer-illiterate friend or parent given that you'll be providing tech support down the line. |
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| heh yeah, when I was making commercial games I'd have to drive 200 miles daily on top of crunch, was a real killer as far as my health went. Even on a regular 48 hour week I'd spend up to 30 hours a week driving the car thanks to the bay area rush hour traffic :(. Drove over 50,000 miles the first year I got a new car and had a service once a month, as I'd do about 1000-1200 miles a week. Was glad that I had a little sports car with sports suspension as it would help stop me falling asleep from boredom. Don't know how those truck/lorry drivers do it. |
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| Thing that's currently stopped me in my tracks from buing my first Mac (A mini of course) is that fact that I've heard it won't support all the Core Image and Core Video stuff that's out in a few months in Tiger. Sort of silly to me. If I can convince myself it's not going to be that bad, I'll get one. And I read today that Apple has dropped the price of upgrades. Only US$375 for an upgrade to 1GB RAM - AWESOME - NOT! Aza |
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| AHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! oh god, thx for posting those ads... my side's still hurting from the laughter... ok... ok, i'm alright now... ok... to get back on track here, Mike Reisenstein was right... either buy OSX through the regular channels for $129, or add a few more bucks and get a mini... with OSX. oh yeah... the Radeon 9200 handles pix/vertex shaders up to 1.4... at least the pc version does... but, yeah, that measly 32MB is of osme concern though... ... but macs do things a lil differently anyway, i just can't believe that they're gonna make me buy one of these things, then in 6 months come out with the Mac Mini Shuttle... ... smaller, and with a Radeon 9800 with 128mb on board. --Mike |
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| Mine just got despatched! I should have it on Monday. |
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| Mike, that's what I'm worried about. I don't follow Apple closely so I don't know how they operate, but it seems that they've been gaining a little momentum and does this mean that they might change the way they do things. i.e. Start releasing machines faster and hence, we might see a super mac-mini in 6 months? Who knows, maybe they'll do a whole media mac thing and add the things that people who are after in a media machine want and release a front end and all that. I think I'll still get one though.....maybe...dunno. ;) Aaron |
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| yeah... i'm gonna jump for one myself... i've got too many monitors, mice, and other computer junk over here as it is, so this will fit in nicely... besides, i was gonna get a new mac anyway... so, a new half mac at the comparitively cheap (for Apples that is) price is enough to make a sucker outta me :) --Mike |
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| Well John when you get yours post a little review for all of us who are considering it :) How it handles blitz max mostly :) But also how the same code compares on the max and pc, that would be great. |
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| Will do. Monday if all goes well. Seems to be in Eindhoven at the moment (I live in Bury, near Manchester). |
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| yeah... that would be cool JP... thx --Mike |
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| Those ads are hilarious, I saved them both -- where are they from? spotted them at www.gizmodo.com |
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| I've been a keen windows user from versions 3.0 to xp. But since converting to linux and Mac osx I've never looked back. Linux just brings life back into machines and Mac OSX is the closest thing to consumer quality software. Macs just work. One of the many benefits is never having to reboot(or at least VERY rarely). Only real reason to stick with windoze is because they are usually the first to get hardware drivers. Other than that Windows is just bloatware and second rate. I've got mini-itx (see mini-itx.com) setups running linux -good but not always pretty. mini-itx is fun for the geek in all of us. Now with the advent of Mini Macs you have the chance to get the best of all worlds. Unix stability, user friendly GUI, great looks, pre-built Small Form Factor, enough power for most tasks, and you can kid the wife that it really didn't cost that much. Buy one now, and if you don't like it put it on ebay, you'll probably double your money;-) I would opt for the upgrade to 512 though. Don't worry about software for Macs either - its all available(especially now that Blitz is here). I run a powerbook, plus I've ordered a mini, just can't get enough of em. |
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| very nice... still waiting for mine :( |
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| Beware there are some issues arising with monitor support. Pixel artifacts on black, etc. http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?14@814.0TF0azhhNpZ.0@... I am having the problem too. I have a ViewSonic VP201s LCD Monitor. I looks like there is a ATI driver problem and no solution as of yet... well there is one to use the DVI to VGA converter but without DVi the graphics look like crap! |
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| there's always somethin.... --Mike |
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| I looks like there is a ATI driver problem and no solution as of yet Gosh, can't imagine that! (Still waiting for ATI drivers that actually install on Linux without needing a degree in Rocket Science or Brain Surgery.) |
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| Still waiting for ATI drivers that actually install on Linux without needing a degree in Rocket Science or Brain Surgery I guess it depends on what distro you are using. I didn't have any trouble when installing on Ubuntu, using their binary packages.I've installed Nvidia drivers in the past and they were more trouble. But, why oh why can't ATI and NVidia get some common sense and allow their drivers to be distributed with X11 so that it works without needing to get additional packages? |
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| I had to laugh: http://www.divisiontwo.com/articles/MacMini2.html I think you will too! |
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| I guess it depends on what distro you are using. Well, I've tried numerous versions of SuSE and Mandrake (arguably the most popular distros) and Linspire Developer Edition, and had no joy. Admittedly there are a few hundred distros I haven't tried yet! |
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| Thats Linux for you. The usual answer you get from Linux zealots is that if you find something that doesn't work, fix it and share it with the community. Sounds rather easier that it is. Mind you, since the binary gfx card drivers are proprietory they are essentially evil and should be avoided. Time to go back to the S3 Dirge... I was pleasantly surprised by Ubuntu. Far from Mac, but still not too bad. |
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| the guy who did that review is a jacks behind... clearly a child of the win/pepsi generation... ... he should stick to windows pcs, iPods, and consider not writing hardware reviews ever again. --Mike |
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| yeah, I though that article/review was a bit "off" as well.. Looked like he did his research during a heavy drinking session.. and backing it up with: When I consider that a good deal of my time is spent running applications like Disk Defragmenter, Scandisk, Norton AV, Windows Update and Ad-Aware--none of which are available for the Mac platform--it doesn't make sense for me to "switch" to a Mac at this time. .. just shows that he's lost on a one way track... hehe.. just why on earth would you ever *want* top run those applications when you really don't have to.. it beats me.. |
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| COUGH...satire |
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| now now.. don't spoil the fun Neville!! :p but seriously.. I thought it really was someone trying to be serious.. hehe (I did wonder why they wrote "MCSE" and not "MSCE".. twice :p) |
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