Max stack your Mac mini

scott... we know what you are though.

Tyrone (3), VGA and DVI have very small, fairly easy to break pins in their connectors. If even one of these breaks off, you've essentially got a worthless monitor, and if they are repeatedly removed and reinserted, this is bound to happen. Power cables, on the other hand, are cheap and interchangeable, and have much larger, much more durable pins. That said, the screws are more about protection of your hardware than keeping your computer turned on if you are moving it around.

If you don't like the subwoofer shaking your hard-drive, there's nothing to prevent you from moving that component somewhere else. As for the bass volume control on the back, for the most part, once you've set the bass to a level you like, you aren't going to have to be changing it a lot. The subwoofer's volume control is relative to the overall sound. And yeah, more ports, on the front, would be better. It bugs me that my G4 tower doesn't have any! I notice that the G5 towers do have a couple, but really, this whole digital hub thing, with video cams, digicams, flash memory key holders, and whatnot, just cries out for more ports on the front.

My comments (#7) should have included links; go to eshop.macsales.com for the miniStack; the hub I speak of (with the front ports) is available from Belkin.com.

Am I the only one that thinks this is completely not the point of having a mini?

I like Newer Technology's miniStack; . As for ports up front, there *is* a hub sized for the mini that puts a FW400 and a USB2 port up front (as well as several in the back); . No HD in that one, though.

what will the subwoofer and constant bass to do the hard drive(s)? i would never subject hard disks to that much vibration, but then again the people who buy something like this probably don't know what a hard drive is or how it works.

Brian, maybe you should invest in a USB hub...?

This is starting to look like a tower box.

While we're were on the topic of connections, can anyone explain this mystery: why do monitor connections, VGA and DVI, screw into computers yet the arguably much more important power cables do not? PCs typically have fat, robust and grounded plugs, but more than once has removing the neighbouring Ethernet cable from my mini resulted in an accidentally powered-down Mac. I'm not ham-fisted, and to say nothing of the Ethernet cable's tab or the Dock connector's squeeze-release, even USB connectors seem to fit more securely than the mini's power cord. Any reasonable explanations?