OK, so today I took the Mac Mini for the first real test drive. I had to trade my nice big 19″ LCD to a co-worker for a 17″ model that would actually work with the stupid thing, (my standard VGA monitor wouldn’t work with my mac mini) so that’s one strike against it. (hopefully, my eyes will adjust eventually)

Thankfully, it works with the USB functionality of my KVM switch, (which suprised me) so that kept me free from the annoyance of having to use an extra keyboard and mouse. I spent a fair bit of time importing files and such, and trying to get a hang of the weird apple key combinations. The interface seemed reasonably responsive, but not as much as I would hope. (My Athlon 2400+ notebook with the same amount of RAM running XP Pro seems to perform about as well with multiple apps–and this is vs. a Core Duo 1.66 GHz) Minor annoyances included the horrible default key-repeat rate and the fact that you can’t Apple-Tab to windows that have been minimized.

I’ve heard a lot of great things about Safari, (and again, cross-browser testing was the main reason I got the Mini), so I took it for a test drive. I just couldn’t figure out how to get a new tab… it took me a lot of (some key)+t tests before I finally gave up and Googled “Safari tabbed browsing”, to find that it does exist. I poked around in the preferences, and found it disabled by default. Now that, my friend, is just plain stupid, and not as user-friendly as I expected from Mr. OSX.

Widgets–they’re completely useless to me at this point, though I suppose I might pick them up sometime. Expose–overrated. If I could Alt-Tab my way into the email I’m composing instead of having to squint at 10 open windows to find it, I would much prefer to do that. As it is, Apple-Tab is an inferior replica of Alt-Tab functionality. (And what the heck is up with Finder always hanging around there? I don’t want to see that every time I’m tabbing around!) Spotlight–now this is genuinely cool. I like it. It would not sell me on OSX though alone, and so far it’s pretty much alone.

I hate the way the Home and End keys won’t take me to the beginning or end of a line. I hate the way that an Application will remain running (and using bits of my precious RAM–even if the are small) even after I close all my windows. And installing new applications isn’t any easier than doing it on a PC.

Score:
PC: 2
Mac: 0

So I ordered a Mac Mini to use for cross-platform testing on web development stuff I do at work, and it arrived yesterday. After hearing so many great things from so many Mac fanboys, I must say that I was pretty excited to give it a whorl.

It came in (as many will attest to) nice, pretty packaging. So far, so good. I pulled it out, plugged in the included DVI-VGA adapter, plugged in my monitor, hit the power, and….

Input out of range.

What?!? Surely something’s messed up with my KVM switch: I plug the monitor directly into the Mini, and…

Input out of range.

Oh, crud. I switch back to my PC (using the same monitor), and do a quick Google search. It seems I’m not the first one with this problem, and there’s even instructions on apple.com on how to fix the the issue. The instructions DON’T work.

To make a long story short, I end up configuring the Mini by using an OLD 15″ CRT (not necessarily the image Mac is going for), and try adjusting the settings for the display. I even get Apple tech support on the line: their line? “Well, if it’s working with the one display, it’s not our problem, it’s your monitor.”

Duh. Wait, you mean every PC in the world will work with this 19″ LCD, your product won’t, yet it’s the monitor’s problem. Sure thing, boss. What ever happened to “Bring Your Own Keyboard, Display, and Mouse?”

Score:
PC: 1
Mac: 0

For Lisa’s birthday, I decided to take her around and buy her a “real” guitar. She started learning on an old, extremely low-end model that my dad bought back in his high school days and never used–needless to say, for someone with a music degree, not an entirely pleasant experience.

We wanted to find something that would sound good, tune well, and not fall apart in a year. Brand names were not a consideration, nor were fancy features. The highest priority was something that Lisa’s sensitive ears would enjoy listening to, that wouldn’t break the bank.

We got a little advice from a few sources before setting out, and armed with that knowledge made three stops:

At our first stop, we were looking specifically for a Seagull S6. While they didn’t have the S6, they did have the S6+, which is virtually identical except for the finish. All the hype seemed to be true–this guitar sounded really, really good. Lisa played a few other guitars there, but nothing really compared.

At the next stop, we tried out some Oscar Schmidt models, made by Washburn, who is known primarily for electric guitars. They sounded OK, but not great.

Finally, we made a trek across town to visit a bigger guitar shop, and tried out some low-end Takamines (ick), a cheap Taylor (cheaply made), and a Martin DX-1.

The Martin was $550, about $230 more than the Seagull we found, and although Lisa really loved the sound of it, the $230 difference proved to be too much, considering that the DX-1 is mostly synthetic materials, and the only piece of real wood on it is the top. We headed back to our starting place and bought the Seagull. I like it, I really do–for someone who doesn’t care about brand names and isn’t going to play professionally, this is a great guitar to have.