I'm a programmer, thinking of buying Mac Mini

[Gary King]

I'm a programmer and high school student. The languages that I current program in are PHP, and soon I will program Ruby on Rails once I get my hands on a Mac.

Which Mac is best for me? I'm thinking of probably getting the Mac Mini, just to get my feet wet first (my last Mac that I owned was about the year 1995 or so? )

Which Mac Mini would be better? I hear that the cheaper one is just fine, but everyone says to upgrade to at least 512 MB RAM? In what situation should I get the 1 GB of RAM?

Thanks in advance!

 

[CanadaRAM]

Either Mini would be grand. I really can't tell the difference between my 1.25 and my 1.42.

Go to 512 MB or all the way to 1 Gb RAM (you don't want to have to do it twice - there's only the one socket).

Remember that you'll need to have a USB keyboard and mouse, I still like the Microsoft Intellimouse Optical on all my Macs. Run the Mini to an LCD panel by DVI cable if you can. It will support 1680 x 1050 widescreen nicely.

 

[zach]

I'd go for the cheaper model and spend the rest on RAM: more RAM REALLY makes OS X fly.

I have a gig in my PowerBook and I'm planning on putting more in, of course I do a lot of photoshop and such, but maxing out the mini on ram would actually be a good idea, never have to think about it again.

If you do that, I'd order with the stock ram, and get a 1 GB stick from crucial or dealram or such and install it yourself: you'll save a MASSIVE amount of money.

 

[Gary King]

I'd go for the cheaper model and spend the rest on RAM: more RAM REALLY makes OS X fly.

I have a gig in my PowerBook and I'm planning on putting more in, of course I do a lot of photoshop and such, but maxing out the mini on ram would actually be a good idea, never have to think about it again.

If you do that, I'd order with the stock ram, and get a 1 GB stick from crucial or dealram or such and install it yourself: you'll save a MASSIVE amount of money.

I hear that it is difficult to self-install RAM. Do you have any instructions?

 

[FFTT]

There's a video "how to open your Mac mini" floating around here somewhere. Essentially, all you need is a pair of slim 2" putty knives
to open the mini and just a bit of self confidence.

You might also check www.xlr8yourmac.com

The best performance feature you can add to any Mac is plenty of RAM.

The mini only has one RAM slot, so most buyers get at least 512MB.

Crucial is showing 1GB Mac mini RAM sticks for $114.99

http://www.crucial.com/store/listpa...id=CR&model=Mac+mini+(G4+-+1.25GHz)&submit=Go

1GB—CT431637
DDR PC2700
CL=2.5
NON-ECC

US $114.99