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Okay. I'm a really savvy computer person. I'm tired of lugging my pc (XP/Linux Dualboot) to and fro work.
I've been interested in getting a Mini since they were announced. Being that I have used on occasion a mac, but never for a long period of time I have some questions:
Can I connect to windows machines via remote desktop with a mac? (Just found a link. Yes)
Would I be able to play World of Warcraft, and decently at 1280x1024?
I've heard some bad things about how firefox runs on OSX. Anyone care to share some experience?
How tweakable is the OSX gui? --How tweakable are the runtime scripts and such?
Note: I'm used to knowing where everything is, or knowing where to look online for things with Windows / Linux.
These are my main concerns. I know I won't be able to do as much as I can with a windows pc (games mostly) but I'll probably be moving off windows when I get an XBox360, games won't really be an issue at that point.
Don't start with me on Apple/PC good bad crap, I just want to know if a mac mini would allow me to do my job & play wow on it.
One last question: Should I just wait for the next model? (Something with an Intel chip maybe?)
Posts: 1132 | Registered: Jul 2002
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You'd be able to do your job, and could probably play WOW at a significantly lower resolution than 1280x1024. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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If you upgrade your ram, then you can play WoW decently. Otherwise, you'll be fine outside of places like Ironforge and raids.
They just upgraded the processors of the mini, but weirdly they're doing it without upgrading the label on the boxes. So right now, there's a chance you'll buy the faster model but not guaranteed. I don't know when they're officially switching the labels. The rumor is that it's to clean out inventory.
Posts: 1261 | Registered: Apr 2004
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Firefox is fine. However, you might look at Camino, too. Same codebase for the engine, native GUI, so even faster. Since you prolly want extensions, though, you'll likely stay with the original.
Global look and feel is not very customizable, well, except for X windows if you run it (they include a rootless version that emulates the OS X look and feel + interacts with the OS X GUI a bit, such as the Dock). I mean, there are options, and a good number, particularly with certain hacks, but it always feels basically the same.
Boot is extremely customizable, they used to use a BSD-like boot, but in the latest OS X they've introduced a really, really nice boot system that takes the best bits from various flavors of *nix, adds some new features, and wraps it all up into a very nice integrated package. There's plenty of documentation for it too.
Its easy to mess with applications, too. Most applications built with the "Cocoa" framework can have their .nib GUI files (these are normally buried inside a directory that acts like a single file in the GUI) opened up inside the Interface Builder (a GUI app layout app from the dev tools) and changed arbitrarily, easily modding the look and feel. This is often done to add or remove the "brushed metal" look from apps, for instance. Sometimes functionality can be significantly rearranged for convenience.
OS X loves RAM. Put a gig in and it'll love you.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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I don't know anything about mini's, but Pod/Ted bought one in August. You might want to talk to him (I'm pretty sure he doesn't check hatrack presently... if you don't know where to find him, email me and I'll pass it on).
Posts: 944 | Registered: Jun 2001
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If you're interested in keeping a PC but want something much more portable, I'd suggest getting an SFF computer like a Shuttle XPC. Just a thought.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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