Saturday, July 10, 2010

BAD LUCK - GOOD LUCK

Not long ago I wrote a blog about the new Mac Mini just announced. The improvements Apple made were encouraging that the Mini would now be an even better mainstream option for computer users. But I had no plans to get one myself when I wrote that blog. But a bit of bad luck changed the situation. My relatively old office Mac Mini was knocked out of business by a “mini” external hard drive, one of several brands designed for convenience with the same lateral dimensions as a Mini and intended to sit under a Mac Mini. For some reason my little “mini” external hard drive failed and got very hot, and that damaged the Mac Mini sitting above. That was the second time I had one of these “mini” external hard drives involved in a problem with a Mac Mini. So a lesson finally learned. Convenience sometimes has a price. Oh! well, the new Mac Mini is a larger shape, so those old “mini” external hard drives are a thing of the past, and that will be a matter of deliberate choice in my case.

Of course wouldn’t you know I had this breakdown occur during the 4th of July holiday weekend. So instead of taking an extra day off on Monday after the 4th, I got on the phone with the Apple on-line store to order a new Mac Mini. I called even though I usually buy from the Apple on-line store over the internet because I wanted to get the quickest delivery of a new Mac Mini they could arrange. A very understanding and congenial Apple representative arranged my order of a new Mini and put me in touch with customer service. It worked, my new Mac Mini was delivered the following Wednesday, and by the end of the day it was installed and all of my applications, settings, and data from the old Mini were installed in the new one. Of course anyone who has had to replace a failed computer with a new one knows there is still much more to do to catch up on most of a week of lost time doing other things.

So, now that I have a new Mac Mini running my office; Is it everything Apple touted a short time ago. I am not at all disappointed. Although the new Mini is a bit larger in overall size and a might slimmer in height, it is barely different enough to notice. But I do notice no more white power brick of the old one, so my desk is cleaner. And this new one boots up quickly and even though just office stuff on screen the improvement in the new one’s video is evident. The screen is sharper and easy to see and read documents opened. I’ve done a couple of days of mail, checking news of the photo industry, answering queries,and getting addresses entered and posting to snail mail done, all the everyday office stuff. What is amazing beyond the fact this new Mac Mini runs quick and quiet, is that the migration from the old broken Mini has been so fault free, making the transition completely painless and everything works. It is like there wasn’t a disaster the other day, just an easy rebirth to a slicker, better running computer world.

For my office, I just got the minimum package Apple offers in a Mini, and it is quite enough for the job. A fully loaded new Mini with 8GB of RAM to run photo applications and processing I am sure will be equal to what might be imagined would be much bigger and more expensive. For sure now the Mini is a bit misnamed, its now a full-blown working computer from Apple, and an advantage to photographers who need a professional level LCD display better than the sRGB home-office models in the discount stores. I like it because I can recommend this new Mac Mini as a fully competent computer solution for the serious photo enthusiast, and without any reservation.

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