You are currently browsing the daily archive for September 24, 2009.
You could be excused for thinking, with a Mac Pro and an iMac still in use, why would you need a Mini too? The simple answer is that I wanted a complete Media Centre in “one box” to reduce the footprint and clutter of the devices in my lounge. I’d been waiting with bated breath for this latest revision to be released as I expected it to consume less electrical power and still be good enough for any media application I set it to.
So pretty much as soon as Apple announced it, the order was placed.
I went for the 2.0 Ghz model, I couldn’t justify the additional (steep) price tag for the 2.26 Ghz model. I went for the standard 250Gb disk and 2 Gb RAM. Perfect for my needs. It was delivered with Leopard installed and I’m still running it that way. I’ll do some research into compatibility of all my media applications before I settle in to install Snow Leopard, although I know it’s a mere matter of time!
As you can see, there are plenty of ports to hook your Mini up. I’m on Gbit ethernet and have it connected to my 42″ Panasonic 720p Plasma, via mini-dvi to 15-pin d-sub adaptor. A buddy of mine has a rather splendid 46″ Sony Bravia and has his (same spec) hooked up to HDMI running at full 1080p and he tells me it is awesome. As far as replacing my increasingly antiquated panel, it’s good enough for now, so I’m not going to rush out to buy but if the gods of tech shine their light on me next year at bonus time, perhaps I’ll treat myself to a Panasonic NeoPDP v10 50″ screen, then we’ll see what this will really do!
I can safely say I believe my Mini is doing pretty much everything I need it to for a media hub. I’ll go into some detail about software after this, my final “My Macs” post.
It might not be the last one though, I have my eyes peeled for the tablet number that is floating around the rumour sites at the moment. That could be the icing on the cake. My iPhone (albeit cracked and in process of being repaired) is an awesome thing but something slightly bigger with similar functionality would be just amazing for my trips away…
PL
As you can probably imagine, this is where my experience with the Mac just went ballistic! There I am with little experience in the multi-processor realm (in Mac terms this is folks – I’ve had dual proc PCs since Jeebus was a kid!) and I click on the button to order the behemoth!
I went for the Dual Quad-Core 2.8Ghz variety, standard 2Gb RAM, single 500Gb disk and two Super drives (I say why not)!
Of course this isn’t where it stopped, oh no! I was upgrading my Infrant (NetGear) ReadyNAS NV+ to 1Tb disks so I had 4 x 500Gb disks coming available, so in three of them went. As well as disks, I settled for another 4Gb RAM, yep, you guessed it, straight from our friends at Crucial so now I was cooking on 6Gb RAM with room for more if I wanted it.
On top of that, you have USB2 a-plenty, Firewire 400 and 800 ports, two Gbit Ethernet ports and the usual digital/analogue audio ports and it’s so quiet too. Even at full steam it’s nowhere near as noisy as some Windows workstations I’ve used from Dell/HP.
This thing ROCKS!
I’ve not seen anything like it, as an example, I can transcode a 42 minute TV show in AVI format down to iPod/iPhone format in a little over 3 minutes, 4 tops! All 8 cores singing away nicely, with Handbrake reporting well over 200 fps!
Whereas I used to use iMovie to mess around with video, well, it’s not that great with multiple processors, so I thought perhaps it was time for some Final Cut action, such a good move! This thing eats video!
I will go into the list of software I have but there’s nothing this thing can’t do. Teamed up with some nice monitors (unfortunately my budget didn’t stretch to Apple displays) this is nevertheless the best thing anyone could want at home, if you ask it to do it, you will not be disappointed!
This is essentially my work machine. The fun machine is next 
More later on this one!
PL
This Mac for me was all about the fact that I was in for a bargain! For the princely sum of £100 on eBay I managed to aquire myself my first multi-processor mac. Not only did I aquire the mac but I also got a 17″ 4:3 aspect ratio Cinema Display and some snazzy Apple Pro Speakers.
PowerMac G4 Quicksilver
The spec of the Mac when it arrived was as expected from the auction, which is a nice thing to see, because I have been shafted in the past on specification. It came with 1.25Gb RAM, 80Gb Disk and Dual 800Mhz processors. Sweet! All for £100!
Now, to be honest, I haven’t done a lot with this machine. It’s done it’s share of video transcoding, that’s for sure, but I just couldn’t find the niche for it in my setup. I added a USB2 card since it only had USB1.1 on-board and the bonus was it had Gbit Ethernet built in but still, nothing doing. Even today, this is gathering dust in my office. If anyone has a use for it and wants to make me an offer, let me know.
It’s a nice looking machine though and in the right hands would still be pretty good. Add a compatible SATA card and you’d easily fill those 4 disk slots with some high capacity drives for a decent file server or whatever!
It wasn’t all bad though, the Cinema Display and speakers are now in use at my parents, so there’s only one power socket for them to turn on, they get a great picture and surprisingly great sound from those small, but surprisingly heavy and well built speakers.
I’ll consider reuniting the whole package if the G4-DA goes to the mac graveyard in the sky, but for now I think I’ll run a duster over it
PL
