I went out tonight and bought a new computer for the house. I went with a Mac Mini. The last Wintel machines I bought featured an abomination called Windows Vista. They do work after downgrading but do you know how hard it is to downgrade machines for which the manufacturer does not provide XP drivers? So far... The Mac Mini is more elegant and easier to use than any Vista machine I've encountered. It's a tad better than XP in most respects and tons better in some. Today, for example, I had to hunt down a hijack on my work laptop. Anyhow, I'm enjoying the new computer.

i grabbed one about a year ago after my G-5 went down to use until i could get mine back, ( thanks sweet water they really went beyond in helping me their ), anyway i used it with DP with no issues it preformed but better then i had expected.
remember i am not much of a computer guy so i am easy astonished
i gave it to my wife to replace her old mac, very old mac.

I got me a Mini last year after far too many Windows aggravations and, ultimately, a problem with identity theft. It's the main machine for going online now and the only computer I will use to make online purchases (or visit MySpace!).

I am intrigued...

Since the manufacturer's directed series of 'enhancements and upgrades' from Magix completely rendered by dual core PC worthless, I've been on the warpath heading to the Mac world...I've seen some of the 4 and 8 core Macs with over a Tbyte of onboard storage for what...$5K?

With Bootcamp, it'll run any PC audio apps.....interfaces well with DP, Logic,. obviously PT HD and LE...What the hell am I waiting for?

BTW - there are Mac-exclusive viruses, Trojans, and worms now. do NOT be lulled into the used to be world of Macs being hacker safe...just aint so any longer....one study (I'll try to find the link) showed MS Vista to be a more secure machine than Panther...(of course, NOTHING worked on Vista, but that was not the intent of the article)

Or, one could use HD24/Radar, a console, and use the computer just as a mixdown platform (hello...)

I got the Mac Mini just because I wanted a cheap computer for doing work from the house at night so I would not have to bring home my laptop. It's blazing fast. The only drawback with the cheap Mac Mini that I can see is that it does not burn DVDs. You got to spend $200 more for the privilege. The lowest rung Macbook is the same in this regard. I really don't need DVD write for everyday stuff. You can do sneaker net and get a 4gb flash drive for $20 and just burn a DVD video on another computer if you really need it. There's no excuse price wise for the low rung models to not have a DVD burner.

I'm thinking about getting a copy of Logic Express from Apple and a firewire interface from Echo. This might be an interesting little experiment.

If you've got a working XP machine that is making you happy then that's good. XP is the best operating system ever from Microsoft. Vista is the worst they've done (and I used to say that friends don't let friends install Windows 98).

As someone who always hated Windows before, I am genuinely content with XP. So it's just like MS to yank that rug out from underneath me. I might have to get a couple copies of the OEM XP for builders just to have on hand for the future, either for a DIY PC or a dual-boot Mac.

The problem with Mac right now is the FW chipset issues, which I gather might still be settling out. Newer MacBooks, and maybe some others, have shipped with a FW controller setup that is incompatible with many audio interfaces, including the Apogee ones that are designed to work with Apple and Logic. (!!!) GS's music computer forum seems to have good coverage of what's going on there.

Bear

I've had a great time messing around today even though I've apparently caught a mild case of influenza. I did take the flu shot but I heard that maybe the flu shot did not get on point this year.

Besides being sick and tired in general and being sick and tired of the BS of Windows Vista, which in itself is a downgrade from XP.

My laptop is running much better without the hijack I discovered yesterday.

I tried to do a comparative build of an XP Pro machine from Dell to the base Mac Mini. The prices worked out to be about the same. The Dell gives you a slightly faster processor. The Apple gives you the option to install XP.

I actually like XP a lot. My first computer was a Mac Plus. I owned several Macs after that and got out of Macs when I entered the corporate world where they worked on machines with things such as OS2 Warp and then Windows 98 (which sucked so bad). OS2 Warp was a simple OS but fairly stable. Windows 98 was a piece of garbage. Windows 2000 was good. XP was better. Vista is an abomination. It makes 98 look good in retrospect.

One problem I've encountered is how antivirus programs are killing XP's performance. The lone exception that I've encountered is Eset. I've gone through recent installs of Panda (used to be the best but now just blows) and Norton. Eset did a great job of taking care of a lot of our issues but the hijack situation. It'd stop it everytime but it could not eradicate it. I tried Hijack This. I went through and sorted through it manually which is required with Hijack This. I finally came across Anti-Malware. It solved the problem. No more hijack.

I've never been a Microsoft fan. They've foisted other abominations on the world. I remember Word 4 for Mac in particular for making me stay up all night to finish a project and to figure a get around. Yet, I found XP to be a stable system. At one time, Internet Explorer was a fabulous browser. It's not anymore. I'm putting Firefox on the work machines.

All this got me to thinking of the best software I'd ever used. I don't even have to think. It was called Write Now. It was a word processor. It was not the most feature laden word processor but it was so much better than anything I've ever used. When the original Mac was being developed, Steve Jobs sent a team of programmers to Seattle to develop a word processor because he was not happy with the progress of the Mac Write team. The Seattle team came up with Write Now. It was the Toyota Camry of word processors. It was not fancy. It did not have bells and whistles. It was priced reasonably. And, it worked every time and never crashed.

The best music software I've used to this day is Acid Pro 3. Yeah, it summed like crap but it had a good workflow and editing was super fast.

How/why is it that the further our knowledge of these things advance, the crummier the actual end products seem to be? Vista was supposed to be THE OS for years, yet MS has already announced it will be replaced within a year os so...XP was a bloated bitch, but still worked - BUT IN A FEW MONTHS THERE WILL BE ZERO SUPPORT FOR XP FROM MICROSFT....

The words "catering to a different generation' comes to mind....

DAWS are so convenient (really), but exactly all of them have some quirks that are just...well..counterproductive to my mentality...Hard disc systems are sadly reduced to 2 choices, the great sounding but clumsy and rate limited Alesis HD24 (of which I have for remotes and other stuff) and the prohibitively expensive Radar S Nyquist....

There is no such thing as a compomise-free anything anymore, especially in the mixed bag worlds of computers and music.

Here is the saddest part....manufacturer support of any of the above is at all time lows....gota problem with a PC? Good luck with the guy in India or Vietnam...got a problem with an Alesis? Good luck even finding a number....Any DAW issue (excepting the ever growing Reaper) is an absolute abomination of support... Got a Mac issue? Doesn't it go back to the factory? The only one that seems worth a tinker's damn in support anymore is, again, the prohibitively expensive Radar S Nyquist.

As for basic computer duties, I kinda liked Works...Office 03 with upgrades (what we have here for the non profit work we do) is a horror show of back ended BS...Steven, I think I remember that Write On...been a while.

My invoicing system is a standalone mini me similar to that in Quickbooks....

Just gimme a ledger, calculator, tape machine, and a mixer....

[/canepounding]

Shrug it off. Radar sort of sounds plasticky to me. I agree the Alesis sounds good.

Many of the things in the world seem driven by gear lust and gear exclusivity. There is a gear lust subculture out there in the music world. Rather than ponder gear, I'd rather hang out with my seven year old son. He went to the skate park on Saturday. He came home with a bruise to his forehead even though he wore a helmet. Note to self: Get boy a better helmet. I asked him, "What happened?" He said, "I was up in the air trying to land on my skates but instead landed on my face."

Your boy's explanation of what happened in more relavent in the real world here and now than you might think...

Thanks for sharing that, and tell him next time be more careful

ouch
i hate pain, yes get him a better helmet!

Right now I'm trying to figure out if I can go dual boot with XP and continue to run Acid Pro. I've been told that the Firewire doesn't work in XP at this time. Does anyone know?

Firewire works perfectly in XP...but that's on a peecee...I don't know about dual boot systems, but can tell you Tom Sailor (OrangeHill Audio/former Synthax) uses a Mac G5 with Bootcamp and runs Samplitude, all using an RME Fireface...

Should not be a problem, really.

Interesting...

I am enjoying the new computer. Don't get me wrong. While it is far and away more stable than Windows Vista will ever be, Leopard (the current Mac OS) does not seem to be as stable to me as Windows XP Pro. Since Leopard is brand new I know it's not really a fair comparison.

http://www.crn.com/hardware/207200873

Anyone looked at the Open Mac yet?