Short part: My pc died, I had been band-aiding it for some time now and was tired of moving parts and checking this and that. This time it finally died and since I was about 2 generations back I was going to end up needing a mobo, ram, processor and video card and after adding it all up i decided to go Mac. WOOHOO!!!
Long Story:
Off to the apple store I went because I couldnt be a day away from the computer (just a personal thing). Now there was a small bit of apprehension since the last mac I had used was an SE-30 with System 7.5 and it died when i tried to go up from there. That was at least 10 years ago. From there I went PC as I was able to get parts cheaper and easier. But no more since prices seem to be soaring again on PC parts, well at least the good ones.
I lucked out too because the new Mini's had just come out and I didnt know that. I picked up the 1.83 as I had enough external Harddrives so i didnt need the extra space and I had an external dual layer burner already as well. So I plug in the computer as soon as I get home. AHHHH!!!!! No USB keyboard. Stupid me really because I should have gotten one a long time ago. No biggie, another quick stop at Best Buy and I was in business. Plus the white keyboard looks better than the othe ones I had. Now it was time to start plugging in Harddives. I had 2 external enclosures and had planned on burning things to disc. 1 was a 250g mybook and 1 was a 250g interal edi drive. Well darnit, they are all NTFS. Not wanting to do anything funny with my mac, I went and got a virgin 250g drive and began copying and reformatting.
So long story short I now have 4 extrernal HDD, 2 Firewire in a chain and 2 USB 2.0. Add on the extenral burner and I was running low on plugs already. I went and got one of the linksys hubs that match the mini and had one problem. It said i was having a power issue even though all the thigs plugged into the usb hub were powered. I couldnt figure it out but it stopped happening when I switched their little 2 or 3" cable with one I already had. Problem solved.
After all that I wanted to try the HTPC thing and moved it out to the front room. Works great so i plan to get a 2nd one. So now my system sits at mac Mini, 4 external HDD, 1 external burner, 3 printers (1 13x19 pro photo, 1 general use and 1 4x6 for quick photo prints all epsons as I used to work there), epson scanner, 2 USB hubs, iPod dock and miniDV cam.
I think I might be overusing the little mac mini and I hope that it doesnt die but i am loving this thing so far. I even use front row in my bedroom for when Im just laying in Bed, I can watch some TV shows or whatever. I like the included remote that does help alot.
next on the list is a 2nd mini for the HTPC and a 3rd one for another bedroom in the house. Wireless keyboard (which I should have just bought at the beginning), wireless mouse and photoshop. So far I havent been stuck on anything as far as not being able to do it, so the switch from PC to mac was easy, besides the NTFS hold up on the drives.
I am still learning to use iPhoto and dont really like it all that much. I would much prefer a mac version of Picasa. Of course iTunes works great and it doesnt choke on the 200gigs of music that I have like my PC did. I havent tried iMovie or iDvd yet but i will very soon I think.
So thanks for reading and I look forward to asking alot of more questions here. maybe soon I will get a macbook which is in the plan as well.
Long Story:
Off to the apple store I went because I couldnt be a day away from the computer (just a personal thing). Now there was a small bit of apprehension since the last mac I had used was an SE-30 with System 7.5 and it died when i tried to go up from there. That was at least 10 years ago. From there I went PC as I was able to get parts cheaper and easier. But no more since prices seem to be soaring again on PC parts, well at least the good ones.
I lucked out too because the new Mini's had just come out and I didnt know that. I picked up the 1.83 as I had enough external Harddrives so i didnt need the extra space and I had an external dual layer burner already as well. So I plug in the computer as soon as I get home. AHHHH!!!!! No USB keyboard. Stupid me really because I should have gotten one a long time ago. No biggie, another quick stop at Best Buy and I was in business. Plus the white keyboard looks better than the othe ones I had. Now it was time to start plugging in Harddives. I had 2 external enclosures and had planned on burning things to disc. 1 was a 250g mybook and 1 was a 250g interal edi drive. Well darnit, they are all NTFS. Not wanting to do anything funny with my mac, I went and got a virgin 250g drive and began copying and reformatting.
So long story short I now have 4 extrernal HDD, 2 Firewire in a chain and 2 USB 2.0. Add on the extenral burner and I was running low on plugs already. I went and got one of the linksys hubs that match the mini and had one problem. It said i was having a power issue even though all the thigs plugged into the usb hub were powered. I couldnt figure it out but it stopped happening when I switched their little 2 or 3" cable with one I already had. Problem solved.
After all that I wanted to try the HTPC thing and moved it out to the front room. Works great so i plan to get a 2nd one. So now my system sits at mac Mini, 4 external HDD, 1 external burner, 3 printers (1 13x19 pro photo, 1 general use and 1 4x6 for quick photo prints all epsons as I used to work there), epson scanner, 2 USB hubs, iPod dock and miniDV cam.
I think I might be overusing the little mac mini and I hope that it doesnt die but i am loving this thing so far. I even use front row in my bedroom for when Im just laying in Bed, I can watch some TV shows or whatever. I like the included remote that does help alot.
next on the list is a 2nd mini for the HTPC and a 3rd one for another bedroom in the house. Wireless keyboard (which I should have just bought at the beginning), wireless mouse and photoshop. So far I havent been stuck on anything as far as not being able to do it, so the switch from PC to mac was easy, besides the NTFS hold up on the drives.
I am still learning to use iPhoto and dont really like it all that much. I would much prefer a mac version of Picasa. Of course iTunes works great and it doesnt choke on the 200gigs of music that I have like my PC did. I havent tried iMovie or iDvd yet but i will very soon I think.
So thanks for reading and I look forward to asking alot of more questions here. maybe soon I will get a macbook which is in the plan as well.
