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i'm thinking of dumping my water-cooled pc monstrosity for a new Mac Mini

J

JC86

Senior member
I have this giant coolermaster tower PC that I built with 4 hdds, watercooled oc's graphics and intel core 2 duo proc. . . the works. The problem is that since I got my macbook, I never use it anymore, it's just shut down and taking up space. to make matters worse, I have a tangle of cables, speaker wires, watercooling tubes etc that have grown out of control and is now a serious eyesore. This is what I'm thinking about doing, take out two of my 250 gb hdds and buy an external hdd enclosure for them, get a new mac mini, buy a couple of aftermarket gpu.cpu coolers. sell the watercooling kit and pc seperately. I should be able to get enough to cover the costs of a new mac mini. unplug my dvd player since the mini would act as a dvd player with front row. use my external hdds as additional storage and in the meantime, clean up all my cables.

That being said, how well does the mini work as a HTPC? I have a lot of songs and movies that I'd like to playback on my flat screen. I know monoprice has some minidisplay port to vga cables that would come in handy, I'd also have a desktop computer to work with that doesn't require a nuclear power plant to power up.

How can I mirror my two macs to sync my word files/safari/mail etc together?
any comments would be nice. thanks!
 
The mini would be a great HTPC. I've got a hackintosh tower set up as an HTPC running plex right now and love it.
 
Originally posted by: silverpig
The mini would be a great HTPC. I've got a hackintosh tower set up as an HTPC running plex right now and love it.
Click to expand...

what remote do you use with it?
 
Originally posted by: kalster
Originally posted by: silverpig
The mini would be a great HTPC. I've got a hackintosh tower set up as an HTPC running plex right now and love it.
Click to expand...

what remote do you use with it?
Click to expand...

I use my iPod touch and a program from the app store called Snatch.
Instructions

Snatch is $5.99 IIRC but well worth it. It's not just an application remote, you have a full trackpad, full keyboard, scroll pad, and can make a custom set of buttons and assign whatever you want to them (the plex remote is done this way).
 
Originally posted by: JC86
I have this giant coolermaster tower PC that I built with 4 hdds, watercooled oc's graphics and intel core 2 duo proc. . . the works. The problem is that since I got my macbook, I never use it anymore, it's just shut down and taking up space. to make matters worse, I have a tangle of cables, speaker wires, watercooling tubes etc that have grown out of control and is now a serious eyesore. This is what I'm thinking about doing, take out two of my 250 gb hdds and buy an external hdd enclosure for them, get a new mac mini, buy a couple of aftermarket gpu.cpu coolers. sell the watercooling kit and pc seperately. I should be able to get enough to cover the costs of a new mac mini. unplug my dvd player since the mini would act as a dvd player with front row. use my external hdds as additional storage and in the meantime, clean up all my cables.

That being said, how well does the mini work as a HTPC? I have a lot of songs and movies that I'd like to playback on my flat screen. I know monoprice has some minidisplay port to vga cables that would come in handy, I'd also have a desktop computer to work with that doesn't require a nuclear power plant to power up.

How can I mirror my two macs to sync my word files/safari/mail etc together?
any comments would be nice. thanks!
Click to expand...

The new Mac Mini has 2 video ports, so you can have your Mini hooked up to both a computer monitor and a television if you so desire. Monoprice has a Mini-DVI to HDMI for $10:

http://www.monoprice.com/produ...id=4852&seq=1&format=2

As well as a Mini-DisplayPort to HDMI for $15:

http://www.monoprice.com/produ...id=5311&seq=1&format=2

For media playback, you've got a number of options:

1. VLC (standard media player)
2. Front Row (Apple's built-in lightweight media center frontend)
3. Plex (port of XBMC, very very good)

For custom resolutions, you can use one of these apps:

1. DisplayConfigX
2. SwitchResX

The Mini has both analog and digital outputs (same minijack cable, you just need an adapter for RCA or for digital audio), so you can do stereo or 5.1 surround-sound if you want. It also has a built-in IR sensor, so you can go with the $19 Apple Remote or use a universal remote such as a Logitech Harmony 880. You can also do a software remote as mentioned, either with an iPod Touch or iPhone, using the Apple Remote software (free) or something like Snatch. Remote Buddy further expands your remote options, including cell phones and Nintendo Wii controllers:

http://www.iospirit.com/

You can use MobileMe for syncing:

http://www.apple.com/mobileme/

Or any number of third-party syncing programs:

1. SugarSync
2. Rsync
3. ChronoSync
4. Synchronize
5. Unison
 
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