Those that know me know me as rather a gadget nut. To be fair, so is my brother. It runs in the family. It’s pointless to resist.
The trouble is, it’s rather an expensive hobby this gadgeteering lark. There’s my work PC (an ACER Aspire 5738PG, albeit with the touchscreen broken and replaced with a regular screen), which, obviously, I need for work. But it is mine, not work’s. My iPhone which, obviously, I need for communication. Then there’s my Blackberry, which to be fair is work’s not mine. But, obviously, I need that for work. Then there’s my gaming laptop (an Alienware m11x) which, obviously, I need for playing fames. Then there’s my Ipad - an original one, not Ipad 2 – which, obviously, I need to give me a portable tool of organisation, keeping information and entertainment for those long nights in the police station. At least, that’s how I justify everything.
Add to that my PS3, which no self respecting gadgeteering male (PSN: runningman84 – look me up!), the video camera my lovely other half got me for Christmas, a 1TB external disk drive for storing and moving stuff between said gadgets AND Sky+ (can’t live without this!) I can honestly say I’ve got all the gadgets I need.
Well, except this. This is my new Mac Mini. Don’t misunderstand; the Mac Mini is a fully fledged Mac. But instead of it being built into a screen like an iMac or a Macbook Pro, it’s simply the workings for the computer. And hey – lots of things that are mini are great. Take Ronnie Corbett. Or Napoleon Bonapart. Or – and how could I forget this? – the Mini.
For some time now I’ve wanted a Mac, the reason being I wanted to be able to use iMovie. For those that don’t know, iMovie is a great little piece of software that comes with every new mac sold. I’ve been looking for something that will enable me to thread my movies together into something more watchable. Otherwise – what’s the point? I’ll have loads of random clips from various holidays. So, I’ve tried to fashion them together using Windows Live Movie Maker.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind Windows Live Movie Maker. It’s quite a reasonable program. But there’s no getting away from it, it’s a little cumbersome. So I branched out to try others. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t get the intuitive program I wanted. And then I tried my brother’s Macbook Air.
My brother, as mentioned, is a bit like me when it comes to using gadgets. He owns more Macs than I think I know about. After twenty minutes of using iMovie on one of his I knew I had to get one.
So, the question was; which? After a lot of head scratching and three different apple employees suggesting three different things, I came to the conclusion that a Mac Mini was right for me. One, it would fit snug under my TV. Two, it would connect to my TV thanks to HDMI cables and three I could plug in aforementioned hard disk drive and have it available.
So, that’s what I’ve done. But to give it a bit of extra zip, I also bought extra RAM. Upgrading it is easy. No tools, no fuss just done. The difference is noticeable – it’s just more slick. In fact, to be fair, slick is probably the word best to attribute to Macs. Everything is so easy and effortless. Common sense dictates that what you do is what you get. It’s little wonder that Macs are getting a far larger userbase and closing the gap on Windows.
So, I now add the mac to my list of gadgets. Will I stop? Well the Ipad 3 is due out in March…
