Me and the Mac Mini

Mac mini

Will admit it. Sometimes I have more money than common sense. I have no less than a desktop computer and two laptops, but all of them are Wintel machines and they bore me now. When Apple recently came out with the Mac mini for $499, I was intrigued. Have wanted to delve into Mac OS X for a couple of years now, but couldn't justify the money for what's basically a toy.

One must consider the total cost of the mini however. If you don't happen to have a display monitor and keyboard handy, and don't wish to dismantle your Wintel setup, you'll need to consider the cost of the extras. I decided to usurp a seldom-used laptop and use that desk space for the Mac mini. I had the need of a new display & keyboard. LCD displays start at $200 (for off-brand, 15" displays) and soar all the way up to $3000. Plain vanilla (not to mention bulky) CRT's start at $100. A USB keyboard will run about $30, and you might as well go with the Apple brand; same can be said of a USB mouse ($30). My aim was to keep the total configuration less than the $799 price of an emac. My final cost was:

$499 Mac mini + $99 ViewSonic CRT (great deal, after rebate) + $29 Apple keyboard = $627. Add $52 tax and you have $679. Was able to retain a mouse, printer and USB hub from previous Wintel laptop setup.

And now for the setting up. Apple declares that the mini will recognize any Wintel monitor. I realized that I'd be in very deep sh** if I booted the mini, and the ViewSonic remained dark. When all was connected and I first booted up, rivulets of sweat ran down the side of my face; the monitor was staying dark. Then, after a full minute, the Mac OS X splash page displayed on the screen. Praise the lord! After a few minutes of setup & registration questions, mac mini tried to connect me to the internet. Here, oddly, is where I ran into my problem. The mini doesn’t have AOL on it. It recommends Earthlink or .Mac for newcomers, but only provides a generic login for people who already have another dial-up service. The system furthermore assumes that you have a standard PPP service, which AOL is not. Thus, my sign-on wouldn’t work and I had no AOL software! As of today, I’ve obtained an AOL CD and will try the install tonight. Am wondering, did AOL and Apple have a fight? Usually it’s hard not to use AOL on a Wintel machine but Apple thinks different. Will probably post some updates to this new toy of mine. But I’ll have to get AOL working first! :-)