Yes, this is simple and no additional software is required. On the mini, turn on screen sharing and file sharing under settings, sharing. Now on your MacBook provided you are on the same network, the mini will show up in finder. You can use this new link to copy files to it or to views the screen in the mini from your MacBook. I'm not at my macs just now but if you have any issues, just ask and I'll be able to check and confirm the exact steps.
Thanks. I don't have the mini yet so can't test it but that all makes sense. Someone else on another thread said I could continue to rip CDs into my MBP iTunes, then find the album folder in the MBPs iTunes library and drag it into the mini's iTunes library. This would make it show up in the Mini's iTunes. He said this allows me to work on any tags and naming, etc. and get it right, and then just drop the completed project into the Mini's iTunes. I assume that would work and solve the issue of how I rip tunes on the MBP and get them into the mini library.
One related question on this though. Right now, just working on my MBP, I will put a cd in and rip songs directly to an existing playlist. Is there a way to do that with the mini set up as we've been discussing? In other words the complete iTunes library and playlists will reside on the mini. I'll have the iTunes app and screen sharing capabilities on the MBP, but not the actual music files. So if I've go an existing playlist (whose song files are on the mini), and I put a CD into my MBP, can I just drag them over somehow and get them transferred to the playlist (and therefore get the ripped files transferred/created to a folder on the mini)?
Thanks,