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I want a Mac mini, I think..but I still suck because....

motc777

motc777

macrumors member
Original poster
I have to still have a PC to do my work. Now I know about boot camp and parallel and whatnot, but the truth is, I have a perfectly good Dimension 8400 desktop that I can still do my business on.

I was thinking that if I wanted to dip my foot into the Mac market, getting a mini would be very cost effective, but the one question remains. Can I with a standard KVM switch hook it up to a single monitor and keyboard, or possible dual monitors. If so how? Thanks in advance and it's great to be back. 😀:apple:
 
He didn't make it up himself... hardware agnostic is a commonly used term FYI.

Also - and this may be a "DUH" reminder - make sure the KVM you choose uses USB for the keyboard/mouse. There are still quite a few using PS2. No sense having to buy an additional PS2 to USB adapter.
 
Or, instead of spending more money to get a KVM switch and having two boxes sitting around, you could sell the Dell and use the money from that (and the money you would have spent on the KVM) and upgrade the mini, or just put it in the bank.
 
Demosthenes X said:
Or, instead of spending more money to get a KVM switch and having two boxes sitting around, you could sell the Dell and use the money from that (and the money you would have spent on the KVM) and upgrade the mini, or just put it in the bank.
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I hate having two computers. I had a custom whitebox I built myself and an iBook G4 for a brief period of time. It was a huge PIA.

To OP, I would highly recommend selling your Dell and the it's accesories and go with an iMac.
 
Personally I think having two computers would be difficult and annoying but you may very well need the Dell for your "work" I know not many companies use OS X or Apples at all for that matter. My vote is buying a nice Mac mini, selling the dell, buying parallels and installing windows XP.
 
SnowLeopard2008 said:
I hate having two computers. I had a custom whitebox I built myself and an iBook G4 for a brief period of time. It was a huge PIA.

To OP, I would highly recommend selling your Dell and the it's accesories and go with an iMac.
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Yes, that makes sense. So when one goes in for repair, you'll have nothing to work with. Great idea.

If you don't need two, you probably didn't need one in the first place.
 
weckart said:
Yes, that makes sense. So when one goes in for repair, you'll have nothing to work with. Great idea.
Click to expand...

He has a point here. However, only you can decide if the kind of work you do would be significantly hindered by having a computer go down. But you've made it this far on one, so perhaps you are okay? If you go for the Mini, I'd suggest selling the Dell as well (if its resale is worth anything) and putting that into the Mac Mini, or, the bank.

If you don't need two, you probably didn't need one in the first place.
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😕 This makes no sense to me? 😕
I don't need two computers, but I do need one...
(unless you want to get technical on the term "need", and in that case I need very very little, including this train of thought 😉 )
 
I think it depends on if you could get anything out of the dell. Heck, I'm even seeing the new alu macbooks selling on craigslist lately for $900-$1000, and they're new machines with initial applecare warranty.

If money's an issue and if you can't get a decent price out of the dell, use it until it no longer meets your needs or breaks, and then buy a mini.

The rule you'll hear on the forums is 'if you need it now, buy it now, otherwise wait'. The only trick is determining whether you really need it now.
 
Use SynergyKM and a cross over ethernet cable.

I'm getting a used mac mini myself in the next few weeks and doing exactly the same thing with my G4 as the secondary machine.

I can't find exact instructions for configuring it but I'm assuming it's just a simple case of having 1 monitor for each computer, hooking up the ethernet cable then setting one system as a server and one a client. The control panel has so few controls I imagine it's a very simple process.

A cross over cable is going to much cheaper than KVM and I've read some BAD things about the cheaper Belkin KVM systems available on amazon from all the comments slating them on there.
 
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