(Yes, the past tense was intentional)

I purchased the Mini in late 2005 when there were rumours that it was to be discontinued; obviously they were wrong.  Well, I put it to good use nevertheless with a 2GB RAM upgrade and 250GB hard drive.  For a while, it was good small low-power desktop replacement, but when I got my first Viewsonic 32″ LCD TV, it became my media center PC.  Despite it had the Intel GMA900 series graphics chip, it ran 720p video relatively well.  I didn’t really struggle until I moved it over to my 1080p TV.

I remember streaming the Vancouver 2010 Olympics with it, and it worked hard.  Granted it was already 4 years old, and computer years is a lot worse than dog years.  I don’t even have a day-to-day work Windows PC older than that!

Around that time, I also discovered its perfect companion: Boxee.  Combined, it became the perfect media center system that worked with the Apple remote.  Later I learned about the Boxee remote app for the iPhone / iPod touch — even better.  Online TV shows were mostly 480p, so it worked great!

That lasted until this past summer when one day it decided not to turn on anymore.  I don’t know whether it’s the power supply or something internal.  Now being that it is more than 5 years old, I have no complaints.  The only thing I needed was to get the hard drive out.  Those who have tried to get inside one of these know what a pain it is to just the case to open.  There are two reported ways to do this: very thin flexible putty knives or use network cable strands.  I am too lazy (and perhaps too cheap) to pull apart perfectly good network cable, nor do I have a thin enough putty knife.  Off to the web search to find someone used a pizza cutter in lieu of a putty knife.  Combining the plastic hotel stay rewards card to create the initial gap, I pried my way in.

May you rest in peace Mac Mini — now off to eBay for a lucky winner who wants one for parts!

Listening to: Styx - Babe

Would there be rants as well as raves?  I don’t know at this point, actually I will just keep them on tweets.

Cheers!

Listening to: Air Supply - Every Woman in the World