Mac mini compared to my old PC

That should be fine when Photoshop is Universal, if you upgrade the RAM to 1GB it will be even better. (And Neopets has gone to the dumps)

viccles said:

My PC is a Pentium 43ghz 1gb memory 60gb harddrive.

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43 GHz?! Wow, are you from the future?

3Ghz and 60GB... odd combo. Kind of like a Core 2 Duo with a 80GB drive..

viccles said:

Is Adobe photoshop not available on mac?

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You're kidding right?

viccles said:

Is Adobe photoshop not available on mac?

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It is!

viccles said:

I noticed lots of other cool apps are like Skype

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Um, what?

viccles said:

ok I admit Neopets

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I Googled this wondering what you had to admit to...

Aww... dey so cute

viccles said:

Hey bare with me guys this will be the first mac ever I've had! I'm sorry for the noobie questions I also found out that the mini was delivered yesterday (i'm on vacation for the weekend) but no one was home so it will be delivered on Monday. Mum also said if I like the mini she will swap computers with me

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Macs are not as limited as most people expect. In fact, I've found that moving over to Mac has made more apps available to me. My MBP does more than my PC, which had billions of programs in the start menu. The Macintosh platform is HUGE.

Almost any popular PC app is also available for Mac...

yay! I want to get a MacMini too, with a 23" ACD. Would look great on my desk. It could also act as a web server.

I might ask for one for my birthday actually! Thanks for the inspiration dude!

viccles said:

Definitely go for it I hope its a good mac experience if so in the future I will gradually change my computers to mac (might keep a PC for my games ) Will take pictures of it when I get it. Only have a 17" monitor though I hope my Microsoft wireless keyboard will work on it!

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Your keyboard will work just fine, although I suggest investing in an Apple keyboard or a keyboard designed specifically for Macs, they have the command, option and control keys in the right place and also have a dedicated eject key and volume/brightness controls.

The eject key comes in handy as no Macs have a drive that opens with a button on the machine - you either have to drag the disk to the trash or hit the keyboard's eject key.

I'm not sure but you may be able to assign a key on your MS keyboard to achieve the same function. Either way your MS keyboard should plug in and work right away, you may have to download MS's software to get full functionality though.

I agree with Chundles, get a Mac keyboard. They work much better than the Microsoft ones, the M$ ones are fugly and also the whole point really in getting a Mac is trying to get as far away from M$ as possible...

Photoshop runs under Rosetta, and is NOT fine at 512MB. Get 2GB and keep the Mini.

Killyp said:

I agree with Chundles, get a Mac keyboard. They work much better than the Microsoft ones, the M$ ones are fugly and also the whole point really in getting a Mac is trying to get as far away from M$ as possible...

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The Mac ones have no wrist rests, nor are they "natural" keyboards. My wrists are already starting to suffer for this brief stint with a Tactile Pro already.. guess I should just shelf it and go back to my non carpal tunnel inducing non Mac keyboard.

viccles said:

Netdog I would love to however I do not have the funds available LOL maybe after birthday/job. Would adobe not run at all on 512?

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It will run, but poorly. Or more poorly, I should say;

The thing is, Photoshop at this particular moment on the MacOS is a PowerPC native application. Apple has some VERY impressive emulation technology to let PPC apps run on an Intel-based Mac called Rosetta, but it's still emulation. This roughly halves the speed of Photoshop according to most benchmarks I've seen. Which means it doesn't run that badly on a Core Duo, actually, but it doesn't compare well to either a P4 3GHz running a Windows version of Photoshop, or a newer PPC Mac running the Mac version (which is roughly comperable in speed).

Now, here's the problem: Photoshop is already viciously RAM-hungry, so it would already be wanting for more at 512MB if you're working with anything but relatively small images. And Rosetta eats up a LOT of memory to do its emulating magic. Further, 512MB is about the bare minimum to have the most recent MacOS version run properly, and it's happier with more.

Put all three of those together, and you're basically setting up a situation for a very RAM-starved Photoshop that would already be running slower than average due to the emulation. Again, it'll work, but the performance will not be what you're used to.

Now, if you were planning on installing a copy of Windows with Bootcamp on the Mini and using your current version of Photoshop in Windows, then ignore everything I just said, since you won't be taking the emulation hit and associated RAM use. It'll probably be fine as long as you don't work with very large images.

In fact, if you weren't planning on that and only use Photoshop occasionally, this is a better idea; you might be able to use a copy of Windows you already have, and even if you have to buy a new one it's still cheaper than a new copy of Photoshop. That lets you run Photoshop at full speed (with the hassle of a reboot into Windows, but if it's only once in a while that's not a huge deal), and you can save your money for CS3, which will be Intel-native and run at full speed instead of buying both CS2 and the upgrade to CS3 later.

buy 2GB ram off newegg asap.

No use in keeping the window boxes (for use) when you have bootcamp and XP (if you don't, pawn the box, and buy a copy). Too bad the mini has mini HDD too, otherwise you could have saved some $ transplanting from old PC's in the future.

viccles said:

Are there any other apps that wont eat as much memory that I can use just for graphics? I am not a hardcore graphic person and sometimes use paint shop pro for them. Is there something else I could use without having to upgrade my memory?

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Depends entirely on what you're doing. You said "design grahics," which sounds like you're... making web buttons or logos or something? That being the case, I have no good suggestions, since it's not something I do.

If all you need is basic drawing/editing tools, or basic photo adjustment tools, or the ability to recompress images in just about any form imaginable, have a look at GraphicConverter. It's about $50, and is often called the poor man's Photoshop--it doesn't have any fancy editing tools, but it can do a heck of a lot, and you can try for free to see if it fits your needs. It's basically all I need, anyway.

If you're looking for simple compositing or fancy text tools, you might find that Comic Life (which should come preinstalled and ready to run on your mini) does more than it sounds like--at the very least, you can do a heck of a lot with stylized text.

There are other nice tools out there for specific needs, but somebody else will have to make suggestions. Or do a search on VersionTracker.com -- you can find pretty much anything there, and half the time it's free.

generik said:

The Mac ones have no wrist rests, nor are they "natural" keyboards. My wrists are already starting to suffer for this brief stint with a Tactile Pro already.. guess I should just shelf it and go back to my non carpal tunnel inducing non Mac keyboard.

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I guess your mileage varies, I find the Mac keyboard to be very comfortable, I rest my forearms on my desk and have the keyboard set back about 20cm or so from the edge. I can't use those flat or ergonomic ones - I find them too difficult to use with any accuracy.

Don't know about carpal tunnel - my hands are fine.