Something small
April 12, 2010
As you may remember from the turn of the year, I had the purchase of a new computer in my sights, either an Apple iMac or Mac Mini. I decided on the Mini because it is, well, small.
This is my new setup: the Mini and two external hard drives. The Mini???s drive is 320MB, the externals are 1.5TB each. The external drive labeled CJ (after my black cat) is my Time Machine drive. I hate the user experience of tracking down what you want to recover with Time Machine, but you sure can???t beat the authorize-it-and-forget-it ease of its backing stuff up. My previous backup method consisted of periodically copying things (such as my Photos folder) onto one of the extra drives I had installed in my old computer, which was better than nothing but not so good for the things that had been added in the intervening months.
The other external drive, Dasie (my black and white cat) will be my jukebox. I chose to name the music drive after Dasie because she???s more of a crazy party animal than CJ, who is the steady, consistent personality and more suitable for the important backup function. It is waiting for me to hook up one of the internal drives (Bibi, former rabbit) from the old computer and transfer the files.
To that end, I have an external case to house an internal drive. But today it was busy with the main hard drive from the old computer, (which was named after my rabbit). I could have booted the old computer in Target Disk mode, but I was thwarted by both old Firewire 400 (I did get a Firewire 400/800 dongle. Don???t you just love the word ???dongle???? I do.) and laziness about plugging in the computer and keyboard. Yes, folks, I would rather open up the box, remove the drive, and attach it to a new case than plug in the computer at the outlet (by which I mean grounded power strip).
It seems as though I???ve copied over everything I could need from the old drive. Eventually I???ll reinstall that drive and redo the old computer, and either try to sell it for beer money or donate it.??
So I plugged in the Mini (also named after my rabbit) and was all set to do Target Disk with the old computer and migrate my settings and user stuff and be up and running in no time. That was when I learned of the Firewire snafu. Instead of one-hour gratification, I had overnight gratification. I had to connect the two computers via Ethernet (!) and left the process chugging away overnight. In hindsight, it was probably better that way because then I didn???t stay up all night setting up and playing.
That???s the great thing about Macs. The transition was anticlimactic. There were no hitches. The migration worked perfectly and when I did things like check email and go online, I really wouldn???t have known anything was different because it just worked. The biggest adjustment has been to how quiet the Mini is. I don???t even know it???s there. The external drives are pretty quiet, too. The old computer was kind of like a jet airplane under my desk, which I didn???t realize until the sound was no longer there. Even this afternoon when I had the internal drive plugged in and was using it, it was very noisy. But the new computer mounted the drive and didn???t need to have any drivers installed or any other special considerations. Same with the CJ and Dasie external drives.
Get a Mac. They just work.
This entry is inspired by my photo of something small, my Mac Mini, but when I got to the sentence above, I realized that quite a bit of what I wrote could double as explanation for the March 20 mission (which I never wrote about), which was to share a word that???s not in your personal dictionary. The word I chose is the proper noun Windows, as in the operating system. Thankfully thus far in my computer computer career I???ve not had the OS inflicted upon me, and only use the word in the context of being a Mac fanatic and feeling superior.
Before: G4 // After: Mac Mini vs. iMac
December 31, 2009
This past weekend I spent time with geeks who, on their resumés, sport former and current employers such as Apple, Yahoo!, Topix, and Activision. When I proudly added my iPhone to the collection on the table and it was observed to be a first-gen among all the 3GSs, I was asked if I still liked my 128k Mac, too. Well, touché. I still use a G4.
I have the mirrored drive doors dual 867MHz, just the lowest model. I’ve had it since 2002 and it has been a tank for me (like most Macs, except maybe G5 desktops). The thing still works just fine. But the software I use as a graphic designer is at the point of superceding the hardware. Therefore, when I get my next income tax refund, a new Mac is in the cards. I don’t need much; I have maintained for a while that it wouldn’t be that much longer until my puny human brain would be unable to discern performance increases. Sure, maybe for heavy duty video and animation you can tell, but for what I do, not so much. So I only have my sights set on a Mac Mini or an iMac. There is no reason why a Mini wouldn’t be just fine. I have a monitor and display. But after working on a 30-inch Cinema Display at the office for the last few years, I think it would be nice to have that quality at home, too, hence the consideration of an iMac. But the one huge advantage the Mini has is that if I up and go to London like you all know I want to, I can pack it in my suitcase. There is at least one of you out there who reads this who could tell me if it’s as simple as getting a different power cord to take a Mini international. Because I plan on my next Mac lasting seven years like my G4 has. If it isn’t possible to just plug in a different power cord in another country, then the iMac would inch up in the standings. I suppose there are laws about taking software over national borders. I’m probably hosed. In that case, the Mini would still be the front-runner. If I were going to have to discard my fine Mac after a two or three years, then I wouldn’t want to spend more money than necessary. Hmm. Looks like the Mini wins either way.
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