Proposed new system, what do you think?

[Alec]

Ooh, Mac Minis are a bit cheaper than i thought...

EDIT - And if i could get away with the minimum of enhancements and extras etc, both software and hardware wise. And have no trouble emailing people with PCs...

Could i use my current router? My peripherals?

EDIT: Their screens are also pretty well specced, but too big. Damn.

 

[Alec]

Am now taking the Mac idea very seriously, but need to be clear on a few things before taking the plunge, and some could be deal breakers.

1 - Do'nt particularly like Itunes as a library and player. Mainly because I like the comfort of certain things I get by default in WMP like seeing the pane of things that are playing. It seems there is a version of WMP for Macs. Would I suffer any real performance hit using that? Would I still have the benefit of a Mac's aparently superior handling of audio? I would of course have a good play with front row to see if I like that (but can that only be used on a TV or is it ok just on the monitor?

2 - Could i use any old monitor, mouse and keyboard?

3 - Is there any benefit to me to get the one with Snow Leopard server? I'm hoping not.

4 - Anyway of finding a much smaller Apple monitor? Do they even exist? I'll have a Google. EDIT - No seems the answer. Still, not unsurmountable.

5 - I would need their adaptor to get the AVI optical cable into the Mini would'nt I? Does this adaptor require its own power supply (probably hardly a deal breaker).

Would this one be swift enough, as I would also have to get any necassary adaptors, almost certainly the remote (but I might hang fire), and probably iWork. And do'nt forget a monitor, though I could hang on to mine for a bit at least I think.

Can anyone tell this thicko who does'nt understand the blurb on the website what FileMaker is?

And can anyone point me in the direction of a good Mac forum?

 

[professorhat]

al7478:1 - Do'nt particularly like Itunes as a library and player. Mainly because I like the comfort of certain things I get by default in WMP like seeing the pane of things that are playing. It seems there is a version of WMP for Macs. Would I suffer any real performance hit using that? Would I still have the benefit of a Mac's aparently superior handling of audio? I would of course have a good play with front row to see if I like that (but can that only be used on a TV or is it ok just on the monitor?

Not sure what you mean by "seeing the pane of things that are playing" - do you mean the Cover Art? In which case, the Cover Flow view will show you this:

al7478:2 - Could i use any old monitor, mouse and keyboard?

Yes, any USB keyboard / mouse and you'll need the appropriate MiniDiplay port adapter for the monitor (i.e. either the VGA or DVI adaptor depending what the monitor has).

al7478:3 - Is there any benefit to me to get the one with Snow Leopard server? I'm hoping not.

Definitely not for your use.

al7478:4 - Anyway of finding a much smaller Apple monitor? Do they even exist? I'll have a Google. EDIT - No seems the answer. Still, not unsurmountable.

The Apple Monitors are lovely but very expensive. I use a Dell monitor myself - 24" 1080p monitor for £300 instead of £650. Okay, it's not LED, but it still looks lovely!

al7478:5 - I would need their adaptor to get the AVI optical cable into the Mini would'nt I? Does this adaptor require its own power supply (probably hardly a deal breaker).

For the Mini, you just need a Mini TOSLink cable to standard TOSlink I would have thought? Like this:

al7478:Would this one be swift enough, as I would also have to get any necassary adaptors, almost certainly the remote (but I might hang fire), and probably iWork. And do'nt forget a monitor, though I could hang on to mine for a bit at least I think.

Wouldn't bother with iWork - get Microsoft Office instead. iWork is okay, but if you're using it with Office files you'll constantly need to convert them which doesn't always work etc. etc.

al7478:Can anyone tell this thicko who does'nt understand the blurb on the website what FileMaker is?

FileMaker makes databases. You don't need it.

 

[idc]

Just to add my tuppence worth, Dell Inspiron 1300 with XP. 512 RAM changed to a Vaio 3gb RAM and W7. Night and day to use that much abused phrase. The Vaio has 320gb hard drive and cost £500. My parents have also just bought an Acer PC with a smallish monitor from PC World for about £600 (maybe £699). It has W7 which is clearly faster and more efficient that XP. Apart from the cheap plastic used to make it I cannot fault it, it looks smart and like the Vaio does everything I and you would need. We appear to have the same needs from a computer.

The only negative I can see is the lack (on the Vaio anyway, I think) of optical out.

 

[professorhat]

Oh, and on the spec of the Mini, I would seriously consider upping the hard drive size. 160 GB will not last long if you're going to be ripping music to it. I'd stick the 500 GB hard drive in - I have 500 GB in my Power Mac, have all my music ripped losslessly to it (324 CDs), all my photos, various home videos, and the like, basically my entire personal life and have 123 GB free at the moment.

 

[Alec]

I tried a screengrab but couldnt paste it in. This pic may be too small but im refering to the pain down the right hand side. i alwasy make it bigger as who cares about those visualisations eh?

Thanks for your other replies today folks ill just have a thorough look through them.

 

[Alec]

Prof - Wouldnt this be ok, and mean that i can just keep my existing optical cable? Damn, I thought I saw a toslink-mini toslink adaptor on the Apple site. I was mistaken. Damn again. But then...

MS Office for Mac. Thats the problem with the Mac it seems. I have to get more stuff; its not just buying the machine. In order to get the equivalent to the Office i already have would cost hundreds, tho i dont use most of it so could settle for the home and student edition, as long as one doesnt have to be a student...

Would emails I'd send and recieve be ok or would they need constantly converting?

I was going to use acronis to back up my PC but it doesnt work under OSX. Any good Apple back-up progs?

Is there any such thing as a ripper that can rip to 2 formats at the same time for Macs? Non-essential, but thouht I'd ask just in case. I dont think there is a dbpoweramp or ripstation micro ds for Mac.

 

[professorhat]

Hmm, I'm not 100% what info is being displayed there but I don't think iTunes can do this. If this is a deal breaker, it's worth ensuring you can get a Media Player you like that runs on Mac OS X. I've just had a look at Windows Media Player 9.0 for OS X and it doesn't really look anything like the one for Windows - it's just a basic window which plays some audio and video files and allows streaming off WMVs and the like off the internet. It won't even play MP3 files I have stored locally:

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/video/windowsmediaplayerformacosx.html

 

[professorhat]

Home and Student edition of Office will be fine for Mac - this is about £60 - £70 so not much more than you were going to pay for iWork. You can use iWork if it's only going to be used by yourself - I own it and actually quite like it. The problem comes when you need to share documents with other people or convert documents from other people. It does work and it's not too bad, but for the sake of an extra £10 - £15, I'd just get Office.

Emails will be fine, no converting required there.

I use SuperDuper! for backup - works very well indeed I've found - costs $27.95 (about £18).

Not sure about ripping formats as I just use iTunes - maybe the likes of JD can help here?

 

[Alec]

professorhat:

Hmm, I'm not 100% what info is being displayed there but I don't think iTunes can do this...I've just had a look at Windows Media Player 9.0 for OS X and it doesn't really look anything like the one for Windows...

And yet to a native of Windows it seems perverse not to just have a list of the songs that are playing in front of you. Must admit I feel a bit silly being attached to certain things in WMP but they just feel right.

Incidentally, if you click on that pic it gets bigger. It jsut a list of the songs that are playing at that time and you can look for them in folders from there, add them to a playlist, take them out of the "now playing" list...

Yup, WMP for Mac seems rubbish. What about the Front Row idea I mentioned earlier?

EDIT see what you mean re Office, must admit i hadnt done "the math". I dont need much on a regualr basis but would like the ability to share things, tho the vast bulk of the time its just for me.

Does what you say about emails apply regardless of the client? Could i use either the one that comes in Office or the one with OSX (i think there is one?) and be able to send Office docs as attachments or pasted in to emails etc?

 

[professorhat]

So it's a list of songs that are playing? Well, you have this in iTunes too - can be seen in the screenshot under the Cover Flow pictures. And in similar fashion you can add these to a playlist or remove them from the current list...

Not sure about Front Row as never used it - since I have a Power Mac which sits in my office, it's not something I really need.

 

[John Duncan]

Al, just resized that for you. So's I'm not answering piecemeal, let me go back through quereies, because I think they can all be dealt with (neoOffice for Mac is actually more functional than MS OFfice for Mac, for example)

 

[Alec]

professorhat:

So it's a list of songs that are playing? Well, you have this in iTunes too - can be seen in the screenshot under the Cover Flow pictures. And in similar fashion you can add these to a playlist or remove them from the current list...

Not sure about Front Row as never used it - since I have a Power Mac which sits in my office, it's not something I really need.

Thanks. I probably need to learn to configure it better.

 

[Alec]

JohnDuncan:Al, just resized that for you. So's I'm not answering piecemeal, let me go back through quereies, because I think they can all be dealt with (neoOffice for Mac is actually more functional than MS OFfice for Mac, for example)

Thanks John. I'm being pretty anal but I'm not good with change (this is a local village etc...). But i do see it as a great solution if i can sort certain things out. Have emailed that shop i mentioned to see what the support situation would be like if i gor a Mac from them. No reply as yet...

 

[professorhat]

al7478:Does what you say about emails apply regardless of the client? Could i use either the one that comes in Office or the one with OSX (i think there is one?) and be able to send Office docs as attachments or pasted in to emails etc?

Yup, doesn't matter which client you use. I use the Mail client that comes with OS X personally as I don't have Office on the Mac, but if you do get MS Office, you could equally use their client. Have a wait and see what JD says though - I've not heard of neoOffice either so going to look it up now!

 

[John Duncan]

NeoOffice is a port of OpenOffice for the Mac. It's more Office-compatible than Microsoft's own, because it can handle macros.

Anyway Al, I think everything else has been covered apart from your dislike of iTunes, but as mentioned above I think the functionality is in there - if you're on shuffle for example, you can see the cue list of what's coming up, or have cover flow above and track list below or whatever. We can discuss in a separate thread if you like.

I use OSX's own mail client as well (I find it better than Entourage, which is the mail client that ships with MS Office), but there are many others out there, the obvious one being Thunderbird (from Mozilla, the makers of Firefox). if I have one issue with the OSX mail client it's that it's difficult to set up more than one alias - eg with blueyonder mail, you have one mail account which is then aliased to a number of email addresses (bob@whatever.com, melissa@whatever.com, dog@whatever.com), and it's a palaver to get mail to deal with those. If you all have separate mailbox accounts it's not an issue.

As for software, I haven't paid for any yet

, but the one glaring omission which is an issue for some people is a compatible Mac equivalent to Microsoft Project.

 

[Alec]

Thanks John.

Could I just use Open Office for Mac, or isnt there one?

Does that adaptor i linked to look OK?

Incidentally, i believe itunes sound different on my machine. in a good way. could just mean my equalizer settings in wmp are rubbish.

So you all know, im off out til late shortly, so ill be on here sporadically if at all.

P.S. How much more money for a 500 gig HDD?! Mght compromise with the 320.

EDIT Thanks Prof.

 

[Alec]

Ha! Lack of Project wont be a problem. I can barely plan my breakfast.

 

[John Duncan]

NeoOffice *is* OpenOffice for Mac (kind of), but has been optimised for OSX. The openOffice Linux distribution would probably work, but I haven't tried it.

Any mini toslink adapter will be fine - I think mine was 99p.

Let's not get into the iTunes versus WMP sound quality on this thread

 

[professorhat]

al7478:P.S. How much more money for a 500 gig HDD?! Mght compromise with the 320.

It's an option within the Hard Drive section on the Mini Mac configuration link you posted here. 320 GB is an extra £81 whereas 500 GB is £163. You can always get an external USB drive if you need more space, but I prefer to have it all neat and internal. With a standard PC / Power Mac of course, you can upgrade pretty easily, but opening the Mini Mac to upgrade is not something I would recommend unless you have a lot of experience (trust me, I've done it and it took about 45 minutes to get everything back in place!). Of course you could always get a 3rd party to do it for you in future if necessary.

al7478:EDIT Thanks Prof.

Welcome! And thanks to JD - I'll be trying out NeoOffice at some point. I did try the OpenOffice program before and found it was pretty rubbish running on the Mac, hence why I got iWork when it effectively came free with my upgrade to Leopard and iLife 09.

 

[Alec]

Oh, I'm a huge fan of using 3rd parties.

Re the 500gig HDD, I obviously didnt put that v well as i had seen the price and was being sarcy about it as, imo, its a lot!

Right, off for a movie night with a mate.

 

[professorhat]

Ah, I see it now - I must have glossed over the "?!" when I originally read it!

 

[Alec]

My humour has always been kind of...rubbish enigmatic.

 

[PJPro]

Yeah. A £163 extra is a lot. A very lot. Personally, at those prices I'd go for the smallest available and buy my own HDD later. If fitting a new internal HDD frightens you, get an external drive. Use the small internal HDD (fast) for programs and the external USB HDD (slow) for data (eg music).

 

[Craig M.]

i did as pjpro suggests, works fine.