Win a Mac mini, hosting and a MacBook Air

Ok, my thought on using macminicolo...

I live in a relatively crime-ridden area on the first floor of an apartment building. There have been quite a few robberies and I am always worried about my computer being stolen (I currently own a mini). What attracts me to this option is that I don't have to worry about my hardware being stolen. I don't own much else in my house that anyone would want to steal besides a big ole TV. Then I would only have to worry about a laptop.

I would more than likely host two to act as fileservers and one to act as my web host. Most of my clients just want sites where they can post an update once or twice a month so server load would not be a real issue and I would have full access to customize my webserver as I see fit. If space really became and issue I could always just use Amazon S3 for data storage.

Dreamhost is my current hosting solution and recently they have not been fulfilling their end of our deal and have grown quite dissatisfied with their servers. This option would give control over my own server and I would be the only one to blame for downtime (Unless the colo burned down or lost electricity). At this point my client base is solid enough that I could pay for more expensive hosting.

In the end, I think this venture is a great idea. A mini is fairly inexpensive and I can opt out whenever I choose, in case I ever just want to house the servers myself. I own the server, and when I need to move if I have to I can take my own hardware with me. I don't have to reconfigure the damn thing either if I do have to migrate.

the name is possibly trademark infringing -- not copyright.

i would make a system where everyone interested in amature filmmakers can get togather and sahre movie making techniques, not like youtue, but here we can share ideas, methods, product reviews and so on...

oh most definitely. hook that mess up.

This is truly far out. I can't wait to enter.

I just saw this company mentioned the other day on Jailbreakme.com. It turns out they host that site and the installer.app community from a Mac mini.

Who would have thought?

Other than the fact that Macminicolo incredibly expensive for what you get in terms of bandwidth usage, it does seem like a novel, and good, idea. I won't be paying that much per month to stick a Mac mini in their server cage any time soon (I'd probably go over my bandwidth!) but sure is interesting.

One thing they did leave out about their facility is how much network capacity they actually have. Mac minis now come with gigabit ethernet, but I'm assuming you get a 10/100 port in the facility. But what does that hook up to? How many gigabits to they have leading to the outside world?

I'm asking these questions because I've had a little experience with dedicated servers, namely helping Ste (yes, that Ste) get a high-powered system for distributing the iPhone repo. ANY website running on dedicated equipment will run maybe an order of magnitude faster than what you'd get on shared hosting, which is awesome. But you don't need to pay $55 per month plus a Mini to do it...there are several companies out there who have dedicated (managed or unmanaged, even) servers for $100 per month, the same price as buying a Mac mini plus a year of Macminicolo, except you get MUCH more bandwidth with the other servers, in terms of what you can chew up.

If you do want a Mac server though, and can live with using one that has a notebook hard drive built in, and aren't using the darn thing as a backup server (unless you don't have much data at all and don't mind paying a bucket of money to do so) then yep, macminicolo is a sweet idea. The contest makes it that much cooler.

I run Conceited Software and all of our servers are hosted with macminicolo.net If you think my repository is faster now I owe it all to them. They are great.

//drudge

I guess Apple doesn't mind the name too much. Afterall, they link to this company straight from the official Mac mini page on Apple.com.

http://www.apple.com/macmini/

Anyway, I remember talking to these guys at their Macworld booth. Seem like cool guys.

I'd use it to stamp out world hunger and bring peace & love to all mankind.

thanguverimush