Just Bought the MacMini at Best Buy

[Mandy]

Thanks to Ottawaman for notifying me of the sale, so I flew down there at opening time, and they were already sold out.

It went on sale yesterday, and today they were all gone, but there was one floor model, so I asked for that one and got it for another 5% discount, bringing the price down to $450.

No box, but got everything else (disc, etc.), and while it does have the 512 RAM and 80 gig, no DVD burner. But it does have the CD burner, so can use that and transfer to my PC if I want to burn to a DVD.

Still have my credit at Compusmart to come, so will put that money towards getting a Belkin KVM switch. They had put the $700 Mac Mini aside for me so hope they dont hold me to it.

Many, MANY THANKS to all for their input on this and esp to Ottawaman and Child of C.

[Ottawaman]

enjoy

[chief]

ppc or intel core?

[debbie]

nice Mandy :) congrats!

[Ottawaman]

$450.
ppc

[Mviper]

welcome to the dark side. Enjoy

[Ottawaman]

I realize you just dropped some serious money, but when you can, pop a gig in to the mini. You will definitely be happier.

[Child of Cupertino]

I realize you just dropped some serious money, but when you can, pop a gig in to the mini. You will definitely be happier.

No DVDRW?? Sheesh. Good price, tho. Well, if you have or get iLife 06, iDVD will recognize external DVDRWs (Apple hobbled this capability prior to the new version). DVDRW drives are cheap at Canada Computers (Get a Pioneer. Apple uses them). Couldn't find a price on the housing, but you probably could.

Re: transferring to your PC. Just network them together. Mac OS X has this capability built right in. Don't waste your media to simply burn it and move it two feet from one computer to another.

And I almost forgot! WELCOME TO MAC OS X! WOW! There will probably be some birthing pains as you orient yourself to it, but it's WORLDS APART from the old mac OS and that iLife software rocks. BTW, do you have iLife 06 with it? Or iLife 05?

[Child of Cupertino]

BTW, the first thing you should do with this "floor model" is boot from the System restore disk, WIPE THE DRIVE and do a complete fresh resinstall of all the factory apps, creating a new user account in the process. God knows what's been done to it.

[Ottawaman]

I was at future shop last week and they had a display imac that was crashed.
I couldn't stand it so I fixed it.
Can't have people thinking macs don't work. :D
God knows what they did to lock it up like that.

[Child of Cupertino]

The whole thing was... crashed?? If there is anywhere where you;d find a Mac butchered like that, it would be Futureshop.

[Ottawaman]

none of the sales guys seemed to care

[Child of Cupertino]

Nor have they ever. Terrible place to kick the Mac tires. TERRIBLE

[Ottawaman]

How does best buy compare?

[Mike]

How does best buy compare?

Same thing, only the sales people get paid a salary instead of being on commision and generally I don't think neither Futureshop nor Best Buy care about selling the Macs because they don't have a big profit margin on the Apple products.

[Child of Cupertino]

Same thing, only the sales people get paid a salary instead of being on commision and generally I don't think neither Futureshop nor Best Buy care about selling the Macs because they don't have a big profit margin on the Apple products.

Nor anyone else, I'm afraid. Having said that, it is somewhat better at BestBuy.

[Mike]

Nor anyone else, I'm afraid. Having said that, it is somewhat better at BestBuy.

Agreed. Apple should really open some more Apple stores in Canada, at least the sales people there are much more knowledgable.

[Child of Cupertino]

Two more opening in Toronto this year: Eaton Centre (currently under construction), Sherway Mall.

One opening in Montreal.

Another in Calgary, IIRC.

[debbie]

Best Buy opening in the Eaton Centre?

It's about time they surfaced downtown. I have my spots down the College/Spadina corridor but it will nice to have a BB to wander through.

I've never felt comfortable in the Future Shop on Yonge so this is good news. :)

[Ottawaman]

Hi debbie,
An apple store is opening.
Big deal for mac heads :)

[debbie]

Never mind then ;) but hey that's good news, too. :)

There is a CompuCentre (or similar) in the Eaton Centre that sells the $1000+ Apple monitors but I'm pretty sure they use them just as eye-candy to lure people into the store. Can't recall ever seeing any actual Macs. Guess those days will be over for them.

Thanks, Ottawaman.

[Child of Cupertino]

I haven't been to the Compusmart at Yonge and Adelaide (I think) for quite a while, but they used to have a decent Mac section. Wonder if they still do? Other Compusmart have as well, tho I've not been to one in over a year. Their flyers usually have Mac stuff.

But hey, Mandy has been in one, recently. What's the story there, Mandy?

[Mandy]

welcome to the dark side. Enjoy

Thanx Mviper and to all for the best wishes. Mviper, I already am familiar with how good Macs are, as I bot an iMac about 5 years ago when my very first PC was in the repair shop more than at home. Have been using it for video editing only, but wanted to upgrade the OS and couldnt, so ended up as you can see buying this new MacMini.

Wow, miss a day and see all the questions and comments, so here goes as much as I remember.

First, it doesnt have iLife 6, but 5, but was assured there is very little difference. Overall, should be much easier to upgrade this than my iMac.

Ottawaman, will see about going to the 1g in the future, also re wiping it drive, then reinstalling, have never done that. So will have to research that first. Right now am researching best KVM switch to get.

Yes, your rite, networking my new PC and the MacMini would be a good idea to transfer the edited video to burn to DVD.

About the different stores, maybe Ive been lucky, but I always got good knowledgable, helpful sales people both at Future Shop in the Eglinton-Yonge area and Best Buy at Laird Drive.

I actually got my Tiger OS at the Compusmart in the Eaton Centre and they do have Apple computers there just as you enter the store. But I bot my first iMac at the Compusmart on Yonge St., and returned there for the upgrade. I like that store, they have a good selection. However, it was there that I was told my old iMac could handle the upgrade which it couldnt and since they didnt have it they sent me to the Eaton Centre store. But I returned it to the Yonge St. store to get a credit on a MacMini since they dont refund for software apparently. Will be going there Wednesday to get the switch (and a few other things).

Glad to hear tho that an Apple store will be opening at the Eaton Centre, as I very seldom get to the Yorkdale one.

Btw, came across some good MacBoards, and one said that it is possible to plug the MacMini into an older iMac. Not sure how, but would like to try that first before getting the switch. May try it out today if I get time.

[Ottawaman]

Hey Mandy, up early?
firewire target disk mode would allow for an easy transfer between macs with firewire.

http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/target_disk_mode_ben.html
http://biochemistry.ucsf.edu/~tech/Support/MacOS9/targetdiskmode.html
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58583

[Child of Cupertino]

First, it doesnt have iLife 6, but 5, but was assured there is very little difference. Overall, should be much easier to upgrade this than my iMac.

For sure :)

Having used both, there are a couple of nice advantages. iMovie's built-in equalization and audio effects are brand new and helpful for tweaking the audio from your camera's (typically) less-than-stellar sound. You can now also open multiple projects, allowing you to drag and drop clips between them. It has better titling and, although sometimes a bit shaky on a "slower" single G4 CPU, the realtime previews are good. And then, there are those suite-wide visual themes that can be nice (if you like any of them), lending a polished sense of consistancy to your projects.


also re wiping it drive, then reinstalling, have never done that. So will have to research that first.

Just pop the restore DVD in the drive and reboot while holding down the "C" key. The restore application should boot automatically and take you through the process.


Btw, came across some good MacBoards, and one said that it is possible to plug the MacMini into an older iMac. Not sure how, but would like to try that first before getting the switch. May try it out today if I get time.

By this, do you mean to use the iMac as a display?? That's news to me. If you connect the Mini via Firewire you'll be able to boot off the Mini's drive but you'll still be using the G3 CPU and it's hardware; not the new hardware within the Mini. Can you give us a link to this forum post where you read that?

Conversely, (as OM's links show), you can connect the two comps using Firewire target disk mode and move all of your iMovie project and whatever else to you new Mini quite easilly.

[Mandy]

[QUOTE=Child of Cupertino
do you mean to use the iMac as a display?? That's news to me. If you connect the Mini via Firewire you'll be able to boot off the Mini's drive but you'll still be using the G3 CPU and it's hardware; not the new hardware within the Mini. Can you give us a link to this forum post where you read that?QUOTE]

Here is that link, but rereading it, it really doesnt recommend it. Came across another Board which definitely didnt recommend it (cant locate it at the moment), so have decided to get the Iogear Miniview GCS632U switch and hope I can get it hooked it OK.

http://www.123macmini.co/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2203.

Funny, when I just clicked on it, it doesnt come up, so sorry, guess you will have to type it out.

[Ottawaman]

So, how about a report on your impressions of your new mac and ilife?

[Child of Cupertino]

You somehow missed the letter "m" in ".com", Mandy.

The person replying in that thread has to be mistaken. As maunfactured, there is NO external VGA input on any iMac, and disabling power to just the motherboard and drives but keeping the monitor powered is like, unexplored stuff. This is a wild goose chase. Go with a KVM; you'll enjoy larger screen real estate in the process on the flat panel you have, which a video editing app can really use. Sell your G3 iMac -- which we haven't even discussed! You can get at least a couple of hundred bucks for it. Maybe more -- but we need exact specs to help with this.

With the money from your iMac sale, maybe you can get an external DVDRW?? Use iDVD instead of your PC for your DVD authoring.

[Mandy]

So, how about a report on your impressions of your new mac and ilife?

OttawaMan, that will come when I get everything hooked up to the switch, hopefully this weekend

Am going down this morning to CompuSmart to get it, plus a few other items, and hope there wont be any problem switching my credit from the MacMini to other things.

Re problems with display models, this one was not connected to any keyboard or monitor, so maybe dont need to wipe clean, etc.

About selling my iMac, hadnt thought of it yet, but had an idea of maybe using it for the internet and putting my laptop away so I can get some more space. Also, wouldnt mind just donating to an inner city school, etc.

At my Video Club last nite I enjoyed telling everyone about my new purchase, many of them also have both PCs and iMacs and were very interested and full of suggestions. Computer people are so helpful arent they?

[Child of Cupertino]

About selling my iMac, hadnt thought of it yet, but had an idea of maybe using it for the interne

It is OS 9. You don't want to use that for the web, anymore -- especially when you'll have the Mini there. Why over complicate your arrangement with all of this hardware? Fear not about viruses and so on. Use the Mini for as much of your computing needs as it can deliver.


Also, wouldnt mind just donating to an inner city school, etc.

That would be great!

[Child of Cupertino]

As it WAS out of the box, and on display, it could have been used as a demo model at some time. If it were me I would wipe it, anyway. It's easy and start it before you go to slepp. When you wake up in the morning, it will be done, awaiting you to run through the setup assistant.

[Ottawaman]

We bought a mini 1.66GHz Intel Core Duo processor model last week at work. I was testing it out yesterday. It's nice.
The remote and front row worked well too!

[Child of Cupertino]

Cool! Does it feel remarkably faster than your PPC Mini? it must.

[Child of Cupertino]

Mandy and gang, here is a look at iMovie HD in iLife 06:
http://www.extensions.in.th/post2/imovie/imovie2.html

[Ottawaman]

Cool! Does it feel remarkably faster than your PPC Mini? it must.
Yes it does!

[Mandy]

We bought a mini 1.66GHz Intel Core Duo processor model last week at work. I was testing it out yesterday. It's nice.
The remote and front row worked well too!

Out of curiosity what is "front row" ?

Went back to Compusmart to get my switch, but surprisingly neither store carried the Belkin or Iogear switch, but another name, Tek I think. Since they couldnt return my money, they gave me a gift card for that amount ($174), but dont think I will have a problem spending that on a switch and a few other things as well.

So, they ordered me a Belkin F1DK102 P PS/2 switch with a 2048x1536 resolution (which is what I wanted) for about $57, may get it next week.

When I researched reviews of this switch however, some were not too positive (altho most were) so am thinking of cancelling and see if I can get another model. But was told since this is hardware, I could return minus a handling charge. Better than software.

What switch are you using? Many thanks for any input here, and all the other info has just been so great, like the link Child of C. has just posted. Will check it out later.

[Ottawaman]

"front row"
http://www.apple.com/macmini/frontrow.html

[Child of Cupertino]

Front Row is a more basic "Media Center" type of thing that includes a remote control with the Mac.

At the "Page One" at the look at iMovie link I provided, there is a (not too good) edit using iLife 06. You will be able to see what a couple of the animated themes of iMovie look like in it.
http://www.extensions.in.th/post2/imovie/imovie1.html