What to do with an old G4 Mac Mini?

[ultimatebob]

I have an old 1.25 GHz G4 Mac Mini, which seems painfully slow for me to use now that I'm used to having Core 2 Duo based Windows machines to use at home and at work.

It seems a shame just to put this thing in the closet to collect dust, though... and I'm sure that I wouldn't get much for it on eBay. Has anyone came up with any cool uses for older Mac Mini's like a media center machine or a portable file server? I'd love some ideas.

Edit: I should mention that I already tried using it on my 40" LCD TV in the living room as a couch surfing machine, and I found that:

* I can't get the Apple system fonts big enough where I can clearly read them across the room without making things look really weird. There has to be a better interface for things like this, though.

* This machine doesn't seem to have the horsepower to decode 720p video on the fly. It studders and skips frames when I try... so much for that idea.

* Playing a DVD on it doesn't look as good as good as playing one on my upscaling DVD player.

 

[Tegeril]

Well, if you are looking to unload it, I might be interested depending on the price

I might want to use it as a web server or an ical server or whatnot.

 

[secretanchitman]

sell it or give it to family. 1.25Ghz G4 is pretty slow to average if you want to do multimedia stuff, but fine for everyday stuff (microsoft office/iwork, web surfing, etc).

on the other hand...the new mac mini however... that is a different story!

 

[mugs]

Low power file server. I'd be all over that if it had an Intel processor so I could run TVersity on it.

 

[n0cmonkey]

I can't find G4 minis for a reasonable price. I've looked on CL and a little on ebay for them, but everyone seems to think they're an investment instead of ancient.

 

[n0cmonkey]

EDIT: Oops.

 

[MovingTarget]

Set up as an ftp server for your own nefarious purposes, and head over to the DC forum to give it something to do the other 99% of the time you aren't using it for that purposes.

<--Crunches Einstein@home on a G4

The mini is a very useful low-power/profile machine

 

[LtPage1]

You might be surprised at what you could get for it. Give eBay a browse.

 

[manly]

Since I didn't find a NAS I was willing to invest in, I'm keeping my original Mac mini as a Time Machine backup server for my laptop. It still houses my iTunes library as well, at least until I get around to upgrading the laptop hard drive.

On rare occasions, I've transcoded from XviD to H.264 with the mini, and that's brutal.

 

[jessieqwert]

Put it in your car.

mp3car.com

 

[75Yelram]

Put it in your car.

mp3car.com

I want to do this, what will it be able to do other than play music? Is it possible to get it to run a navigation system?