Slashdot Mirror
Apple Releases Mac Mini
cranesan writes "The rumors of Apple releasing a small PC are confirmed. The Mac mini can be found at Apple's website. As expected, the box uses a G4 processor. You can order one today; estimate 3-4 weeks shipping date. Base unit starts at $499."
C'mon guys. This isn't news, especially since you reported it yourself here. It's just a two day old dupe of old news.
... in other news Microsoft unveils next generation Windows operating system... ""Windows XP".
This sig has been deprecated.
PC? It's not a PC it's a Mac! *fume*
Karma police, I've given all I can, it's not enough, I've given all I can, but we're still on the payroll.
I know of at least 3 people who've already ordered theirs, how is this still news? Get with the program!
GotApex? has a "headless Dell" on their site for $449.
Here are the specs:
2.8Ghz P4 w/800Mhz bus
256MB DDR2 SDRAM
40GB S-ATA
2 year on site warranty
Of course, if I don't get modded to hell, there will be a dozen replys from the Apple "amen corner" telling me that the Apple is a better deal, etc.
BTW, this P4 is not even a particularly hot deal. GotApex? had a Dell P4 with a 17" LCD last Sunday for $599 -- the same price as the "high end" Mac mini.
Talk about a dupe.....
It would be presumptuous to conclude that Americans have no right to know what is being done in their name
Good morning!
Wasn't this thing announced on Tuesday?
I don't need a signature.
Linux goes open source!!!
We're getting unconfirmed rumours that President Kennedy's been shot. Can anyone clarify this?
If they're going to make it BYODKM (or whatever it is), they could've at least included PS/2 ports...
Remember children, all generalizations are wrong.
Apple also released a new device with 20 gig HD and display that allows you to listen to music on the road. The device will be called "iPod"
Come on, /. should be a little faster about posting NEWS. What ever happened to NEWS for nerds.
And I am planning on getting one as soon as the budget allows. All the cheap stuff that came out at Mac world looks cool, and its all cheap, but lots of little numbers added up make one big number.
I hear the wayback machine could use some contributors.
As Cmndrtaco would say: Lame.
Mod parent up!
Now if only they'd release some new type of ipod to go with this "Mac Mini" It could even be flashed based. It's a brave new world.
And...
What? Another mini?
When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
http://www.petitiononline.com/MacmiEU/petition.htm l
This isn't news at all, I mean, you guys just reported this a few days ago in the MacWorld post:
/ 1616250&tid=3
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/11
Anyone notice that all the stories on the front page are now listed as posted by 'samzenpus'? The fact that such a glaringly obvious dupe was posted kinda raised the 'this website has been hacked' alarm.
then why the g5 icon? yes yes picky picky :P
Since the poster and editors have obviously been away...
In other news Slashdot announces the release of Windows 3.1 !
This thing reminds me of the Espresso PC that came out ~ 4 years ago.
That's right! If I didn't want one two days ago, re-running the front page story about it isn't going to make me want one today.
This decreases the value of my Mac!!!
This was previously discussed on this Slashdot story. Also of interest is this announcement :
s .html
/. story discussing the Mac Mini, I believe this Mac Mini is doomed for a **huge** success. Good for competition. Good for everyone :-)
Apple announced their financial results for the fourth quarter today, reporting a profit of $295M, or $0.70 per share. They shipped 4.58M iPods, an increase of 525 % over the year ago quarter. But more surprisingly, Apple CPU sales were up 26% themselves over the year ago quarter. Over 1,046,000 Macs went found their way into customer's hands in the quarter.
See http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/jan/12result
After reading comments from the other
Animoog.org
Come ON... this story was obviously posted just to get a thousand "DUPE!" comments...
Slashdot: -1, Troll
Is this part of a new trend in slashdot fellatio?
I might end up needing a Mac soon (software for work only Mac/Windows and I'm not working in Windows). I've played around with eMacs, which this looks to be similar in performance to, but never worked seriously on one.
Anybody out there used an eMac for development work? Upgraded to 512mb, are they usable for general C/C++ development or is the Powermac the only way to go for anything beyond email and word processing?
When you start with the 1.42 GHz, up it to a gig of RAM, a superdrive, bluetooth, wireless keyboard and mouse, and give it a 3 year warranty, it's up to $1422, you don't have nifty Mac stuff like video-in, and you have a CPU that compares to what was out a few years ago.
Is this really a good deal?
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
And what of the Macworld announcement?
I'm so glad you posted this to confirm the mac mini. Watching Steve Jobs on stage introducing it just wasn't enough to make me believe it was true.
I think Slashdot is getting retarded.
We all posted over 1900 comments on Tuesday.
Then here same subject again.
Moderators stop smoking crack and wake up from letargy.
You just fucked up my day at 8 a.m with this old news.
Just three weeks ago a tsunami killed over 60.000 people.
Doesn't anyone check these articles before they get published?
...to fill a burning Volkswagen Beetle plunging off a bridge? Would they be able to store a library of congress on the way down?
yes Its more expensive and slower, except if you value some of the excellent software it comes with and the small form factor its worth it.
imovie is an excellent video editor (enough better the compaq with various cheap editing packages)was abandoned...(Not to mention this apple machine comes with firewire, a requirement for getting video off the cam corder.)
iphoto is excellent photo storage tool.
OS X is pretty good to, but if you want a windows box go nuts..
welcome to last week fuckass!
Imagine a random university lab buying 10.000 of these boxes to make a beowulf cluster out of them...
Actually I think Steve reads /. regularly. He posts as Dancin Santa or something of the like..
The apple website seems to claim that after you "plug in your usb mouse and keyboard" you can connect your cameras and devices, etc... But only having two usb ports seems to limit what you can do. Yeah, you can add a usb hub, but it seems that the clean mac image seems to stop with the case, after that, you're just going to have a bunch of of aftermarket parts hooked onto a pretty apple device.
This is so much not news, that all the redundant posts saying this isn't news isn't news, and even this post isn't a post. As a matter of fact, I'm questioning "isn't" right now, cuz it just "isn't" ... is it?
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
From the cryogenic freeze you put yourself in on Tuesday?
How lame is this for a dupe?
"Well it's not Victory - but then it's not Death either."
Taiwanese (crap manufacturers IMHO) Gigabyte and Abit will probably soon start releasing cheapo Macs too. Where are we heading? When will we see these at Wallmart?
Also, they do use PowerPC chips!
I'm just upset it doesn't meet the min. req. for World of Warcraft. I was seriously considering buying one if it did. Maybe down the road when I need a computer for browsing the web, and email I'll get one.
so, who's the new slashdot editor? ;)
All the price comparisons I've seen, including the 'in-depth' analysis on CNet, talk purely about the value of the hardware. (BTW, theirs is bogus, because they compare to boxes with crappy integrated graphics and no DVD player). The attraction of the Mac is in the software, mainly iLife. This is why people buy computers - to do stuff. Of the news site anayses I've seen, most of them don't even mention the bundled iLife software at all, yet it's the core of the digital lifestyle that Apple are selling. This is why comparisons of Windows PCs and Macs are nearly uniformly missing the point. A Mac isn't realy in the same product category as a PC. It's more like the product category of digital cameras, synthesisers and DVD players. Simon Hibbs
Who in their right mind buys memory from an OEM? Don't get on Apple's case about expensive memory, because it's true in the PC world too! Whether it's Dell, Sony, IBM, whoever - you're almost always better off dollarwise to buy your system with the least available memory, then buy the upgrade from someone else. With the exception of the occasional special deal, this has been true for as long as I can remember.
...?
Of course, this begs the question: does the mini allow user upgrades? Can't check because the Apple site isn't responding at the moment, but that little box looks to be shut tighter than a virgin's iPod.
*-*
What I see more focus on hardware design, the exact opposite of the clone fiasco. They are getting, and supporting, higher margins on their hardware because of their design engineering. No other MP3 player looks or feels as good as the iPod. The Mini looks looks like another homerun, their first small form factor PC and its uniquely Apple and great looking.
Apple's focus has shifted to perfecting the Human-Computer interface. This is what it was all about originally. They are focusing on the look and feel of products, both hardware and software.
Get the details right, and they will come.
*-*
The Mac Mini will be a perfect X-Terminal to use with a Linux box in another room. You'll have a silent and small box on your desk and the fat and loud server is down in the basement. Great.
*-*
Another thing to note. A DIN slot (car radio standard size) is 2"x7", the mini mac is 2"x6.5".
If it had a radio faceplate and a laptop drive, this would be the best car stereo ever.
*-*
Say hello to *real* "Media Center" Machine
(1) add a RAM stick BTO - cheapo
(2) add bluetooth BTO - cheapo
(3) add Wifi card BTO - cheapo
(4) sit unobtrusively to my way-cool existing TV and hook up A/V - nothin'
(5) hook to already existing wifi ADSL-powered network - nothin'
(6) bring in my already existing Sony-Ericsson Z600 - nothin'
(7)
(8) Profit!
Lemme see what I get from this:
(A) iTunes playback
(B) VLC playback
(C) DVD playback
(D) UNIX development
(E) Surf web
(F) Check mail
(7) Photo slideshow
(8) Remote control via Z600 (see 2,6,A,B,C,E)
All in the living room sitting comfortably on the sofa (see D)! Yay!
*-*
INSTRUCTIONS:
1. Select proper post
2. Copy and paste into the reply box
3. Submit (no need for preview!)
4. Profit
Also, the logo/icon next to the story is G5? Sigh. If only it were true.......
I have been part of a sensory deprivation experiment for the past four months, and was unaware of the rumors about this so-called "mac mini." I like that slashdot is filling the important niche of news outlets that are looking out for those of us in the sensory deprivation and/or cave dwelling community.
Come to think of it, weren't you in the sensory deprivation experiment with me?
Cobblers !
That the machine has sold very well, and that the shipping date for new orders are no longer Jan 22nd, but 3-4 weeks.
Luckily, my order got through early, so mine is expected to ship Jan 28th or earlier. This is pretty good since official release in Denmark is 29th.
Er, wait. The last time I used a Mac, you had to pry out a floppy with a paper clip when it froze, due to the lack of a physical eject button.
*ducks*
*runs*
*trips over box of single button mice*
*gets up and runs more*
It does look cool, I'll admit.
The rumors of AMD releasing a 64-bit CPU are confirmed. The AMD Athlon(TM) 64 can be found at AMD's website. As expected, it has backwards 32-bit comapatibility. You can order one today; estimate 3-4 weeks shipping date. Base unit starts at $699.
There must have been a bit too much iShuffling going on back there for them to notice ;-)
Suttree, a weblog about casual games development
Things I want to know before I decide to buy one of these - does anyone have answers?
1) Is it fanless?
2) Are the 'dealer fit only' options (ram, bluetooth, airport) actually difficult to fit yourself?
3) What's things thing's performance like when used as a Logic Audio Node?
4) Any reports from people using the Belkin KVM switcher that Apple is selling?
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/01/13/apple_bre
Apple's latest iTunes update, which takes the jukebox software to version 4.7.1, breaks the anti-DRM utility Hymn, it has emerged.
Hymn strips away the DRM rights management data, space for which is incorporated into the AAC audio format Apple uses for ITMS. Apple also uses other elements within the file structure to identify protected AAC tracks, and it's one or more of these that appears to have been added to iTunes 4.7.1's list of checks.
~jeff
I don't know whether to laugh or to cry. Who the heck "samzenpus" is? (Yes, it is redundant, what else do you expect in this thread?)
PS: Uhm, and it's not quite the "PC". I mean - it does windows but it does not Windows...
Seems like Apple might have borrowed one from the Sun playbook:
Sun IPX Workstation
Anyone else remember the boxy little IPC/IPX boxes from Sun? They were a stacking nightmare with the limited space inside, but if you could navigate the labyrinth of SCSI cables things were quite usable.
Eric Sarjeant
eric[@]sarjeant.com
Does it run Linux?
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
This is the worst Dupe I have ever seen...
I mean come on. The keynote was two days ago. It was reported on slashdot both before and after it was announced, and it has been on every other website on the planet, not to mention on all of the early morning news programs, evening news, and on the back of my milk carton this morning. Is anyone reading over this stuff anymore
No dude, if it's an Apple story it has to be reported at least a million times and hyped up till we crap in our pants out of sheer glee.
When asked for a comment Mr Vader said "I find your lack of faith disturbing".
Mod parent up!
I have always been a sucker for the coolness factor in Apple products [but I didn't buy a Lisa!] and this has me drooling.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
The story is a dupe, but there's a question that stayed unanswered in the original: besides MythTV frontend, is there any media-center software for the Mac? i.e. anything along the lines of mediaportal or XBMC or MyHTPC?
These people are insane. They are including VAT in their 'calculated' prices... Get with it.
1) From the first paragraph on that page:
2) From the second paragraph:
For the average
Apple updated their french version of apple.ca to show the new mini.
printf($randomline(sigs.txt) \n "-- "$randomline(authors.txt));
-- myself
Of course, that's assuming that Amiga gets over their "Our OS can only be ran on our hardware" mentality.
I've been a vocal critic of Amiga for going this route, ever since it was announced, but here's yet another example of why their plan is dumb: You can now buy a complete PPC machine (sans mouse, keyboard, and monitor) for less than you can buy an Amiga OS 4 board!
Yes... They'd have to get their OS to boot on the machines, but as a growing number of Linux distributions prove, it's not too hard to do.
I think, after seeing this machines price, and the price of the (yet unreleased, other than in alpha/beta form) Amiga board/CPU combo, that there must only be one or two nails left before the Amigas coffin is finally sealed shut.
Look, I got an iBook partly for the OSX eye candy. I assume the Mac mini has a similar GPU -- they're both ATI 9200, although I have no idea if the mobility moniker on mine makes it inferior. Does this mean Apple might make the Tiger-uber-candy available for all of us GPU-challenged mac owners?
Apple has not disclosed the RPM numbers of the included HD. What is it? 4200 RPM will make it really sluggish.
TheRealMikael
How user-upgradable is box going to be? You can find 1GB memory for under $200, but Apple wants $425 ?!?!
dunno but I see meta moderation yet when I click it doesn't work so I fear Fear FEAR something is amock!!! MALDA GET YOUR BUMSICKLE OVER HERE!!!!
-if at first you don't succeed, stay the heck away from paragliding.
This just in: Slashdot sued by Apple.
Apple said "We believe that Slashdot solicited information about released Apple products from individuals, who violated their confidentiality agreements with Apple by providing details that were posted on the Internet."
is if someone released something similar based on x86.
Now though I developed into an Apple hater lately I have to admit that the mini mac looks like a great product, the only problem is, I'd like to have something similar to run linux on.
And before somebody kills me, I know that you can run linux on ppc, I'm even running gentoo on my ibook, the problem is though that you constantly feel that you are a minority within a minority which translates to no ati and nvidia drivers for example.
So where's the x86 alternative, me wants one, now.
1) no, but the only fan is on the graphics card and only comes on with heavy graphics use - ie 3d games, etc
2) RAM is easy, bluetooth and Airport will be very tricky
3)dunno,
4)Dunno, but a kvm's a kvm
This isn't intended to be flamebait or a troll (sorry if you thought so): I can't imagine this device finding a market niche as a personal computer. Here's why:
I was thinking about buying myself a second hand G4 Cube from ebay, but thought better of it when I heard about this (because it's an up-to-date design that is comparable in size to the Cube).
Then I realised that it's not a hugely powerful machine and is intended perhaps as a second-machine for the iPod users who are inerested in OS X. But it's not really got enough meat to it to compare with its PC contemporaries (and I wouldn't make the mistake of comparing its 1.42 and 1.25GHz G4 chips with a Pentium 4 at 2.8, 3.2, 3.4 etc. GHz), and its G4 chip already looks outdated next to its G5 PowerMac brothers. I understand that the PowerBooks and iBooks contain G4 chips at present, and it appears to me that this Mac mini might be a laptop-derived design. I think it may end up lumped in the 'great for e-mail and web' trough. I expect people will find ways to turn these pretty boxes into PVRs (hacking a video-in) or expensive STBs, silent home servers and the like, but will not use them for second computers.
I don't want to spark a Mac-antiMac flame war, but do think that these questions remain outstanding. Please honour my non-troll intentions by replying...
1. It's apparently the quietest mac ever made. That's pretty damned quiet. TBH It's so small I doubt you'd fit a fan into it! Of course nobody actually has one yet...
2. The RAM looks like standard SDRAM (most sites say one slot only). The lid looks like a bugger to get off but give it a few days after release and there will be detailed instructions all over the web. No info on the bluetooth & airport - if they've used the same cards as on other macs then it should be easy.. if not, then you'll need to wait for availability.
3. Compare with a similar speed powerbook.
4. With a mini? No, because they're not available yet....
pay attention (to the "weather", for example). it's cost effective, & can lead to remarkable insights. remember to consult with/trust in yOUR creators, favoring us with life, liberty, & the pursuit of caring for one another, since/until forever. see you there?
Let's not go overboard.
You offer a comparison system that's only 10% cheaper, and depending on the details might not even be as well-equipped as the mini. (svideo out? equivalent out-of-the box software bundle that includes being impervious [for now, at least] to viruses and spy-/ad-ware?)
Feel free to question or mock the zealotry that many of us Mac users exhibit now and then, but give Apple their due on this one: they have, for once, offered a system that is NOT insanely overpriced compared to the competition.
did you notice the lack of microphone? One missing jack and a whole host of application are gone.
Now if you could get the frontend software of MythTV running on that little guy, and have yourself a nice beefy server running the backend video capture, you'ed have yourself a neat little setup.
The Uber
http://www.tulg.org/
http://devurandom.livejournal.com/
Sure, a big ugly tower. Try finding a similar speced PC in a similar form
factor for $499. You won't find any.
The form factor is part of the value. Same reason you pay more for the ultra
portable laptops.
*sigh* back to work...
How the heck can someone post a dupe on that one? :-)
Incredible.
The minimum $500 monitor to use it. ;)
When I first saw it, it said "Estimated arrival by January 22", now it says "3-4 weeks". I assume there was a rush early on.
It'll be interesting seeing whether it can be easily set up for TV out.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Yeah I am having flashbacks of the cube too. The cube I was saddeled with by a boss who always had to have the latest Mac stuff was awful (and I enjoy working on Macs). It overheated whenever it felt like it, and I went through two video cards before I got a good one from Apple (I suppose it's possible that was a fluke, but I can't imagine others didn't experience that as well). Not a cool machine. It was a better Kleenex tissue dispenser. Hopefully Apple learned lessons from the G4 Cube, and has incorporated that knowledge into the Mini. I sure hope so.
Just then the floating disembodied head of Colonel Sanders started yelling Everything You Know Is Wrong!-Weird Al
I'm not trying to troll or anything, but slashdot seriously needs to look into some serious editorial changes.
Maybe theres a night school course the editors can take that will teach them how to run a paper and they can apply it here...
Sometimes I wish I was a plumber, then I'd know how to deal with other people's shit.
If by "much better PC" you mean a PC with a CPU that runs more clock cycles, you are right. If by "much better PC" a PC that is a better computer for the same price, you are wrong.
I know this because Tyler knows this.
Do any of you guys run dual monitors on your Macs? I'm guessing it won't be possible on the Mini but is there a lower end Mac that will take a dual out video card?
What does Roland Piquepaille think about this?
I've been itching for an excuse to get a Mac, but at heart I'm a tight wad. Now I have no more excuses and my current Windows PC can go to Linux server heaven! Well maybe...I am after all, still a tight wad! I think there are many who will be looking for this as a second computer, expect kvm sales to jump a little.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
That was the last Windows program that was holding me on Windows. Now I can get a supported version of Quicken on a reasonably priced computer, and leave the Windows trojans and spyware behind.
Or so they claim. $499 you say? Let's see...
We want the 80gig version with a faster CPU, mainly because 40gigs is too small, which brings us to $599. Add bluetooth, wlan, wireless keyboard and mouse, increase memory from 256 to 512 MB and a a DVD-R and we just make the $1000 mark.
Oh, and we'll need a display of course. A $299 17" LCD which breaks with the nice design? Or a 20" Apple Cinema Display clocking in at $999? The latter brings the total price tag to $2001.
Well, it does LOOK good...
Where moderators looking at?! +Informative ?!
It is *stupid* to compare SMALL FORM FACTOR MAC with OSX & software with a HUGE, FUCKING NOISY AND POWER-BILLS-EATING Dell PC!!!
Just try to build somewhere close to Mac Mini specs (size, weight, hardware, software) with a PC equivalents! Similar SFF PC will cost you *TWICE* more.
They misspelled minuscule! How can I trust them now?!
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
The redundant moderation on this post is pretty astute.
Not Realy for a Shuttle form factor (not nearly as great as small, but the close it gets) you have to shell out 250$ add a 50$ for low cost ram, another 50$ for cheap HD and another 50 for CPU and finaly another 20$ for a crapy CD-rom/burner. You mount out to 420$. If you want to be realy fair add 139$ for windows XP. you don't get nearly as great deal.
:D I would rather get a ibook G5 (LCD screenw with it)
Howerver, i would not buy it. 299$ maybe.
I realy Love the mac, started with them.. but i don't quite like the price.
If it's that important to you, you can get an adapter.
Maybe I can replace the Apple logo with a nice red 3.
Like here and here and here.
Those are LCDs, you could go even cheaper and get this, or this one.
That, or whip out an old one all the PC people claim to have that keeps them from buying an iMac or eMac because they 'already have that stuff'
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
Last Tuesday called; it wants its story back.
creating the mac minis was a great idea, and if you think $500 for a mac is a rip off, then you're too poor to afford a mac in general. i have a powerbook 4 with a 1.5, 512MB RAM and a 80gig hd. that cost me around $2500. this mac mini is the equivalent of the powermac i have. an airport upgrade is only $50 and you can get the 1GB stick of DDR333 for $150, if you really wanted it maxed. the 1.5 powerpc processor is fast enough to handle and program for mac, unless youre doing high end video editing, and if youre doing that, buy a powermac. the main reason i think they came out with this, is for the same reason i want one...airport extreme with airtunes. this thing makes for one perfect in home MP3 player if you get the airport upgrade. moster cables from airport extreme right to your receiver. just an avid mac fans opinion.
(The Mac should have a low noise volume since the electronics are similar to their portables? Can't find any dB spec on the net?)
If so, I'm impressed.
Karma: Excellent (My Karma? I wish...:-( )
Your post reminded me of that one time I was sick so I was laying home on the couch watching Daytime TV and to weak to change the station. There was one of those Court shows were on. And this person was Suing a Computer Repair guy for overcharging for his work. The Repair Guy charged like $200 for a new harddrive (I don't know the size of the drive or the date the show was recorded). Now the reason he is suing him because he checked on ebay and found the same drive for $50. Luckily the Repair Guy won.
But here is the moral of the story. No Apple will not be the cheapest out there they probably never will. It is not in there interest to be cheapest it is in there interest to be priced at the Sweet Spot (Where the tradeoff aren't Customers turned off by the price and Margin are highest) Meet the peak spot, creating max revenue. Sure you will find people selling stuff for less of a price then apple and some of it will be the same/equivalent specs or better. But most of these guys are trying to...
A. Get rid of old inventory.
B. Get enough sales to be recognized as a brand name.
C. Trying to sell stuff to Walmart.
D. Trying to undercut there competitors.
E. The Highest price they can offer before people decide to go to someone else.
If you are Tiny PC Shop and you are priced the same as Dell or Gateway people will look at your system prices and just go to a bigger name brand. You are all using the same equipment so the only thing you can do keep sales up is sell for less margin.
So $499 is actually a good price. Yes there are things cheaper but it is a good price. And just wait about 6 months you can get a better price of ebay for these.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
i've never been a mac user (does an apple IIe count?) but this little box, for (only) $500, i can have an entry-level mac with panther and some sample mac software, network card, airport card, etc, etc. i already have a bunch of capable heads (you can still hook up pc monitors/lcd's, right? dont have to buy an overpriced cinema display ...? )
i don't even want it to come with a keyboard or mouse. it's small enough and neat loooking enough that i would put it on my desk, and vnc in, or get a third head, and use synergy2 as a kvm solution.
$500 isn't much. but i am concerned about this being a first-generation beast. maybe when it's been road-tested some i'll buy it.
you can't have everything, where would you put it?
As a mac/unix user from the old school (CMU, Lisa, 1983, bitches!). I'm laughing my ass off at the scramble for reasons this mac doesn't exceed every fence post sitter's demands, worries, and fears. hahahhahaha
OK, enough laughing. some info for those of you that were mired in windows patches when everyone else learned this:
1) Why is ram so expensive, and can i install it myself?
Its so expensive because apple charges for ram like its not a user installable part. Just like an airfilter in a car, if you don't know how to do it, you'll have to pay a premium to have someone do it for you. While i don't know if the mac mini is bolted shut, or not, i do know that as soon as 1 nerd with a digital camera gets one, there'll be a how-to online.
2) Can it do media center things?
In case you missed it, this thing can edit HDDV, hello!
Yes, of course it can, there is a lot of software mostly collected in 2 places: versiontracker.com and macupdate.com, my personal favorite is VIDI, freeware viewer software for a formacTV device i have..
Please show us, Windows Fans, editing HD, DV, whatever, on a $500 dell, please?
3) There is no software!
Come on, read the last post, search for something and you'll find there is more then enough software for nearly any purpose, barring native OSX software, any and all X11 apps will work too.
Anyway, i'm being overcome with laughter just thinking about reading the posts made since I started composing this post, have fun with yer virii, spyware, bad patches, malware, and whatever else the windows world utterly tolerates if not encourages.
As always, us mac users are bemused by your particular choice of purgatory, but still welcome those of you who are awake long enough to realize what is happening as friends.
This is where personal computers are headed. Microsoft has wanted to do this for years, but the problem is is that they don't control the hardware. Apple can design a computer any way they please, as long as it runs OS X it doesn't matter about "form factor". PC's have to become appliances. Who cares if the mac mini isn't upgradable? In a couple years, buy a new one. This machine is better than the iMac concept becuase your pretty 20" lcd won't go obsolete when the computer does. This machine is also powerful enough for 80% of the users out there who just browse the net, download some photos from their camera and type a document now and then.
Ehm, not quite:
mac mini = 499 euro including tax
the euro is doing about 1.30, so the mac mini is 30% more expensive compared to the US price of 499 dollars.
The tax is only 19,5%
still missing 10.5 %
I've always wanted a Mac but have been put off by the price. Now this seems like an excellent, affordable, opportunity to test out that cross-platform code.
XP comes with Movie Maker. There's a free upgrade to version 2.
Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's FATHER???
(D'oh! Shoulda posted a spoiler warning. Sorry.)
I hope that after I die the one word people use to describe me is "resurrected."
I have been really angry with the apple store for the premium i have to pay for apple hardware being an EU resident. ,but when you want it in international english its a mute point ,perhaps say bar 3-5% for things like tax.
.I am forced to buy one of these mac mini' or an eMac.
it may seem like a good idea to charge this premium. but you are knocking you customers down a product range
For example the price in dollars is the same as the price in euros nearly $499 != 498 , however this is how much of a premium we are forced to pay . It dosnt seem bad till you consider this is a 25% premium nearly , i could understand(possibly) a small premium for a foreign language version
Instead of buying a powermac , which i could afford without this premium
OMG, has Apple lost their mind? Why didn't they annouce all this stuff at the big Macworld Expo 3 days ago? They have really lost their style............
Wait, you mean... there are computers out there that are CHEAPER than Apple? My god, man! Why didn't anyone tell me before? I could have saved ALL THIS MONEY!
Throwing it away, oh, the horror, the horror.
It is kind of difficult to tell from the pictures. An external power supply (like laptops have) would make a lot of sense. Also it would make the following wishful thinking slightly more realistic:
Imagine a mac mini. Add a battery pack. Add wireless option. Throw it in your backpack. Add wireless screen (sort of like a tablet PC but just enough computing power to be a remote desktop client...for the mac mini you have in your back ack). In your home office, add a dock, and a real screen, keyboard and mouse. And so on.
In my dreams, at least.
Neo: Whoa, deja vu.
Trinity: What did you just say?
Neo: Nothing, I just had a little deja vu.
Trinity: What did you see?
Cypher: What happened?
Neo: A black cat went past us, and then another that looked just like it.
Trinity: How much like it, was it the same cat?
Neo: Might have been, I'm not sure.
Morpheus: Switch, Apoc.
Neo: What is it?
Trinity: A deja vu is usually a glitch in the Matrix. It happens when they change something.
Quem a paca cara compra, paca cara pagará.
Woop-di-doo!
Old news guys!
Someone in another thread said that while the RAM might not be hard to install, it will be very obvious that your warranty has been voided. So, I mean, if you don't mind THAT, go for it.
Then we wouldn't be overpaying for Apple products, now would we? What kind of Apple zealot are you anyways?!?
this is great, I'm getting my mom one. The next time she has a computer problem I'll tell her just to unplug her mac mini and have my little brother drive it over to my apartment. Easy as that.
Initially. I said Wow perfect quiet Media box and a chance to use OSX all in one. I am so there.
I am not going to whine about the Ram, it can be upgraded to 512M for a reasonable price, but as a media center one item that kills it. No Digital Audio out for DD/DTS.
$100+ to get digital out? I don't think so. Kludgy and expensive is what these USB external sound boxes are. For under $10 they could have had optical out on the box at the very least.
I am sure they will sell all they can build, but the days of paying $100 for sound are long behind me. My Nforce motherboard was less than that and has awesome on board sound.
My current crude, somewhat noisy, hand built PC will have to continue it's media center duties for a while longer yet.
Apple could chew up the media center market if they chose to devote resources in that direction.
Something to the mini. With built in A/V input/output. Digitial Audio/IO. PVR sw and built in IR or Blutooth and remote. Call it a Media Mac...
Bring up the US Dollar and maybe it will happen. You are living with the results of all the HATE U.S. and quest to keep the dollar low. Just because you want to come to the U.S. and tour on the cheap and hate the current administration. You can't have it both ways. How about come visit NY, spend some $$ and go to the Apple store and pick one up and bring it back.
That doesn't seem particularly unrealistic in all honesty... I give it a month before there is a /. link to a tutorial on how to do it...
Has anybody found a date when minis and shuffles will be available in Apple stores?
Although your dream loses its point when you stop and consider that you could just get an iBook for that kind of money...
I can't remember where I read it though.
.... for a desktop, as they seem to be attempting to pass it off as. Sure, you could use it as one, but it would seem more appropriate to use it as a portable, in which case, why not just get a laptop?
Where's the mic port? Is it just my ignorance of Apple hardware showing, or is there not one?
But God demonstrates his love for us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us - (Romans 5:8)
I'm sure this never occurred to Apple and they will immediately change the prices of this computer based on a petition from some random Internet nerds.
I meta-mod all positive moderation Unfair, because it's abuse of the system.
I've been thinking about putting together a PVR/Media PC to hook to the TV. The TV has VGA/DVI in. Is there good software/hardware for OSX that would make this practical? Being quiet and sized the way it is, it has several qualities I've been looking for. I'd basically add wireless net, wireless keyboard/mouse, USB PVR hardware, and maybe a big USB disk for storage. Since I'd like to try out OSX anyway, this might be a neat way to. Any thoughts?
I doubt it is the quietest ever made - wasn't the cube fanless? This has a fan.
You know that is a great point. Ever time the subject of Itunes and things like the hymn project come up we have to listen to post after post from Apple users saying "Hey you bought Apple's product knowing the Terms of Service. Deal with it or don't buy it!".
So now we are supposed to go against that and ignore Apple's terms of service and try to install extra memory while at the same time keeping our warranty. Sorry but that just wouldn't be honest or in keeping with what Apple wanted. If you don't agree with Apple's policy on memory than don't buy a Mini Mac. Anything else if of course illegal.
So, how does your situational ethics sit with you now apologists? Very well from every post I'm seeing here and at Mac sites telling people not to pay for Apple's overpriced memory.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
I just don't get this expression... Is it just me? /.ters buy hotcakes?
How many of you
So, Apple users are Kerry supporters... Flip-floppers to the bitter end.
"I don't mind paying a premium for a Mac."
"I don't want to pay a premium for a Mac."
Well if it works for lazy Slashdot editors, it should work for me. I'm just going to do a link to my comment on the previous story. Saves the work of trying to think of a new reply.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
err.... i believe that the person you are refering to in this particular thread is actually on your side. I could be wrong, but gp is stating that you DO get a lot of (crap) software with a Dell, above and beyond the obligitory spyware you will get with a windows setup.
Get it? That's the punchline. Laugh.
1. From http://www.apple.com/macmini/design.html
"Best of all, Mac mini purrs along at a whisper-quiet sound level, so there's no reason to hide it under your desk like an old PC to save your ears."
Oddly, the Australian version of Apple's site has this:
"Best of all, Mac mini features a teensy little fan, too, so there's no reason to hide it under your desk like an old PC to save your ears."
It has a fan.
Here's the problem... new mini mac looks nice, yes?
$499 US? Great, right?
Upgradable? No. This is Apple's problem, one which all but destroyed IBMs footing in the home PC market: proprietary is always more expensive. So, when you need a new Mac, you throw out the old one and rebuy. I, on the otherhand, have kept my box in shape 1 piece at a time as I could afford it.
Total initial cost of machine? less than $1100 CDN when I bought a Duron 800 with 512M of ram, a nice IBM HD, a decent video card, and a 19" Viewsonic Perfect Flat.
Total cost of upgrades over the past 5 years? ~$500 CDN, ammortized over that entire life span. I still use the same case, same soundcard, same HD, and same CD writer. 2 New procs, new mobo, new ram, new powersupply, new videocard, 2 new HDs (I have 3 now).
You might say "Thats $1.6k!" But keep in mind, thats Canadian currency, and its been spent over 5 years. Thats 100 dollars per year to keep my box current. Much cheaper and easier in the long run.
I'd love a Mac, but I'd *never* pay the price they're asking. Ever. Most people I know wouldn't either.
It just doesn't make sense.
And that, my friends, is the best reason PC's rule the home user market.
Dare I ask, if Stevie J is so smart how come he hasn't figured this out yet, when it's so obvious to everyone else in the first world?
If microsoft gave you a video editing suite they'd probably get suit for it. Monopolisation if you do, lack of features if you don't.
Call me superficial, but the main appeal of the Mac and other Apple products (I have never owned any) is their sublime zen-like design, visually speaking. But the price was always too high for me. Like everyone else I'm thinking, "ok, now I'll get one". But alas, it ain't gonna happen.
The visual design of the mini certainly doesn't disappoint. It follows the gorgeous minimalist design that makes Apple products so desireable. Except I won't be able to enjoy this aspect because it will be dwarfed by the butt-ugly monitor I'll have to plug it into (by any other manufacturer) unless I want to pay $999 for the least expensive apple monitor (which I would LOVE but is way to expensive for me).
Is it too much to ask for Apple to sell the 17" flat CRT monitor from the eMac as a stand alone or a 15" LCD for $150-200? Probably. If this was available I would probably go ahead and purchase my first Mac.
If you've been stuck on the ISS or asleep for a few days, you can get a decent summary of all the announcements made at the Apple Keynote here
Homme petit d'homme petit, s'attend, n'avale
It's already making the rounds of the free sites. Bug some friends, pick up a few, and cluster away.
http://free.GearLive.com/index.php?referral=146
Seriously, how do they pick these guys?
"Hey, do you live under a rock, can't spell, aren't really current on technology, and don't read slashdot? Have WE got a job for you!"
It only comes in a G4 flavor.
I was trying to retort, that for $500, I can type, navigate, and SEE.. the 1k monitor comment was a add-on..
so- let me start over for 500$, pc vs mac,
I can see a lcd screen, and type, and navigate...
p.s. did you know that the cheapest monitor is 1k at apple? wow...
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Users shouldn't try to carry out an engineer's discussion, but they try nevertheless.
-uberpenguin
http://forums.g4techtv.com/messageview.cfm?catid=5 9&threadid=329404&STARTPAGE=1
...there's a good lad.
Easy: buy something other than a home user computer: eg an iMac or a PowerMac.
I don't hear people complaining that you can't upgrade an XBox's memory or hardrive without voiding the warranty. The Mac Mini is aimed at the same market: they want a box that does the job: they don't need or want to spend their time pissing about with its innards.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
do VHS video recorders only come with DVI?
We landed on the MOON!
It's OK! I'm a limo driver!
And in the USA, state and local sales taxes aren't included in any published prices. And yes, speaking as a British ex-pat, that seems weird.
However - here in Austin, TX we pay 8.25% sales tax on all purchases above and beyond the listed price. Now you're down to, what, a 2% price difference? Seems pretty reasonable for me, and well within the bounds of "rounding."
Additionally, I remember seeing some of the GB people posting that theirs was working out cheaper (GBP) than the US pricing was. Go figure.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
Just not enough to make me leave behind the utility of Linux for a world of locked down gaudy nonsense and five year old versions of *nix utilities.
That does not compute, most of the *nix utilities are included in OS.X, ok, some of them may not be familiar to the LINUX user being that OS.X descends from BSD. Even so they are not five years old and what is out of date can be replaced with minimal effort since most of the LINUX power user utilities have been ported to OS.X anyway.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
right here
-- Boycott Shell
Thank you for your comment. Without digital out, this WOULDN'T be an ideal HTPC. Still, I could see popping one of these on the home network and using it to play back streaming divx and mp3 content, for not much more than a dedicated digital media appliance. It wouldn't be the audiophile's choice, but throw in the super drive (or whatever they call their DVD writer) and you've still got a relatively powerful, very inconspicuous little device that can at least replace the el cheapo DVD player/recorder, the el cheapo CD player, and the MSN TV box. :)
Get off my virtual lawn, you damned virtual kids!
If you get a Mac Mini, you're realistically going to have to get a Mac keyboard, as they have buttons that PC keyboards don't have. (The Command key for starters, although this probably translates to something else on the PC board. Plus, the power switch on the Mini is on the back. Much nicer to have one of the apple keyboards with the power key.) As for the mouse: I can't remember the last time I saw a (reasonably new) PC without a USB mouse.
I am in the market for a new desktop Mac (my 1999 vintage lime iMac DV just isn't as snappy as it used to be :-). I priced a Mac mini configured with Airport Extreme, Bluetooth, a wireless keyboard/mouse, 1GB RAM and 80GB HD. With AppleCare and a 20" Cinema Display it came to $2500.
I also priced a 20" iMac G5 similarly configured (I didn't go to 2GB of RAM, though I usually max out my RAM, and the smallest HD I could configure was 160GB HD). With AppleCare it came to $2400.
I've decided to go with a maxed out 20" iMac G5 (faster, newer generation processor, more RAM, bigger HD), but with RAM from Crucial (from Apple 2GB = $925, from Crucial it's around $500).
Don't underestimate the power of The Source
Ok, I lie, I'm an ugly troll with an ugly biege box that makes TONS of noise and has cost me an arm and a leg over the last 2 years. (I now type with one hand and have a special chair so I don't fall off it)
... idiot hat off ... normal service resumed ... ugly beige box will self-destruct in 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
That shiny little anodised alumium something-or-other-pound square lump that looks like,er, a square metal lump is just so sexy !
I wan't one !
But wait, I'm too sexy for a mac, to sexy for a mac, to have a real mac attack !
troll mode off
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
...because it doesn't have an internal power supply. It uses a power brick. The power brick is the size of a washing machine and requires three-phase power.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
Suck on it Euromonkeys!
I mean hell, it is one of our 3 items we export.
More importantly, has anybody checked the price of Guinness in Cupertino lately?
There's some doubt whether installing RAM could void your warranty. If you do it right then I don't think they'd be bothered as long as the fault wasn't related.
. 19 FCC%25OhNoSPAM%40pacbell.net
http://groups.google.co.uk/groups?selm=BE0A26D9
Customs import duty: something pretty much everyone seems to forget about. VAT is not the only tax applied to imported goods.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
Apple have no control over how much VAT and import duty gets applied to their products.
And if you can't afford the Mac you want: tough shit. I can't afford Aston-Martin but you don't see me whining about it every opportunity on /.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
You could do that same thing for a cheap Windows PC and the "hardware portion" would end up costing you next to nothing. Your logic is flawed and amazingly idiotic. The only reason you get Insightful is because the Apple zealots need someone to burn their mod points on who supports their cause.
Does anyone know what happened to the rumoured iPod mini with 5GB?
I don't know if they intentionally did this, but apple seems to have missed a major opportunity here. If they had thrown s video on there and created some kind of media center software, people would be scooping these things up like hot cakes. 500 bucks for a Media Center computer that has the smallest footprint / energy requirements / noise output and looks great? Oh, well... perhaps Mr. Jobs has a plan for us all.
Anybody that has seen pictures of the internals??
Browsers shouldn't have a back button!! It's all about going forward...
I'm not a big MAC user but I do appreciate their products. I see a big simple problem with this MAC. They only provide you 2 USB ports and to use the modular design without bluetooth you need to plug your mouse into one and your key board into the other. Now how am I supposed to plug my digital camera in?
Are you certain it's a DIMM? I'm asking. I looked at all the tech specs but couldn't find it. It's such a small form factor that I figured it'd be a SODIMM like the imacs had. I hope you're right and it's DIMM 'cause they're cheaper. Where do you see that it is a DIMM?
Also, I guess it only has one slot? As has been mentioned here before, the price for the 1gb stick on Apple's site is indeed overpriced, it'd be worth cracking the thing open and putting your own in there.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur
Well, sadly your only a Gamma Minus Moron so you only get am old "Windows PC", only Betas and above can get the new "mini mac"
taking into account the german MWST which is 16.9% remember this is over the bass price which is still alot more than the price of the base american unit. so that kind of mutes the point of the VAT
take a look at the imac g5 the 1.8ghz model. this is nearly 500USD more expensive in germany. 33% import tax , i think not. being very liberal with an estimation i would say they are charging a 15% premium atleast
Not so obvious...
I'm sitting here on a laptop - non-upgradable (I hear they're selling quite well nowadays...). All my PC boxes are being migrated to shuttles (which aren't very upgradable, TBH, but I don't care).
*most* people don't keep the same box going for 5 years. They upgrade. Slashdotters are more likely to do it bit by bit, but I bet the average slashdotter has spent a lot more than $1000 on hardware in the last 12 months.
The things that I upgrade most (memory, hard drive) are still upgradable on the mini, albeit with a little work... but you get that with laptops too.
99.99% of the 'real world' never upgrade. Heck, they never even run Windows Update let alone upgrade their hardware. This is the market these boxes will fly off the shelves in.
Need the dubyas in there.
http://www.cappuccinopc.com/
Not that this wasn't entirely predictable.
because then he'd have to buy region 1 dvd's if he wanted to watch a movie on it?
May you be touched by His Noodly Appendage. RAmen.
This is exactly the kind of thing I'd buy for my daughter -- one big problem! Its not PINK. Clashes with her color scheme.
Just buy a bluetooth USB dongle if you need it.
You can get external wireless, too.
What we in the nerd world need is for SUN to bring out a low cost, small, quiet, reliable OPTERON/Athlon 64 box with their JAVA DESKTOP preinstalled.
Nuff Said.
_GP_
I'm betting it will only take a month or two once the mini becomes readily available, before some crazy case-modder type stuffs the mini's guts into an open 5.25" bay on their Windows PC.
~Philly
They only show the outer and the motherboard, not how it all goes together. I'm not sure if the beast is fanless, or takes a standard sized HDm =16&page=1
http://www.macnews.de/gallery/thumbnails.php?albu
I've always said that there is no coherent reason why almost every PC or Mac can't be half the size of a laptop computer. This is what Apple did and it's kind of brilliant from a manufacturing, design and engineering perspective. You take a laptop, remove the screen, battery and keyboard, modify it slightly to move the connectors, repackage it in a plain box and voila! Instant new device!
You can add memory, plug in everything and you can change keyboards and screens at will, just like most people use laptops at home with docking stations anyway.
I'm sure that my Lenovo Thinkpad could be turned into a cheap machine using the same process. In fact if I never wanted or needed to upgrade the RAM on the machine, which is actually the case, there is little, besides the CDRW, in my little Lenovo that couldn't be packaged in a power brick sized cable. The entire machine could be a power cord, a fat power brick/PC unit, a bunch of USB connectors, a network cable (or not - just wireless), a USB keyboard mouse and a screen of somekind.
If the Mac mini is the stupidest thing you've ever seen then you REALLY should get out a bit more.
You're gonna piss yourself when you see a car with downlighters!
That was classic intercourse!
In the the time spent arguing the sub $100 price difference between the Mac mini and the XYZ from Company PDQ, you could have _earned_ enough money to buy whichever you like.
If a theoretical $50 is all that is stopping you from choosing a complete PLATFORM for managing your digital life, er iLife, then you have missed the point or are just being an ass.
Plus Apple is giving away FREE SHIPPING - OMG, get out your calculators and factor that in!!!!!
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
http://www.mini-itx.com/news/nanode/
That's the dumbest thing I will see all day.
People are petitioning Apple to lower their prices because a government body's TAXES give Americans an unfair lower price? Pre-VAT the prices are not that unfair. It's not Apple's responsbility to eat losses due to your government's taxes. It's your government's duty to you to not screw you by increasing your costs on goods.
Blessed be he who reads this post, Cursed be he who tells my boss.
Yeah, "mac mini" according to scale, but according to actual dimensions and color, I think "Big Mac" may have been a better name.
Anyway, how 'bout somebody developing a multi-up rack for these puppies, so we can get a clean little G4 Mosix cluster going on. Kafoom!
-- Just another unsolicited opinion... from the Peanut Gallery.
Take away 17.5 percent VAT from UK price:
Convert to US dollars using XE.com rates (1 GBP = 1.88196 USD / 1 USD = 0.531361 GBP at 15:13:38 GMT on Jan 13th 2005):
Looks like you're right.
plz read that article/petition again. the pre-VATs are unfair. furthermore, any government is only part of the economy, but that's politics :D
(OK, I know the ORIGINAL story beat the papers, but...)
There was an article with pictures in our NEWSPAPER yesterday. Sheesh.
499 sounds great but I would not buy one nor recommend one. Simply put, it is still about $150 over-priced for what they are offering.
Memory costs are an issue with this machine as everyone knows 256 is laughably too little.
Me, I would throw 500 at a new big lcd monitor before throwing it on a PC that I had no intention of making my primary.
But Stephen King was. Found dead in his Bangor, ME home. Truly an American icon.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
My time is worth 20-120 dollars an hour, depending on the client and what I'm working on.
The time I save in ONE HOUR of not having to remove spyware, virii and other crap from various members of my family's computers (I, being the family geek, am the default repair guy, and of course I have to do it for free, taking time away from playing with my niece and nephew and interacting with my family) is well worth the paltry few bucks I'll save by getting them a POS Windows machine. What are you smoking, dude? You are totally missing the point of this thing.
If apple would just release a 9" black/white monitor to sit on top this you would almost have the original mac...)
I heard Apple is switching to a BSD based operating system!
Just a thought, I wonder if Apple have any future plans to stuff mini-like innards into a blade and whip up a rackmount enclosure to hold several of them?
~Philly
Since this machine is a luggable and uses Laptop components. I thought I would compare a low end laptop.
I configured a low end dell laptop with 40G drive/ CD-RW/DVD combo drive/256 MB ram/Celeron 2.6./90 day warranty (7.5 lbs) Price $852
I configure the mac Mini with standard 1.25 G4/ 40G drive/ cd-RW/DVD combo/ 256ram/ 90 day warranty. 2.9lbs mac mouse and keyboard combo. Price $552
CMV 15" LCD Monitor 5.3 lbs $179 newegg.
Total Price: $731
So one is luggable on the other true portable. But you have similar power and price/size/mass. Upgrade capability and pricing also similar.
Those comparing the price performance to a off the shelf standard PC are out to lunch. This is not a power users box. It is not the best price peforming box on the planet.
What it is is a very small cool, REASONABLY priced mac.
I never used a mac before but I could see KVM'ing one of these into my current setup. I could meet 90% of my computing needs in blisfully quiet operation, keeping the PC for powerhouse/legacy tasks the other 10% of the time.
I think they are going to sell all they can build. I would have ordered one already if it came with digital audio outputs.
While not everything to everyone, this machine has an interesting niche to occupy and represents one of the few chances to get an Apple without paying a significant premium IMO. I wish them well. Hopefully they will be successful and release a mini2 that is more suitable for media center usage.
How servicably would the Mini run WoW?
you had sex with osama bin laden.
That other story was about that whole Apple event. This story is about the Mac Mini. See the difference?
Look at Apple's website. The pricing for the Mac Mini is on par with all other Mac pricing standards on the German Apple store.
Apple is doing nothing wrong. Furthermore the petitioner is pretending that selling an item in the U.S. incurs the same costs as selling something in EU, which is dead wrong. Shipping costs, selling costs, advertising costs, etc, are all different. I can't even begin to fathom how unions in the economies over there cause everything to be more expensive than necesary.
Blessed be he who reads this post, Cursed be he who tells my boss.
Get your free mini mac here,
http://www.freeminimacs.com/?r=13908694
Time is worth much more than money.
Think:
No spyware to speak of.
No virii to speak of.
Hardly ever a security patch reboot parade.
Plays nice with others.
Does most things you'd want to do on a computer, except for a few modern games that only exist on PC's.
I hope they sell a sh**load of these, and I hope that all of you get one for auntie, and granny, and your brother-in-law, and Mom, and basically anyone that you and I know will be asking *US* for free tech support. And lots of it, if it's Windows. You know it, I know it... Hell, I do it.
Your time is as valuable as mine. Even if you can get a stripped-down Dell for a hundred or so less... Even if you can build your own for almost 200 less... Time is money. "Time is hydraulic". It's the only permanently finite resource you have. Don't forget. Don't waste another second running AdAware. Take a walk on the wild side. Try a Mini on for size.
One thing that Apple should have realized by now is that a closed solution is NO solution. I guess maybe it is good as a cheap low-end consumer product. But the ramifications of no expandability and limited upgradeability will out way any of the pros for this product.
This product is already legacy. As Apple is pushing G5 solutions and will always strive to progress in the computing industry, this Mac Mini is in reality a regression of the current Mac consumer product line. G4's are falling out of the profitable markets and should be considered by Apple as legacy or so-to-be-legacy.
Apple should realized the life-expectances of their products and release them accordingly. Maybe 2-3 years ago, this would have been nice. But as for today, lets see Apple stay in their market and release a G5 Mac Mini.
PS. I've been using Macs for a very long time. I have followed Apple and still purchase their products. I was not really trying to bash them... just a little over exaggerating. If I wanted a $500 G4, I would jump on ebay or gsaauctions.gov
That's just what I think... I don't really fucking care anyways!
...and you thought I didn't care...
Imagine a mac mini. Add a battery pack. Add wireless option. Throw it in your backpack.
It's called PowerBook.
HMM, time for some Knoppix clustering over firewire.
I went with a $600 shootout instead of $500 to make sure that some obvious add-ons were included with each model, but the new Mac mini holds up surprisingly well!!
$600 Desktop Apple/Dell System Shootout
(This is a repeat of my post from the original story, but then again, so is this story, so there ya go!!)
It has an external power supply. If you look at the QTVR of the mini, you can see the power brick behind the mini. It looks to be ~ 6" x 2" x 1 1/2".
I'll go fetch my coat...
I hope this thread isnt cold, this needs to be answered. i was going to get a mac mini but now I'm concerned about my ipod. any mac gurus out there?
Im dreaming ofa big bndwdth, That can resist the
I thought originally at $500 a pop, this would be great for clustering a few of them. Stack a closet full of them. I read about Apple's Xgrid..looks interesting.
However, I guess I'm confused about what clustering is/does. I was hoping by 'clustering' say 2 or 3 of the units...I'd have the equivalent of a 2 or 3 processor machine...so, all things I did would run faster. But from reading...it looks like only specific jobs you submit to Xgrid run in a clustered mode.
What I was hoping, was that when doing common jobs, like rendering something, or decrypting a DVD...creating iso's...etc...that all things I did would be run faster using all the machines together. Can this be done, or is it only specific jobs submitted to the cluster that will have it work?
If it would work like a multi-processor machine for all activity, then $1500 or so for a 3 way box would be a pretty good price!
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
You too are completely missing the point. Sure, you can rattle off technical specifications that easily exceed the Mac Mini, likely at a better performance to cost ratio, sure... you could. But after you turn on the machine and use it I'd bet that the extra $50 or so spent on the Mac is well worth the time and frustration saved by having to usually worry every other day about Windows updates, virus updates, or spyware updates and whether or not someone snuck something on your PC. Case in point: A customer I visited had a Windows XP machine with precisely 643 pieces of spyware (according to AdAware) and four viruses. This person is not a computer person, just needs it for work and email. Is the extra $50 spent worth eliminating all the time and confusion she went through the months before I visited and fixed it (for the time being)? You betcha. Could she have saved $150 by not having call me? Absolutely. Once hardware nerds realize that computers are for actually *getting work done* and not about raw performance is the day they become Mac addicts.
-brain
Ok maybe not in my pocket, but the mini would fit in my pocket if I wore cargo pants.
Beauty is truly in the eye of the tiger
FYI: It's "moot point" not "mute point".
I see a trend. First the IShuffle. Now this. I think Apple is trying to tell us that a user interface with a screen is too complex. Use the (I)force, user. Let go.
Any reports from people using the Belkin KVM switcher that Apple is selling?
I am using a Belkin 8-port USB KVM switch right now on my desk, with a G4 Gig-E, a Quicksilver G4, a G5, and several Windows boxes. I also have one plugged into five Xserves.
If you can do without holding down keys on startup, they work fine.
If you need to hold down the odd key for startup options (Shift to start up with reduced service count, Option for the Boot Manager, cmd-opt-P-R for PRAM clear, cmd-opt-O-F for Open Firmware, cmd-opt-S-U for single user mode, T key for FireWire Target Mode, C Key for CD Boot, N Key for NetBoot, or cmd-V for verbose boot) it will not work through the KVM, and you'll have to plug directly in via USB.
Also, if you are using the Apple Pro Keyboard, the eject key won't work, and you'll have to use F12. Don't know if the volume keys work, as I am doing systems engineering, and don't use sound on any of my Macs except my PowerBook.
I've never gotten a good answer from Belkin about the startup key sequences or the eject key thing...
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
I watched some CNET videos of the unvailing of the mac mini. Everyone cheered when the price of $499 was shown. But you know thats not the whole price. Did he not think about mouse, keyboard or monitor? Looking at the back of the imac I dont see anywhere I can plug my VGA monitor? Oh and were do I plug my ps/2 mouse and keyboard? These are still standard inputs for new computers.
He mentions that this computer will encourage people to switch. I have three reasons for not doing so:
1)Usually it is only new computers that will have a usb keyboard and mouse. If I already have a new computer why buy another?
2)If I had an old computer I would have to by all new input and output devices to hook up to this thing because older computers are less likely to have usb mouse keyboards and VGA/DVI monitors.
3)I went to the apple site to "buy" one and I don't even see monitor as an option to add to this computer. Sure I can buy a 20inch LCD from apple but then its not "just" $499 anymore is it?
-brian
Okay, I have been looking around for a good keyboard/mouse combo to allow me to use a Mac mini as a Media Center computer for PVR/iTunes.
I am wanting something inexpensive, preferably rugged incase it is dropped. Must be wireless, preferably bluetooth, and perferably a single unit.
I want to be able to sit on the sofa with a keyboard in my lap and use OS X for launching/navigating iLife applications. I am not trying to have a workstation for cutting iMovies, just want to be able to manage an iTunes playlist or import some digital photos. Nothing too fancy.
Please offer your advice/experience/opinions!
Thus far, I have found the following:
Wireless Mobile Keyboard - Developed by Motion Computing and offered at $150, this bluetooth all-in-one keyboard/mouse is meant for TablePC users, but looks like the best offering I have found thus far for my purposes.
Media Center Remote & Keyboard - a $180 offering by Gyration is not Bluetooth but includes an interesting pointing device that looks like a large remote control and uses a gyroscope to point the mouse on the TV. This offing is specifically for media centers.
diNovo Cordless Desktop - This $250 Logitech 'system' does not have an integrated mouse but apparently the detached calculator pad functions as a remote control and has an LED screen. I believe much of the functionality may be Windows Media Center/XP only.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
They tout their low $499 price, but the base model looks woefully inadequate for modern computing tasks. In order to get it up to snuff, they'll nickle-and-dime you to death, and it won't be inexpensive anymore!
By the time you get everything in that you need, you're probably looking at closer to $1000. By that point, you could buy a PC that's twice as fast!
Still... I've always wanted to have a Mac. It really is a superior design with a superior OS and superior software. I was thinking of buying an iPaq, but now I'm thinking about buying this instead.
Don't forget every PC you buy comes with 9000 Free hours of AOL, Earthlink, and Verizon.
Plus all those icons for deals on Quicken and other performance-reducing trialware.
This is important stuff, I don't think Macs come close in this regard.
Bluetooth most likely not (neither Airport) I think you have to order it that way because it is a completly different Board.
That's one of those things I didn't know when I bought my last iBook, so now I am still using a Bluetooth Dongle.
Oh well. Lesson learned.
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
It is external. I saw one of the photographs from an Apple store near MacWorld that showed this. I don't remember where it was. I cannot check since I am on dial-up and I need to log off soon.
Maybe someone else know where it is.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
If only it had a DIGITAL AUDIO OUT, it would go onto my AV rack this month.. Does anyone else share the same sentiment?
This slashdot editor is the same idiot who will give away your personal details without a second thought. Nice to see he's idiotic enough to post a dupe of one of the biggest stories of 2005 already.
because then he'd have to buy region 1 dvd's
Which isn't exactly a bad thing. Many DVDs are released as region 1 before they are released for other regions, if they are released for other regions at all. I think region 1 DVDs have the widest selection.
Well, this answer isn't Mac specific, but what you are looking for is single system image (SSI) clustering. There is a project for Linux sponsered by HP that does this -- you set up one box (preferably with a shared drive -- firewire or scsi), and network boot several others connected to it via private high speed etherenet interconnects. It then runs special code that lets process on one box migrate to un-loaded boxes, so that the whole group of them will look like one big SMP system.
See openssi.org, also check out mosix / openmosix.
lol yeah, if you lug around a 1000VA UPS weighing in at something like 40lbs, you'll have a nice "portable" computer...
You hear of Linux trying to hit the Desktop, but it's not controlled yet.
Apple can hit the market with this MiniMac alone and totally take the advantage.
I mean has all the 'basic' *NIX tools for a user's workstation. With the 'casual' feel of Windows.
Spread this out like wild fire, then have Apple & Sun team up.
you are really, really retarded
(yes I'm trying to be funny)
I want one, so cheap and I will finally have something decent to run OSX on (my old clamshell iBook is a bit slow with OSX). However, if this thing has a notebook HDD, I hope it is one of the 24/7 models designed for server blades, because I like to know my desktop machines can be used a lot without fear of worry about duty cycles and such.
BTW, remember when Apple used Mini Me to advertise the 17" Powerbook? I wonder if they'll use him for this? I will call him, "mini Mac".
Charles Bronson is dead !
It will work fine. The only difference is that it will show up on the desk top as a generic disk marked 'ipod' rather than as an ipod shaped icon. Oh and you won't be able to boot off it - though I don't know why you'd want to. You can still sync with it and use it as a disk.
This is not true. I've got a 40g windows formatted iPod synched to my powerbook just fine.
I submit a story of newsworthiness and get rejected. you guys pick up a story from two DAYS ago after the entire world has already heard about it and post it? You guys suck.
Finnaly, a man who speaks the truth
people who don't want to switch anyway. That seems to mean you buddy.
Keyboard: ps/2 have never been Apple standards, however, a ps/2 to usb costs next to nothing and can be bought virtually everywhere. Cheap USB keyboards and mice as well btw.
VGA/DVI: VGA adaptor included. Read instead of looking at pretty pictures. Think Playboy.
screen: if you want to buy cheap, you don't want to buy an Apple monitor. They are superior quality and expensive. Buy another brand and plug it in. Oh and about that superior quality, read some PC reviews, don't trust a mac-head. It's astonishing how cheap you can go, especially over the internet, even flat screen.
In short: three seconds of actual using of da brain would have given you these answers. This computer is for people who want to switch, or are in the market for a second machine (hence the advertising for a switch box) or a media centre.
I repeat, this computer is not for people who don't want to buy it. Have a nice day, brian.
I think, therefore I am...I think.
If only they included a DIGITAL AUDIO OUT, I would have to get it for my AV rack. Without DIGITAL AUDIO OUT, it doesn't quite make it as a Media Center.
You can a newer Dell 3000 (the one referenced in the shootout was a 2400) with an 80GB drive for $429 from Dell right now with a 2 year on site warranty and free shipping. Considering this fact, I find it hard to believe the reviewer made an honest attempt to truely compare the offerings. In fact, you can get almost the same system I referenced above from Dell with a 15in LCD for $564. Subtract the LCD, add a DVD and or speakers and it is still much cheaper. Links here.
Come on. I got an email yesterday from MacMall and was seriously impressed so I went to /. to see if it had been reported and discussed and sure enough, there was an artical from the prevous day. So I did not post an anouncement.
Then there is this one 2 days late.... Perhaps the poster should have checked as I did. Or better yet who approved this obvious dupe?
However, the gizmo is worthy of its own discussion and is quite cool.
Sweet. Enjoy.
This ain't no upwardly mobile freeway This is the road to hell
Essentially, traditional clustering gives you the ability to distribute jobs or services across an array of servers. But the code has to be written to accomodate that. Most workstation-based applications (DVD rippers, word processors, etc.) aren't architected this way. Think instead of database servers that, in the event of a hardware failure on one node, fail an instance over to another node and maintain all the transactions that were just written on the failed server. You may lose a session or ten, but most of your data is safe. Also think of distributed processing systems like SETI@Home. Redundant images of calculation code run on a wide variety of servers. One server (the job boss) has the task of distributing calculations to the rest of the systems and collecting the results.
I think the Mac Mini is a great contender for grid computing, except that it's missing a high-speed interconnect. If it had a gigabit Ethernet interface with iSCSI offloading or a Fibre Channel port (neither of which would have any use to the common end user), it would make a good grid node. An expansion slot would have taken care of this, but that adds to the cost, and you have to engineer that into your design.
The Spoon
Updated 6/28/2011
Alternately, take the UK price (339 GBP) and convert directly into US dollars (638 USD). Divide 638/599 to reveal a 6.5% difference, which is probably typical of US sales tax rates. Texas is a little higher than most because we don't have a state income tax (just the Federal ones).
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
had to be said. but seriously, imagine if you could have a backplane and plugging in an additional mac mini could increase the performance of your total system. great for lowering the barriers to entry while giving a path forward and almost nickel and diming your customers.
Let's see -- the market wasn't ready for it, and the price point wasn't right: Yep, sounds like the original Newton to me.
Personally I think of the Mini as much more of an aggressive market expansion move than an evolution of the cube, in terms of where it sits as a marketed product. The cube was supposed to be a BMW of a computer, or that's how I remember it being pitched to me. But you're right, in terms of the design this is just a natural extension of the principles behind the cube. The market caught up with the idea.
And if that's true here, why isn't it also true for an Apple PDA?
Personally I've never gotten a Palm, and the main reason is that I think the designs out there are crud. (Devices that require me to re-learn how to draw the letters of the alphabet -- now that's a major obstacle to adoption.) If Apple was to release a slightly pricier PDA that was designed dang well, would the market for that already be saturated? Open question. I'd consider one, I know that much.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Anyone thought of this as an apple XBoX? Firewire based pads?
DVI to TV output?
Maybe re-pack it and sell as a panther based competitor to the 'Phantom'?
Ho Ho.
-Nano.
Many DVDs are released as region 1 before they are released for other regions, if they are released for other regions at all.
Many DVDs of North American movies are released as region 1 before they are released for other regions. If your preference is movies from other parts of the world, having a region 1 combo or superdive may limit your selection.
Oh, and if, somehow, it does, it is very easily concealable.
No, I don't work for apple.
No, I'm not gay either.
Little Brother, watching the watchers
I have read a lot of postings since tuesday afternoon about this new machine, and while most people love a cheaper more affordable Mac, a lot of people are deriding it as still much more expensive than the competition for what you get. I hate to break this to you but you guys are wrong wrong wrong. You can't really compare the Mac Mini to the Dell Dimension on features and say that the Mini comes up soooooooo short. The Dimension is a tower, the mini is btx or subbtx sized. For those of you that haven't priced them, a Shuttle PC carries a huge price premium over a similarly configured PC in a regular sized case, a mini-ITX based machine even more so. I spent the better part of a month pricing out different solutions (buy it, build it, etc.) that would allow me to put a pc in my Jeep(in the glove compartment, in the CD changer slot, in the dash, etc.), and I can tell you that for what the Mini provides...for ALL that the Mini provides(including form factor, a noiselessness)...I think it may be the cheapest thing on the market.
Thank you very much...that helped clear up the difference for me. I went and looked, and it appears the mosix and openmosix are for the x86 architecture only. I couldn't find in a quick browse of the openssi site if it was chip specific.
Do you now if openssi will work on the ppc? Are there any ppc specific projects out there for Single System Image ? If so, I'd think the mac mini would be a shoe in to build one...
Again, thanx for explaining the difference to me...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
for most applications you wouldn't get anywhere near the same benefit you would from having an equivalent number of processors in one machine, due to the much lower communication bandwidth between the cpu's. even gigabit ethernet doesn't compare to the bandwidth that processors in an smp system have access to, and i'm pretty sure the mac mini only has 100 mbit networking. given the right setup, you could probably run multithreaded applications spread accross several computers, but the performance will be less than stellar.
typically the applications that benefit most from clustering are ones that involve a lot of highly paralellizable steps- operations each computer can perform independently of the other computers without having to communicate with the other computers until they are done. common examples include cg rendering and certain classes of large mathematical problems such as factoring large numbers. other examples would be brute force searches a la distributed.net and seti@home, or distributed compiling of large projects (e.g. gentoo's distcc). however, the more times your problem requires one node to access data that resides on other nodes, the worse your performance is going to be.
in short, just because you are running multi-threaded applications doesn't mean you can expect a properly configured cluster to compare performance-wise with an 'equivalent' smp machine.
If I don't put anything here, will anyone recognize me anymore?
Dude, you can install your own memory in ANY Apple computer and not void your warranty. If you break something, it's not covered, but you are free to install your own memory or HD or other "user-servicable" part, it's just not "recommended" by Apple. Believe me, it's true.
With the first link, the chain is forged.
What is the 'Security Slot' used for?
:)
(sounds a bit sinister, like the thing will bite me if I try to open the case)
This could be my first MAC (I can see a beowulf cluster of these
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
you suck
An idea I've been playing around with lately is a small, quiet computer to use as a DVD server. Store all my frequently-watched DVD's as ISO files on USB hard drives. Admittedly, storing a lot of DVDs losslessly will be impractical until you can buy a 1TB+ external drive for under $400, but, not being one to let that stop me, I was hoping someone more familiar with the Mac's capabilities could help me figure out how well this box would stack up.
First requirement, I need something that can handle really large files. FAT32-based systems for instance can't handle a DVD-sized file. I'll assume the Mac has a decent filesystem format.
Next, I need to be able to mount the ISOs like a DVD. Windows has Daemon Tools, Linux has the mount command. Mac being BSD-based, things probably work pretty similarly in this respect to Linux.
Now the hard part, good DVD playback software that can be controlled programatically (command line parameters, a documented API, whatever) to go to particular chapters, menus, and so on. WinDVD on Windows, for instance, doesn't provide much in the way of a way for outside programs to control it (that's documented anyway). Xine on Linux does, but the playback looks rougher and more pixallated, at least on my current system. Can anyone shed any light on how well Mac DVD player software stacks up?
Are you kidding? Right on the accessories page http://www.apple.com/macmini/accessories.html is the link to a $100 Optical digital out and in! http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Transit-main .html
People who want/need better audio options can buy the accessories they need.
I'm really having difficulty swallowing how wonderful OSX is. After using it for several months on a free Mac, I had to go buy a PC to get my stuff done. It was the most awkward, slow, counterintuitive interface I've used (from windows to HP-UX to Linux to NextStep, etc). And I'm not alone. Is there some sort of shame in saying the emperor has no clothes? Sure, OSX is technically great. But if you dread firing it up, what's the point?
Posting anonymously because the emperor has minions...
I can't even begin to fathom how unions in the economies over there cause everything to be more expensive than necesary.
Personally, I'm still trying to fathom how the lack of useful unions in the economies over here allow many employers to pay employees shit money, screw them out of their pensions and health insurance when they need it most, and treat people like sh*t.
But we all have different priorities.
I don't think there's a problem if a bunch of people want to sign an online petition that will be ignored by Apple. My attitude is, people don't need a Mac to survive. If they're pricing it too high, let Apple know and buy something else.
While the Euro has been worth more for the last two years, there is nothing guaranteeing that exchange rate will continue. Apple is hedging its bets. This is why the difference is higher for the Euro than Dollar. Same goes for the Brits.
If the Mac mini is the stupidest thing you've ever seen, then you really ought to get out a bit more.
I mean, you're really gonna piss yourself when you see a car with spinners or downlighters, or watch some reality TV.
That was classic intercourse!
What the hell happened? I previewed it, Slashdot broke and it got submitted in BOTH editions?
I can't see this being a big success with the mods...
That was classic intercourse!
if someone could put an elegant GUI on a robust unix kernel don't you think Microsoft or IBM would have done it already?
Could you tell me the name of your prescription? I'm gonna ask my doctor for one : )
You can't take the sky from me...
Apple products are not just about the numbers in the spec sheet. They are not just about the price tag.
Apple products are about the asthetics, the incredible high level of polish and the good feeling you get when you're using them. It's in every single detail of their products. It's in the hardware and it's in the software. It's in every layer of it: from the beautifully precision crafted aluminum shell on the PowerBook's with their perfectly cut power buttons, the led-light that pulses on & off in the same pace the average sleeping person breaths when the computer is in sleep mode, to the elegant Aqua graphical user interface in OS X, the brilliant Objective-C based Cocoa API you use to program it, the seamless integration of Java to the operating system, iTunes + the iTunes music store + iPods, the BSD UNIX core... It's in the millions of small details - everywhere in Apple's products. Every portion of the system (hardware + software) just works brilliantly. It INSPIRES YOU!! That's why Mac users are so passionate about it!
All of that makes using a Mac just so much better of an experience than using a PC with, say, Windows XP. Even if you assume for a minute (and that's assuming a lot) that the XP never crashes and you manage to keep it virus and adware & spyware free. And don't even try to compare it to Linux. It will be cheaper to run Linux, for sure, but 99 people out of 100 will be a million times less inspired and productive with Linux.
I've used just about any type of computer you can imagine. Apple IIe's, Commodore 64's, various Amigas, old generation Mac's, and just about any and every version of PC's and operating systems for them, starting with DOS 3.x versions on XT's and AT's, through various Linux, OS/2 and Windows versions with modern PC hardware. And when I tried a Mac with OS X the first time about a year ago, it was an incredible accute experience of "OF COURSE!! This is how it SHOULD be!! Why isn't everything like this?!". When I digged in deeper and started examining the guts of it, Carbon, Cocoa, the BSD layer, XCode, the ADC reference library, etc. it just got more and more clear how incredibly well designed and implemented the entire thing is!
So when Apple releases a beautiful headless Mac for $499, you're making a major mistake if you just compare it GHz for GHz and $ for $ with PC hardware. You're not just paying for GHz's, USB ports and MB's of harddisk space. You're paying for a totally different level of experience and for feeling inspired with whatever you'll do with the computer.
Like a lot of geeks, you seem to believe that all computers need offer maximum compute performance to have merit.
They do not.
Apple have been trying to engage the PC in the same market as other consumer appliances now for about 20years, and the closest they've got is the iPod.
Personally, I'm considering using a mini as an underset Mac - equipped with Bluetooth, an S-Video converter and Salling Clicker, it should make a great living room computer sitting atop my Sony PS2.
That was classic intercourse!
There isn't any descent cad or analysis software. Don't bother with "Try Wizo-X." I'm talking analysis stuff where 1 gig of dual channel ram is barely adequate. And solid modeling. The OSX programs are niche and years behind. And from my research, emulation of a PC is not worth it.
If OSX had come out 5 or 10 years sooner, all the workstation stuff would have been ported over. But Apple missed the opportunity. Now it's like the graphics market, but stacked against them.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
Take the base unit.
3119 Danish Kroner (DKK) = Approx $555. So about 10% extra, which might cover some uncertainties on the $ exchange rate. I do not think it is bad. They need to pay for localization of the software, the extra support org etc.
The bundle I bought is 5517,60 DKK = $981.
This costs $871, so here there are slightly more expensive because the price of the parts has been rounded up
You can configure it for IP over Firewire. 3-4x 100BaseT perfrormance in reality.
That was classic intercourse!
Yes, engineers will put $10k of software on a $500 PC. We're an odd bunch. Personally, I take the money saved and buy another, faster computer a year later.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
i completely disagree.... i have a sawtooth G4 that's 4-5 years old. i've added 3 hard drives, swapped out the dvd drive with a super drive, upgraded the processor with a faster 3rd party G4 processor, put in a new video card, added a firewire2/usb2 card and upped my memory to a gig and a half. you don't know about Macs much do you?
/ http://suffocate.us
/ http://johngrayson.com
Mac Mini is not fanless.
I moved to Oregon recently. We don't have a sales tax here. (It's really refreshing to buy something that is 19.99 with a $20 and get a penny back.)
One reason that the these taxes aren't advertised in the US is that they vary from locale to locale. Often cities, counties, and states will impose differrent sales taxes. Also, if you advertise something with the tax, you can count on your competitors to advertise it *without* the tax.
The one exception in the US is gasoline which is always (AFAICT) advertised with all taxes factored in.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Xcode has something called AppleScript Studio which seems like Apple's answer to Visual Basic. Despite the fact that it is a great tool for rapid application development, it doesn't seem to be widely promoted and there doesn't seem to be many books out there specifically on it. There is only one book on Amazon.com at the moment, and for some reason it hasn't been released, even though I ordered a copy months ago. I found an interesting page a while back, describing how it could be used to make weblog application with the combined features of a simple word processor and FTP program very easily, which is why I became interested in it in the first place.
I use a clunky 3 year old Nforce based computer as my media center. My first thought was great an awesome media play center and Mac, clean simple and not too expensive.
But it has no Digital Audio out. You can pay another $100 for it, but I wouldn't. I will wait for mini2 now or get a XPC.
I think they missed a bunch of us by leaving out DA out.
Still think it is value for money and a cool package, but that critical missing feature was the main factor on my not buying one.
I have no idea what the file system can handle, but when I rip my DVDs to the HD I used DVD decryptor and it leaves me with Vob Files no bigger than 1G each. Centainly work with Fat32/OSX or any other modern file system. Though I don't yet know if there is a decryptor for the Mac or a Player that will play them directly.
But anyway they left out Digital Audio, so no DD/DTS. Grrrrrr! Where is that Apple suggestion box.
Wasn't looking for the equivalent performance...but, for a cheap system..that was a reasonable facsimile as far as performance goes...would be nice.
Not to mention, just a fun thing to toy around with. I think it would be nice to have, to do, say video conversions with a Myth box, etc...have it running transcode in the back ground for the MythTV box...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Clearly this isn't a dupe -- it's merely confirming the rumors those "MacWorld" folks started.
I use my Windows-formatted iPod on my Powerbook. There is one gotcha: You have to do firmware updates from a Windows machine, and I haven't yet figured out how to keep my Mac from pestering me about them once they're available on Software Update. I'm sure there's a way, but I haven't found the button yet.
Incidentally, contrary to what the other poster mentioned, you can change the iPod's icon. However, the volume label must comply with FAT standards, so it's all uppercase no punctuation.
I haven't tried booting off of it, but I'm guessing that if there's a blessed system folder on it, it'll work fine. I'll have to do a 'speriment...
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Gosh. We pay more for BMWs in America than you do in Europe. C'est la vie.
(That's French.)
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
I am going to get seriously busy with tchuladdiass's recommendation, but I wanted to point out that you are describing a RAIC (redundant array of inexpensive computers - my term) and as you hoped, when doing common jobs like rendering something, decrypting DVDs, creating iso's ... etc, it is faster IF your task load is easily shared.
.avi or VCD? Not easily shared. .avi or VCDs? Your RAIC scales linerarly in performance (ie. add a box, go twice as fast. add three boxes, finish in 1/4th the time.)
Ripping one DVD and compressing it to an
Ripping six DVDs and compressing them to
Get a 4-way KVM switch with audio port (the one with built in cables would be slick if it used USB connectors on the ends of the cables) and one real nice keyboard, mouse, and display.
It won't get you higher frames per second in a single job (game or DVD rip or whatever) but for serious multi-tasking it makes a big difference. In effect you have to handle the task assignments but once that is done you are all set.
I do this at home with four Wintel boxes (talked about it in my Journal a few months ago) and it works well enough to keep them set up.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
Lack of GigE was the first thing that brought me back to reality - it doesn't mean I still won't buy one (or more) but I put my Visa back in the wallet for now.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
Guys I like Apple's products (now the company is a diff. story, and please don't try convince me). But can we please stop pimping every single little apple product, 5 times in a week. Thanks.
The software alone is clearly worth $500, and it's nice that they throw in that cute little computer as a bonus.
Flame ON!
No really, other than the sound component, you're right. Too bad MHz wasn't yet a quantifier of speed since the Atari was 79% faster than the C=64. And let's not talk about disc drive speed.
Better marketing killed the Atari, plain and simple.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
$499 = £265
£265 + 17.5% = £311
Apple UK Price: £339 inc VAT.
Apple UK Extra Price = £28 inc. VAT.
Oh no. £28. That could be extra cost at customs, who knows. It isn't as bad as other Apple markups.
The petition appears to simply be doing the right thing and be taking that into account so that they are comparing err um 'apples and apples'
1) A CableCard compatible TV tuner with HD support. I would have bought one yesterday for this alone.
2) Digital audio out.
3) Component video out (perhaps not needed if your TV supports DVI).
4) SVideo/composite video in.
5) Inlcuded remote control that drove a decent "iTV" application that could do basic Tivo-like functions.
... Intel announce their brand spanking new 386 processor.
AppleScript isn't that fantastic, If you want to do rapid application development Cocoa is really the way to go about doing it. I've never made anything that had a GUI before and I had a pong program working in an evening. ObjectiveC + Interface Builder is an awesome combination. Or Java if you're so inclined.
I ordered one and the Mini will be here before the Shuffle will be...
Your Average Joe
Wow, obsolete hardware for only $500. What a steal.
This does not come with keyboard or mouse, and you CAN use a VGA monitor, or whatever you want with it. The video output is a DVI connector, but a DVI->VGA adaptr is ~$15UDS.
Froogle search for DVI to VGA adaptors
-William
God is everything science has yet to explain.
I think it is great Apple is trying to get into the lower price market. However after reviewing the mini-Mac and also following the posts here, it does nothing more than confirm my essential problems with the Apple Business Model and product offerings.
1) Close Hardware - Little or no Upgrade abilities
2) You are stuck with what they decide you can have (Mic jack, line in, and several other things most people would find essential)
3) Poor performance. Yes I know that on some tests the G4 at a lower MHz does more than an Intel or AMD at the same MHz, however, even in the world of Macs, the mini specifications are low.
Apple is a company that tries to make money out of glitz rather than providing true solutions. It is time they move past the 'cute' and esthetic innovations and instead start innovating and providing HIGH END features into their products that once made Macs 'high end' systems.
(Don't flag me as an Apple basher; I simply want Apple to produce Macs that are more worth of what the original Mac revolution stood for. Back then, Macs not only offered stuff that was hard to find in the x86 market, but features and tools that didn't even exist. There is NOTHING in a Mac or OSX that you cannot find on a PC, and usually at a better price or even better quality. - This is a sad time for Apple. Only the Fan boys and Girls that don't know any better are going to put this product on a pedestal once again and buy it because it is cute and cool. This is not the Apple that I original fell in love with when Mac actually meant cutting edge graphics and features.)
The only place I can see this product having use is in development labs that need cheap Macs for testing software or testing Web sites.
Again I am truly saddened; I want Apple to be the graphics leader again, the ones that have all the gadgets that push the computing world. Instead they are still playing catch up with cheap x86 systems and Open Source OSes and yes even Microsoft Windows.
Bottom line, there is nothing a Mac can do that a 'often cheaper' x86 PC running Linux or WindowsXP cannot do. In fact most people here can list numerous things you can do a WindowsXP system or a Linux system that you just can't even do on a Mac.
Apple no longer provides us with the innovative and cutting edge features we all once loved the Mac for and fell in love with.
Sad...
I think he was talking about THIS mac. I wonder if an used G4 tower might be a better deal than this, though. The ebay prices seemed a bit inflated last time I looked.
Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
Comment removed based on user account deletion
for $1500 you can build a decent two-way Athlon XP 3200 box, perhaps even an Athlon64 machine.
Just imagine the PC you can build yourself with a thousand bucks. Of course, you wouldn't be at the forefront of fashion and bling. Oh wait, I forgot. We're geeks.
What the fucking christ?
How the fuck can a post that's posted less than 2 fucking minutes after the article is be god-damned redundant?
Fuck you, stupid moderators!
It would be presumptuous to conclude that Americans have no right to know what is being done in their name
You can buy $4 standoffs and stack mini-itx motherboards. then you're only paying $175/node. Unless your cluster computer requires a fancy alumnium and white plastic case. The Mac mini doesn't have a very fast cpu. I'm not sure your $1500 3-node mac mini cluster setup is even as fast as single cpu 1.8Ghz powermac G5, which is exactly the same price.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Just out of curiosity, why would you spend $1,500+ on 3 or 4 Mac Mini's when you can get a Dual 1.8GHz G5 from Apple for $1,999.00? If you are going to spend that much, just get the Dual Apple and be happy ; P
There are many types of clustering technologies which serve different types of needs. Normally when you stick a few computers together, you have a master unit that sends work "objects" to the other slave units. The slave units do the processing and send it back to the master that assembles the results. This type of setup works _very_ well for scientific processing.
If you want to do rendering, then a Mac Mini may work well. Most rendering software allows you to setup other "nodes" that the main computer can off-load processing to. What application are you using for rendering?
P.S. Creating ISO images is really just disk intensive and not CPU intensive. A 32 processor system is not going to create an ISO any faster than a 1 processor system. Creating an ISO image just comes down to how fast your disks are. If you want to create an ISO faster, get faster hard disks.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
Using either the DVI out for high-end digital TVs or the S-Video, this box is perfect for an entertainment center. DVD movie playback, ripping your collection to the 80 gig HD, storing all your music, putting on improptu slide shows, and even some wireless capable (net and keyboard/mouse) surfing at low-rez - hell - why not?
Can someone Mac-knowledgable answer these questions. I imagine this could be used as a media terminal in my living room. Apple sells DVI-to-video converters which should make the video output viewable on my TV. Lets play with the idea that I add connect the headphone jack to my hifi amplifier and add the bluetooth option so I can control the mouse pointer with my mobile phone (works well even in Linux btw). Can I in Mac OSX adjust font sizes, icon sizes and stuff enough to the OS usable on a TV, using my phone as the mouse? Mac should already be one-click-optimized and so on, right? What problems and obstacles do you predict?
Imagine... the iBook *mwahahaha*.
Starting at $999. WIth both a display and a *gasp* rechargeable battery and wireless G =)
Apple always likes sticking it to people. This would be a great unit except for the fact that this box has a 4x agp w/32 megs of ram.
Basically larger monitors and higher refresh rates are going to take a beating. Perhaps if Apple put in something like an 8x apg, they could potentially sell larger monitors to the public.
They do make some nice LCD monitors. But, alas, they want everyone to own g5's @3000 grand.
O'well. Has anyone ever checked out a decent video card for the Mac's. They cost a darn small fortune. No, I don't anticipate this box for a gaming machine but have a 19 - 21 inch display with 1600x1200 or 1920x1200 would be nice.
And yes, I would buy this box if it weren't for the damn video card. Its not like this box has huge upgrade potential but having a good display is something that Apple should consider.
Its kind of funny, you can upgrade:
Memory
DVD
Audio
Wireless
Come on Apple, no expansion slots, give atleast an 8x AGP. Those cards still cost a fortune.
There's a dongle you plug into the back. It's not some expensive converter, it just exposes the composite output like the composite dongle you'd use on almost any modern PC card.
They don't include it with the box so that you don't have to pay for it if you don't want to use it. It also allows S-Video, as any decent tv-out card would.
Now, whether "scales" means on/off or a real ramp in feature-itis will have to be left to someone with Tiger running now.
I agree that it's a shame they couldn't have snuck a slightly better card (or at least an option for one) in there to mach the processor power.
Many DVDs of North American movies are released as region 1
Many DVDs like Japanese Anime that originate from Region 2 (Japan...) make their way into Region 1 releases, but not into other regions subsequently. This is one example I've come across in trying to get ahold of DVD titles. This is disappointing for someone who likes Anime, and who is not in Regions 1 or 2.
The DVI->VGA adapter is included. The DVI->TV (S-Video and composite) is not included (if you really wanted to use it as an entertainment center device and don't have an HDTV with DVI in).
Keep posting in the old story. Only about 100 more comments until the Iraq story gets ousted and this one makes the Hall of Fame.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
You are so completely right. I'm going to confiscate my father's, mother's, father in law's and aunt's mac, and I'll tell them to do it your way. Along the way I'll explain them the ins and outs of screwdrivers and from there move up to the other stuff.
/. (those not already owning Apple portables) are dying to try out. So why not nitpick?
Why? Because I enjoy doing free support. Because I think a PC is its hardware, like a car is its engine. Because I've never upgraded my Macs - oh, wait a minute, I have.
Anyway, we're talking about $500 for a machine previously geared towards professionals, and with an OS the other half of
And while I'm at it, I'm going to tell all those portable non-upgradeable computer people they're mad, MAD!!!! They should just equip their tower and monitor with wheels. What were they thinking?
Thanks for clarifying this for me.
I think, therefore I am...I think.
Am I the only one who got an mental image of Dr. Evil saying
"..and I shall name him Mini Mac. "
There is one gotcha: You have to do firmware updates from a Windows machine, and I haven't yet figured out how to keep my Mac from pestering me about them once they're available on Software Update. I'm sure there's a way, but I haven't found the button yet.
I'm not at home and can't check it directly, but I believe you simply select the update from the list, then use the menu entry that says "Ignore this item" or somesuch. When you want to re-enable the nagging, use the "Restore all updates" menu item.
Something like that. There are only four or five menus with Software Update, it's easy to check...
--R.J.
Electric-Escape.net
It's one of those things that annoyed me, but not enough for me to lift a finger to fix it. : )
Thanks for the tip. I'll let you know what I find.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
The software probably comes pre-installed and with a DVD of the hard drive image. this means you can only install the software on you Mac mini... ...I actually thought about buying a mini after Tiger comes out so I could get Tiger and iLife 05.... but it doesn't work that way :(
That depends on what type of games you want to play. Will it play Doom 11 well? Maybe not, but it will be very capable of running MacMAME, which is pretty much all I play anyway. I currently run MacMAME on my relatively "lowly" dual-533 MHz G4 (MacMAME gets no kick from dual processors, so effectively it's a single 533 for MacMAME) and it can play almost anything available quite well. Obviously the older games work great and most newer games too. For some reason it doesn't do well with Puzzle Bobble 2, 3 and up (original Puzzle Bobble it handles fine), but it works great with, for example, Metal Slug 1, 2 & 3 (I haven't tried Metal Slug X yet) and pretty much everything else I've tried. And that's at only 533 MHz and with a Nvidia GeForce2 MX. The Mac mini specs blow my system away, so it should handle it all with aplomb.
--- What?
Is there an echo in here?
Yes I know, as I said in my post you can get a $100 add on to do this, but that is overpriced and kludgy for what I want to do.
If you start looking around, you'll be surprised to see how upgradeable Macs are. My primary computer is a 5 years old PowerBook G3. I upgraded the hard drive 3 times (from 12 gig to 20 to 60), I upgraded the RAM to 768 MB (when the limit was supposed to be 512), I upgraded the CPU (from a 500 MHz G3 to a 900 MHz G3) and I upgraded the CD/DVD Rom to a CD/RW-DVD combo drive.
While its age begins to show (especially with the 8 MB RAM video card), it runs OS X and many apps (including GarageBand with virtual instruments, MS Office, iLife (but not iDVD), Quark XPress and most of the Adobe apps) all right. I have a X-Box for games but I still enjoy Diablo II (and it works just fine on it).
Bottom line is: Macs can be upgraded and as an added bonus, they don't get obsolete as quickly (every Mac OS X version was significantly faster than the previous).
Maybe a fairly high initial price tag but, IMHO, well worth it (incredible OS, nice apps, amazing support for standards, virtually no security issues).
Logic Supply 3677 mini-ITX System
- Power Supply Morex 80 Watt Power Supply
- Operating System Windows XP Professional - English
- Motherboard EPIA MII 12000 1.2Ghz
- Memory 256MB PC2100/DDR266 RAM
- Hard Disk 2.5" 80GB Hitachi 4200rpm
- Color Silver
- CD / DVD Drive TEAC DW-224E-93 Slimline CD-RW / DVD Combo
- Build and test Build and test this system
Total: $877.00
Er.. Maybe the Mac Mini isn't so badly priced hmm?
Look at the machine. Really small form factor. USB2.0 and Firewire, good Unix per default, Linux runs well on it, it has a really low power consumption and it is basically noiseless (hopefully but the pics indicate it) You know what this thing basically screams silent PC and Homeserver all over it.
Is it really that overpriced. I would say no, there are similar silent PC machines on the PC side of things. If you go for the 500-600 USD pricerange you end up mostly with something massively slower (C3 based) and lot less ports.
Or even more expensive, you cannot find anything from Hush PC at that price and most of that stuff has huge heatpipes into the back to cope with thermal issues
If you want something decent on the PC side of things in this area with around the same ram and hd configs you spend much more (Centrino based industrial solution which you cannot get that easy)
There also are several vendors which sell stuff based on arm, that stuff is 700USD+ (looked into those options recently as well)
Sorry to say that, but I have been looking into various options for such sleek homeservers which are silent and dont drain lots of energy and never though that apple would deliver one day the best bang for the buck.
Of course if you want to have a run of the mill our fans are louder than the one of the other company computer which has labeled GHz monster all over it, you might be better off with a standard PC solution, but those beasts are dead awful if you either want something small and/or something which does not take a lot of power, basically something you want to turn into a home/fileserver with some extra duties.
the ti99 was a 16bit machine...2x as good;-)
The even have it listed on the Mac mini accessories page http://www.apple.com.au/macmini/accessories.html
n .html it provides digital audio out and analog audio out for less than $100. Time to put your money where your mouth is?
Called the M-Audio Transit http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Transit-mai
So, out of curiosity, has anyone seen the guts of a Mini-mac yet ? The pictures I've seen on Apple's site -- particularly one of the motherboard and one with the cover removed -- give you some ideas -- compact motherboard, RAM on one side, skinny optical drive on top, mini-speaker in front -- but I'm curious about the hard drive: did they actually jam a full sized IDE drive in there, or is it a compact laptop model or a super-compact iPod one?
Some of the rumor sites were paying slavish attention to the deals Apple was making for bulk purchases of minature hard drives from Asian manufacturers. All of this speculation centered around the possibilities for new iPod models, but it occurs to me that at least some of those drives are probably going into the new Mac as well.
So -- has anyone had a chance to get pictures of a disassembly of a mini Mac yet ?
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
Nearly every complaint about the Mac Mini can be explained away by the general modularity of Macs which tend to be far more external than PCs. On my desk I have a Dell Winbox and a G5. I've had the G5 for a year now. Not one OS crash or failure or reboot. And now the only reason I run the PC is for soulseek. I will never go back to Windows, ever.
/. have complained about this. Also, the standard Mac keyboard has two USB plugs.
.DLL nightmares, pick up viruses in everything from cursor settings to email, et. al... For a base $500 you can have a computer that does that and so much more.
1) 2 USB ports. What do you do after mouse / keyboard and you want to plug in a printer?
A USB HUB. I can't believe people on
2) No Audio In - external firewire devices, which have been mentioned in many other posts with links, are readily available. If you're serious about gargeband you won't want a crappy minijack audio in anyway. You'll want a breakout box with a 1/4 or optical line in.
3) No Optical Audio out - again the reverse of the above.
4) Harddrive space, not enough for today's digital media. Same as an Ipod.
Again, external firewire drives, which are very important to the Mac in general. I use my G5 primarily for heavy duty HD editing. Guess what I use for storage? No SCSI or Raid array - an off the shelf LaCie Terabyte external Firewire 800 drive. I took it out of the box, plugged it in, copied files over from the SATA drive that came with the system, and within 15 minutes my setup was complete with now a terabyte to work with. Hell, you could plug one of them into a Mac Mini if you had that much porn to archive and were going to hack the thing to be a video server.
5) What hardware you're getting for that price.
You're also getting OSX and iLife '05. I skipped iLife 04, but I am rushing out the day '05 hits, because it is just incredible what you're getting for 79$. That cost is part of the Mini Mac.
Ultimately it's not even about the hardware. Granted I'm spoiled with a dual G5 processor, but when push comes to shove what made me fall in love with my Mac wasn't the sheer power of my system - it was the OS environment, the software, the interface, the stability, the lack of virus and spyware and adware and malware.
That to me is easily worth $500, which is why this is a product that should be for two ends of the market. Clueless newbies who expect - rightly so - that things should work, and hardcore techies who can now afford to keep a second box. What I think you'll find is that under Jobs' second tenure the Mac has become a device for your life, and it's all to do with the exceptional software made for it.
Most of us here shell out at least 1000 for a good PC system even if we build from scratch cause that's often the price for the best thing out there. Wouldn't you gladly pay $500 extra if you knew that WinXP would never crash, never present
6) No DVD Burner. Not enough RAM.
You can add Ram without violating the warranty yourself. Apple is charging way too much for it. And you can add a Superdrive for about $100 if I recall right. Giving you the option to burn DVDs. This I believe is a cost everyone should upgrade to, especially once they see the ease of iMovie and iDVD.
7) No VGA / S VIdeo out
Well it comes with a DVI to VGA adapater - if you're hooking up to an HDTV then use DVI for the love of god. And you can get a SVIdeo out for 19$
Did you also remember this is fanless and whisper quiet and smaller than a lunchbox? That they've liberated you from having to pair up with their overpriced (but absolutely phenonmenal) displays?
Every bit of commentary I've seen about this computer has completely missed the point or just been rife with ignorance. Every single major gripe is addressable, and the price point is absoutely amazing, again, for the software. Most of the readers here do get it - they can afford to have one to play with, and I wouldn't be surpri
** http://www.nkhumanrights.or.kr/ ** Human rights in North Korea. 1 million estimated dead from starvation.
The mac mini:
Backup: ships with rsync, tar, dd etc etc. Better versions and free GUI tools by download.
Database: MySQL, PostgreSQL etc etc by free download. Many nice free GUI tools.
The dell has a fast processor, but its hobbled with shared ram intel extreme video.
The Mac mini has at least a real video GPU. As apples Mac Mini website puts "it try running Halo on the cheapo PC".
Firewire and DVI are something you won't find on the Dell $500 computer.
The monetary values are equivalent. Apple has chosen to put money into features other than a fast processor, because it adds more real value to the customer (Who cares how many GHz it has, what does it do?)
I have mentioned this a few times elsewhere. I am well aware of this, but this is both an expensive and kludgy solution for something that should have been included.
I will never buy another computer that doesn't include built in digital sound (currently have Nforce with soundstorm).
As far as I know (and I could be wrong) Apple provides a program similar to Beowulf called Xgrid. If your Mac can use 10.3 you can use Xgrid.
"You can see I know very little about pimp policy." George McGovern.
Sure..but, I was thinking if I could get SSI working with the mini...get 3 of them for $1500...and have basically a 3 way machine with ppc...for the same amount of money as the 2 way athlon....
Wouldn't that be even more fun?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Well, mostly, it was just something fun to think about...but, also, it is easier to plunk down $500 every couple months to build a multi-way with mini-macs...than to plunkdown $2K in one shot.
"If you want to do rendering, then a Mac Mini may work well. Most rendering software allows you to setup other "nodes" that the main computer can off-load processing to. What application are you using for rendering?"
I was looking into using Blender to play around with....
"What you are looking for is SSI SMP (Single System Image) SMP. Your not going to get that on Mac OS X and Xgrid. You will get that on Linux though.
Yes...thanks...SSI is what I'm looking for...I've looked at mosix and open mosix as suggested...but, they seem only to be for the x86 chip. I can't tell what openssi will work with yet. Do you know of a SSI SMP application that will work on Linux on the ppc platform?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Urban Dictionary thinks so..
I've got 1k left to pay on my powerbook and this beats it's specs... hmmm wonder who got screwed? A pc user for this nice entry level mac with the power of a default pbook, or the recent pbook owner?
Either way I'm happy to see this out. Now I'll have a nice desktop at home for my wife and can afford to get one for my kids too. Got plenty of extra keyboards and mice lying around. Now just get two monitors at sub-$100 and I'm set!
My sig is as boring as you...
Just without a monitor and battery.
If I ever bought a Mac, I'd get one of these. I'm trying, right now, to justify another computer. I fucking [b]want[/b] one, but I'm completely stoked. I have all the machines I can find a use for.
The only "upgrade" I'd pull would be the 512meg. I don't trust any of my windows machines on the net, but I'd certainly hook the Mac up. I might try talking my sister into getting one, and picking up a "cheap" 17" LCD from Sam's.
Lack of GigE was the first thing that brought me back to reality - it doesn't mean I still won't buy one (or more) but I put my Visa back in the wallet for now.
For heaven's sake, why? Just a couple of years ago, I was designing cutting edge storage over IP systems. I'm telling you, a gigabit is really, really, fast. There are *very* few computers with i/o architectures and protocol stacks that can even begin to approach gigabit speeds.
Don't fall for the marktdroid hype - GigE on a MiniMac will never be missed - even the big Macs and Powerbooks that come with GigE have no prayer of actually being able to use it. It's a bit like a nice Pontiac V-6 (the rest of the computer) powering a Ferrari look-alike (the GigE NIC)- it's just not going to be able to live up to the promise - don't be fooled, it's still a Fiero GT under the skin.
In real life, unless you're building a storage backbone in a data center, or are doing *serious* workstation-type work on huge datasets (like terabyte CFD simulations or siesmic processing), you will NOT be able to use much more than 100 Mbps anyway, since the bottlenecks will be in your i/o paths and disk controllers. You need *very* serious RAID controllers to keep a gigabit wire full. I know: The system we built was 3x faster than IBM's high-end Shark storage server, and it took a year of hard work optimizing, tuning, and even waiting for Syskonnect to build a GigE card that could really deliver gigabit performance before we could fill that pipe. There are many more bottlenecks there than you would expect.
Granted, hardware has gotten faster in the last two years, but unless you're doing the sort of stuff mentioned above (and are using high-$$$ network controllers, RAID adapters, etc.), you'll never miss it if you don't have gigabit.
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
No thanks, 4200 rpm is too slow. Personally i think having a 4200rpm drive is WORST than having only 256 MB ram.
At the same point you have better ski runs, cheaper BMW's, socialized healthcare, and all those Mentos ads!
Your 10% is probably in there somewhere...
Perhaps Apple should have had like 20+ pages for Europe...
Just dont tell me that Esperanto is actually going to make it as the offical language!
Sir, you need your winky wacked by a hot French maid.
Dammit. Visa comes out of hiding again.
.iso's around, and more importantly when moving VM's around (details in older Journal entries, virtual machines = about 4-6GB apiece.) Neither of which, however, will I be doing on the MiniMac - so you are pretty much right in that 100Mbps ought to be plenty for whatever I am going to use it for.
Actually I am just coming down off a week long high doing GigE benchmarking using ramdrives (details in my Journal.) I have been able to peg GigE (116MB/s sustained throughput) in bogus benchmark tests but never in real applications.
I have seen an increase from 10MB/s to 33MB/s (3x) on real applications, however, which is important when moving
I will get one, no doubt, if for no other reason than to see what all versions of Linux I can get running on it (praying that SuSE 9.x has a PPC version, or that YellowDog cooperates) and because I want to play with OSX.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
current contracted production of Mini 100+k per month. G5 books will ship 2Q/05.
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20050114A7040.html
almost half a million a month per same source.
I love how all you out of the closet Mac fans...
Wait, you honestly believe that these "closet Mac fans" are not actually lying and astroturfing Mac fanboys?
Dear Monopoly rip-off merchants whoever you are......
I see the new Mac Mini is $499 USD which translates to about $704 NZD.
But I see Apple NZ is charging almost $950 NZD for the same machine. That is, um, almost $250 ABOVE the USA price.
Wow, that is a great margin.
I was thinking of buying one of these machines but not from NZ. Ok, so I risk the warranty but at that inflated rip-off price it is a gamble well worth taking.
Perhaps one of the monopolists would like to explain or are they too busy counting all their money?!
Seriously though, I would love to know why we are expected to pay such an overhead here in NZ.
Thanks and regards,
Robocopper
Karma? Sorry, i don't believe in superstition. http://talk.thinkingmatters.org.nz
for half the cash, you could go on ebay and buy a true dual processor ppc machine. a search for "dual g4" brings up lots of dual 1.2ghz MDD models, for about $850-$1000, depending.
plus these machines have far more expansion capabilities, and aren't limited by the 5400rpm notebook drive of the mini.
i mean, why would you waste so much time and effort on getting SSI to work on the minis when you could just get a true dualie with even more potential?
london is drowning and i live by river
I must add that I for one *seriously* consider to move to mac when I see this pretty box.
I'm pretty sure that the mac mini will convert a lot of PC people to mac.
perception is reality
This Mac is probably a perfect OSX/Linux Box since it has an Radeon 9200(rv280), which has 3D support under Linux/PPC, although it's not necessarily easy to configure. So hopefully every piece of hardware on this Mac can be used under Linux! MOOF!
I'm pretty stoked about this, the Radeon 9200 is the newest card with decent 3D open source drivers, cool!
One thing I can't find any info on is whether it is fanless? I would think they would tote fanless design, but from the internal pics it could only have a small fan if it does. I HATE small fans!
I know what you're saying, but I don't agree with the "Apple would have to have a phone" part.
Okay, "stand alone" PDAs have hit the wall. But frankly they weren't impressive for a lot of reasons -- all of which seem like they're exactly the sort of design and market niche problems Apple is currently solving like nobody else -- while they also combine features and function groups in interesting ways. Recent history has Apple releasing "digital hub" products that make idiosyncratic choices about feature sets. Maybe current market thinking says phones have to be part of the product, but then that's the same thinking that releases 2,000 phones with variations on the same three features. Apple doesn't release products identical to those already saturating the market, yep, you're right. But they wouldn't have to.
If you'd said they were releasing a "new cube, but at $500" a couple of weeks ago, I'd have been skeptical, yes? Pitched a little differently, though...
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
So that would be the Beige G3/266, which doesn't run 10.3 at all, which certainly won't run 10.4, and which even crashes once a week or so when you're running 10.2.8 (which is rock-solid on other machines). They have ADB I/O, a built-in SCSI motherboard connector, no firewire, no USB, old-world ROMs which have serious problems with bootstrapping Mac OS X at all... I could go on.
As opposed to the Blue and White G3. which runs 10.2 and 10.3 just fine, and which almost certainly will run 10.4 as well.
Now, quick quiz: which one is worth more? (No, not to YOU, but on the open market.)
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
No doubt some loner is scheming how to stuff that
baby into a Mac Classic case when his arrives in
a few weeks!
Clock speed doesn't matter to most people. Most people want to buy a computer to do certain things, and until the Mac Mini comes out, the cool looking Mac option is out of the question.
.27dp CRT (better than the nothing you get with the Mac Mini, but .27dp is nearly like a TV), and CD-RW OR DVD-ROM (the Mac Mini comes with a CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo which is better).
I have 5 kids (3 of my own plus 2 step-kids), and when it comes to buying a computer for one of them, I'm not spending over $700 unless I personally have a use for it.
Go out to a store like Best Buy, Fry's, or Microcenter and actually look at the computers you can get for less than $700. They generally are nowhere near as nice or compact as the Mac Mini. The fact that you can get one for $499 is a huge advantage for parents because a basic PC that does what you want will cost $699. You don't need a 2.8GHz P4 for word processing, web surfing, and chatting? Too bad, because you can't get anything slower/cheaper than that unless you get a Sempron PC with minimal capabilities, and even that costs $550 with a decent non-shared-memory video card!
I went shopping for exactly what I'm talking about over Christmas. I ended up scrounging up a used P-II because it was good enough and I didn't want to spend $550+. If I could've bought a Mac Mini for $499 plus tax, I would've bought it.
Look at Dell's website today. Their entry-level desktop is $499 (after a $60 rebate). At that price, you get 256mb RAM (like the Mac Mini), WinXP Home (come on, you have to admit Mac OS X is better than XP Home!), 40gb drive (like the Mac Mini), 17 inch
If you remove the Dell CRT, which is crappy anyway, you get a $45 rebate, but if you add the CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive you add $53, so the net cost is $563 (minus the $56 rebate). So, basically Dell's entry level PC is a huge standard PC desktop for the same price as the Mac Mini which is the size of a fat CD case, both with comparable features.
The only thing you could argue is that the 2.8GHz P4 is actually faster than a 1.25GHz G4, and that your kids actually need it. I won't get into that because I know from personal use that the performance of my 1.25GHz iMac is comparable to my 2.8GHz P4, and only a lunatic would really believe they could see some tiny performance difference.
In my case, either computer is more than enough for kids who have cheap PS2 and XBox for playing games. So, the question is which one will more easily fit into my living room or in my kids crowded bedroom desk? The Mac Mini will.
To me, the Mac Mini makes perfect sense for parents who either are tired of dealing with problems with existing home PC's (like me), and/or who want a cheap high-quality computer that will fit anywhere. The clock-speed is really inconsequential, so the Mac Mini makes Apple competitive in low-end computer sales. The fact that you get it in such a tiny package will often be the deal-maker, especially for parents with crowded homes.
The Mac Mini is really a smack in the face of the computer world. Got a PC acting up every week and giving you grief??? Just buy a Mac Mini for $499 and make it all go away. The PC, that is.
I'm still waiting to see the vaporous WinXP capuccino PC's. Oh shoot, with the same specs as the $499 Mac Mini, it costs $799!!! And for that price, you get CRAPPY shared memory video that can't be upgraded to decent video like on the Mac Mini. No wonder I didn't buy it. Check it out if you actually want to pay a premium for a Windows PC, but don't expect to see it at local stores:
http://www.cappuccinopc.com/
I'm waiting for the next revision to get a mini... It'll have all the kinks worked out and be more powerful.
The Admin and the Engineer
I'm going to use a DELL flat screen and a MICROSOFT keyboard... so what