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Mac mini's New Friend
Thijs van As writes "The miniMate, MicroNet's new external disk drive and port replicator, is created specifically to complement Apple's new Mac mini. With available storage up to 400GB, 4 USB 2.0 ports and 3 FireWire ports, the miniMate extends the capabilities of the Mac mini. Looks impressive if you ask me."
That's slightly misleading, since you have to use one of each of those to connect the unit to the mac mini and use those ports as a hub. Still seems pretty neat though. 2 firewire ports can be very handy.
-1 (Troll) is antihammer
.. they went to all that work to make an extender box for the mac mini, and ship 'standard' firewire/usb cables .. 7" and 9" long, respectively.
..
pfft. if they were a real Apple accessory company, this box'd have its own little, short, 'smart'-looking cables which are neat enough, and only long enough, to stretch from mac mini port to hub port.
niggly point, but a point nevertheless. if i'm going to buy one of these things for my mac mini, i want it to be -neat- and not end up promoting ratsnest cable propagation
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
It's a firewire hard drive. One could assume you can format it however you want.
The cow goes "tink"
A daisy-chain of these! (note: not a beowulf cluster) It would be similar to a Navi brick system. I still want some sort of expandable bus standard. It sure would be great to add a video card by pluggin in an expansion brick. Unfortunately the RFI involved in external cables and the shielding required make this difficult.
Heute die Welt, morgen das Sonnensystem!
From the website:
MM80 $149.00
MM160 $179.00
MM250 $249.00
MM400 $499.00
As much as I like the form factor I would have a real hard time buying one of these, but if I did it would have to be the 250. Can you stack 'em and get an extra 100GB + twice the ports for $500?
Apple might have a case that the MiniMate infringes on the trademark it has established with the Mac mini on the grounds that it has copied its trade dress.
Looking at the front of the machine, there are no markings on the Mac mini to let you know that it is an Apple product, whereas Micronet is emblazoned on the front of its MiniMate. If the Mac Mini is covered on top by the MiniMate or the pair are stacked in a rack/cabinet/cubbyhole, one might think that both boxes are made by Micronet, effectively causing a likelihood of confusion "or to deceive as to the...origin...of the goods." (this last language is taken straight out of Section 43(a) of the Lanham Act.)
I know most /.'ers won't have this problem of confusion but I believe that the standard is according to some "reasonable person of the community" standard, and whether they would be confused by the trade dress...
I think Apple went after a Chinese (or Taiwanese?) company a few years ago for its bondi blue iMac lookalike....but they seem to have a more favorable view of add-ons like this one that resemble the original product without performing the same functions (the huge iPod accessory market is further proof of their leniency to accessories that piggy-back off their designs without directly competing with them).
They really should have included an USB Sounddevice with optical Audio in and out and an analog Audio in. That's really missing.
Otherwise, this is an expected product.
Isn't this just an outright advertisement posing as News for Nerds? You think I could get an 'article' into slashdot if it was just touting a 30% sale at DealRam or Newegg or something?
... "new external firewire drive that stacks perfectly with Mini, 3 additional USB2, 2 additional Firewire 400, 250 GB for $99!" Maybe with some more exclamation points so it looks really news-like.
:-)
The only time I would think a product like this was news was if the price was stupidly low. Like
Sorry for the rant. Glad to see there have been so few dupes (possibly none?!) in the last two weeks.
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
It's only misleading if you don't assume it has to attach to the Mac somehow. It doesn't claim to be a Bluetooth or WiFi network-attached hard drive. Also, one of the USB ports is a USB B port, so that one could only be used one way: to attach to the computer.
But then they could have designed a proprietary harness port and a special cable with a connector for that port on one end and USB and Firewire on the other if you'd preferred. It would raise the price though.
I like how its under-the-computer design resembles Mac hard drives of old.
But someone's going to have to get one, open it up, and see if it is possible to swap in normal internal drives and what type of drive it uses, e.g. serial or parallel ATA, desktop or laptop.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
User #38 and this is the first time you've noticed a blatant Slashvertizement?
Are you a new user who bought this account from somebody else, or have you simply not been paying any attention?
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I think what the Mac Mini really needs is a KVM ability.
It would be great if I could plop a new MacMini next to my existing PC, plug my current Keyboard,Video,Mouse in the MacMini, and then connect the MacMini to my existing PC. Then I could press the switch on the MacMini and toggle between the two machines.
I could then have the best of my old and new systems at the same time.
From their specs page:
-OS Support : Mac OS X v10.1.5 & greater, Windows 98SE, 2000, ME, XP
Mexico: 100% conservative's America now!
Maybe you are right, but this is the first device I see that integrates an USB hub and a Firewire hub (to be honest, I didn't know that it could be done) in a external hard disk enclosure. I live in Mexico, the price for these things are:
-USB hub: US$ 15 -38
-160 HD: US$ 90-120
-FireWire Hub: never seen one here
-External HD enclosure: US$ 60-100
Really, the price of this unit is low, if the quality of the enclosure is similar to the case of the Mac mini, then it is cheap.
Mexico: 100% conservative's America now!
Guess you didn't notice the caveat about how no one else has bitched yet.
Of course it happens regularly, but you have to speak truth to power... You have to stand up and shout "damn you slashdot for posting an advertisement as news!"
Additionally I'm not even that pissed about the 'ads as news' in and of itself... it's just stupid that it's not even like a newsworthy ad. It's just "ho hum, another external hard-drive that isn't worth it". A dollar per gig?! Even with a 10 dollars worth of USB/FW hubs? It's a fucking travesty. ('Course now I'll get 5 posts saying "it's a great value having those hubs and stuff built into something that costs 50% of the machine in the first place; I'll then have to retort, ad nauseam, about how "it leaves out some of the glaring oversights of the Mini itself, notably, a line in." Why are you going to spend that much money and not want the sockets on the front? )
Anyway, if you were a subscriber you could see this surely isn't a purchased account, but it's more fun to troll, isn't it? Fortunately your comments usually add to a discussion, so we don't all have to write you off for this one lame post.
Sorry to rant, I guess you asked for it.
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
... the more things change, the more they stay the same ... http://members.aol.com/suprdave/classiccmp/512_hd2 0.htm
I think their name on the front isn't very attractive. Would be nice to find a way to get rid of it.
If I bought the item, why do they need to continue to advertise to me?
They clearly aren't paying attention to what people who don't already own Apple hardware, and some that do, want. External hard drives and hubs are easy to come by, but a Video IO packaged into a Mac Mini sized device with IR would be *perfect* for all those people looking to turn the Mac Mini into a media center, or generaly integrating it into their AV setup. I'm sure there's a market for this, especially since it adds hard drive space without having to go inside the Mini, but as far as a port replicator solution, it's only got half of the ports that a great many would-be customers would like to see.
When trying to load the HTML presentation, I get this:
This presentation contains content that your browser may not be able to show properly. This presentation was optimized for more recent versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer.
If you would like to proceed anyway, click here.
For the price of a *properly outfitted Mini plus the price of this little widget, you could just get either an iBook or maybe even an entry level iMac G5. I'm not saying this isn't filling someone's niche out there, but for the lion's share of users, you might as well get a better processor or go portable if you're starting to get into that kind of spending. But, if your needs are matched up to a Mini (i.e., tight spaces, etc.), then I can see this widget being useful. Otherwise, I think it's more of an accessory than a necessity.
YMMV.
*by properly outfitted, I mean a machine that will likely be using those extra ports, etc.-- 1.42 GHZ, superdrive, and 1GB RAM. That, of course, is disputable. If you have to buy a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, then you're really spending some money. Oh, don't forget the "AppleCare" (you might need it!) Now you're looking at ~$1,250.00 (give or take).
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
How does the eyeTV 500 work with the Mini? I've heard the peanut gallery say the Mini doesn't have the horse power to do HD...
Far exceeds expectations.
On 1080i broadcasts, there is some (very rare) frame-dropping which can happen during very fast camera-pans, but otherwise it does rather well. Even when it does happen, it's subtle enough that most house-guests don't notice it unless I point it out to them.
720p broadcasts, such as "Tru Calling" on FOX, play smooth as silk, as long as I'm not running other stuff in the background or moving anything else on the firewire bus.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I have a KVM switch which is USB based.
It supports 2 VGA monitors, and has 4 USB ports on the console.
I have my wireless keyboard/mouse from Logitech plugged into it.
It is hooked up to a Windows XP machine and a PowerMac G5.
It works well, EXCEPT I dislike the delay when switching from one computer to the other. For general use I run a program called Synergy (available on sourceforge) which allows you to drag the mouse from one computer to the other, with keyboard focus following the mouse.
Cut & paste of plain text works reasonably well and it makes having a Mac, and PC on the same desk a dream to work with.
If all that's holding you back from buying a MacMini is the thought of adding a second keyboard and mouse, forget it, go out and buy one. USB based KVM switches are readily available.
(If you need one with PS/2, and USB support you might have to look harder).
I recommend both a switch box for those circumstances when synergy doesn't work, and synergy for all other times.
Dragging a mouse from a PC running Windows XP to a machine running Mac OS X is sure to impress your friends, and you can throw a linux box into the mix too!
That name makes me picture a very small Australian.
"The newly born animals are then whisked off for a quick run through a giant baking oven." --heard on Food Network