Apple Mac Mini – Introduction
Mon 12 Feb 2007Filed Under: Apple Computers | Comments Off on Apple Mac Mini – Introduction
Welcome to my new review BLOG on the Apple Mac Mini.
Yes, I am aware of the new Intel based Apple Mac’s but lets face it complete upgrades hardware architecture always result in a period of adjustment. I’m not going to wait another 2 years before Apple gets it together again.
The reason why I got one was because I was tired of the viruses, spam, adware, ever increasing costs of anti-virus subscriptions and now firewalls, increasing CPU usage and site management problems with the Windows based computers. I figured there must be a easier why to maintain a website and stuff like that. So the Mac Mini is to test out Apple stuff in general. – Hmm Long Term Window user. So here’s my Apple Mac Mini review.
I mean the config required when my main internet development machine fails for what ever reason or I need to reinstall – it takes days to get it right again. So we’ll see if a full migration to the Mac is worth all the hassle and cost !
The event that prompted the acquisition was the failure of the Norton Internet Security program. This program was supposed to safe guard my work machine a decent ASUS V6V notebook, which I must add has performed without any problems what so ever since purchase earlier this year. Anyway over the new year an update of their software caused the firewall side of things to fail. I didn’t realise this until I got back from holidays and tried to use my email program which is Eudora 6.2. I use Eudora as my main email program because its easy to use and has never been buggy or had security issues. I use Palm desktop for the calendar etc.. because it works perfectly with my Palm TX. (Yes I had a MS based PDA but it was a forgettable experience)
So when I tried to get mail things started playing up. I thought it was just a temp bug 9when you’ve used windows for years that’s the sort of thinking you get into) but realised that this machine doesn’t play up for no reason. I thought back to how sluggish the shut down process was before the new year and a mysterious Norton error – but the message only appeared once so I ignored it. Anyway I spent at least a day trying to work out what was going on as the Eudora appeared to the problem. So virus checked the whole machine – nothing. Ran the MS – virus checker – Nothing. Checked Eudora versions etc.. – nothing. Then checked the firewall – Yes. Searched the web and came up with only one article about the problem.
To cut the story short I had to erase the firewall rules and reset the thing. I no longer trust Symantec or Norton products and will probably not ‘upgrade’ it this year. Speaking of which I let Norton subscription lapse after the trial period (it came with the V6V) to see whether it was cripple-ware and worked out that it wasn’t working properly – it stopped removing viruses (yes a 1 year old one that will remain nameless for testing purposes). What a joke ! I updated the subscription this year to verify that this was the case and what do you know – confirmed my assessment. Hmm…I might try again this year and report my findings.
Anyway back to the Mac Mini review – Why did I put up the review page ? I’m not exactly attached to Apple products. (This is the first in 20 years Shock Horror – I don’t even have a iPod.) but I couldn’t find what I wanted with internet searches so I decided to add one more site.
So what’s the spec of my Mac Mini ? It’s a 2006 model – Apple Mac Mini
1.42GHz PowerPC G4
1GB RAM
32MB ATI Radeon 9200
80GB HD
SuperDrive (DVD±RW/CD-RW)
Built-in AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth
Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.4
iLife ’06
I didn’t purchase any additional software apart from what came in the box for the Apple Mac’s so it will be interesting to see what I’ll havee to get. Hope you can hang around.
About this Site
Mon 12 Feb 2007Filed Under: Website Information | Comments Off on About this Site
As much as I try to resist writing a long introduction – let’s face it I can’t do it. I’ll try to keep to this short.
I know how everyone has short attention spans these days…
I’ve finally had some spare time on my hands to put this BLOG site together. On occasion I have lots to say about certain things that have no relationship to other websites I like to maintain or Discussion Boards which I contribute to. EDIT – As I very slowly refine the code behind this BLOG I have concluded that this is a much easier way of posting topics on my motorcycle hobby sites.
As much I don’t want to contaminate sites with unrelated stuff its clear that I don’t have the time to constantly update the stuff I’m interested in so from 2008 I will be migrating ALL of my weekly update pages to this site.
That said, in July 2007 my main website went down due to a DNS issue. As a result I figured that I should be keep some information about the status of the site elsewhere in case it happens again. But that does not guarantee that either sites will remain operational either but I guess its better than nothing.
Anyway – remember that there are a number of other BLOGs hosted on this particular site and they are my friends. They are weird and wonderful people who I often do not agree with but accept their opinion and try to understand where their coming from. So I do not expect you to agree with me either.
Why did I call it Mediaocrity AXIOM – simple really no one else had one and it’s sort of cynical meaning and looked good as a title and memorable as a piece of gibberish. Yes – I know a bit shallow but have you ever tried naming something so that it’s unique and at the same time gives meaning to what you’re on about?
So you say why not use the other free BLOGs sites? Because we want to maintain full control over content and uptime. If you recall what Yahoo did a few years ago they wiped out users who had more than one website for no reason except that the site was popular and it was a commercial decision for what ever reason. I do not wish that to happen to my stuff again. They didn’t even consider that some people have lives that do not cross over. It was also one of the the original reasons Yahoo became so popular because there where so many different points of view. Obviously they upset enough people who no longer recommend them.
I am slowly enabling the various features on the site like comments, voting and the like but it will probably take some time to install and the get the whole site working properly.
BTW the site uses WordPress as the ‘engine’ which I have been customising so it looks just like the main website.
Email Contact
Mon 12 Feb 2007Filed Under: Website Information | Comments Off on Email Contact
If you really want to contact me here’s the email address: Email Peter