"Although it uses desktop memory, the Mac mini uses a 2.5" notebook hard drive. The base $499 version comes with a 40GB drive and the $599 version comes with a 80GB drive. What is surprising however is that some units appear to come with Seagate's 5400RPM Momentus ST94011A drive, including the unit reviewed here today. The 5400RPM drive features a 2MB buffer and is fairly snappy for a 2.5" drive, it's still much, much slower than a 3.5" desktop drive, but it's a nice surprise to see a 5400RPM drive used in the mini. We have been getting reports of some units coming with 4200RPM drives however, right now it seems to be luck of the draw as to which drive you get. "
and
"The other surprise we got was that the memory installed in the mini was in fact CAS 3 DDR400 and not DDR333 as Apple's spec sheet suggests. Granted anything above DDR333 does absolutely nothing for the mini as the G4 is FSB limited to the bandwidth of single channel DDR333 SDRAM."
Re:Building is more fun than working at Maccers
on
Mac mini Dissection
·
· Score: 1
Well I have done enough pc building that it is more of a chore or a routine. The glamour has worn off. What is so special about assembling a bunch of pre-fabricated stuff.
There is no real brainwork going on there. Slap in the MB, pop in the processor, stick a few cards in, punch in the memory, connect a few cables and peripherals....Wow......dang that was hard.
I will still build machines from time to time, but now that I can pick up Mac machines so cheaply and they just work. I am getting one for everone in my family and convincing my friends that the next time they upgrade they need to get a Mac mini.
Hmmm...I have built more than 30 machines. I have never been able to hold one to less than $500 once shipping for the parts is incorporated. Not realistically anyhow.....just built a couple shuttle boxes, but they both cost more than 500. Maybe I am just spendy.
It has only become cheap enough to build a reasonable computer for sub 500 within the last couple years.
The biggest differences:
1. Mini is for the most part smaller than anything in the pc world other than pc-105 computers.
2. Case is stylish.
3. Mac OS-X is sleek for those who need idiot proof computing (my mom, my grandma, my wife's aunts and uncle, and my sister.)
4. I won't have to spend hours fixing broken stuff on the machines of those mentioned above. Currently, every time I go to someones house I have to fix new stuff.
5. Linux programs run right on the Mac Desktop without reboot. (don't need a dedicated or dual boot system)
Sounds like a solution to keep me from maintaining a buttload of crappy window's boxes.
Hmmm. Seems to me that if this putz had his way they would try to ban all opensource so they could compete in the right way.
I suppose if it ever came to that it would be up to Canada and the rest of the world to act as a bulwark against oppression.
To accept refugees and to preserve freedom in this Hemisphere.
Go Canada! Defenders of the Previous "American Way!"
Machines are cheap enough that nobody who will spend the kind of money for this thing really needs to worry about the limitations or 2 pci slots. I have collected 4 junkers over the years so I can add tons of cards to my increasingly massive network.
Never get rid of a machine. Just NETWORK!
I read in a photography magazine about 10 years ago that digital resolutions would have to be around 5400x3600 to equal the resolution obtained by the typical slide film. 19.4 million pixel resolution.
The article also said that to equal the average print film would require a resolution of 6 million pixels.
Can anyone speak to this?
Just curious.
Wow glad to hear that I am not the only one who couldn't stand the Covenant Series. Everyone around me kept saying how amazing it was, but after restarting it 3 times I finally gave up on it in sheer boredom. I read the Dune series when I was young and was really sucked into each of the books. I look forward to re-reading them at some later time. Perhaps not the absolutely greatest set of books to ever be written, but definately great. The search just has to go on for even more great SF books. Too bad I can't live 10,000 years so I can read all of them.
One time I read an article...maybe 10 years ago comparing the resolution equivalent of slide film with that of CCD imaging. In order for digital media to capture all that a typical 35mm slide does, the resolution would need to be on the order of 16-18 million pixels. The true resolution would need to be on the order of 3,600 x 5,400 pixels or greater. We are not quite there yet, but quite soon I believe such resolutions will be available. The only problem then will be working out ways to give such cameras the same level of control and function that a regular SLR has. As for medium format who knows how soon we will get a camera on the market .
This reminds me of the old argument the catholic church used when the printing press first came about. The printing press made books available to the masses and enhanced the knowledge of the entire planet. No longer was all of the combined knowledge of the world locked away in church libraries, it was made available to the masses. The printing of books, contrary to the opinion of some scholars at the time, did not cheapen the value of the texts. The printing press has given us an incredible gift which we take for granted on a daily basis. Soon we will be able to take the digitized version of the library of congress for granted as well. Gods will be done. It has been thought of and it shall be reality!
I think it is worth spending lots of research money on this disease and for many other diseases. Malaria kills 3 million/year world wide. With outbreaks of Ebola, Dengue, and other nasty things cropping up all of the time I applaud anyone who has the foresight to hand over some bigtime cash for biomed research. He definately gets an A+ in being a person who gives a damn about humanity.
I have 4 new albums I wouldn't have bought if I hadn't liked the mp3's I heard. I download tons of mp3's and get a chance to hear music I have never heard of before. Can't buy it if I don't hear it. I find that I don't listen to radio much anymore, so my exposure to music is thru the web.
Right now, I have a list of 4 or 5 albums I want after listening to the mp3's. I have another list of 40+ abums I want to buy too. Maybe, I could find some of the songs or albums on the web, but I want the album itself.
MP3's helps keep me from buying crappy albums too! I only have limited funds and wouldn't buy more albums than these in the next couple years. But I can keep downloading and finding more ablums I will add to my list.
My system is very usable as a home system, as a business system. Lack of standards is killing nothing..... Linux is for the patient.....those who like to nurture things and watch them grow. It is for those who want to really make their computers work for them in ways nobody else thought of. Linux may be 10 years behind windows, at least temporally, but it is way ahead of windows in capability and potential.
And linux has only just begun. And look how far it has come....I can wait cause life is long. Anything imagined can be accomplished and will be.
Games are fun for some people.If it gets more people into computers and Linux who really cares. It isn't like it will inhibit anyone from sitting around tweaking their system 24-7 if that is what they want. There are lots of things that one can do with linux and games is a tiny portion of the larger linux stratosphere. Games are good. Ham radio is good. Speech recognition is good. AI is good. Whatever you want to do with Linux, you will add to your enjoyment of life so who cares how people spend there time...
Games are not just for "newbie lamers" nor will Linux be brought down by Video games. 3-d is merely a stepping stone to fully holographic imaging systems.
Slashdot Mirror
This is seagates 2.5" drive for the server market.
/
Spins at 10K....
http://www.seagate.com/products/discfamily/savvio
http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/20050124-newslet ter.xml
Whoohoo....that is what I want to do as soon as I get one....should be fun.
Anandtech has a review and they have found some different hardware from spec.
p =5
http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2328&
"Although it uses desktop memory, the Mac mini uses a 2.5" notebook hard drive. The base $499 version comes with a 40GB drive and the $599 version comes with a 80GB drive. What is surprising however is that some units appear to come with Seagate's 5400RPM Momentus ST94011A drive, including the unit reviewed here today. The 5400RPM drive features a 2MB buffer and is fairly snappy for a 2.5" drive, it's still much, much slower than a 3.5" desktop drive, but it's a nice surprise to see a 5400RPM drive used in the mini. We have been getting reports of some units coming with 4200RPM drives however, right now it seems to be luck of the draw as to which drive you get. "
and
"The other surprise we got was that the memory installed in the mini was in fact CAS 3 DDR400 and not DDR333 as Apple's spec sheet suggests. Granted anything above DDR333 does absolutely nothing for the mini as the G4 is FSB limited to the bandwidth of single channel DDR333 SDRAM."
Well I have done enough pc building that it is more of a chore or a routine. The glamour has worn off. What is so special about assembling a bunch of pre-fabricated stuff.
.....dang that was hard.
There is no real brainwork going on there.
Slap in the MB, pop in the processor, stick a few cards in, punch in the memory, connect a few cables and peripherals....Wow.
I will still build machines from time to time, but now that I can pick up Mac machines so cheaply and they just work. I am getting one for everone in my family and convincing my friends that the next time they upgrade they need to get a Mac mini.
Hmmm...I have built more than 30 machines. I have never been able to hold one to less than $500 once shipping for the parts is incorporated. Not realistically anyhow.....just built a couple shuttle boxes, but they both cost more than 500.
:
Maybe I am just spendy.
It has only become cheap enough to build a reasonable computer for sub 500 within the last couple years.
The biggest differences
1. Mini is for the most part smaller than anything in the pc world other than pc-105 computers.
2. Case is stylish.
3. Mac OS-X is sleek for those who need idiot proof computing (my mom, my grandma, my wife's aunts and uncle, and my sister.)
4. I won't have to spend hours fixing broken stuff on the machines of those mentioned above. Currently, every time I go to someones house I have to fix new stuff.
5. Linux programs run right on the Mac Desktop without reboot. (don't need a dedicated or dual boot system)
Sounds like a solution to keep me from maintaining a buttload of crappy window's boxes.
Hmmm. Seems to me that if this putz had his way they would try to ban all opensource so they could compete in the right way. I suppose if it ever came to that it would be up to Canada and the rest of the world to act as a bulwark against oppression. To accept refugees and to preserve freedom in this Hemisphere. Go Canada! Defenders of the Previous "American Way!"
I still love my atari...now that is a solid product! hehehe
For those who don't mind wearing a few extra battery packs this could be very interesting. Kind of extravagant, but way swank all the same.
Build your own system using PC-104 components and you would easily clear 80W.
now I don't have to waste time going to the article. short and sweet
Machines are cheap enough that nobody who will spend the kind of money for this thing really needs to worry about the limitations or 2 pci slots. I have collected 4 junkers over the years so I can add tons of cards to my increasingly massive network. Never get rid of a machine. Just NETWORK!
I read in a photography magazine about 10 years ago that digital resolutions would have to be around 5400x3600 to equal the resolution obtained by the typical slide film. 19.4 million pixel resolution. The article also said that to equal the average print film would require a resolution of 6 million pixels. Can anyone speak to this? Just curious.
Wow glad to hear that I am not the only one who couldn't stand the Covenant Series. Everyone around me kept saying how amazing it was, but after restarting it 3 times I finally gave up on it in sheer boredom. I read the Dune series when I was young and was really sucked into each of the books. I look forward to re-reading them at some later time. Perhaps not the absolutely greatest set of books to ever be written, but definately great. The search just has to go on for even more great SF books. Too bad I can't live 10,000 years so I can read all of them.
One time I read an article...maybe 10 years ago comparing the resolution equivalent of slide film with that of CCD imaging. In order for digital media to capture all that a typical 35mm slide does, the resolution would need to be on the order of 16-18 million pixels. The true resolution would need to be on the order of 3,600 x 5,400 pixels or greater. We are not quite there yet, but quite soon I believe such resolutions will be available. The only problem then will be working out ways to give such cameras the same level of control and function that a regular SLR has. As for medium format who knows how soon we will get a camera on the market .
This reminds me of the old argument the catholic church used when the printing press first came about. The printing press made books available to the masses and enhanced the knowledge of the entire planet. No longer was all of the combined knowledge of the world locked away in church libraries, it was made available to the masses. The printing of books, contrary to the opinion of some scholars at the time, did not cheapen the value of the texts. The printing press has given us an incredible gift which we take for granted on a daily basis. Soon we will be able to take the digitized version of the library of congress for granted as well. Gods will be done. It has been thought of and it shall be reality!
I have reinstalled windows 30 times in 3 years. not quite once a week, but a real pain none the less.
I think it is worth spending lots of research money on this disease and for many other diseases. Malaria kills 3 million/year world wide. With outbreaks of Ebola, Dengue, and other nasty things cropping up all of the time I applaud anyone who has the foresight to hand over some bigtime cash for biomed research. He definately gets an A+ in being a person who gives a damn about humanity.
I had no problems partitioning my large seagate. Partitioning it with fdisk was a breeze and worked strait away.
I have 4 new albums I wouldn't have bought if I hadn't liked the mp3's I heard. I download tons of mp3's and get a chance to hear music I have never heard of before.
Can't buy it if I don't hear it. I find that I don't listen to radio much anymore, so my exposure to music is thru the web.
Right now, I have a list of 4 or 5 albums I want after listening to the mp3's. I have another list of 40+ abums I want to buy too. Maybe, I could find some of the songs or albums on the web, but I want the album itself.
MP3's helps keep me from buying crappy albums too!
I only have limited funds and wouldn't buy more albums than these in the next couple years. But I can keep downloading and finding more ablums I will add to my list.
My system is very usable as a home system, as a business system. Lack of standards is killing nothing.....
Linux is for the patient.....those who like to nurture things and watch them grow. It is for those who want to really make their computers work for them in ways nobody else thought of.
Linux may be 10 years behind windows, at least temporally, but it is way ahead of windows in capability and potential.
And linux has only just begun. And look how far it has come....I can wait cause life is long. Anything imagined can be accomplished and will be.
Games are fun for some people.If it gets more people into computers and Linux who really cares. It isn't like it will inhibit anyone from sitting around tweaking their system 24-7 if that is what they want.
There are lots of things that one can do with linux and games is a tiny portion of the larger linux stratosphere.
Games are good.
Ham radio is good.
Speech recognition is good.
AI is good.
Whatever you want to do with Linux, you will add to your enjoyment of life so who cares how people spend there time...
Games are not just for "newbie lamers" nor will Linux be brought down by Video games.
3-d is merely a stepping stone to fully holographic imaging systems.