Over the past 20 years, I have owned many computers:

1. TRS-80 Color computer (with cassette drive!)

2. At least 10 different desktop PC’s (starting with a 286-Turbo and currently a QX6600 2.4 GHz
Quad-Core), all of which were custom built by myself or someone else.

3. 6 Windows Laptops - Sony, Toshiba, 2 Dells, HP, and an Apple MacBook.

4. A full cabinet of Intel-based Linux servers, half of which I built from parts and half of which are
Dells.

5. Several Linux desktops which were built using the parts from older Windows machines -
running Caldera, Red Hat, Ubuntu, Suse, and Mandriva.

6. Various Windows and FreeBSD workstations I have been assigned at my workplace.

7. Various VAX, DEC Alpha, and Sun servers I did not own, but was responsible for writing
software for.

You might notice a lack of Apple machines from that list apart from the MacBook. For the most part, I
have stayed away from Apple computers for a these reasons:

1. There is no specific functionality in an Apple computer which cannot be accomplished with a
PC.

2. I have a significant library of commercial PC software which would have to be re-purchased (and in some cases, irreplaceable) if I switched to Mac.

3. Mac hardware is expensive and doesn’t reflect the commodity pricing of its Intel hardware.

4. Mac hardware is notoriously impossible and/or difficult to upgrade (I pretty much never buy
an entire new set of computer parts - I just keep upgrading) although the Mac Pro has some upgradability.

5. Although I don’t have any significant gripes about MacOS, I simply don’t prefer the interface to
a Windows machine.

6. MacOS is proprietary in that you cannot (legitimately) run it virtualized on other hardware or
install MacOS on a machine you built yourself.

7. There is very little variety to choose from in Mac hardware, vs PC hardware. I am very specific
about what parts I want in my PC or laptop, and like as much choice as possible.

8. Macs only supports a small subset of games which are available for the PC.

9. Support. It is much easier finding answers, software, and advice online for Windows, which is
about 90% of the consumer market, compared to Apple’s ~8% - there are just far fewer
people to ask, and far fewer developers willing to write software for it.

Some of these was the main reason I gave away my Intel MacBookshortly after I purchased it a couple of years ago. I just found myself working in Windows under a Virtual Machine most of the time, and I didn’t care for the MacBookhardware personally - it ran too hot and was a little big for my taste.

However, there is one Apple product that I am very excited about, if you haven’t guessed from
reading this blog, and that is the Apple iPhone. Most importantly, I was sold on the Apple iPhone
because of the new 3rd party App Support and the App Store. I knew as soon as I got mine that I
wanted to write my own iPhone apps.

Unfortunately, in order to write apps for the iPhone, I would need an Intel Mac. So, I set out to buy
the cheapest Mac I could find.

The cheapest Mac is the Mac Mini, and at $599 with no keyboard, monitor, or mouse, it isn’t really that cheap at all.

It is, however, a very capable little computer and cute as hell.

Unlike a traditional big box PC case, its just a little white block with a power brick.

That’s pretty much it.

On the back are ports for DVI monitor (with VGA adapter), a handful of USB ports, an audio out
(although it has a tinny little, albeit functional, built-in speaker), a firewire port, Ethernet, and an audio in. Just plug in your monitor, keyboard, and mouse, and away you go.

The one thing I like about buying a full commercial computer is that, unlike the systems I build by hand, the OS is already installed and knows about your hardware - so after a VERY brief setup, you are off and running with the Mac Mini.

I hooked it up to my Dell 24″ Monitor via the DVI jack, and although the Mac Mini has an unimpressive
onboard Intel graphics chip (similar to a notebook), it had no problem recognizing or driving the
1920×1200 resolution of the monitor - and it looked great. The Mac interface is indeed very pretty.

Similarly, I was able to use my USB PC keyboard and monitor right away, although these had some
issues:

- My Logitech mouse’s back button didn’t work, and there is no way within MacOS to configure
this ? and Logitech does not make Mac mouse drivers (!?). This was astonishing to me as I
don?t know how anyone uses a web browser without a mouse back button. I had to search for
a solution, which I found in a shareware program utility which should not be necessary.

- Although I could adjust the tracking speed on the mouse, it just didn’t feel right - and there
was no way to change the acceleration speed as you can in Windows. For this, I also needed
another shareware program that I shouldn’t have needed.

- Evidently the HOME and END buttons have a default functionality which is most unusual and
different from a Windows or Linux machine - instead of bringing the cursor to the end or
beginning of a line, they bring you to the beginning or end of the document. This also required
a shareware add-on.

- In most cases where you would use the CTRL key in Windows or Linux, you use the
COMMAND key on a Mac - I was using a PC keyboard, which in this case relates to the
Windows key. This took a little getting used to.

Once I had these preferences fixed, there were a few Mac adjustments I had to get used to.

The first one was installing applications, which can happen in some very different ways:

1. In some cases, the application will come in a zip or stx (stuffit) file with a somewhat Windows-
like wizard installer. Personally, I have no idea why Mac continues to use StuffIt rather than zip
for compression - it is a third-party program, and Macs cannot handle StuffiT archives out of
the box (as you can with zip on Windows and Linux) ? you need to install StuffIt first, which
seems totally unnecessary.

2. In some cases, you will be downloading a disk image file (dmg). When double-clicked, Mac will
uncompress and present this archive as a virtual mounted disk - then you click on that, and
what happens after that can vary. Sometimes (Firefox is one example), you are just presented
with the application icon and an icon representing your applications folder, and you are
supposed to drag one on top of the other. When I first encountered this (with Firefox), I just
kind of stared at the icons and had no idea what I was supposed to do.

3. Some applications, like XCode, will install themselves somewhere else. XCode will install itself
in a development folder, not your applications folder. Since Mac apps don’t ask you if you
would like an icon on your desktop or in your dock, you have to go find them after install.

Luckily Mac’s built-in seach feature found XCode for me.

The desktop too left me with a few gripes.

First off is the dock - its really tall, and takes up too much space on the screen considering it takes
space from the application windows, although this is configurable. Unlike Window’s taskbar, which
separates the quick launch icons from running applications, the Mac Dock has them all together - only
a small blue light under the icon indicates whether it is simply a launchable or running app.

Whats more, Mac apps don’t display their current document name, progress, or any other information
with their dock icon - its just an icon. There isn’t even an application name unless you hover over it.

For these reasons, I am not a fan of the dock. I would like to be objective and say its just preference, but compared to the Windows taskbar and start menu - or even KDE or Gnome under Linux - the dock just does not deliver.

As for Apps, they are very similar to Windows or Linux apps - except that their menu bar is not
attached to the application window as it is on Windows or Linux - the menu bar is displayed at the very top of the screen, and is only displayed for the currently running program. Although I don’t
understand the advantage of this behavior, its not terribly difficult to get used to. The only problem is that sometimes I am not aware of which window is active and think I am navigating the menu of another program.

The lack of menu bars on the application windows make application windows very difficult to differentiate from each other - I find locating the window I want by sight on the desktop very difficult compared to Windows.

As for performance, the Mac Mini delivers - for what it is. Considering it is the least of the Mac lineup, MacOS and
multiple apps run just fine under it, even in spite of its relatively anemic 5400-RPM 80 GB Hard Drive.

In general these days, I find that only modern 3D games and video editing really ever tax a modern
computer anyway - so if you don’t need to do either of those, your hardware doesn’t really matter
that much anyway.

On the plus side of things, I really appreciate Darwin, which is the FreeBSD-related UNIX underbelly of
MacOS. Although different enough from Linux and FreeBSD that I don?t care for it as a UNIX
development environment, its nice to know its there. Previously you had to do some installing and
fiddling to use X11 apps, but now your Xserver just starts up whenever its needed, which is nice.

If you don’t understand that last paragraph, you don’t need to.

I have a full Linux box which runs 24/7 in my office as well, although is seldom utilized. It would be
nice to put its jobs and code on the Mini and ditch that hardware for space and power savings.

Although I haven’t measured it, I would imagine the Mac Mini doesn’t draw much power either. It
seems passively cooled (no fans), has a notebook graphics chip, and a 5400 RPM hard drive ?
drawbacks performance-wise, but advantageous power-wise.

(actually I just looked it up, and the Mac Mini draws about 23w at idle vs the more powerful MacBookat 14w.)

This is a big difference compared to my quad-core tower, which when busy can send the temperature of my office up 7-8 degrees.

In the final analysis, the Mac Mini is a unique and very competent computer, if not a bit underpowered
and inexcusably overpriced. Its case is very attractive and takes up very little space.

I should also mention it has built-in Wifi, which I have never used in a desktop, but is a nice addition

and allows a lot of flexibility in where you put the computer. Both WiFi and Ethernet were very easy to
setup in MacOS.

In hindsight, I actually wish I had bought a new MacBookhowever. Although costing almost twice as
much, even a lower-end MacBookhas better specs, and I could program iPhone apps anywhere in the
house and free up a workstation.

In the future, I would really like to see a $499 Mac Mini, because that is really what I think the computer is worth on a comparative hardware basis. Its basically a starter notebook without a display, keyboard, or trackpad.