Some people apparently think the Mac Mini is heralding the apocalypse, but I welcome it. I wouldn't mind having one here as a web server (that I didn't hate).
I seriously wish, too, that they'd come out with these before Christmas. We get my mom an eMac. This was a maneuver known as the forced switch, in which we, as the de facto tech support for my mom, decided we were mad as hell and weren't supporting Windows anymore. Mom loves the new computer, loves that it doesn't break or give her weird error messages every five minutes. The only niggle she has with it is Pogo.com games don't all work perfectly, but I'm finding her some alternate games.
Anyway, if the Mac Mini had been out a month and a half ago, we could have gotten two of those instead of one eMac, and my sister could have bitched a lot less about the hand-me-down* laptop we gave her for Christmas. That would have been awesome.
In other news, you're apparently not supposed to eat the iPod shuffle.
* The laptop, while not being a Mac, had very respectable specs and was completely useable except the battery was dead. So it was effectively a decent Windows desktop, given to her under the rationale that she's smart enough to not click 'yes' when ToolbarSpammer asks if it can install in her copy of Internet Explorer. Personally, if I got a computer for Christmas, I wouldn't complain, but that's just my over-developed sense of gratitude, I suppose.
God forbid she get a new battery for it.
If it was Sam's pavilion, the battery's aren't cheap.....I have Barb's pavilion in pieces (http://www.unplannedthought.com/misc/laptop/) to replace the completely cracked and broken power socket. It's a little cheaper to replace the $1.60 part than pay HP $600 for a new motherboard. Back to the subject....I'm still not making the switch to Mac, but I perhaps wouldn't rule it totally out. It may be fun just to have a something like a Mini to play around with, but I just wouldn't use it like I use my windows machines.....
Grr....I typed comments...and then they disappeared......
As I was saying, if you gave her Sam's Pavilion, I was just going to ask what you were doing with it...Barb's laptop is in pieces as I'm trying to replace the $1.10 power socket rather than pay HP $600 to replace the mobo.
As for the Mac Mini, it's cool yes, but I'm just not ready to make the jump to Mac. If I did, I just wouldn't be using it as much as I use my windows machine......maybe it's just a matter of time though.
Simple solution, Derek: get a cheap KVM switch and hook both a Mac Mini and your Windows box up. No big deal - and after a couple months, you can tell me which one you use more. ;)