Mac Mini

[willrob]

Then this sites for you:

http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.asp?contentid=3938

Putting this in a car is one of the best ideas I have heard. I have an old PC laptop that I planned on putting in my car. With bluetooth and voice recognition it steals my laptops thunder. A monitor could really add to the price though. I want the kids to be able to watch DVDs on long trips.

[thoughton]

The Unofficial Apple Weblog is reporting that you can indeed remove the mini's case without voiding your warranty. You can self-install RAM, bluetooth and airport. Also it will boot headless.

http://apple.weblogsinc.com/entry/1234000917027372/

[NightWing]

Along with car applications can also see it as a small file server. Have a few clients that 80gb or even adding a fiewwire drive would be an outstanding micro server for them.

[zorankarapancev]

Can’t you see a brilliant Mac mini move in the PC world, at least as an “add on appliance” for safer use of e-mail and Internet services? I anticipate that a lot of companies and businesses will buy Apple mini for that purpose only! Now we know why the Mac mini is design as “mini” and why it is coming without monitor and keyboard .


From Saturday's Globe and Mail:

“And now there is the Mac mini, a tiny but full-powered computer that Apple will sell without a monitor or keyboard and which will be priced to snare Windows users.
"The knock on the Mac has always been that it's too pricey," says John Halblander of Light Computer Centre, an Apple reseller in Hamilton. "Now, for $630, you're getting a computer in line with anything else in the market
that has its performance and speed."

…Meanwhile, users of Windows-based computers have been bedevilled by aggressive and mischievous spyware, viruses and spam. While Mac users must also deal with spam, they've been spared the worst spyware and virus attacks.

…At $630, the mini, to go on sale in Canada on Jan. 29, will still be more expensive than the cheapest Windows-based computer, but the price is probably low enough to entice new customers.”

[NightWing]

Just occured to me.

Looking at the "fingers" and finaly a shot of the bottom considting of the reported gray rubber. It has vent holes around the edge.

I am guessing that there is a tool that fits through the holes that push away the fingers and that unlocks the case.

[edDV]

The Mac Mini
All the disadvantages of a notebook, plus the cable clutter of a desktop.

[Zrx]

DUDIRENO wrote:
Putting this in a car is one of the best ideas I have heard.


Well, it seems that someone already did it... with an old model G4. With the Macmini it must be much simpler, however...

look here for details:

http://www.mujmac.cz/art/hw/tatra_mac_eng.html

[WiseWeasel]

The Mac Mini
All the disadvantages of a notebook, plus the cable clutter of a desktop.

++

Good thing it's quite a bit cheaper than a laptop... still sucks to be stuck with a single 2.5" HD and single RAM slot with a desktop computer... color me unimpressed.

[mhar4]

That's unbelievable. Thanks for the link.

[thoughton]

That is an amazing job that guy's done on his car.

The idea of the car having its own ethernet network made me smile

[Zrx]

WiseWeasel wrote:
>Good thing it's quite a bit cheaper than a laptop... still sucks to be stuck with a single 2.5" HD

right, but I bet that in a few week we will see arriving on the market new external disk enclosures made for Mac mini, containing 2X3,5" ata disk. Put one under your mac (remember the old days of the 1984 Mac?) and you have space to go. And when you have to move around, just disconnect it and go with your 1,4 Kg computer...

>and single RAM slot with a desktop computer... color me unimpressed.

How many people has 1 Gb of RAM in their Mac? (Ok, I have 1,5 Gb). But I doubt that the tipical user of this thing will need 1 Gbyte. Anyway, if you want you can put 1 Gb in, just don't buy RAM from Apple or you will get killed by the price...
I wonder if the Mac mini is technically capable of supporting 2 Gbyte memory module, when they will come? This is the maximum amount a G4 can use.

[WiseWeasel]

I just want to point out that it's A Bad Idea™ to capture DV over firewire to a FW HD on the same bus. If you're using USB capture devices, then that might work ok, but if you're hoping to make a PVR with a DV workflow, you're in for some lousy performance and dropped frames. I know FireWire is supposed to be a point-to-point interconnect, but I guess capturing software likes to buffer the incoming video in RAM, so you end up transferring the same footage twice over the same bus at the same time, resulting in crap. The best way around this would be to have the internal drive (preferably upgraded to a 7200 RPM 2.5" drive, heat dissipation permitting) capture footage, and only use the external drive for backup storage. Either way, the mini makes a lousy media repository. I'm still waiting for my iServe with proper A/V I/O, massive storage on at least two internal 3.5" drives (or even better, one internal, and one removable, hot-swappable IDE as in the XServe), and hopefully a HD-DVD burner by the time they come out with the thing...

As for the RAM limit, my guess is Apple limited it in firmware to 1 GB, as they did for the eMac...

[decay]

a "server" should ideally not have a 4200 or 5400 RPM hard drive.
and nowadays, a 1000 Base-T network is even more preferable.

for a VERY small office, it would do... barely.

dk

[Faustus]

Wow I just found out my extremely cheap company likes the price point and may buy us a few near the middle of the year.

The fight over who gets this has already started. the other question is how to secure them so they don't walk off.

[NightWing]

Like even the first mac there is a security slot on the back.

[Tbear]

This will be my entry into the Apple world. Been wanting to get one to try for a long time.

[Dunnyman]

For me, it's the perfect solution, my G4 350 is getting old and slow, I have 3 different external enclosures, 2 monitors, and keyboards, mice, etc. by the dozens. I put my money-making apps (Illustrator, Photoshop, Mail and Safari) on the new Mini, and all my toys (Toast, ffmpegX, Popcorn, DVD2One, etc) stay on the old machine which picks up a slight speed boost through a ZIF upgrade to 700mhz, and I've got a blazing new machine for work, and a solidly improved backup machine for UNDER 700.00! Plus, my X-Mas vacation in Cali gets easier because instead of hooking up my hard drive in the FireWire case to my Mom's beige G3, I just borrow her monitor and keyboard and simply take my whole damn machine! Plus, I can carry it easily for techwork, file transfer, etc.
No brainer.

[mhar4]

I just want to point out that it's A Bad Idea™ to capture DV over firewire to a FW HD on the same bus.

Ah, yes, when I was using Formac's DV capture device ages ago, I recall having issues with capturing to an external Firewire HD. Thanks for the explanation. But I seem to remember that a particular arangement of the components made it work alright. Formac - HD - PowerMac, or was it Formac - Powermac - HD? DV was never really my thing, though, and I switched to MPEG2 capture, which suited my purposes better. A Mac Mini with an El Gato EyeTV200 would be a pretty nifty combination.

[Big_glare]

Found a great thread on avsforum.com for using a MAC as a DVHS recording device. A nice added feature or perk for one of these to go with an HDTV set.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=3616279

And you can get one free.

[edDV]

RE: limitations using single drive computers (notebook model) for DV editing.

I wrote items in this thread to point out the dangers of transferring DV streams to a slow notebook drive and/or through a notebook to an external USB2 or firewire hard drive. It can be done but the safety margin is narrow compared to multi HDD desktops.

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/archive/t248968.html

Apple may have added enough safety margin to the Mac Mini but beware.


Bottom line:
Best practice is to transfer first to the notebook drive, then copy to the external drive unless you have confidence in your rig. A lost frame is a lost frame.


https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1163042

There are specialized external hard drives that will work for direct transfer from a DV camcorder. Some are listed best to worst below. Read their FAQs as to why a cheap drive won't always work. Read user reviews to understand the tradeoffs.

http://www.focusinfo.com/products/firestore/fs-1.html

http://www.datavis.com/product.jsp?prid=404

http://www.baber.com/drives/external_hard_drives/firewire/citidisk_specs.htm


Bottom Bottom line: The Mac Mini isn't a dual G5, don't get carried away folks

[WiseWeasel]

Here's a fixed version of the second link you provided for direct transfer from a DV camcorder to an external drive:
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1163042

[edDV]

thanks, sorry for the wrong link

[jazzman]

I want a Mac Mini for my kitchen, which is very tight on cabinet space, but it has to display in portrait mode for internet browsing. I love the full web page filling the screen w/o scrolling. Any LCD screen with a VESA mount should be able to be adapted, especially with their bezels and depths getting smaller and smaller.
After many "versavision" inquiries about the Radeon 9200 contained in the Mini I got one answer and here it is:

Peter_cohen replied to your post at the site: .
http://www.macworld.com/forums/ubbthreads/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Board=newsthread&Number=288883

"Versavision isn't something that has been included with the drivers included with Apple OEM ATI-built cards, but the fact is you can install ATI's retail drivers on those cards the same as you can the retail cards, and get the same effect. Obviously that's not supported by either Apple or ATI."

[AntnyMD]

Found a great thread on avsforum.com for using a MAC as a DVHS recording device. A nice added feature or perk for one of these to go with an HDTV set.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=3616279

And you can get one free.

I've been using my PowerBook G4 667 to do just this and it was more of a pain eventually. Moving the computer back and forth, not being able to play back HDTV from Showtime and HBO without errors. I eventually sprang for a JVC DVHS deck from ecost.com and am now back to buying VHS tapes! Who'da'thunk? VHS in the high def era! For what its worth, the Mac DOES work for getting high def into your computer! And the tools to do it are provided by Apple for free!

[sjk]

As for the RAM limit, my guess is Apple limited it in firmware to 1 GB, as they did for the eMac...

Was that limitation with an older model? My 1.25GHz eMac has 2GB.