First time ever owner of anything apple ...
what are some cool things I need to get for my mini to make it a blast to use?
what are some cool things I need to get for my mini to make it a blast to use?
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Got a mini incoming
- Thread starter doobybiggs
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got my own keyboard and mouse and display left over from my PC ...
speaker - I will look into them
came with an external hard drive
I will try and find the favorites thread floating around ...
Well, if this is your first Apple and given the way video codecs are going the Apple TV will be a great accessory as the new x264-hd codec doesn't seem to be supported by a great many current devices (xbox 360 for instance). iTunes and the Apple TV love the codec, which makes your streaming all that much easier - not to mention your whole music library on a TV spurs a lot of better viewing than what's normally on...
The trackpad is a another good one to get, it's really a gadget though with not as much productivity as I first thought - same goes with the Superdrive. I've yet to use more than 2 DVDs since I got the darn thing lol.
The trackpad is a another good one to get, it's really a gadget though with not as much productivity as I first thought - same goes with the Superdrive. I've yet to use more than 2 DVDs since I got the darn thing lol.
First things first: upgrade to 8 GiB RAM. I'm on Snow Leopard on a 2010 Mac mini (Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz with nVidia 320M) and going from 2 to 8 GiB made a huge difference.
Second: your mouse is probably USB, but is your keyboard USB too? Sad to say that even in 2012 I still see PS/2-only keyboards for sale in stores.
Third: you probably won't like Finder, but it's the only thing that's really "different" from using a Windows system.
Be warned that when copying folders, OS X does NOT merge contents, it replaces them (i.e. imagine the older folder being deleted, then re-created, then OS X copies your new dropped files into it). Be careful.
That's about all I can say to get you started. As for me, I've been using Macs since the days of the first Mac mini (G4 1.42 Ghz with 1 GiB RAM... things changed since then) and I'm not planning on switching to something else any time soon.
Second: your mouse is probably USB, but is your keyboard USB too? Sad to say that even in 2012 I still see PS/2-only keyboards for sale in stores.
Third: you probably won't like Finder, but it's the only thing that's really "different" from using a Windows system.
Be warned that when copying folders, OS X does NOT merge contents, it replaces them (i.e. imagine the older folder being deleted, then re-created, then OS X copies your new dropped files into it). Be careful.
That's about all I can say to get you started. As for me, I've been using Macs since the days of the first Mac mini (G4 1.42 Ghz with 1 GiB RAM... things changed since then) and I'm not planning on switching to something else any time soon.
First things first: upgrade to 8 GiB RAM. I'm on Snow Leopard on a 2010 Mac mini (Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz with nVidia 320M) and going from 2 to 8 GiB made a huge difference.
Second: your mouse is probably USB, but is your keyboard USB too? Sad to say that even in 2012 I still see PS/2-only keyboards for sale in stores.
Third: you probably won't like Finder, but it's the only thing that's really "different" from using a Windows system.
Be warned that when copying folders, OS X does NOT merge contents, it replaces them (i.e. imagine the older folder being deleted, then re-created, then OS X copies your new dropped files into it). Be careful.
That's about all I can say to get you started. As for me, I've been using Macs since the days of the first Mac mini (G4 1.42 Ghz with 1 GiB RAM... things changed since then) and I'm not planning on switching to something else any time soon.
thanks for the input ...
why on earth do macs just erase the old folder and not merge? that just does not make much sense
thanks for the input ...
why on earth do macs just erase the old folder and not merge? that just does not make much sense
No idea, but I've lost files twice by doing exactly that. I was used to contents being merged on Windows.
But as I said, apart from those details, give it time and the rest of the OS X interface and style will grow on you.
Another thing that I forgot to mention is the way text is anti-aliased. You may find it "blurry" at first, but let time pass. In a few weeks or months, you won't be able to read text on a Windows system. It's too sharp, too pixelated and unnatural. I didn't believe others who told me the same thing when I switched and I cursed at OS X's anti-aliasing. But now, seven years later, I still can't understand how I was able to look at Windows-rendered text all day long for all those years.
With enough RAM, the Mac mini is a really powerful box. I only have a 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo, but I can easily have all of these open and running at once:
- Adium (most people in Canada are still using MSN for some reason)
- iTunes for music
- Safari with about a dozen tabs opened (Javascript enabled but plug-ins and Java disabled)
- Handbrake to encode a DVD into H.264 (very CPU-intensive)
- TextWrangler to edit a few dozen files of PHP, HTML, CSS and Javascript
- ImageReady CS2 to edit graphics (this old program is PowerPC-only, meaning it's running under emulation via Rosetta)
And with all of that running, I might still take a break and start World of Warcraft to go check my listings at the auction house or go fishing around Darkmoon Island. ;-)
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wow not bad at all ... how much RAM do you have in your system to pull that off?
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thanks for those links ... I got lots of reading to do lol
8 GiB, which is the maximum for the 2010 Mac mini. Some of that RAM is used by the nVidia 320M GPU, however.
just curious with the hard drive space ... can I add a hard drive of any size to this thing or is there a limit on size for internal hard drives?
There is no limit on capacity. The only limitation is physical dimensions. As long as it fits, you can use it.
thanks for the input ...
why on earth do macs just erase the old folder and not merge? that just does not make much sense
Lion does merge folders. Yvan256 is using Snow Leopard, which didn't do the merge.
Could you enlighten us on the "new x264-hd codec"?
Btw, the 360 absolutely does support AVC (which could be encoded with x264, or something else) if it's in MP4.
ya I am curious with you on that one lol
Also, I am assuming these hard drives are 2.5" and not the normal 3.5" design?