fplanque: weblog - English

I was looking into upgrading my 2006 Mac Mini (serving as a media server) with a 2010 model, just to get a bigger hard drive… and also a faster one!

Now, according to this guy, the Mac Mini 2010 still comes with a stinky slow old SATA-1 drive, just as back in the days. And that Ricky guy actually sounds like he knows damn well what he’s talking about!

Anyone got a Mac Mini 2010? Care to check the Negotiated Link Speed in your System Profiler? (About my mac > More info…)

On the screenshot above, you can see a Negatiated Link Speed of 3 Gb/s, which is good… except I made the capture on my Mac Pro. Apparently, 2010 Mac Minis will show you a Link Speed of 3 Gb/s (that’s what the Mac is capable of) but a Negotiated Link Speed of only 1.5 Gb/s (that’s what the HD is capable of)…

What Ricky doesn’t say though, is if he has the 320 GB drive or the 500 GB drive. There may be a difference between these two.

Now, the alternative would be to upgrade the drive myself, but it’s just a big bag of hurt! I’m too old to get any pleasure out of disasenbling hardware any more…

Breakups are frustrating… always… I believe this guy coped with his frustration pretty well, though ;)

You’d think the real estate market crashed everywhere and there’s plenty of available square feet, but check this out: what you saw in the 5th element has actually become a reality, in Hong Kong!

I was at a conference in Amsterdam last week and although we don’t have the iPads in Europe yey, I had the opportunity to play for 15 minutes with an iPad brought by a US attendee.

My first impression was: it’s really nicely designed, extremely intuitive and responsive. I gotta get one. I also loved the little switch to lock the orientation. Super useful for reading while lying on your side in bed! (Unlike on the iPhone)

However, after a few minutes I started to realize that a) I don’t quite know how to hold that thing (whether with or without the Apple carrying case) and b) it’s getting damn heavy if you hold it in your hand. Those impression were shared by the owner as well as the other people who played with it.

I believe this is going to limit how much you actually want to use that device in different situations. I think it’s actually very impractical to use when you don’t sit down. Also, I believe Apple should actually drop the stupid glass screens: they’re heavy and the glare is just annoying!

Anyways, until then it looks like the Apple product segmentation goes like this:

• If you’re standing, use your iPhone
• If you’re sitting in an armchair, couch or other laid back situation, use your iPad
• If you’re sitting at a table, use your MacBook
• If you’re sitting at your workdesk, use your iMac or Mac Pro

Ah yes, also:

• If you want to watch something on your TV, use your Apple TV or better yet: Mac Mini.

Apple has removed that features in Snow Leopard and QuickTime X has no preferences panel to enable this. So you need to go through the command line to get it back…

In Terminal, copy/paste:

defaults write com.apple.QuickTimePlayerX MGPlayMovieOnOpen 1

Now movies will autploay when you double click them.