Mini's ins and outs

If you're thinking about a Mac Mini for future family computing, read yesterday's "Fast Forward" by Washington Post tech writer Rob Pegoraro. Are you familiar with "the spinning beachball of death" (as Mac aficionados call the system-busy cursor)? If you want to copy a DVD's worth of photos to the hard drive and you don't want to spend a lot of time watching the beachball spin, you'll need twice the memory the basic Mini comes with. You'll need 512 megabytes installed at purchase (for an extra $75), since there's only one memory card slot in the Mini's mini box, Rob says (you're unlikely to want to go in and swap memory cards later on your own). The basic 256 megs do "suffice for browsing the Web while listening to an iTunes playlist," he adds. Also, to plug any mouse and keyboard (besides Apple's) into the Mini, you'll need a special $12 cable (plugging in any monitor is no problem). Read Rob's piece for more on the peripherals issues and to get a great workaround for the Mini's dearth of USB ports. He also does a little price-comparing: "There's still a difference between the start-up costs of Windows and Mac computing, but with the Mac Mini, Apple has shrunk them to the size of an ATM withdrawal, not a car payment," he says, pointing out that PC-security peace of mind might be worth the extra $15-50. Of course, that's only about viruses and spyware, not child-online-safety issues. That's another ball of wax (email me if you're not sure about the difference).