My wife and I will be purchasing a Mac soon and I wanted to know if any of you have a Mac mini. If so, how do you like it? Would you like to get rid of it?
I could use your feedback!

P.S.- PLEASE NO MAC VS. PC DISCUSSION!!!!!

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Jason B. Spires (Husband of Brownie)
Soon to be member of Independent Presbyterian Church (Taking elder led class on church doctrine and policy)
We adhere to the WCF and are in the PCA

"Mercy abused turns to fury"- Thomas Watson

I don't have a Mac mini. Over the years, I have had 512K Mac, Mac SE-30, Mac 7500, iBook, and now a MacBook. All have been good machines.

With the Mac mini, all you get is the CPU. It is a good option if you already have a display and USB keyboard and mouse. If you need to buy these items, you might find the iMac less expensive and it is a faster machine with a larger drive. Also, with the Mac mini or low end iMac, bring the memory up to 1 Gig.

__________________
Soli Deo Gloria

John Schultz
Member, Riveroaks Reformed Presbyterian Church (PCA)
Germantown, TN

"The reason why we worship God in a slight way is because we do not see God in His glory"
Jeremiah Burroughs

If you get one, give me an update. I am looking at those too.

__________________
Scott Roberts
Ruling Elder, Lakeside Presbyterian Church (PCA)
Southlake, Texas

BTW, not sure if you or anyone in your family is in school, but Apple offers education discounts. Here is a link for homeschool discounts. They knock a hundred dollars off the iMacs and MacBooks, which is nice, but only $20 off the Mac Minis.

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Scott Roberts
Ruling Elder, Lakeside Presbyterian Church (PCA)
Southlake, Texas

I purchased two Macs in the past 2 mts and LOVE them, I will never go back.

John

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John
Evangelical Free Church, no offices held
Langhorne, PA

[B]δός δοξαν τῳ θεῳ.[/B]
[B]ιδου ποιω τα εσχατα ως τα πρωτα.
הבל הבלים[/B]

Why two? What kinds? What do you use them for?

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Scott Roberts
Ruling Elder, Lakeside Presbyterian Church (PCA)
Southlake, Texas

I thought you were asking about a Mac 10 or 11 and some variation of it..

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Geoff/Reformed Baptist
Acworth, GA
John 6:37
All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.
Back up and updated...
http://ergatestheologia.blogspot.com/
http://dayspringchildrenshome.blogspot.com/

I bought a Mac mini (my first personally owned Mac) in January and am really enjoying it. 1.83GHz Intel Core Duo processor, 1GB RAM, 60 GB hard drive (would've gone bigger, were it not for the 250 GB external drive I already had). I decided to purchase a copy of Parallels Desktop along with it so I can run Windows when I need it, and installed a couple of Linux distros (Ubuntu and Kubuntu) just for shiggles.

I previously used a Macbook when I was on staff at my church . . . that's when my switch started.

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Rae W. | Elder @ Grace Central Presbyterian Church | Columbus, OH
not another blog, v2.0

If I bought a Macbook could I run Parallels to launch Windows then run BibleWorks 7.0 on it? Also, do I need to buy a stand alone copy of Windows too? The only reason I am not looking at the Mac is because of my recently acquired BibleWorks 7.0

__________________
Chris Mangum
Presbyterian Reformed Church of Charlotte
student, GPTS
.357 Mangum

Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. James 1:27

Macbook Pro and an IMac for my kids; I use them for everything - my book buisness, language work - these babies are quick; writing and some gaming; I am in the market for another one for my daughter, she is beginning language work this summer and wants the speed.

John

__________________
John
Evangelical Free Church, no offices held
Langhorne, PA

[B]δός δοξαν τῳ θεῳ.[/B]
[B]ιδου ποιω τα εσχατα ως τα πρωτα.
הבל הבלים[/B]

Yes, You can run Parallels on a MacBook. (If you bought the low end one with 512Meg Ram, upgrade it to 1 or 2 Gig.) And you do need a copy of Windows.

Another option is Crossover Mac which emulates the Windows API on a Mac without using Windows. Check with them about whether BibleWorks has been tested with it.

__________________
Soli Deo Gloria

John Schultz
Member, Riveroaks Reformed Presbyterian Church (PCA)
Germantown, TN

"The reason why we worship God in a slight way is because we do not see God in His glory"
Jeremiah Burroughs

So I can run Bible Works on the Macbook using Parallels. Excellent.

I will save a bit more for the Macbook.

__________________
Chris Mangum
Presbyterian Reformed Church of Charlotte
student, GPTS
.357 Mangum

Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. James 1:27

You could get a Mac for your main computer and get an inexpensive used (less than $200) laptop for using Bibleworks. The system requirements are minimal, and even work on Windows 98 (an awful O/S). A number of computer rental places have good deals on laptops like that. We are probably going to do that and use the laptop for kids' homeschool software that is only PC. That may not be a good option if Bibleworks is the main thing you are going to be using.

The problem (so I have heard) if loading Windows onto your system is that you then again become vulnerable to all the viruses and malware out there. Maybe you would be ok if you disconnect from the net whenever you boot up Windows.

__________________
Scott Roberts
Ruling Elder, Lakeside Presbyterian Church (PCA)
Southlake, Texas

This is from the Bibleworks site:
You might check out the forums on the Bibleworks site to verify compatibility issues.

__________________
Scott Roberts
Ruling Elder, Lakeside Presbyterian Church (PCA)
Southlake, Texas