# My new Mac Mini



## riccbhard (Feb 17, 2005)

I just got a Mac Mini. The specs are as follows:
 RAM: 256MB (Will probably be upgraded)
 CD Drive: the ComboDrive (can read DVDs and burn CDs)
*Hard Drive: 80GB
 Mac OS X Version: 10.3.8
 Misc:
Apple Keyboard and an old USB optical PC mouse that works great on Mac (it's also nice too because it has a scroll wheel and right-click.)

iLife '05 (came with the Mac)

Here are some pictures: (the monitor is a Gateway VX900, which is a 17 or 18in. monitor.) The monitor used to be used with my old PC.

Picture 1: (Yes, i know my desk is kind of messy.)





Picture 2:





I just thought I'd share some info about my new Mac. I love it so far. It's a lot better than windows.


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## michaelsanford (Feb 17, 2005)

I'm hopefully going to upgrade my iBook clamshell 366 MHz to a new shiney G4 iBook soon.

I was thinking of also selling my iMac TFT and replacing it with a nice Mac Mini, I'd end up getting more power overall nearly making money !

Let us know if you have any problems with it. This new Mac Mini is eerily reminiscent of the Cube G4


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## Chazam (Feb 18, 2005)

Lovely little mac you have there!  
I just want to sell all my PC parts and save up for my mac mini......
All i need to do is put some stuff on eBay, then I'll be closer to my Mini!    

P.S
Get that ram upgraded ASAP!


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## chornbe (Feb 19, 2005)

Chazam...

Times sure have changed for used PC parts. 10 years ago I came up with the downpayment on my house by selling and brokering used PC parts.

Now... ugh, lucky to make a c-note now and then on a whole system.

Good luck.


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## Decado (Feb 19, 2005)

Nice mini!
i would also advice getting a memory upgrade. i've read tests that say it is practically useless with 256, but wonderful with 512 mb 

if it is anything like the ibook, you are going to notice a huge performance boost!


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## chornbe (Feb 20, 2005)

True, that. Once I upped my iBook from 256 to 1.25gb, the difference is amazing. At 256 it was just an email & surfing machine. Now I do all kinds of development, scanning & touchup, etc.


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## TommyWillB (Feb 20, 2005)

I guess this is obvious, but I just hadn't thought of it...

I was in the Apple Store yesteday playing with the Mini... It took mee about 5 minutes to realize it was not making any sound... and another couple minutes to realize that's because it has no speaker.

Is this the first Macintosh to have NO SPEAKER? ...or was the Cube also speakerless?


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## Decado (Feb 20, 2005)

but the mini has a speaker. a very small one.
i've heard that it is not fantastic by any standard, but it is not that far from the ibook.


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## TommyWillB (Feb 20, 2005)

When I looked in the Sound Pref Pane's Output tab, it said it had No Output Devices found.

Even the volume control in the menu bar was greyed out...

And it was the top of the line 1.42GHz machine... The specs for this machine says it only has "Headphone/audio line out".

So are you telling me it DOES have a speaker?


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## Randman (Feb 20, 2005)

Get ram.


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## Decado (Feb 20, 2005)

no, but i'm telling you that i read a review (maybe it was PC MAG, or PC World or something like that) where the journalist said the built in speakers was a bit thin to listen to music on, but that you could connect external speakers.

maybe she was delerious?


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## Decado (Feb 20, 2005)

"Built-in speaker"
quote from apples tech-specs page for the mini 
probably mono then.


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## podmate (Feb 20, 2005)

The Mini has a built in speaker.  It is really small and produces pretty lame sound.


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## TommyWillB (Feb 20, 2005)

Okay... re-reading the Tech specs I see it lists Audio in 2 places... And the speaker is listed in the 2nd section.

So it was loud in the store, but I still don't understand why the menubar speaker was grey'd out and the Sound pref pane said no devices.


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## podmate (Feb 21, 2005)

I went to (God help me) CompUSA yesterday to buy some little stuff and I took a stroll through the Apple section.
I looked at 4 computers (PM, iBook, PB and iMac) and all of them had about 50% of the system prefs greyed out.  I guess they do this to keep people from screwing up the system.


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## chornbe (Feb 21, 2005)

I almost didn't buy my iBook because the lame duck at the apple store (Christiana, Delaware) wasn't able to explain why I couldn't open a terminal. By his account you simply weren't able to and that was *not* acceptable to me. Much to my pleasure I later found out he's just a bozo, so it's all good.


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## FLASH1296 (Mar 20, 2005)

I have numerous speakers sitting about collecting dust. If you want I will provide you with same for minimal cost. The bestthat i have for you is a set of (attractive / high quality) Apple Pro Speakers, essentially unused. I do not know for certain whether these will work with the mini mac.  flash@nycap.rr.com


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## Robn Kester (Mar 21, 2005)

Definately put some RAM into that sucker ASAP. I'd say skip the 512 and go straight to 1 gig, its cheap and well, its worth it.

Mine was painfully slow for a 1.42ghz machine with only 256 (WHY OH WHY do they ship a machine with such inadequate RAM?). Popped in the 1gig (2 minutes start to finish) and it was smooth and silky after.


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## Decado (Mar 21, 2005)

Robn Kester said:
			
		

> I'd say skip the 512 and go straight to 1 gig, its cheap and well, its worth it.



well, I give you one right out of two. 
i would not say it is cheap, but it is definitely worth it


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## ex2bot (Mar 21, 2005)

Flash1296, the Pro Speakers will _not_ work with the mini, because it doesn't have a digital speaker output. I think it's an Apple proprietary output, but I'm not sure. I have one on the back of my iMac. But I was never impressed with the Pro Speakers, except visually.

Doug


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## andyhargreaves (Mar 25, 2005)

Hi all

I've also just got my mini (specs and pics in sig line) being a new convert!  I've found the process painfree and great fun.  The networking with my windows machines was a breeze, and so now I'm all set.  I've plugged my mini into a decent pair of Creative speakers, so the sound is great - it's just a standard small jack output, so no problems there.  The Apple "bong" still comes from the internal speaker, though, which I found odd.  I'm sure I could chgange this if I tried hard enough, but am busy finding my way around OS X at the moment!

Also, for what it's worth, I have not so far come across any problems with 512Mb RAM.  Maybe someone else has more experience of this?!


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## Robn Kester (Mar 25, 2005)

Welcome to the Mac fray andy! Congrats on your new Mini. I know I love mine, and it's just one of many Macs I've owned over the years.

I noticed that the startup sound comes out the little speaker too, I could not find a way to change it or turn it off, aside from disconnecting the speaker.

You should be OK with 512 for now. If you plan on doing heavy graphics, video or audio work I suggest you get a 1gig stick for it. But 512 will be fine. Mine came with 256 which was just not cutting it, so as soon as I gathered the cash I got a gig to make it happier.

So what brought to you the Mac, an interesting story perhaps or just taking a chance on something new?

r


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## andyhargreaves (Mar 25, 2005)

Cheers Robn

Mine's quite a common story I should imagine.

Been using windows PCs since my high-school days, and have kept my machine fairly up to date in terms of hardware and software - always home builds, have never bought a complete system myself.  Got a ready-to-roll laptop from work, though.  Have experimented with various linux distros at home, and used iMacs occasionally at work, and always rather liked them.  I also used a classic, I think, at university for a short while!  Since I saw OS X I was convinced that I 'needed' to get a mac, but couldn't justify the expense of one of the bigger machines (to my wife, mainly   )  At the beggining of January I was told I was getting a bonus at work, and then the mac mini came along.  The rest of the story tells itself, except the five week wait from ordering to delivery.  Oh well, it was worth it in the end!

  

Andy


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## baldprof (Mar 25, 2005)

[old timer]
Your history of computer use is pretty similar to mine, except that I had an earlier start: I remember using punch cards to to communicate with a big monster in a glass room. [/old timer]  

Anyway, it was Windows Millenium edition which pushed me over the edge.  

So I came to the Mac soon after OS X was introduced and have no regrets.

Since you have some familiarity with linux and command lines, be sure to investigate the Terminal app. I guarantee you can't get into any trouble with that.


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## andyhargreaves (Mar 25, 2005)

baldprof said:
			
		

> Since you have some familiarity with linux and command lines, be sure to investigate the Terminal app. I guarantee you can't get into any trouble with that.



Oh yes, absolutely.  Have installed the developers tools so I can compile apps for myself.  Excellent!


Andy


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## FLASH1296 (Mar 25, 2005)

Psst!    is a  freeware item  that will turn  off your  startup chime.


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## Vger (Mar 28, 2005)

Well, I got my Mac Mini about 10 days ago and had just about got to grips with using it (pc woman entirely before).  Today I downloaded the latest update and it has totally messed things up. When it rebooted it decided that my 1024x768 resolution should be 800x600 (on a 17" screen?), and kindly rearranged my desktop shortcuts for me.  I reset the display to 1024x768, launched Safari and went to the Google homepage - which always used to be centered on the screen - only know its right-aligned.  It's like this with loads of sites, either right or left aligned in Safari, which I know to be centered.  The only sites unaffected are variable width sites like Amazon.

The thing is, if I up the screen resolution to either of the 1280x resolution settings the sites become centered again - but too small to read easily.

I bought the Mac specifically so I would have the Safari browser to check cross-browser compatibility of sites I build - and now I just can't rely on what I am seeing.  Anybody else noticed this problem?

Vger


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## andyhargreaves (Mar 29, 2005)

Hi Vger

I have the same updates as you, and do not see this problem.  Do you have any other software running which might affect the display settings?  Can you let us know which update it was which caused the problem?

Good luck

Andy


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## Vger (Mar 29, 2005)

Hi,  I am unsure as to the names of the updates, only that in the past ten days I have downloaded two sets of updates coming to more than 100Mbs, and I have omitted one for iTunes that would have added another 30Mbs to that.  The last set contained a security patch for OS X.  I have been in touch with Apple Tech Support and they tell me that this latest update has caused this problem for a lot of people and have given me a 'workaround' which involves downloading Safari, uninstalling it, installing from the download and then repairing permission in Utilities.  Problem is that they say I should drag a folder or file called Apple WebKit Framework from System/Library/Frameworks/Webkit Framework - and there's no such file (at least not of that name) in that folder or any other subfolder of it.  Been waiting all day for them to get back to me to tell me where it actually is located (or what it is actually named).

The only thing I have installed on the MacMini is the XAMPP for Mac OS X server, and there were no problems until the Mac download.

Thanks for replying - Vger


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## Decado (Mar 29, 2005)

are you sure you go to "SYSTEM/library/frameworks" and not just "library/frameworks"?

they are located at the same rootlevel of the hd so it can sometimes be easy to mix them up.


p.s "vger" - is that from the first star trek movie?


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## Vger (Mar 29, 2005)

It's definitely not library/frameworks.  I've just had another look at system/library/frameworks/webkitframework, and see that the expanded info for a terminal icon in that folder is A:Webkit

I'm new to the Mac, so it's only a guess that this is the 'Apple Webkit Framework' they (Apple tech support) are referring to.  Would like some confirmation of that though before I drag it to the Trash (as they recommend).

Yes, Vger does come from the first Star Trek movie.  Don't know why I chose that though - as it is the worst Star Trek movie they ever made (and that's saying something!).

Vger


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## Decado (Mar 29, 2005)

maybe they meant that you should trash the entire "webkit.framework"-folder. 

my take: trash it! (but first make sure you have a copy of everything important on cd/dvd/external hd.).

if everything goes wrong reinstall the system and make sure you repair permissions before you do the updates. (applications/utilities/disk tools)

Strange that a lot of people had trouble with the latest update (X.3.8?). i wonder if it was hardware specific. i usually repair permissions before doing an update and have never had any trouble.

good luck!


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## Vger (Mar 29, 2005)

Just had a reply from Mac Tech Support and the folder is webkit.framework.  I shall take a backup and go ahead with the reinstall of Safari now.  Thanks for the help!

Vger


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## Decado (Mar 29, 2005)

let us know how it went.
strange that webkit should have anything to do with it. don't remember reading anywhere that it was updated.


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## Vger (Mar 29, 2005)

Well been there, done that, still the same.  As the whole point of buying the MacMini was to have the Safari browser for cross-browser compatibility testing there's not much point in hanging on to it if I can't reliably use Safari.  Nothing against Mac - it's just that I have four PC's and don't need yet another computer if it doesn't do what I need it for.

Vger


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## andyhargreaves (Mar 30, 2005)

Hi Vger

Don't give up yet!  From the sounds of it, the only difference between you and I is updating permissions - I read around on the internet before installing the updates, mainly because of scary experiences in the past with Microsoft Updates.  Then I went through the updating permissions routine before allowing the updates.  Maybe the advice of Decado (reinstall) would be worth a go?  It certainly seems a shame to give up on the mini because of this little problem!

Andy


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## Vger (Mar 30, 2005)

I might try to reinstall the Mac OSX, but if that doesn't work then it's off to E-bay!

Vger


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## Vger (Mar 30, 2005)

Well, phoned Mac Tech Support in the UK and they came up with the answer.  It was the Safari preferences file which had become corrupted.  Dragged that to the Trash, rebooted, and Safari is now behaving itself again.  Thanks to all those who tried to help.

Vger


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## Decado (Mar 30, 2005)

the easy way is always the best.
funny that none of us thought about that. the "trash the preferences"-trick has been the universal problem-fixer all through the history of the macintosh.


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