New Mac Mini
So LiveJournal tells me that it's been about 14 weeks since my last post, and some stuff has been going on. Most relevant for this posting is my getting a Mac Mini. You see, I started working at my current job (where we use exclusively Macs) almost 14 months ago at this point and still didn't have a Mac at home.
This state of affairs was mostly the result of prior gear purchases, need, and attempts to time the market for Apple releases. Although one might suspect that I would have special knowledge based on my job, I really don't. In terms of timing Apple releases, I use the same wonderful, publicly-available market timing machines that are fapper rumor sites.
Allow me to digress for a moment: A Mac Pro, while a fantastic machine in every regard, is far more than I need. Let me point out that until mid-2007 I used an AMD Athlon 1.4 system that I built myself in 2001, when it was the cat's meow. I really never had any complaints about it, up until all the capacitors on the motherboard failed and I was unable to repair or replace them or the whole motherboard in a reasonable time/money frame. iMacs are wonderful machines, except that in mid-2007 I shelled out lots of money for an LCD panel. I like it a lot. It's very easy on my eyes, it's big, it's got good color; I like it. I was not, and still aren't, interested in paying for a 24" LCD again. Everyone at work told me I was nuts -- what I really wanted was a Mac Mini.
Since I started wanting a Mini, virtually every rumor site has stated adamantly that a new Mac Mini was going to come out "ANY DAY NOW." And like a sucker, I believed them. So I waited. And waited. And waited. Thirteen months and change, to be precise.
Well finally, last week, Apple released a new Mac Mini, and I bought one pretty much instantly. I even splurged for the 2 day shipping to make sure I would have it in time for a weekend of intense tooling. In short, it is love. It is very quiet. It is noticeably faster than the Dell XPS 410 that it replaced. Obviously it runs MacOS too.
I put the noisy Dell in the basement, where it will live forever, or until it dies. The only thing I miss about it is that I used to put my leg up on it. I keep going to rest my leg on the tower and my leg just falls back to the ground. Oh well. I'll find a way to cope I'm sure.
In sum: new Mac Mini == awesome.
This state of affairs was mostly the result of prior gear purchases, need, and attempts to time the market for Apple releases. Although one might suspect that I would have special knowledge based on my job, I really don't. In terms of timing Apple releases, I use the same wonderful, publicly-available market timing machines that are fapper rumor sites.
Allow me to digress for a moment: A Mac Pro, while a fantastic machine in every regard, is far more than I need. Let me point out that until mid-2007 I used an AMD Athlon 1.4 system that I built myself in 2001, when it was the cat's meow. I really never had any complaints about it, up until all the capacitors on the motherboard failed and I was unable to repair or replace them or the whole motherboard in a reasonable time/money frame. iMacs are wonderful machines, except that in mid-2007 I shelled out lots of money for an LCD panel. I like it a lot. It's very easy on my eyes, it's big, it's got good color; I like it. I was not, and still aren't, interested in paying for a 24" LCD again. Everyone at work told me I was nuts -- what I really wanted was a Mac Mini.
Since I started wanting a Mini, virtually every rumor site has stated adamantly that a new Mac Mini was going to come out "ANY DAY NOW." And like a sucker, I believed them. So I waited. And waited. And waited. Thirteen months and change, to be precise.
Well finally, last week, Apple released a new Mac Mini, and I bought one pretty much instantly. I even splurged for the 2 day shipping to make sure I would have it in time for a weekend of intense tooling. In short, it is love. It is very quiet. It is noticeably faster than the Dell XPS 410 that it replaced. Obviously it runs MacOS too.
I put the noisy Dell in the basement, where it will live forever, or until it dies. The only thing I miss about it is that I used to put my leg up on it. I keep going to rest my leg on the tower and my leg just falls back to the ground. Oh well. I'll find a way to cope I'm sure.
In sum: new Mac Mini == awesome.