memoryloot » Mac Mini

Beefed Up Mac Mini

Johnny — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 11:01:03 +0000

So its been over a month of using my Mac Mini. It’s been a good experience. I find myself missing the Expose feature whenever I’m on my PC now. I bought Leopard but have resisted upgrading until all the kinks are worked out. So for now I’m using Tiger. I ended up ordering a 2GB RAM upgrade. I finally got the memory today and did the upgrade. The process wasn’t too bad. Except the part where I had to pry open the cover of the system using a putty knife. I was convinced that I must have broken something but luckily I didn’t. Maybe a little scratches here and there. But nothing too bad. Everything was documented on the 123macmini.com site where they had people making videos on how to dissect the little machine.

The upgrade was definitely worth it. Now I can run Parallels and other applications without any hiccups. The Parallels Windows instance loads up much faster now that I’ve allocated 1GB of RAM for the Virtual Machine. I must admit, this has been a pleasant experience using my Mac. Adding this much memory has made this machine shine. Things not only “just work”, they work responsively too. Let’s just say my next laptop will definitely be a MacBook Pro of some sort.

Something To Do At Work Tomorrow

Johnny — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 07:25:14 +0000

So I was surfing around the 123MacMini site and found a reference relating to a software called Synergy. I was in the photo gallery for Mac Mini Setup and came across a person’s setup. Apparently there is a way to control multiple computers with multiple monitors using one set of keyboard and mouse. Further investigation yield an article from from LifeHacker describing on how to do this. You basically use the network connectivity between all your machines and setup a client-server with Synergy. You can also copy and paste clipboard items in between each system.

This is going to be perfect for work! I have a Dell Dimension and a Mac Mini at work with 2 huge monitors. One CRT 21″ and one Apple cinema display. I’m using 2 keyboards and 2 mice. The PC is strictly for work while the mini is for personal and when I need to do Internet research. According to the people who replied on LifeHacker, it has improved the productivity to those who used this software. Exciting stuff to say the least. This will be the first thing I’ll do when I get in tomorrow. What a good start to a Monday morning.

*10/23/2007: Synergy worked like a charm. I am now using 1 keyboard and mouse across 2 machines. This is so cool!

Let The Brain-Washing Begin

Johnny — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 09:16:12 +0000

So I find on the Internet that Apple recently released a video tour of the next Mac OSX operating system, Leopard. I have to tell ya. Seeing someone using some of those features makes me want that new operating system much sooner than the October 26th release date. Don’t know what it is. It’s like being brain-washed by the company. I can’t wait to use features like “Time-Machine” for back-ups and “Spaces” for desktop management (similar to many Linux GUI interface).

I found myself perusing their website for more of these videos and saw one for iLife. OMG, this was a good one. I was almost going to dismiss the entire iLife application to be something cool and may one day use it. But after watching this video, I wanted to jump on and begin managing my pictures better with iPhoto. The video showed the basics of using the application and got me up and running. So tonight I spent my time importing all my pictures into iPhoto. I have to say the software is very well thought out. I mean I imported an entire folder of albums and it knew that each folder was an album for a particular event and automatically created “Events” for each sets of folders. Amazing to say the least. I think I’m finally getting why Apple products are such fan favorites. For example, things like knowing when to turn on and off when you insert and remove your headphones on your iPod is awesome! They really thought about their products before they even begin building it. That attention to details and making everything so damn easy to use, really wins over demanding users like myself. It’s so hard to not want to use an Apple system now. I find myself missing things like Expose when I’m on the PC. Damn you Apple for brain-washing me!

Radiohead, Mac, and UPS

Johnny — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 00:15:02 +0000

My free time has been completely consumed with 3 things this week.

Radiohead‘s In Rainbows album
My new Mac Mini
My new Uninterruptible Power Supply

I did get some Halo 3 in the mix but I must digress. In Rainbows has been playing non-stop on my work computers and my iPod. The more I listen to this album, the more I love it. Yes that’s right, love it! I find myself looking forward to Jigsaw Falling Into Places everytime the album loops around. I still haven’t decided if this is top 3 of my RH albums. It’s so hard because the more you listen to it, the more you enjoy an album. This happened to Amnesiac and Kid A. I didn’t like those album at first but when I started to listen to them more and more, it grew on me. In my opinion In Rainbows is another masterpiece.

I used the hell out of my Mac Mini this week. It’s been on 5 days straight. I’ve been making it my own by installing various freeware and testing out Parallels. I got my laptop’s WinXP loaded on my my Mac Mini. Only thing left is to get an activation key from Microsoft. My iTunes is setup similar to my PC but I don’t think I’m going to reformat my iPod with the Mac. The PC has all the interesting historical data like the star ratings and the times I’ve played a song. It’s so stupid how little things like that makes such a good experience in using an iPod. Moving it over to the Mac is a cumbersome task. My entire library is on my Linux fileserver.

I also had to replace my UPS this weekend. I got it setup but was interested in getting it to shutdown my server in the event of a power failure. The model I got was an APC BACK UPS XS 900. It came with software for Macs and PCs. Unfortunately none for Linux. I found out that there is an open-source solution called apcupsd. It basically are scripts that allows you to do shutdowns for APC branded UPS. I also found that people have used my UPS with this software solution successfully. I installed the source code and compiled it. Everything is working fine, I think. I’m in the middle of running various tests. So far it passed the few early tests. I need to simulate a complete power failure and see if it shuts down my server. May not sound fun to you but gobs of fun for a geek like me.

Mac Mini

Johnny — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 23:06:00 +0000

It’s official! Just picked up my first Apple system. I got myself a Mac Mini with a Core 2 Duo 2Ghz processor, 1Gb of memory, and 120Gb hard drive.

Finally did it after a couple months of contemplating. I’ve been actively using a mini at work but it’s an old G4. Now I need to get Windows XP running on it.