The adventures of a seasoned Windows user with his new Mac Mini
By Toxin
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Chapter One
In which the author purchases a Mac Mini, reminisces about his computing experience, and ends up
betraying his geek principles...
I want one. Not sure what I'll do with it, but I want one nonetheless.
I've a friend (the owner of this site,
as it happens) who has a Mac Mini in his kitchen. It's a cute little
thing and doesn't take up much counter space, even with the decent
speakers currently attached to it. Each time I've seen it (this one
has an Intel CPU) and its predecessor (a first generation Power PC
unit) I've lusted over it and sworn I'd get one for myself. The
owners have populated it with a frighteningly large – and
eclectic – selection of music, and some online radio stations,
too. The kitchen seems to be the primary gathering place in that
house, and so the Mac is ideally placed to keep people entertained.
Should any disputes arise during conversation it's easy enough to
step across to the Mac and submit one's question to the mighty Oracle
of Google. Being so tiny, it doesn't dominate the counter space. It's
just one more kitchen appliance and, perhaps, that's as it should be.
On Sunday night I arrived home from another weekend spent drooling over the Mac Mini in question, and
succumbed to temptation. 36 hours and £529 later I was the proud owner of one of my very own. And thus began my induction into the world of Apple.
Designed by Apple in California
The first thing I noticed was how polished the presentation
was. The box wasn't festooned with pictures galore, dazzling the
purchaser with more information than he could possibly hope to take
in; it had a life-size picture of the computer, some information
about what was in the box (just the computer; supply your own mouse,
monitor and keyboard), a smattering of pictures showcasing the
software, and the nasty, mucky, details about
specifications, serial numbers and the like were hidden away on the
underneath of the box, out of sight.
Opening the box did nothing to dispel the initial impression. Nestled in a protective
polystyrene square was a CD-sized grey box with just the words
“Designed by Apple in California” printed on the top.
Below that was another polystyrene enclosure, housing the Mac Mini
itself and remote control, and below that was the DVI-VGA adapter and
power supply. No other cables, connectors, or components were
present. I had just splashed half a grand on a 6”x6”x2”
pretty box. The Mac was lovingly wrapped in protective plastic film,
as was the power supply. Sadly the protective wrapping had to come
off, else my new toy would be nothing more than an expensive
ornament.
The Mac Mini is a tactile delight. It has a pleasingly solid weight to it, and the
chassis feels silky to the touch. The front has a narrow slot for the
optical drive, at one end of which is the infrared receiver, and a
tiny light which glows white when the machine is on. Minimalist it
certainly is.
The grey “Designed by Apple” box held the manual, warranty, legal conformity
declarations and, wonder of wonders, two discs containing the
operating system and pre-loaded software. That's right; I wasn't
handed a “restore partition” and left to create the
necessary disks myself, and I wasn't charged extra for the
manufacturer's “restore discs” either. The tools I might
need, should everything go wrong, were included as standard. For
someone coming from a Windows background, that was certainly
surprising.
A few words about the author
My first real foray into the world of personal computing was in 1988 with a PC running
MS-DOS 3.2. I cut my teeth on batch scripting with that machine, I
learned to program in assembly language, I became addicted to the
games F19 Stealth Fighter and Pirates! (by the way,
Firaxis recently released a remake of Pirates! for modern
computers), I made it all the way to Elite using just pulse
lasers (the PC version was definitely far too easy), and I've been
using Microsoft operating systems ever since.
My current method of paying the bills is tech support, and has been for a decade. From
Windows 3.1 onwards, if it's been on the desktop I've had to support
it. The only flavour of Windows I've not yet seen is Vista, but no
doubt I'll be forced to play with it eventually. I've been, well,
steeped in Microsoft, to put it mildly. I'm no expert, but I
have the sort of easy familiarity which only comes with continued
exposure. I also know what Google and TechNet are, and how to use
them, which makes me some sort of supernatural wizard in the eyes of
my less technical friends whenever they have a problem with their
computers, but I digress.
I've bought a what?
So there I was, a poster boy for the Microsoft generation, and I'd just opened a box of
Cupertino's finest. Had I completely lost my marbles? How could I
possibly hope to get to grips with something so completely different,
so... alien? After all, I'd tried Linux several times and not got
anywhere, and Linux was free! This thing cost me more than a
monkey! Was I out of my mind?
Apparently I was, because my next step was to do something completely anathema to any
self-respecting geek: I read the manual.
Stay tuned for the next instalment,
in which the author reads a manual, learns that he is too clever
sometimes, and discovers the meaning of the term “user-friendly”...
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