getting frustrated with Mac Mini

[JosephEsquivel]

my girlfriend is running Firefox to play her games on a site called Pogo, and she keeps either getting the beachball or it just closes, any ideas why or way to fix it? she just got it yesterday and shes thinkin of returning it if it keeps doing this

[emptyCup]

my girlfriend is running Firefox to play her games on a site called Pogo, and she keeps either getting the beachball or it just closes, any ideas why or way to fix it? she just got it yesterday and shes thinkin of returning it if it keeps doing this

If you just have the stock 512MB RAM then more will help. If the store has model on display with a GB of RAM test that out and see it helps. Best wishes.

[geelargeness]

If you only have 512MB, you don't have much headroom to run Apps. The 512MB Mini we bought for my Mother was pretty much unusable until we added more RAM. 1GB should be your minimum, but probably easiest to buy a 1GB chip and end up with 1.25GB.

[R.Youden]

To me this is pretty crap of Apple. How do they market the mini?

A computer for emails and the internet...

In this case it obviously can't handle the internet with stock configuration, that ain't too good.

[thejadedmonkey]

It sounds like frefox keeps crashing. Tell her to use Safari or Camino.

[Ninja Guidan]

It sounds like frefox keeps crashing. Tell her to use Safari or Camino.

Sounds like the site doesn't like Firefox. Test Firefox on different sites to see what happens.

[emptyCup]

To me this is pretty crap of Apple. How do they market the mini?

A computer for emails and the internet...

Exactly right. The mini is for Mom's, people who want to explore OS-X with a minimal investment, or use it as part of a home theater. If you look at what it is, and the software that comes with it, it is a good deal compared to a $400 Walmart computer. When you look at how much more you get by spending an extra $200 for the entry level iMac, it is a bad deal. Many people like the mini. Many people also think it is worth paying extra for black. It is a personal choice. The mini is a known quantity. If the OP didn't know, she should take it back

[slffl]

The first thing to do would be to try another browser.

Maybe this is why Apple didn't want 3rd party apps on the iPhone just yet. People returning the iPhone because 3rd party apps crashing.

[sananda]

If you only have 512MB, you don't have much headroom to run Apps. The 512MB Mini we bought for my Mother was pretty much unusable until we added more RAM. 1GB should be your minimum, but probably easiest to buy a 1GB chip and end up with 1.25GB.

i'm very happily running with 512MB using all my apps ok.

[zero2dash]

Sounds like the site doesn't like Firefox. Test Firefox on different sites to see what happens.

Not Firefox's problem.
Firefox works on both Mac and Windows for me with every site I've thrown at it, including Pogo (which my wife is on quite often). ;)

Could be a Java problem since Pogo is 99.9% Java (outside of the home page). Try reinstalling Java or updating it. (On Macs though, the caveat is that Java is only available through Apple themselves, not the Sun website.)

[sananda]

as i mentioned earlier i also have 512MB. so i did a little test. i signed up to pogo. using safari, i played a game. no beachball and it didn't close. then i tried the same game in firefox. again, no beachball and it didn't close. on both occasions i had any apps running at the same time without any problem.

so i don't think it's the spec of your mac mini that's at fault since i did all the above on my g4 ibook.

[Cave Man]

Joseph,

Are the games Java-based?

[zero2dash]

Yes, I went over that in my post which is two posts up. ;)

Pogo is entirely a Java site. Which is why I said to try reinstalling/updating Java through Apple's update site. :D

[CPPhoto]

i couldnt agree more...ive never been more dissappointed in an apple product. I had to buy a mini to use for work while my MBP is at applecare service. for 600 bucks...its crap. they should include a 1gig minimum on these machines because its horribly slow and i get beachballs all the time, even in safari.

good thing i can return it in a few days!

[Kosh66]

Any person that can't be bothered to upgrade their Mac Mini to 1GB of ram and complains about it, shouldn't buy a computer. Period. It's a simple, cheap upgrade that you or a certified technician can do. I've never bought a computer, even a PC, that I haven't upgrade the ram on.

[thedonga]

I use my 1.6 Mini for everything and am happy with it.
Of course that's after an upgrade to 2GB RAM and a 7200.2 hard drive.

The mini pretty much runs everything I need it to ... well. Heavy Photoshop user.

[Superlat]

Whatever some self-congratulating computer old hand groans about, an ENTRY-LEVEL computer should be complete upon purchase. It shouldnt require extra RAM for it to do the things it claims to do. This is the kind of dishonest salesmanship that seems to be prevalent throughout the industry, even though its really unnecessary, and totally disrespectful of the consumer, especially newbies. Put enough RAM in the machine to make it useable, period, at least for getting online.

APPLE reflects Jobs arrogance to the core. They aren't the friendly struggling company of old. They're a company that acts like people have endlessly deep pockets, and they should be happy to get thrown a bone, ie releasing boiling MBPs last year, (and the new ones still get hot, just not enough to cook on).

[Zwhaler]

Wirelessly posted (LGE-VX9900/1.0 UP.Browser/6.2.3.2 (GUI) MMP/2.0)

more ram is the first thing i would do. Then try running a cleaning app like onyx.

[JosephEsquivel]

just to close this thread, we took the mini back like 2 days after we bought it, so its gone.

[Royale w/cheese]

I have a intel mini, core solo 1.5ghz, the first, weakest and the cheapest of the intel minis. It runs all of the above apps just fine. :confused: Although I will sooner or later get around to it, I have not upgraded the ram, pretty much because I have other macs I do my heavy lifting on. But the mini runs final cut express, logic, flash, photoshop, fireworks, and indesign fine (using rosetta on top of that) My girlfriend is actually playing on it right now. I don't see why people would be having these problems with a 1.66 core duo if I am not having them on a 1.5 core solo.

[Tara Davis]

Whatever some self-congratulating computer old hand groans about, an ENTRY-LEVEL computer should be complete upon purchase. It shouldnt require extra RAM for it to do the things it claims to do. This is the kind of dishonest salesmanship that seems to be prevalent throughout the industry, even though its really unnecessary, and totally disrespectful of the consumer, especially newbies. Put enough RAM in the machine to make it useable, period, at least for getting online.

APPLE reflects Jobs arrogance to the core. They aren't the friendly struggling company of old. They're a company that acts like people have endlessly deep pockets, and they should be happy to get thrown a bone, ie releasing boiling MBPs last year, (and the new ones still get hot, just not enough to cook on).

But it does do what it claims to do. All the people insisting that it *needs* more memory to function are full of crap. Lots of people are running minis with the stock 512 memory, and doing fine.

*If* you run a lot of memory-hungry apps at once, your Mac will preform BETTER with more memory, but it will function just fine with half a gig. Seriously. I know of many people who do it.

As for the person crashing, read through the posts. Other users managed to run the same thing just fine with 512 MB. Clearly there's either something wrong with FireFox, or the user in question has not been running their software updates, and their Java code is out of date.

[Tara Davis]

just to close this thread, we took the mini back like 2 days after we bought it, so its gone.

HAHAHAHAHAHA! That's hilarious! You returned an entire computer because you had a problem with the Pogo games site!

Do you bring your car back to the dealer when it runs out of gas, too?

Check this out:

http://eapogo.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/eapogo.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_sid=WbciFnHi&p_faqid=10368

Notice that nowhere on the EA troubleshooting guide for their Pogo site do they suggest, "return your brand new Mac and buy a craptacular PC instead." Did you even *try* any of the suggestions on their "help" page?

Thanks for brightening my day. I needed a good laugh. :D

[Royale w/cheese]

...Do you bring your car back to the dealer when it runs out of gas, too?...

No, but an older ford driver told me I should put a second engine in the trunk. :p

[Father Jack]

The Mac Mini is an ideal introduction to Apple and OS X for "switchers" ...

It worked for me .... :) Now in the house we have a 2.66 Mac Pro, 23 ACD, two MacBooks and of course the original Mini. Thanks to the Mac Mini I am an Apple fan for life .. :):)

[JosephEsquivel]

HAHAHAHAHAHA! That's hilarious! You returned an entire computer because you had a problem with the Pogo games site!

Do you bring your car back to the dealer when it runs out of gas, too?

Check this out:

http://eapogo.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/eapogo.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_sid=WbciFnHi&p_faqid=10368

Notice that nowhere on the EA troubleshooting guide for their Pogo site do they suggest, "return your brand new Mac and buy a craptacular PC instead." Did you even *try* any of the suggestions on their "help" page?

Thanks for brightening my day. I needed a good laugh. :D

ok we returned it for many reasons, her video camera also wouldnt work with it. Turned out there was some hardware issues and they wanted to give her another one, but she said no.