Life, Kids, Technology & that move to another continent
My Mac Mini has shipped. I should receive it right on time just like Apple said. I am actually surprised. But very happy. I should get it sometime tomorrow. Hopefully my extra ram I ordered also comes on time tomorrow. I did not get my memory from Apple. I was not paying $400+ on a 1 gig chip. I got the same memory for $220. Not saying where, but yes it is a deal. Some things just have a crazy markup on them.
Pictures and a possible review when I get it.
This story starts out with me wanting to configure a Cisco 7940 phone we had for our Call Manager to work with my VOIP provider. I never did get it to work. I ended up with a nice Motorola cordless phone plugged into the ATA device Broadvoice sent me. I have wanted to tinker with getting the Cisco phone to work with SIP for months but didn’t. Truth be told I hadn’t really put much effort into it until today. After tinkering with some TFTP files and some firmware updates from Cisco I was able to convert the phone over to SIP. This enabled me to order the Broadvoice service without needing the ATA adapter.
I have been happy enough with my BroadVoice account that I signed my company up for one. We have a POTS line in our cage in our data center. It costs $50 a month for the dam thing. We use it like 4 times a month. The problem is that it is a life saver to have when calling in a server or communicating a problem to others from the data center. Broadvoice’s plan for $10 a month was too good a savings to pass up. I was able to get the phone configured in 10 minutes after I got the SIP firmware on it. Now all we need to do is move the phone to our data center and setup a firewall rule to allow it to work.
The rumor mill is filled with buzz about the PalmOne Treo 650 GSM version coming out within a week or so. All I have to say is “took it long enough, but WoHoo!”. I will most likely pay for the full priced unlocked version. I am so far basically happy with T-Mobile. I also do not want to be forced into a 2 year deal with Cingular. They can kiss my ass over having to pay full price for any phone unless I sign a 2 year deal. So if I don’t get a subsidized phone, why do I have to sign a 1 year deal? Don’t start telling me that a 2 year deal is needed to make up the price of the phone subsidy. They do that after 1 year. Cingular is trying to lock people in since now people can move to a new carrier with their cell number by making a simple phone call. Let me give you a bit of advise Cingular. T-Mobile has kept me as a customer by NOT being pricks about their contracts. This is from a user who has had issues with them as recent as last week. I also am not happy with their data speeds of GPRS, but I don’t want to move to another carrier and get screwed with a long term contract or a company that blatantly doesn’t care about their customers choices.
To anyone that says the non-customized version of the Treo won’t work well with T-Mobile I have to say give it up. I had an unbranded Treo 270. It worked just fine on AT&T and T-Mobile. I don’t need to wait for T-Mobile to do some GPRS tweaks and stick their logo on the phone. Unbranded and unlocked versions should work fine.
Of course I bash Cingular, but I ever do want/need higher data speeds I will be using them since T-Mobile’s higher speed data network seems years away. Dam mobile providers. None of them has just what I need/want:(
I have been reading reviews questioning the Mac Mini. I just read this review and it says the same thing allot of people have been saying “the mini is not as cheap as you thing for what you get”. I have one thing to say to all these people, “get over it”. Yes it is not the most cost effective system out there. PC’s will ALWAYs be cheaper. I for one would NEVER buy a bottom of the line Dell or Gateway, but I did buy a bottom of the line (sort of, since I got the $599 model) Mac. Why, because the bottom of the line Dell, gateway or HP’s are crap. I won’t go into specific’s, but I am a m a Systems Engineer. I have worked with both Dell and HP entry level desktops. There is a reason why they are are entry level. I would never recommend them for a friend to buy. The Mac Mini on the other hand was on the market for 2 hours before I put an order in for one. Why? Generally Mac’s are quality gear. Is it the cheapest computer you can get? No of course not. is it the cheapest Mac out there? Yes by far.
I like many people already have a mouse, keyboard and extra monitor. That equals no extra cost for me. I also have a KVM so I don’t even need the extra mouse, keyboard or monitor, but I will use them. So as Steve Jobs said it is a good second computer. I don’t need the super power of a G5 tower, nor do I need the 17″ monitor that comes with the entry level iMac.
Oh and the review I referenced before said basically if you want a super small desktop you can do that with a PC. The Mini is not unique (or that is what I read into it). They are correct. Unfortunately Dell, HP, Gateway & IBM don’t sell a super small desktop. Know how I know that? I tried to do a project at work with the smallest desktop I could find from a major manufacturer. do you know what we ended up with? A semi small HP desktop that weighed in at a whopping 15lbs, vs the mini’s 3 lbs or so. Joe schmo user won’t go out and buy a no name box. I for one would not recommend a super small desktop from bob’s computing. I quoted out a small form factor box with very decent specs back in September. it cost over $900.
Why do reviewers have to Apple bash? Can anyone admit that YES Apple has a good product. it is not for everyone, but for the target audience they went after it is a good product. Lets face it, someone who wants a $300 PC won’t be getting a Mac. This Mac is for people who have a pc and want to give the Mac platform a test drive, or for Mac owners who want a cheap (relitivly) second box. Why does everything this company does have to be bashed by some people. If they cured cancer people would give them shit about it.
I am not even someone who likes everything Apple says or sells. I wouldn’t touch the stuff until OS 10.2 came out. I still have brand new PC at home, and a PC laptop along with a few desktops at work, but I was and still am open to the fact that the Mac does some (not everything) things better than a PC.
If you are going to bash a new Apple product, go ahead and bash the Shuffle. I got nothing to defend that with. I will stick with my 40 gig iPod! Thanks anyway.
This post wasn’t supposed to be a “go apple” rant, but I have read like 5 or 6 reviews that said the same thing about the mini. Why hasn’t a major brand done what apple has done with a super small nice looking desktop PC? The cube came out in what 2001. Where is the name brand competition to the cube or the mini? Really, where. I would have bought it back in November when I got my PC. Oh wait, it doesn’t exist. That is why I couldn’t buy it. Dell does not innovate, they make things cheaper than everyone else. That is why I have been known to buy Dell at work, but for myself no thanks. HP at least innovates, but they are still not as ahead of the curve as Apple is.
Lastly yes the Mini is not as cheap as $499 or $599. If you buy ram, bluetooth or Wifi it adds cost. But it is still much cheaper than the next viable mac that I would get. It is still 3lbs and 2″ thick by 6.5″ wide. Like I said, no one else can give me the same thing, so I will stick with the Mini.
I am glad I got my Mac Mini order in a few hours after it was announced. Jayson noticed that Apple’s website now says shipping in 3-4 weeks. My order status still says shipping on or before 1/21/2005, so I am happy.
While I am on Mac’s I need to point out to some employee’s I work with that it is not ok to bash me because I like Mac’s. I once hated them, and I know where you are coming from. It is still not ok to mock us. Especially if I have the ability to hire and fire you:) Those people know who they are, and hopefully know I am just kidding. If not, “I am in fact kidding”. You will be converted. Brian and I are on a quest to get our department to embrace easy computing. Jayson is already eying the mini. Kai was eyeing it, but his truck needs tires, so it is on hold for a while. he will check out the big store in SoHo when he is down next week.
I finally got around to plugging in my HP Jet Direct device to my printer. At first my excuse was I didn’t have a network device for the printer. Then months go by and I get one. Then it sits in a drawer and I don’t use it. hey, I am lazy. I didn’t want ton’s of network cables all over the place. Since I looked behind my desk and saw all the cable mess, I figured what is 1 more cable. I got out the jet direct module and plugged my printer into it. Now I can print from my Mac without having my desktop on. Mmmmm network printing! Just one of the little projects I did today.
The waiting is over. The rumors are in fact true. Apple has released a small (cheap) desktop that does not require you to buy an all in one model. The Mac mini is actually real. Rumors were flying for over a month, but they are in fact true. I for one am very happy. I went the iMac route only to sell it because I don’t want to be locked into an all in one unit. I won’t upgrade my monitor so often, but I will upgrade my desktop. I also don’t use my Mac for super power user functions, so a $1500 tower is out. The Mac Mini is perfect for me. Inexpensive small desktop computer. I may get rid of my Powerbook and just get 2 Mini’s. One for work and one for home. What I will probably do is just leave the powerbook at work.
I was one of the crazy ones. I went online and ordered mine already. it took an hour since the apple site was really slow, but I got my order confirmation already. I am told it will arrive on the 22 of this month, but you never know with hardware vendors. My hardware vendor who I usually buy stuff from gets me great deals if I buy for personal use, but he could not guarantee the delivery date. I ended up getting the faster processor model with the extra hard drive space. I will upgrade the ram with 3rd party memory. With shipping and the extra ram I am talking about $800 for the total package. Not bad since the entry level iMac is like $1299 but it comes with a 17″ monitor and I already have a 20″. I want flexibility. This will give it to me. I am very excited. Apple finally listened to what people (me) wanted. I hope they sell like hot cakes. As for their flash music player, I will pass. I am very happy with my 40 gig iPod.
Called T-Mobile twice today about my phone(s) still not working. The first time I called the CSR put me in touch with the data group because to level 1 support people any problem with a phone like the Treo 600 means that the data group has to get involved. I tried to explain that I had 2 phones and the other one (non-data phone) was also not working right. the did something on the back-end to my account and had me restart the phone.
Then a few hours later I had to call back because the issue was still happening. This time I was told that there was in fact 3 cell sites in my area that were messed up. I asked what they said by my area and they said Manhattan. I was like dude Manhattan is kind of big and there are like millions of cell users on the dam island. Just because 3 sites are down on that island does not mean that I am affected. of course I truly believe that the problem I am having is related to their network, but this guys logic was retarded.
I don’t like talking to so called experts about technology that I am only have a passing (as a hobby) knowledge of, and yet I know more about it than the people I talk to. This genius first tried to tell me that if I didn’t turn my phone off every day that it could cause my problems. I was like that was nice info, but I had rebooted the dam phone like 4 times today and it still does not work right.
T-Mobile’s contract policies are great, but if this technical issues continue I will be looking elsewhere. This is not the first time they have had issues like this.
I read something yesterday that said the majority of cell phone owners were unsatisfied with their service. That has been traditionally true for me. But I thought hey recently I have not had issues. I should not have spoken. Last night and today I have had huge issues making and receiving calls on my Treo. I think it is T-Mobile. I have had problems like this before, and it was not the phone. I am in an area with great signal and I still don’t get calls. voice mail goes off like an hour after the call was made. That is not good when people are trying to call you to tell you websites are f–ked up. Then I try to place calls and I hit send and the phone does nothing. I do that like 5-10 times before it works.
Thankfully I had the VOIP phone for outbound calls. Maybe I am thinking of switching to Cingular if they get the Treo 650 before T-Mobile. I just am not sure if their customer service is as good as T-Mobile. I like the fact that T-Mobile does not force me into a contract if I make changes to my account since I have been a customer for 3+ years now. Still debating…
I am in constant change of my desk setup in my apartment. Up until today I was all set to sell my Apple Cinema Display 20″. It doesn’t work with my PC’s and a KVM like I would have liked. I don’t really want to have 2 monitors (one for my PC’s and one for my Mac) so I figured on selling the Apple display and get a standard 20″ VGA monitor. Well I was looking at the monitor before I packed it up today and I had second thoughts. The wide screen grew on me. Maybe it was using it (and its 20″ imac cousin) for a year and change. I didn’t want to give it up so quick. I just finished reorganizing and recabling my desk to put both monitors (my 17″ Acer and the Apple Cinema display) on my desk. The entire desk is now taken up by both setups. it is kind of like how I have my office desk setup. I figure if it works at work, it will work at home. I like working on my Mac anyway. I try to only work on my PC at home if I need to.
Since all my desk space is taken up by my monitors and keyboards, I have had to spread out onto other desk surfaces. I will get messy as I work but so far so good.
Man this 20″ display rocks!!! Off to bed…