Monday, January 22, 2007
Mac Minis
I bought two Mac minis on Saturday. One for work--we are going to try and make use of it for ZAPP(tm) juries in the future. We need one on the bench to figure out what it can or can't do for WESTAF. The second was for my daughter. She has been drawing keyboards on a typing paper, folding them and drawing an Apple on the back. I've set up the little computer between Paula and my work stations.
One of the things that I absolutely love about MacOS X is parental controls. Paula spent about 45 minutes setting up the Internet sites that our kiddo can access. No more, no less. You can lock down access tight as a drum. Very cool.
As for setup of the unit itself--It took about 10 minutes to get it set up and then about 45 minutes, over wireless, to get the unit updated. There were a mess of software updates that needed to happen and a firmware update to boot. I used an old 15 inch monitor we had kicking around, a USB keyboard from my Bondi Blue iMac from the days of yore, and its mouse--which really needs to be replaced.
Apple amazes me with how easy they make it to get a machine up and running securely.
What does this have to do with NPT and the Arts? Well, three things.
1) You can buy a pretty powerful desktop computer for about $600.
2) That computer can have a TINY footprint
3) It doesn't take a technician to set one up
4) You can use your existing mouses, keyboards, and monitors
If you are looking to buy a pretty powerful computer with great bundled software at a reasonable price...look no further.
