Here's a clever blending of Apple past and present, in keeping with our post yesterday on Mac mini mods. Rich Willis has managed to stuff a Mac mini, an external HD, and an Airport Extreme into the clear plastic shell of an old G4 Cube.
Moving very slowly (to avoid melting the acrylic Cube case) he cut away the back of the case to give access to the various ports and then installed some acrylic supports to hold everything up. Voilà -- the Cube lives again, sorta. Rich has a gallery up that documents the entire process.
TechEBlog has assembled an outstanding collection of Mac mini mods that convert the littlest Mac into everything from a tablet to a wee Mac Pro.
The micro-monster pictured here has an added USB port on the front, a slide-off hard disk cover, and a fresh power button. It measures 3.28" wide by 7.8" tall by 6.5" deep. Adorable!
You can see a few more of our favorite mini mods here, here and here.
Here's my daily dilemma. Between work and family, we own 6 iPods (this includes our two iPhones), each of which has its unique playlists, podcast subscriptions and so forth. We also have a printer and scanner -- both used regularly, and an EyeTV tuner, again critical. We have an external microphone connector for Skyping and no fewer than three external disks. One is used for Time Machine, one for EyeTV recordings, one for my G4 backups.
My G4, with its ten built-in USB ports and connection to a single powered USB 4-port hub, is on the fast-past to dying. It's not right on the edge yet but all the signs are there. It's time to move on. But what is going to replace that G4 with its surfeit of USB ports?
A recent post at hicksdesign on turning a Mac Mini into a media center is very serendipitous for me, as I'm currently researching options (and buying hardware) to do just that. I've acquired a Mini, a couple of hardwareitems that I'm trying to decide between and several softwaresolutions that I'm putting to the test.
The post serves well as an update to some of our previous thoughts and takes into account some hardware and software updates. Among other things, the post discusses the decision between the Apple TV and the Mini, the virtues of Front Row 2, external hardware, and some great software tips.
Admittedly, my current solution is the result of hours of hacking and wiring and runs on a PC. I've been itching for a couple of years to make the whole system Mac-based. The hicksdesign post, along with all of myotherresearch, should lead to a system that puts my current HTPC to shame.
TUAW was recently given the chance to test drive a remote server at Macminicolo, the colocation service that specializes exclusively in Mac Minis. We first covered Macminicolo in 2005 and just mentioned their recently-won"My Mac Server Contest". Given the improvements in the Mini since 2005, I took the challenge to satisfy some curiosities. For a couple of weeks I tried everything I could think of to see what solutions the meager Mini could provide. I got a good idea of what was possible and ran a few tests of my own on various Mini-hosted services to see if it could really hold its own in the realm of XServes and big-iron hosting.
Just as many of you thought the Mac mini would die off in favor of a new class of consumer Macs, the rumor mill starts up again. AppleInsider is reporting that the Mac mini may receive an upgrade -- and fairly soon, too.
According to AppleInsider, the Mac mini may receive the following upgrades:
45-nanometer Core 2 Duo mobile chips starting at 2.1Ghz
800MHz front-side bus
Stepped-up Intel graphics processor (comparable to the one in the consumer MacBook)
AppleInsider remains speculative on a release date, but they're sure of the forthcoming upgrade. They go on to say that "Penryn-3M-based systems reportedly remained within the engineering build stage as of mid-month."
Aside from being a company with a name that's dangerously close to copyright infringement, Macminicolo has long been dedicated to creating hosting solutions for Mac users. In fact, they only host - you guessed it - Mac minis. It's a pretty nice service. Just send them your mini and they host it for you and give you full access (it's all yours, not shared).
If you've thought about colocation but shuddered at the cost, this could be your chance. Right now, Macminicolo is running a contest to find the greatest answer to the question: "What would you do with a remote mini?" Start up a new business? Create a non-profit?
The contestant who submits the best answer will receive a year's free hosting, a Mac mini and a MacBook Air. As Jeff Probst would say, "Worth playing for?" Yes, Jeff, it is.
We've seen lots of Mac mini based carputers, but now reader Matt sends us a link to this excellent Mac mini "boatputer" setup. Running MacENC navigation software, this Mac mini is hooked up to a GPS reciever, waterproof display and waterproof touchpad to give real-time marine navigational charts to Bob Etter, the enterprising sailor who built it. I think this nice piece of nautical Mac kit is clearly worth a TUAW Rig of the Week nod.
We've been a little loopy about the iPhone around these parts, it is true. However, that tends to happen with any new product Apple releases, I mean we are sort of expected to exhibit a little more than passing interest in what the good folks in Cupertino are up to. That being said Fortune's Brent Schlender has penned a very good article about the great bugaboo of the Mac Web: market-share.
Schlender contends, and I agree, that while Apple's market-share is in single digits Apple is still sitting pretty. Every quarter more and more people are snapping up Macs (the iPhone/iPod halo effect perhaps?) which is very good for Apple's bottom line. Apple has fairly high margins on Macs, and even a slight up tick in market-share translates to lots and lots of dough for everyone's favorite fruit company (this is what I call the 'BMW theory of computer success').
Despite the fact that Apple dropped 'computer' from its name, the Mac is still a pillar of its success. The other two are some phone and a music player of all things!
Personally, I crave speed. No, not the kind that can often be purchased on some local street corner in that part of town on the wrong side of the tracks. No, I'm referring to processors, front side buses, RAM and other factors that go into calculating the raw, unbridled, number-crunching power of the latest and greatest Macs.
No doubt you are aware that Apple recently released an updated version of its flagship prosumer desktop iMac as well as an updated Mac Mini too. The new iMacs feature changes both external and internal with increases to the clock speed of its Intel Core Duo 2 processors as well as a switch to the faster Santa Rosa chipset. Yes, that all sounds great but what does it mean in terms of the new iMac's ability to crunch those numbers?
Well, according to Primate Labs'tests on the new 24" iMac, as featured at Apple Insider, it doesn't help a great deal unless you're using one of those math-intensive apps like Photoshop or Aperture. In that case, according to the article: "If you're running memory-intensive applications you'll certainly notice an increase in performance with the new 24-inch iMac. Heck, the fact that the new 24-inch iMac supports 4GB of RAM while the old 24-inch iMac supports 3GB of RAM might be enough to convince you to get one." Good point. More RAM is a good thing.
I love the Mac mini. It's the perfect computer. Small, cheap, embed-able, media-friendly. And today, the Steve announced that the mini line was not only not doomed but that it would receive a hardware refresh. Today! All of us who love the mini have been on pins and needles. It turns out not only were the rumors of its demise premature but today we're treated to a newly upgraded line. Yay!
New units will ship with 1.83 GHz and 2.0 GHz processors and 80 GB and 120 GB drives. You can upgrade to 160 GB hard drives, up to 2GB of RAM, and a slot-loading Dual-Layer supporting super drive (the DL drive is standard with the 2.0 GHz model). You can even pair it with one of those spiffy new keyboards.
Scott Walker sends in his seriously cool Mac mini mod which, after careful deliberation, we declare our Rig of the Week. Scott is the assistant managing editor at The Birmingham News (Alabama), and decided to build a Mac project around an old newspaper vending machine. As you can see, he's basically mounted a 17" LCD in the newspaper window. Using a Mac mini, GraphicConverter, PhotoPresenter and some AppleScripts, it displays the top half of newspaper front pages as gathered each day from the Newseum. A big TUAW 'attaboy to Scott for combining new- and old-school technology in such a clever way!
This week's rig is another Cube mod. Reader bigtimeproducerhas posted a picture of an Apple Cube case that has been stripped clean and retro-fitted with a Mac mini, external hard drive and an Airport Extreme. It looks cool, and probably gets a good wireless signal (seeing as the basestation is inches away).
If you'd like to see your own rig featured here, simply upload photos into our group Flickr pool. Each Sunday we'll comb through the most recent entries and declare a "Rig of the Week!"
TUAW reader omdothas posted a sweet shot of his Mac mini raid - artfully arranged, we might add - to our Flickr pool. He uses it as a backup of his main Linux system, and it updates itself hourly. Pretty cool.
If you'd like to see your own rig featured here, simply upload photos into our group Flickr pool. Each Sunday (or Monday) we'll comb through the most recent entries and declare a "Rig of the Week!"
Unfortunately, he started by testing a Mac Mini with only 512M RAM rather than a better equipped unit and ran into a lot of swapping slow-downs. The inability of the OS X hardware to run all his Windows peripherals and the minimal support for X11 also disappointed. Further, he was unhappy with the lack of quality freeware (italics are his). New Mac users, he writes will probably have to shell out for Microsoft Office and Adobe Photoshop--NeoOffice and OpenOffice didn't offer the full functionality he needed.
It's always easy to second-guess unhappy switcher reviews though in this case Boyko did a pretty thorough job, which he documents in his 11-page review.
Here's a clever blending of Apple past and present, in keeping with our post yesterday on Mac mini mods. Rich Willis has managed to stuff a Mac mini, an external HD, and an Airport Extreme into the clear plastic shell of an old G4 Cube. 
Here's my daily dilemma. Between work and family, we own 6 iPods (this includes our two iPhones), each of which has its unique playlists, podcast subscriptions and so forth. We also have a printer and scanner -- both used regularly, and an EyeTV tuner, again critical. We have an external microphone connector for Skyping and no fewer than three external disks. One is used for 
A recent 
TUAW was recently given the chance to test drive a remote server at 
Just as many of you thought the Mac mini would die off in favor of a new class of consumer Macs, the rumor mill starts up again. 
Aside from being a company with a name that's dangerously close to copyright infringement, Macminicolo has long been dedicated to creating hosting solutions for Mac users. In fact, they only host - you guessed it - Mac minis. It's a pretty nice service. Just send them your mini and they host it for you and give you full access (it's all yours, not shared). 
Personally, I crave speed. No, not the kind that can often be purchased on some local street corner in that part of town on the wrong side of the tracks. No, I'm referring to processors, front side buses, RAM and other factors that go into calculating the raw, unbridled, number-crunching power of the latest and greatest Macs.
I love the 
This week's rig is another Cube mod. Reader 
TUAW reader 
Bryan Boyko spent 30 days using 
