All right–it’s that time again: computer shopping time.
Currently, I have a lovely 1 GHz Mac G4, bought as a refurb, oh, 3 or 4 years ago. It’s got a few quirks, like the new ethernet card I installed after the old one died last summer during a teeny-tiny thunderstorm during which there was only one flash of lighting. The ethernet card is a pain in the ass because its makers don’t understand the importance of making drivers for Macs, so I had to install a slighly older version of the operating system to make it work. Grr.
A few things just don’t work since that storm and the hard drive meltdown that happened soon after. I can’t open Word (not that I really want to, mind you) unless I’m opening it by clicking on a document. The System Profiler–it never actually opens, so if I really want to remind myself any specifics about the system, I’m going to have to reinstall the whole operating system. Eh. Not important enough.
And now that J’s around and we have one of those lovely, cheap and tiny videocam thingies I’d like to do a tiny bit more video editing. Uh. I’ve tried it–and it just isn’t all that happening. Oh, and I have a secret desire to do something entirely wasteful–play the Sims 2 on my own computer. That’s not happening since I really should have a 1.2 MHz machine, at the least.
So, I’m shopping. We’ve got enough laptops around here and I kind of like having a desktop around, so laptops are out. I’m thinking about a Mac mini since they’re not sooo expensive. Has anyone one owned one? What did you think? Any other suggestions, aside from going outside the Apple line?
2 responses so far ↓
1 J // Jun 1, 2007 at 7:18 am
I got a mini last summer as my old deskside seemed to be slowly dying. I’m an old Mac hand since they were introduced on the college campus, so I can’t help but keep buying these suckers.
There’s a lot of cons and a few pros to the current Mac chip situation. I can chit-chat with you offline if you want (rather than take up comment space).
2 Stillamomma // Jun 1, 2007 at 8:22 pm
We have a mac mini as a supplement to our PC and laptop. We had a G3 that we got rid of. We will now upgrade to a Macbook Pro and use the mac mini for our media storage (music and the 1000 literal pictures I have taken of our daughter :)
Don’t get the mac mini as your main machine unless you have at least 1 gig RAM. It runs pretty slow otherwise. We now have 512 RAM and you have to take it in to install, so we would void the warranty if we install at home…so we are buying a new machine.
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