Mini Mac: My impressions after week 2

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: miniMUNCH
I have really nice 5-button logitech mouse that I use with OS X...love it. ditch the one button mouse and get something you like...OS X has complete support for all the functions on a 5-button mouse.

Yes, OS X supports multi-button mice just fine.

 

[Excelsior]

Originally posted by: klah
I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is the deal with you Mac fanatics? I've been sitting here at my freelance gig in front of a Mac (a 8600/300 w/64 Megs of RAM) for about 20 minutes now while it attempts to copy a 17 Meg file from one folder on the hard drive to another folder. 20 minutes. At home, on my Pentium Pro 200 running NT 4, which by all standards should be a lot slower than this Mac, the same operation would take about 2 minutes. If that.

In addition, during this file transfer, Netscape will not work. And everything else has ground to a halt. Even BBEdit Lite is straining to keep up as I type this.

I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while working on various Macs, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen a Mac that has run faster than its Wintel counterpart, despite the Macs' faster chip architecture. My 486/66 with 8 megs of ram runs faster than this 300 mhz machine at times. From a productivity standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that the Macintosh is a superior machine.

Mac addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use a Mac over other faster, cheaper, more stable systems.

It has more to do with the HD and RAM and OS. What OS are you running on the 8600?

 

[aphex]

Finally got around to setting up the shares between the mini and my T41... Also, needed to share the laser printer connected to my Mini...

Haha, kinda funny that it was easier to set up a share between the mac and the pc than it was go from pc to pc in the past

 

[gsaldivar]

Originally posted by: aphex
it was easier to set up a share between the mac and the pc than it was go from pc to pc in the past

Huh?

Right-click "My Computer" > Map Network Drive > "\\ tcp/ip address \c$

Done.

 

[Safeway]

Nice news, I want a Mac Mini. Someone send me one - PM me.

 

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: FoBoT
oh my , one button mouse would be hard to deal with

i have been thinking of getting one soon, but a one button mouse, oh my

Text

Glad you like it OP, though I'd personally never buy something like that.

 

[PowerMac4Ever]

Originally posted by: klah
I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is the deal with you Mac fanatics? I've been sitting here at my freelance gig in front of a Mac (a 8600/300 w/64 Megs of RAM) for about 20 minutes now while it attempts to copy a 17 Meg file from one folder on the hard drive to another folder. 20 minutes. At home, on my Pentium Pro 200 running NT 4, which by all standards should be a lot slower than this Mac, the same operation would take about 2 minutes. If that.

Maybe you should get a job so you can buy a computer that is a little newer than 25 years old, ya bum...

 

[Geekbabe]

Originally posted by: Martin
i never got the whole "make my windows look like OSX" craze. But then again, I am a fan of win2k

Win2k is so solid and reliable

 

[eelw]

aphex, does the Mac Mini slot loading drive accept 8cm disks? This came up in a Nintendo Revolution topic. Since smaller 8cm GameCube disks are supposed to work on the 12cm slot loading DVD drive. I really wonder how the smaller disk gets loaded without jamming.

 

[91TTZ]

Originally posted by: yetti
off topic, but how do the apple procs compare speedwise to intel chips?

Put it this way- Apple switched to Intel chips.

 

[91TTZ]

Mac fans are some of the least technically adept people on the face of the earth. I know a bunch, and they're firmly in the "end user" category. They're usually the people who don't know how to work on a computer, don't know how to work on a car, don't know how to do much of anything but clothes shop.

Also, I couldn't get into the Mac scene because their users are predominantly very liberal.

 

[notfred]

Originally posted by: PowerMac4Ever

Originally posted by: klah
I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is the deal with you Mac fanatics? I've been sitting here at my freelance gig in front of a Mac (a 8600/300 w/64 Megs of RAM) for about 20 minutes now while it attempts to copy a 17 Meg file from one folder on the hard drive to another folder. 20 minutes. At home, on my Pentium Pro 200 running NT 4, which by all standards should be a lot slower than this Mac, the same operation would take about 2 minutes. If that.

Maybe you should get a job so you can buy a computer that is a little newer than 25 years old, ya bum...

Haha, seriously, you own a PPro 200, a powermac 8600, and still have a running 486. The newest of those is still about 10 years old. You're just a *bit* behind the times.

 

[neonerd]

exchanging an A64 for a Mac? :brokenheart:

 

[Excelsior]

Originally posted by: 91TTZ
Mac fans are some of the least technically adept people on the face of the earth. I know a bunch, and they're firmly in the "end user" category. They're usually the people who don't know how to work on a computer, don't know how to work on a car, don't know how to do much of anything but clothes shop.

Also, I couldn't get into the Mac scene because their users are predominantly very liberal.

My dad is a long time mac user, still not very proficient with computers in general (he asks me many questions, even though I don't use a Mac" yet he knows more about cars than most (90% or more) people on this forum.

 

[sniperruff]

Originally posted by: neonerd
exchanging an A64 for a Mac? :brokenheart:

same reason that people underclock. hell on those hot days when my computer restarts at stock speed i thought about lowering my athlon's FSB to 100 from 133.

 

[aphex]

Originally posted by: neonerd
exchanging an A64 for a Mac? :brokenheart:

For my purposes, the mac fit my needs better. Besides, i was getting sick of XP anyway.

 

[LuckyTaxi]

I bought an iBook about 3 months ago. I love it to death, but I can't get rid of my PC just yet. My first impression was that iTunes loaded up much quicker on my iBook than it did on my desktop. I currently have a Sempron 2400 w/ 1GB of RAM. I love the Mail program and I tried using Entourage, but quickly reverted back to Mail for its simplicity. I would love to use my iBook as my main system, but the 12 inch screen turns me off. I still love using it in bed and at work while I sit outside, but I'm gonna stick with my desktop for now. Besides, the 30gb hard drive it came with is rather small. I purchased a 120GB hard drive just for backup purposes.

I added another 256MB of ram to go along with the stock 256MB, but I'm quickly noticing that I may need an additional 256. So, in about a month, I'll upgrade to Tiger and purchase a 512 since I only have one available slot.

In all, I love Apple. Like aphex, I was tired of trying to get linux/bsd to mimic an Apple. It just works out of the box. Don't get me wrong, I still run FreeBSD on 3 of my servers at work and I love it.

 

[manly]

Originally posted by: lilcam
I bought an iBook about 3 months ago. I love it to death, but I can't get rid of my PC just yet. My first impression was that iTunes loaded up much quicker on my iBook than it did on my desktop. I currently have a Sempron 2400 w/ 1GB of RAM. I love the Mail program and I tried using Entourage, but quickly reverted back to Mail for its simplicity. I would love to use my iBook as my main system, but the 12 inch screen turns me off. I still love using it in bed and at work while I sit outside, but I'm gonna stick with my desktop for now. Besides, the 30gb hard drive it came with is rather small. I purchased a 120GB hard drive just for backup purposes.

I added another 256MB of ram to go along with the stock 256MB, but I'm quickly noticing that I may need an additional 256. So, in about a month, I'll upgrade to Tiger and purchase a 512 since I only have one available slot.

In all, I love Apple. Like aphex, I was tired of trying to get linux/bsd to mimic an Apple. It just works out of the box. Don't get me wrong, I still run FreeBSD on 3 of my servers at work and I love it.

Screw the incremental upgrade and get a 1 GB SO-DIMM.

 

[aplefka]

My impression after using two "nice" Minis (1.42 GHz, 1GB RAM) for a month and a half was definitely very good. If I had the cash I'd definitely get one, however I don't have the cash and also would much rather have a screaming gaming rig on Windows and a G5 on OSX for editing than just a Mini for both purposes.

 

[oogabooga]

I don't get the anti-mac thing. And citing an old ass machine as proof apple sucks is kinda retarded imo.

Glad you like the change, i've been thinking bout ditching the laptop and getting a mac mini, haven't put too much effort into it.. probally will wait for the x86 tranisition to be finished and see how that does first cheers! :beer:

 

[mobobuff]

Cool . Even though I hate OSX, if I could get a Mini with 1GB OOTB for the same price, I'd definitely splurge for it. It's just excrutiatingly slow on anything less.

 

[aphex]

Originally posted by: mobobuff
Cool . Even though I hate OSX, if I could get a Mini with 1GB OOTB for the same price, I'd definitely splurge for it. It's just excrutiatingly slow on anything less.

Yea, thr 1gb makes a HUGE difference...

 

[aphex]

Ok, the 1 button wireless mouse has finally gotten to me. I wouldnt mind it as much if it would glide well, but its kinda sticky when it moves... I think im gonna go back to my MX Duo or pick up an MX 1000....

 

[maziwanka]

hows the mac mini for burning cds/dvds?

im thinking of recommending it to my mom - she would use it to surf the net, pay bills, work with pictures from her digicam, and burn the occasional cd/dvd.

edit: it would be hot to have the mac mini, a nice lcd (19" maybe), a wireless keyboard and mouse....

 

[aphex]

Originally posted by: maziwanka
hows the mac mini for burning cds/dvds?

im thinking of recommending it to my mom - she would use it to surf the net, pay bills, work with pictures from her digicam, and burn the occasional cd/dvd.

edit: it would be hot to have the mac mini, a nice lcd (19" maybe), a wireless keyboard and mouse....

Works great.... DVD's burn a little slower than my old rig, but it works fine..