I think but I'm not sure that the mini comes with an apple bt keyboard. so you might be fine there. If not you can get her the apple usb full size keyboard. The specs look good and maybe get her a monitor from wally world on clearance. and maybe the magic track pad of the 1 button mouse won't work.
Take care. On Apr 7, 2013, at 7:37 PM, "Chris Gilland" <[email protected]> wrote: > I know it's not May as of yet, so I have a bit still yet to financially save, > but I do want to be at least going ahead and doing my homework on things. > > I myself am a huge Apple fanatic. By now, you all should know that. I have > IPhones here, IPads, a mac mini, a Mac book, a few apple TV's, etc. Needless > to say, I love! Apple! With this said, here is the situation. > > My mother currently has an old Dell Demention desktop Windows tower machine. > Hold on, before you,Gordon or Lynn chew me out saying this list isn't Windows > related, let me finish my comment, then you'll know why I'm mentioning the > Windows side of this, as believe me, this post has hardly anything! to do > with Windows. I say this though so you all know what she's got currently. > So, it's running Windows XP SP3, I'm not sure the ram nor hard disk size. I > know she bought the thing back in 2004. I want to say a 50 or 80 gig drive, > roughly, I'd say around 512MB ram. This thing's got spyware galore on it, > probably viruses left and right, and honestly has not been scanned nor > updated in probably over 2 years. I keep telling her to do it, but that > leads me to why I'm writing this e-mail... > > She is extremely! basic when it comes to computers. When her company made > her stop using a Blackberry (or as I'd call it, a Crap berry,) she went into > using her work IPhone 4S kicking and screaming. Between myself and one of my > mom and I's best friends who's like a brother to me, and like a 2nd son to > her, we both worked with her, and got her to where now, she doesn't do a huge > amount with her phone aside texting and e-mail, and maybe using her camera a > fair amount etc. I think she's used Pandora maybe once or twice, and she > uses Downcast almost constantly. Point is, she's not a huge techy like I am, > or a lot of us are on list. > > She has seen my Mac computers and said they actually looked really easy to > use from what little she saw. I told her compared to windows, I personally > had to whole heartedly agree. To me, the mac makes way more sense. It just > seems to be way better laid out, and for beginners, seems to be extremely > intuitive. With this said, her birthday is May the 6th. I'm going to be > getting her a Mac Mini with Mountain Lion, as frankly, she really! does need > a new computer. And, she's really starting to get more into the Apple line > of things. She's got an Apple TV 2nd generation, and watches Hulu Plus all > the time! on the thing, plus her Netflix. She's in heaven with the thing! > That was her BD gift last year. Also, her sister gave her an IPad 1st > generation which she swears by. So, I come to you all, for advice. She > probably wont' do much more than browsing the web in Safari, or maybe in > Chrome/Firefox, she may do some basic and I do, mean, very! very! basic photo > viewing/editi ng, like cropping or resizing in Preview/IPhoto. (She's sighted.) She'll probably check E-mail a fair amount with the Mail application, and probably would want to do some stuff with Itunes, and she'll probably wind up using IWorks. Also she may use the native DVD player app a bit to watch movies. She's not going to be doing a lot of heavy duty stuff. No audio editing, no video editing, no hard powered core photo editing, just more the very basic stuff. > > She currently has a monitor with her Dell system, but it's V G A only. The > minis require HDMI. Yes, I know about the adapter that comes in the mac mini > box to convert that HDMI, but she doesn't have a port that even would fit the > adapter, and her monitor doesn't have HDMI either. I thought about getting > her maybe a Dynex, or Samsung, or Acer or some really inexpensive flatscreen > HDMI ready television that she could hook to the mini, but I wonder if you > all know of any good make/model with built in stereo speakrers. This way, > she also wouldn't have to be concerned with getting a set of pc speakers. > Actually, she's already got a pair, so if worst came to worst, we could use > the ones she already has. Also, do you all think the I5 4GB ram model with > the 500GB internal drive would suit her fine based on her needs listed above? > I'm thinking by far and away! it would, plus! probably would give her > plenty! of wiggle room to learn and explore. I bought the $70 CD/DVD USB sup erdrive with my mini, and I absolutely swear by it, so I may eventually down the road get her one a those as well, although it's not something right now she really desperetly needs. > > Also, what type keyboard do you all suggest I get her if I wanna get her a > native Apple keyboard? I don't want her having to use a Windows PC keyboard > on a Mac system. Yes, I do realize it would work just fine, but I'd rather > get her something a little nicer. I personally have the white flat metel > aluminum wired USB Apple keyboard with the num pad included, but I'm not sure > if Apple is still making it. I think I paid in the neighborhood of about > $49.99 for the thing. It was, so! worth it though! I'm just wonderring > between the TV, and the keyboard, plus the mac itself, do you all think I'm > looking at the right avenew? I really do think that the I7 may be a bit > over-kill for her need. > > Chris. > <--- Mac Access At Mac Access Dot Net ---> > > To reply to this post, please address your message to > [email protected] > > You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Mac-Access forum at > either the list's own dedicated web archive: > <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/mac-access/index.html> > or at the public Mail Archive: > <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/>. > Subscribe to the list's RSS feed from: > <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.xml> > > As the Mac Access Dot Net administrators, we do our very best to ensure that > the Mac-Access E-Mal list remains malware, spyware, Trojan, virus and > worm-free. However, this should in no way replace your own security > strategy. We assume neither liability nor responsibility should something > unpredictable happen. > > Please remember to update your membership preferences periodically by > visiting the list website at: > <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/mac-access/options/> > <--- Mac Access At Mac Access Dot Net ---> To reply to this post, please address your message to [email protected] You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Mac-Access forum at either the list's own dedicated web archive: <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/mac-access/index.html> or at the public Mail Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/>. Subscribe to the list's RSS feed from: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.xml> As the Mac Access Dot Net administrators, we do our very best to ensure that the Mac-Access E-Mal list remains malware, spyware, Trojan, virus and worm-free. However, this should in no way replace your own security strategy. We assume neither liability nor responsibility should something unpredictable happen. Please remember to update your membership preferences periodically by visiting the list website at: <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/mac-access/options/>
