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The $599 Mac Mini is so tempting. I can't rationalize spending the money, but I really want it bad. I am so sick of using Windows everyday at work. Coming home from work then using OSX would be a nice change(so would linux). I like the fact I can use bash with the command line, that is cool. I kind of think the 5200 rpm harddrive may slow it down a bit. Other then heat, I don't know why Apple would go with the slow drive.

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The $599 Mac Mini is so tempting. I can't rationalize spending the money, but I really want it bad. I am so sick of using Windows everyday at work. Coming home from work then using OSX would be a nice change(so would linux). I like the fact I can use bash with the command line, that is cool. I kind of think the 5200 rpm harddrive may slow it down a bit. Other then heat, I don't know why Apple would go with the slow drive.

Yeah, the mac mini looks attractive, very good specs. Yeah, having a command line interface is sweet:-) I'm going to be getting a macbook in the next little while. OS X is excellent.

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I've played with minis at the Apple store they seem pretty snappy. I've heard that a lot of people like to boot their mini from a firewire drive and use the internal drive for storage. They say it makes it faster, I kind of doubt it make that big a difference for most everyday tasks. The mini hasn't had any big updates in a long time, it did get a processor update I think this past fall but I can see a hard drive update coming soon.

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if you have monitor and stuff, they are not bad, but if you don't an Imac is my better choice. but its all up to how you will use it.

also I really want a Pico itx board.. but I can't see spending 250 on something I will just play with.. well except the the wii ..

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  • 4 weeks later...

I just sold my old Athlon XP computer(my first build) for $250. I then rationalized ordering a $599 mini. I spent the extra $20 for overnight delivery. It is coming soon. Hopefully it will be packaged and sent out in 1-4 days. This is going to be used as our main family computer. The funny part is I am hooking it up to a 100 pound 21" crt. I have a a fast windows machine with lots of storage I can network it with using gigabit ethernet, so the 80gb drive will be fine.

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I definitely want to be able to run some windows apps, mainly power point. My kids use it for some school projects. I am not sure If I want to use vmware, boot camp, or just vnc into my windows box.

1. boot camp seem like a solid choice. I like the idea of running windows natively. It would give great performance. The big negative is having to reboot to use it. From the little bit I read, it seems I don't have to repartition to make it work.

2. Vmware is also a good choice. It is nice not having to reboot just to use a windows app. Virtualization can kind of be laggy. If I went that route, I may want to install more memory. I am not sure if that would void my warranty. I assumed I can run vmware on mac for free like I can on Linux or Windows, right?

3. just vnc into my other windows box would be easy. The only negative to doing that is it is also my tv machine. That means the kids doing homework would interfere with me watching tv.

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Check codeweavers site many windows apps can be run without installing windows.

You can also just get office 08 for Mac. Before you go to far try Keynote, Pages and Numbers that come as a trial with your mini. Many people that use iwork especially Keynote never touch powerpoint again. I just use text edit myself.

You should give os x a try without installing windows first. I haven't owned a Windows machine in eight years I have never had any problems getting anything done. The Mini comes with a lot of great software but it's going to take you a few weeks to get the hang of it. I'm sure your kids will have it figured out in a day or two ;)

RAM install

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Will the ram install void my warranty?

I know my kids can use PowerPoint to do home work. that is a significant issue. I refuse to spend extra money on office for Mac. As to word processing, any program can work that is able to save the documents as a RTF file.

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Two of three of my kids did not seem to like the idea of taking the Vista computer and trading it in fo a Mac. My 8 year old boy did not like the fact he could not play some of the games he used to. I may have to splurge and get him a game that plays on the mac(I only have on board intel 945 graphics). My daughter just does not like change. I told here you can still spend the day watching youtube videos and going to myspace. In actuality it will not change much for her.

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Well he won't be playing guitar hero on a mini but most new games will play fine. Some games

If your daughter ever wants to make youtube videos in stead of just watching them, imovie 08 is simple to use and is intergraded with Youtube so rendering and uploading is all done seamlessly. Also iphoto will import video off regular digital Still/movie cameras also intergraded with imovie. If you need more power imovie HD 6 is still available as a free download.

Also wait to your kids get a hold of Garageband. If any of them like music, are musicians or just want to be rap stars or podcasters they may just forget about playing games.

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open office is always a choice (neo office on the Mac)

for school the kids save as a PDF, at first the teachers had a fit, but then I stood up at the PTA and suggested they buy me MS office, after that they agreed that PDF was fine.

as for games, that's why the kids got a Wii, :)

but seriously, a lot of games run on the mac and the Intel chip set is no where near as bad on the mac as it is in windows..

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side note, I am looking at a ASUS Eee PC for my daughter, its not a Mac, but it will allow her to do homework. also most of the games she plays are online.. so no big issues..

I have a Macbook with a gig of ram, and run Zoo Tycoon for my wife in parallels (got the PC version free from my Brother in Law when he worked at Microsoft)

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Text edit is nice :-) It even has built in spell check.

Currently every family member has multiple installs of Firefox in their /Users directories. I know their must be a more efficient way by just making a link to the one that I left in the /Applications directory. Can a link to my program be stored on the Doc? I think my kids will catch on to some stuff quicker then me. I am so used to Windows(or even linux, its meant to copy the feel of Windows) way of doing things so it seems slow to get around. I am sure that will change.

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This is odd. I set my root password and am able to use that account for making administrative changes to the computer. When I open up a bash shell and try using the su command to change to root, my password fails.

edit added//

I already crashed my system. I tried to log into my root account using the graphical user interface.

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When you install a program on a multi user mac during the install or after the first start up you should get a dialog box that ask if you want all users some users or just you to have access to the app. This will allow others to use the app but store all preferences in there user library.

I haven't needed to use Root scenes 10.2 . You should be able to su with your admin password.

I just tried to su with admin password and it said sorry. I know leopard made changes to be fully UNIX compliant but su... I'll do some looking when I get home and get back to you unless you figure it out first.

I just tried sudo -s and was able to log in.

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Oh, text edit doesn't have a spell check of it's own OS X has a universal spell check pretty much everything uses the spell check. You may have to enable it on some programs Edit > Spelling and Grammar.

"sudo su also gets you in."

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