I’ve been using my Mac mini now for just over a month now, and I
thought I would post my thoughts and my experiences with it.
Prior to purchasing the Mac mini, I’d never used a Mac. I’d tried to
get into some courses about them, but due to lack of interest, the
courses were cancelled.
The Mac mini I purchased was the 1.42 Ghz model, though I upgraded
the RAM to 512 and had the super drive added with an Apple keyboard
and mouse, but with no display since I already had one. All this meant was that it was going to take two to three weeks to be built,
and then another two to seven days for delivery.
A little over two weeks later, there was a phone call from the delivery
person asking for directions to our house, and, about five minutes
later, he pulled up at our house and delivered the Mac mini.
Once I got it out of the box and situated on my desk, I was amazed
at just how small it was. I’d not been able to see one up close until that point (local stores were out of stock), but
from watching Steve Jobs’ keynote presentation at this year’s Macworld, I had a good idea.
After a bit of moving stuff around, especially after finding I
didn’t have a long enough network cable to place the Mac where I
originally planned, I got it all plugged in and set up.
After turning it on, going through the registration process, and
configuring my network settings, I was presented with the OS X Panther GUI.
Once I got used to not having a right click on my mouse, I started
getting used to where everything was.
Now that I have been using the Mac mini for a month now, I’m glad to
report that I’m converted. I do all my day-to-day work on it, and I
only switch to the PCs (I have two of them) when I really have to.
I love the way that iMovie handles the video capture. I’ve not done a
great deal with iDVD yet, but hope to, soon.
I’m still working my way through OS X Tiger and enjoying its
various features. Later on I’ll write about those and various widgets I’ve
found useful.
