Having just received my new Mini's, and having spent the last 10 years in a Windows environment, I'm hoping to document my trials and tribulations in making the switch. Gonna be interesting! :)

What made you do this, Bob? Curiosity? Insanity? are they cheaper? Better?

I have friends that swear by their MAC. I have had two jobs that were MAC environments. I neither loved or hated them, but I must admit I am much more "comfortable" in a windows enviroment.

Couple of reasons.
1 LINUX isn't a complete option due to my requiring Dreamweaver and Photoshop for my work. While there are emulators which will let me run older versions, and alternate linux programs, it's still not what I need. Both will run fine on the Macs.

2 Many of my clients seem to be mac users. I'm unable to support them as well as I'd like, so, being at least familiar with the platform seems like a good idea.

3 I got em cheap. 2 Minis, software and some gear in exchange for a months hosting. :) Made it an inexpensive decision.

4 I need a backup system for when my primary system is burning disks or rendering graphics. These will give me redundant backups.

I think I said this somewhere else...

No Fair! :p

I agree...i would work with macs if I could get them that cheap.

Your experiences will be helpful though.

I wouldn't mind having a mac to experiment with :)

The ISP i used to work at bought a MAC to increase their knowledge of them for support....but funny thing is only one person was aloud on it to experiment with it....this was one of the many arguements that I think got me in trouble.

First annoyance: Keyboards

The MiniMac is a USB only beast. So, need a USB keyboard. Went to the Apple store, didn't care for the prices, so went to CompUSA as they had listed a $14 USB keyboard in stock. System lied. Cheepest was a $25 clone. I ended up buying the $30 Apple keyboard.

Second annoyance: single button mouse. The Apple "power puck" was listed at $40. I ended up using an older 2 button Microsoft USB Optical mouse I had on hand. If I buy it new, its $14.

Next task: Wiping the system and doing a clean OS install.

Just curious .... did they abandon firewire?

no, it's got a firewire port. Just didn't see any firewire keyboards. :)

So far, I'm in the middle of the reinstall. Looking good at the moment.

So far, I'm in the middle of the reinstall. Looking good at the moment.

Sounds like fun :)

ETA 90 minutes.

lol....thats it...

Well, got it reinstalled, looked around a bit, then went to the gym. :)

Well, got it reinstalled, looked around a bit, then went to the gym. :)

That's it, going to the gym with 2 new computers left unplayed with... you loose your geek status...

lol.....i try to not play with my new toys for at least an hour when i get them...just to see if i can do it....going to the gym isn't bad....takes out the frustration of the day caused by windows.....(ya I know he is working with macs now)

but yeah he may be losing his geek status...lol.

eh...not worried. I lost it when I had my eyes phasered out. :)

damn that laser surgery...

First post from a minimac. :)
Can't seem to get safari to run, but it came with a crappy old version of IE, which was all I needed to get FireFox. :)

You should tell us about Safari and your experiences with that too...MAC users talk about it like it is something special.

It just doesn't "go". I type a URL in, and it sits there, seemingly frozen. I know it's not the site cuz I'm on the PC at the same time.

First major snag - AVI files. Seems theres no easy way to play them on the mac without installing special codecs. I installed 3, yet remain unable to play any of the files I've tried so far. Quicktime works perfect as expected, and so far MPEG's are also smooth. Will continue to research this issue.

Running 1st major software update.
Heres 1 interesting bit of note: When I reinstalled the OS, it didn't ask me for any codes or serials. It just installed. Even though it took 90 minutes, it was still much less painfull than any of the Windows installs I've ever done.

Speaking of windows how many times did you have to reboot during the install? (if any :))

once, at the end. :)
same with a huge update

ok, seems the answer to viewing avi files was to install a couple codecs, and Windows Media Player for Mac.

Also, seems the second button on my mouse is working fine on most aps. I get some menus when i right click.

So far, so good. :)

Figure out anything with Safari..?

nope. IE and FF both work, SF just sits there.

hmmmm....I guess it isn't what they say it is....imagine that ... a mac user hyping up one of the mac items....

ok, just tried again...now it works. Must have been something with the initial install.

Ok, so far, so good.

Interface is taking a little getting used to, but it's not impossible. I've already managed to find the config settings as I've needed them (something I couldn't locate under Linux without alot of digging)

System seems slow at times, though I blame that on the internal HD. (I believe its a 4,500 RPM IDE). I've seen recomendations of using an external firewire drive to improve performance. Might also need to add some more ram too.

Right now, I'm mostly just playing with various things on the system, getting the hang of where & how. :)

Overall, it's good. :)

Any new ... news...on this?

Not yet. Had little time for figuring things out the past few weeks. Once I get dug out, I'll tackle it again.

Well, I kep tinkering with it, but a lack of "usable aps" (meaning I haven't been able to get mac versions of my primary tools yet) limits my use to web serfing and email at the moment. That'll be changing shortly as I picked up Unreal Tournament 2004 for the mac today. :) Lets see how this thing works as a gaming system. :D

I still hold to to the fact these systems make great boat anchors.

I cannot tell you the daily headaches Macs give us. Its bad enough that "How to do somthing" changes drastically on Win 98, ME, 2000, XP...

But do you know how FREAKING frustrating it is that OSX OSX.x and OSX.x are ALL DIFFERENT???

Customer calls in... What OS your Mac got? OSX? OK, follow along with me... and none of the Screenshots Mac gave us match cuz its OSEndangered SPiecies 6.99

ARRRRGH.

Make your own screen shots and ways to pillage through problems. That is what I did when I worked for a local ISP...of course they canned me after I did all that for them...lol.