I have a Mac Mini
I’ve been loaned a Mac Mini for a while and have it setup in my bedroom for now and when I get back from vacation in Canada I’ll try and setup Front Row on it.
…If there are any Mac applicaitons/scenarios I should be checking out with my Mac please let me know.
Whew, good thing it was loaned and not bought. Good job dogfooding the competition. Just kidding of course.
If you got iLife installed, check out creating a bound photo book with iPhoto. There may be XP programs that do this but I doubt they work as easy as this. You basically create a photo album, organize the slides in the order you’d like to see them in the book, create a new book of the size and theme you select, autoflow the pix into the book then edit the text associated with the slides.
I created a great book about an hour or two with 50 pages. Uploaded it and received it in about 2 days. It came out incredible and I now have a keepsake for our Hawaii Cruise that is unbelievable.
I’m now a Mac person (in fact I worked at MSFT for about 8.5 years in MCS) but got the Mac Mini earlier this year as an “anti-virus computer” for $500 rather that Norton AV for $70/year. I currently use it to surf the web and email. Never had a concern about viruses. It’s almost silent too. I also have Media Center (two of them actually) and love it too.
Now the downside… upgrading is very difficult compared to any PC or Laptop. I had to sharpen a putty knife to get it open to install a 1GB ram stick (an throw the 256MB in a drawer to rot since there’s only 1 slot). I can’t upgrade to a DVD burner too easily or cost effectively either.
As for competition for MCE.. if Apple brings out a rumored MCE competitor with built in iPod dock, remote keyboard, airport, tv tuner for say $700.. they’d probably sell quite a few to existing XP and MCE users who are fed up with viruses.
I meant to say I’m NOT a Mac person in paragraph 3 above… still love good old msft. ;-) Just like the Mac too.
gregmcg-
If I’m not mistaken, the photo book in iphoto is really an Apple-branded version of MyPublisher. JASC does the same thing with their PaintShop Pro Album.
I used MyPublisher about 2 years ago to make a 40-page hard-bound book, and you are right, it is very simple.