gizmodo.com— Here's the pitch: a 10-inch, almost-pocketable computer, running Snow Leopard, the best consumer OS money can currently buy. It costs only $300. Sound good? Here's how to make your own.
Oct 24, 2009View in Crawl 4
Weird, I've never tried running Youtube HD on OS X with my Mini 9. Youtube HD runs very well on Windows 7 Ultimate on the little bugger though. Win7 performs much better than OS X on the Mini.
I've used it plenty. I'm currently halfway done writing an iPhone app. I would switch to a windows system if I could. OSX feels like My First Computer™. I can't see any advantage to it whatsoever. Also, no instant-maximize is annoying.
It is software piracy, since if violates the SLA and thus the copyright. Apple can come around at anytime and hit you with a fine or simply disable the OSX. Sure, maybe you can compound the crime by disabling that but you're just bumping up the "count" of offenses.If they want, they can take you to court over it and copyright law is not kind of software piracy. Not in the US, anyway.Apple has no reason to do any testing on the platform and neither does Dell; Dell is not an Apple OEM. Nobody is. Apple can and does chance the OS frequently - updates every few weeks or so, typically. Those updates include OS and app changes. They also change the iTunes store periodically, so you need iTunes updates. So pirating while criminal, is also unreliable.The price between running bootleg OS X on a weakest tier notebook and a decent system is not big. You're not saving enough by pirating to make it worthwhile. The Mac Mini comes with Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) and it's tested on it. You get a 90 warranty+support and you can increase it to 3 years for a fee while the unit is still new. You'll get free updates without warranty.The hackintosh guys, which I guess are kinda pirates in a way, are not working with engineering documentation for the OS. At most, half of it. You don't really know their skill, who checks their work (if anyone) or if they are programming while drunk on occasion. You don't know what they are going to put out from one week to the next, or even if their last build was really good or not. If it's bad, or when they finally throw in the towel - they're not going to give you your money back on your system, or necessarily even fix it.Plus, as people have learned with hackers in this decade like the last, things that seem free from software pirates usually are not free for long. The jail broken iPods soon popped up requests for cash before something "bad" happened and many computer games and office productivity software turns out to have a virus or worm attached to it. People who infect them never undo the damage or give you your money back. Right now, the "in" trick with hackers that are kind of in control of Windows these days is to disable everything on your Windows computer except for IE (they love IE) and then demand you give them money by going to a site and inpuing your credit card number.You never really know what is going to be done next by the hackintosh guys. All you can judge them by is what they are doing now, which is breaking the law and letting you do it. Maybe not all but probably many hackitnosh users are leaving a trail of breadcrumbs leading back directly to them. Many pirates have been fined far more than a couple hundred dollars for stealing music, money, and software - Microsoft has a whole spin off to handle their piracy lawsuits.Apple is not as litigious as Microsoft so they might not induldge in suing pirates one at a time. However, they might at some point sue a bunch at once, which really would not be that hard. Also, through a lawsuit - they could suddenly force hackintosh guys to suspend development on their "hack" or implant something in it that would make antipiracy very easy. Sure, you can fight that but without updates you might find things in your system stop working and nothing you can do about it. One day, you might find your system reported you.You might think, "hey, the hackintosh guys can remove that" but you are only thinking things halfway through. Sure, they might stop you from being hit from the front. But you're just as messed up when you get hit from behind. It's not a solid bet you won't get hit with a problem from piracy. Or that you will see it coming.Ultimately, the hackintosh guys will not get you out of trouble when that happens.
Yeah, I kind of wonder that perhaps Microsoft or Dell or both are behind this "hold back the truth" astroturf pitching of hackintosh & jail-breaking the iPhone.I did notice one of the bloggers who pushed the iPhone thing did not post an update when the iPhones that were hacked as she recommended got hacked. And, oh yeah - she is a Microsoft employee. 0_oThis might get straightened out by the FTC or the FCC but right now there are some companies doing shady marketing of their products on the web. That doesn't mean that someone is tricking you into doing half the work for a hacker or buy a boat anchor netbook - or that they aren't. It just means, you might get stuck with the results of following their advice.They're helping you for free? Could be. Or it could be a con.
You have some good points, so I'm not going to bury you. But, I don't agree with all your comments on the Mini 10v. I am a Mini 10v owner, running Snow Leopard.- The legal question. I purchased a copy of SL on Amazon. Now, we all know that Apple's EULA states that this can only run on Apple hardware. Whether or not it's an actual crime where you can be prosecuted is another matter. Imo, if I purchased the software, I should be able to run it wherever I want. This is an old argument and not just for MacOS, or even PC software.- Mini 10v hardware. I own it, I've used it, and I like it. I feel it was a good purchase decision. My only gripe is the trackpad, which is a bit of a pain to use. It's not super-fast, but it does basic tasks and that's what I wanted it for. The keyboard is very good considering the size, and the 10 inch screen / 1024x600 screen is perfectly acceptable for what I use it for.- Dell netbook MS tax. Not 100% of the time - I actually bought my 10v with Ubuntu. DELL is one of the few vendors where you can actually request Ubuntu instead of Windows. Whether or not I'm still paying a Windows tax is hard to say, but at least DELL's records say that it was an Ubuntu purchase.- Mac Mini vs a netbook. Entirely different market, so you shouldn't compare them at all. One is a desktop, the other is an ultra-portable. A better comparison would be a Mac Mini vs a mid-range PC desktop at the same price point. - Unsafe to run Windows. As an Ubuntu user primarily, I would tend to agree that Windows is "less safe" than other OS's, simply because it's targeted by more hackers. But whether or not it's "unsafe" is another matter. Anti-virus and anti-malware programs, and some common sense, and the typical Windows user should be fine.
michalpinOct 26, 2009
Yeah was kinda hoping for a straight dual boot not one based off of boot camp.
mrkev150Oct 27, 2009
Weird, I've never tried running Youtube HD on OS X with my Mini 9. Youtube HD runs very well on Windows 7 Ultimate on the little bugger though. Win7 performs much better than OS X on the Mini.
haha71687Oct 29, 2009
I've used it plenty. I'm currently halfway done writing an iPhone app. I would switch to a windows system if I could. OSX feels like My First Computer™. I can't see any advantage to it whatsoever. Also, no instant-maximize is annoying.
johnnysoftwareNov 13, 2009
It is software piracy, since if violates the SLA and thus the copyright. Apple can come around at anytime and hit you with a fine or simply disable the OSX. Sure, maybe you can compound the crime by disabling that but you're just bumping up the "count" of offenses.If they want, they can take you to court over it and copyright law is not kind of software piracy. Not in the US, anyway.Apple has no reason to do any testing on the platform and neither does Dell; Dell is not an Apple OEM. Nobody is. Apple can and does chance the OS frequently - updates every few weeks or so, typically. Those updates include OS and app changes. They also change the iTunes store periodically, so you need iTunes updates. So pirating while criminal, is also unreliable.The price between running bootleg OS X on a weakest tier notebook and a decent system is not big. You're not saving enough by pirating to make it worthwhile. The Mac Mini comes with Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) and it's tested on it. You get a 90 warranty+support and you can increase it to 3 years for a fee while the unit is still new. You'll get free updates without warranty.The hackintosh guys, which I guess are kinda pirates in a way, are not working with engineering documentation for the OS. At most, half of it. You don't really know their skill, who checks their work (if anyone) or if they are programming while drunk on occasion. You don't know what they are going to put out from one week to the next, or even if their last build was really good or not. If it's bad, or when they finally throw in the towel - they're not going to give you your money back on your system, or necessarily even fix it.Plus, as people have learned with hackers in this decade like the last, things that seem free from software pirates usually are not free for long. The jail broken iPods soon popped up requests for cash before something "bad" happened and many computer games and office productivity software turns out to have a virus or worm attached to it. People who infect them never undo the damage or give you your money back. Right now, the "in" trick with hackers that are kind of in control of Windows these days is to disable everything on your Windows computer except for IE (they love IE) and then demand you give them money by going to a site and inpuing your credit card number.You never really know what is going to be done next by the hackintosh guys. All you can judge them by is what they are doing now, which is breaking the law and letting you do it. Maybe not all but probably many hackitnosh users are leaving a trail of breadcrumbs leading back directly to them. Many pirates have been fined far more than a couple hundred dollars for stealing music, money, and software - Microsoft has a whole spin off to handle their piracy lawsuits.Apple is not as litigious as Microsoft so they might not induldge in suing pirates one at a time. However, they might at some point sue a bunch at once, which really would not be that hard. Also, through a lawsuit - they could suddenly force hackintosh guys to suspend development on their "hack" or implant something in it that would make antipiracy very easy. Sure, you can fight that but without updates you might find things in your system stop working and nothing you can do about it. One day, you might find your system reported you.You might think, "hey, the hackintosh guys can remove that" but you are only thinking things halfway through. Sure, they might stop you from being hit from the front. But you're just as messed up when you get hit from behind. It's not a solid bet you won't get hit with a problem from piracy. Or that you will see it coming.Ultimately, the hackintosh guys will not get you out of trouble when that happens.
johnnysoftwareNov 13, 2009
Yeah, I kind of wonder that perhaps Microsoft or Dell or both are behind this "hold back the truth" astroturf pitching of hackintosh & jail-breaking the iPhone.I did notice one of the bloggers who pushed the iPhone thing did not post an update when the iPhones that were hacked as she recommended got hacked. And, oh yeah - she is a Microsoft employee. 0_oThis might get straightened out by the FTC or the FCC but right now there are some companies doing shady marketing of their products on the web. That doesn't mean that someone is tricking you into doing half the work for a hacker or buy a boat anchor netbook - or that they aren't. It just means, you might get stuck with the results of following their advice.They're helping you for free? Could be. Or it could be a con.
roebeetNov 14, 2009
You have some good points, so I'm not going to bury you. But, I don't agree with all your comments on the Mini 10v. I am a Mini 10v owner, running Snow Leopard.- The legal question. I purchased a copy of SL on Amazon. Now, we all know that Apple's EULA states that this can only run on Apple hardware. Whether or not it's an actual crime where you can be prosecuted is another matter. Imo, if I purchased the software, I should be able to run it wherever I want. This is an old argument and not just for MacOS, or even PC software.- Mini 10v hardware. I own it, I've used it, and I like it. I feel it was a good purchase decision. My only gripe is the trackpad, which is a bit of a pain to use. It's not super-fast, but it does basic tasks and that's what I wanted it for. The keyboard is very good considering the size, and the 10 inch screen / 1024x600 screen is perfectly acceptable for what I use it for.- Dell netbook MS tax. Not 100% of the time - I actually bought my 10v with Ubuntu. DELL is one of the few vendors where you can actually request Ubuntu instead of Windows. Whether or not I'm still paying a Windows tax is hard to say, but at least DELL's records say that it was an Ubuntu purchase.- Mac Mini vs a netbook. Entirely different market, so you shouldn't compare them at all. One is a desktop, the other is an ultra-portable. A better comparison would be a Mac Mini vs a mid-range PC desktop at the same price point. - Unsafe to run Windows. As an Ubuntu user primarily, I would tend to agree that Windows is "less safe" than other OS's, simply because it's targeted by more hackers. But whether or not it's "unsafe" is another matter. Anti-virus and anti-malware programs, and some common sense, and the typical Windows user should be fine.