I don't understand the argument. I could run an FTP or e-mail server using Windows 2000 on my old 1GHz Pentium 3. Big deal. It isn't any big accomplishment of the Mini to do those things. Come to think of it, I could do those things on my 60MHz Pentium with 16MB of RAM running Slakware Linux back in 1994, so it really isn't a big deal.
You probably think that the Mini is fine because your dreams aren't large enough. You probably don't have a job that involves having several large virtual machines open at once, or deal with any sort of professional media production. That's fine. If you don't, the Mini will check your e-mail, surf the web, and run other desktop apps. As for me, I have an MBP that is completely maxed out as far as the technology will allow, and it still doesn't do everything that I need it to. Since I need it to be portable, I deal, but I wouldn't prefer it. I couldn't get by with a Mini. The Mini is great for the price, but it isn't the super secret trick to getting the ultimate Mac for nothing. *smile* Bryan -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Chris Blouch Sent: Thursday, April 01, 2010 2:11 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: My Mac Mini While the portability of a mini may be debatable the other performance is no slouch. Sure I would like more/faster disk space but with Firewire800 I can easily fix that. With dual 2.5Ghz processors and 4GB of RAM there really isn't much you couldn't do on one of these boxes. Hence Apple selling the Mac mini with OSX server. For someplace that needed a nice little file/web/ftp/mysql/whatever server it could make a nice solution. The number of problems that can't be handled by commodity hardware these days is fewer and fewer. For the cost, I could put a whole rack of these things someplace and handle all kinds of crazy load. This is exactly how large scale services work today. You don't buy a 64-processor Sun box, you get 16 quadcore generic blade servers in a rack and divide up the load. Here is a colocation service which currently hosts over 500 Mac mini servers: http://www.macminicolo.net/ CB Slau Halatyn wrote: Hi Joe, It may very well be your personal opinion that the Mac Mini was designed to be portable but the overwhelming majority of people would probably disagree with you. In fact, the iMac is considerably easier to move than a Mac Mini connected to a monitor and yet I doubt most people would consider the iMac a portable solution. The Mini, as the name implies, is small in size but also small in features. As Bryan said, it was meant to help encourage switchers. It's great for email and web browsing, simple tasks that don't require much horsepower or expandability. On Apr 1, 2010, at 10:40 AM, Joe Plummer wrote: No, I dis agree with this. They made it small and portable just so you could move it around easily. Now for the monitor part you can get real small monitor like a 7 or 9 inch monitor to do what you want that is very portable and some even runs off a battery. Sign, JP ( Joe Plummer) [email protected] -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Bryan Smart Sent: Thursday, April 01, 2010 10:25 AM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: My Mac Mini I think that people are getting the concept of the Mini all wrong. The Mini is not a laptop. If you try to use it like some sort of portable, then you're of course free to try, but Apple has not designed it to be a portable computer, and so, if it doesn't work like that, they won't care that you can't make it suit that purpose. Its also not intended to be a headless Mac for blind people. The Mini is designed to fit two types of situations only. 1. You don't know if Mac is for you, and you want a cheap way to try it out. 2. You need a low-powered Mac to handle some basic tasks, such as being a home or small office server. That's it. If the Mini feels underpowered, it is because its underpowered. It is powered by a mobile processor, uses laptop memory, and slower laptop hard drives. If the Mini sucks at being a portable computer, it is because it isn't a portable computer. Its a cheap desktop Mac. If the Mini sucks as a headless Mac, then that is because it isn't designed to run without a monitor. People are supposed to buy a Mini to use with their existing PC hardware, as part of evaluating if they'd like to really use Mac in the future. Of course, using a Mac with a PC keyboard and mouse means that you miss out on a lot, also. Stil, it is a way to try this stuff to see if you'll like it, or if it will be a waste of money, without forcing you to pay a lot for the chance to try it out. If you're serious at all about using the Mac, you probably won't stay with a Mini for very long. The internal hard drives are slow, the capacity won't go any higher than 500GB, the memory won't expand very far, the processor is underpowered, so on and so on. Not trying to rain on your parade. I love hacking around with what's possible in equipment. The thing is, if, after using a Mini, you've become serious enough to get frustrated with what it can't do, then it is time to sell your Mini to another newbie, and upgrade to a MacBook, an IMac, or a Mac Pro that will do more. For example, if you're moving a computer from room to room to browse the web, then you really should be using a MacBook. Bryan -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Chris G Sent: Thursday, April 01, 2010 8:30 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: My Mac Mini Hi, It makes it more convenient to move the mini from room to room within ones house. Now you need to move a monitor just to browse the web. Chris On Thu, 1 Apr 2010 07:23:44 -0400 Ricardo Walker <[email protected]> <mailto:[email protected]> wrote: Hi, I was just wondering why people find this so important? Monitors are very cheap and you can even hook up Your Mac to newer TVs. On Mar 31, 2010, at 10:23 PM, Sarah Alawami wrote: I myself have not reported but I might even though I own a macbook. Take care. On Mar 31, 2010, at 5:34 PM, E.J. Zufelt wrote: Good evening, Has this issue been reported to [email protected]? Perhaps there's nothing that they can do, but it might be worth sending a quick message. Everett Zufelt http://zufelt.ca Follow me on Twitter http://twitter.com/ezufelt View my LinkedIn Profile http://www.linkedin.com/in/ezufelt On 2010-03-31, at 8:31 PM, Dan Roy wrote: Yes, that's definitely true, I wish I had known that before I purchased the mini, but, live and learn. On Mar 31, 2010, at 8:35 AM, M BROWN wrote: Several months ago I bought a Mac Mini without a monitor. Everything went well until I tried to use Safari to browse the web. To say the least, it was painfully slow, and at times refused to open the web page at all. All I got was Safari busy. However, when I attached a monitor, all the above problems went away. Even though I do not have the monitor powered up, it still works perfectly. So, just a warning to anyone buying a Mac Mini who intends to browse the web, forget it unless you have a monitor attached. Kind regards Martin -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. -- Chris G <[email protected]> <mailto:[email protected]> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en.
