Mac Mini, Should I

James_N

James_N

James_N

Soldato
Joined
25 Jan 2003
Posts
9,525
Hi

Hope people dont mind this post! Having been a long time PC user, Im quite curious to delve into the Mac world and see what its all about. My 3-4 year old acer laptop is pretty much buggered and i dont exactly travel around loads with it, apart from the odd trip to work, and i could still keep the laptop at work!

So rather than buy another laptop preloaded with the usual junk, I was debating a Mac. Having read on here that the Macbooks are due a refresh, and not really needing the portability of a laptop, i was going to go with a mac mini.

The specs however, seem quite behind the times compared to the newer laptops coming out with i5 / i7 technology. I have a few friends with macbooks though who tell me this isnt a problem, as everything on a mac just works quicker and easier than a windows system.

Also, how easy is it to come from using a windows system, to a mac system. I have an external hard disk with most of my work / general rubbish on, obviously NTFS formatted. Would this work in Mac, or would i need one of those apple time capsule external hard drives?

Mac Mini would basically be used for browsing the web / email / movies / organising my photos. The usual I guess. Im not into computer games really, so wanted to try something different, and I figure at £460 for the base Mac mini, thats only the same as i would spend on a laptop / desktop rig.

Also, just quickly, I presume i would have no problem connecting the mini up to my existing 32" TV that i have in my room?

Thanks and sorry for the longish post :)
 
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Hi

Thanks for that :) TV has a standard VGA connector on the back as well as HDMI connections. Its quite a new HD TV, so has a few options i would think :)
 
Also, connected to my TV, I have a sky box. Is there any way i could link it all up, so i can watch the sky via something like plex and record onto it as well, and basically use my mac mini as a media centre?
 
Just pulled the trigger on a base spec Mac Mini + Mini DisplayPort + USB AUDIO to HDMI (v1.3b) adapter cable by Neet. Hope ive done the right thing :D
 
Ive only tried linux a few times on this laptop, and i found it worked slower than windows 7. I dont have much experiance with linux
 
Ive done a lot of reading on plex. Will install that when i get it :)

Any other must have's or tips from someone coming from windows 7 to OSX? :)
 
and how do you get all the info on your desktop like this:

Picture1-1.png


Image stolen from the Apple show us your desktop thread, sorry!
 
yeah i did spec up a better doze box, but i thought i would give Mac a try. A few people at work have Macs and rave about them, so I figured i would give it a bash :)
 
well its arrived, and first impressions are...a bit..."meh"

Ive set up adium which is ok. Bluephone elite just keeps syncing my phone then disconnecting it.

Ive had a quick play with safari and installed plex, and thats....it.

Bit bored now, run out of things to do! I guess im out my comfort zone a bit with this, whether i'll stick with it or not, remains to be seen. I just dont know what the hell im doing really!

How do i get safari to maximise to the whole of the screen? the only res i can use is 1280x1024 and safari just sits in the middle of the screen. I want it to fill the screen :(
 
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Well im installing office 2008 for Mac now.

My 320GB extrernal drive for some reason now is not showing up in OSX when its plugged in. dunno why. I was going to dump all my TV shows and stuff on that and use it through plex untill i could afford a firewire drive,
 
cheers Feek :) sorted the browser now. Simple stuff when you know how hey!

/edit - sorted the hdd now too. didnt "eject" it in doze properly!

Now to get safari to store all my passwords!

Dont really want to use firefox, its a bit of a memory hog (on windows at least!)
 
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Afraid to say I caved in and submitted a returns form to apple. I maybe should have given it a bit longer, but I know im not going to get on with it, and its just going to brass me off, so im now going to spec up a much better windows machine. It will be much more suited to my needs.

Thanks for all your help guys :)
 
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