At first blush, the new Mac Mini Server seems like mostly a cosmetic change with a minor processor bump.  The headline always seems to be the processor, but a 2.53 GHz to 2.66 GHz jump is pretty negligible (and mostly irrelevant for file servers).  It’s nice to see that Apple now supports an 8GB RAM configuration.  RAM is at a premium on servers.  But even if you don’t want to spend the $400 to upgrade from 4GB to 8GB, you’re definitely going to enjoy the new 7200 rpm hard drives.

Previously, the Mini came with what were essentially laptop hard drives, 5400 rpm.  The server version now comes with two 500GB 7200 rpm drives.  It’s a subtle difference, to be sure.  But even minor increases in data access speed will start to add up over the weeks and months.

I have been looking into getting a server for some time.  At the moment we are using primarily syncing and sharing technologies.  But a central server has some appeal.  Now it’s just a matter of finding the time to implement it.  The new Mini is cute, but I don’t need another desk accessory.

Or, as AppleInsider put it:

Prior to Snow Leopard, the unlimited user version of Mac OS X Server cost $999; that’s what the unlimited user version now costs with the Mac mini server thrown in for free.

I’m not deluding myself into believing that small businesses that currently run Windows are going to race out to buy Mac Minis to replace their servers. But for small businesses that are on the fence or leaning toward Macs, this could be a game changer.

But probably the biggest news of the day (apart from a multi-touch mouse – which I’ll really have to stop into the Apple Store and play with to get some impressions on it) is the server Mac Mini. For $999, you can get a Mac Mini loaded with Leopard Server. It also has a second hard drive in place of the optical disk player for a total storage of 1TB. If we ever decide to move away from Dropbox for more control over our file storage, it will definitely be worth a look.

Still, there’s lots to like about the updates. I am most impressed with the changes to the Mac Mini. The Mini has long lagged the iMac in four key performance-related areas: processor, memory, memory speed, and hard drive speed. Now it looks like we’re down to three. The Mac Mini and the iMac both sport a 1066MHz front side bus. Prior to Tuesday’s updates, the iMacs raced along at 800MHz while the Minis were saddled with a 667MHz FSB. Unfortunately, the Minis are still limited to 5400rpm hard drives. That may have made sense at one time, but now 7200rpm hard drives are even available on Macbook Pros. It’s time to let the Mini catch up.

The iMacs saw a nice boost too. The big shock for me was the switch from two 20″ models and two 24″ models to a single 20″ model and three 24″ models. For me, the 24″ model never made sense before. For the price of the cheapest 24″ iMac, you could almost buy a 20″ iMac and a 20″ Apple Cinema Display (this model has since been discontinued but it was still available when I purchased my current iMac). If you’re willing to step outside the Apple Store and buy a non-Apple display, you could definitely have made that purchase. I would much rather have two 20″ displays side-by-side than a single 24″ display. The reason for this seemingly crazy pricing situation is that Apple bundled better processor and graphics into the cheapest 24″ iMac. If you don’t need that extra horsepower, the larger monitor becomes a very pricey upgrade.

Now things are entirely different. The cheapest 24″ iMac comes in at $1499 with a larger hard disk and more memory. But I can see lots of people wanting to upgrade to 4GB of RAM (a must in my opinion!) and 640GB hard drive (320GB is becoming “small”). Upgrading the 20″ iMac to comparable RAM and hard drive brings the price to $1374. In my opinion, $125 is a small price to pay for the larger screen real estate.

I don’t have much to say about the Mac Pros. My last true desktop was an 867MHz Mirror Drive Doors PowerMac. I can get so much done on a laptop or iMac that I would be wasting my money to buy a Mac Pro. Still, I enjoy pricing one out occasionally to see what kind of ridiculous specs and prices are available. A dual 2.93GHz, 32GB RAM, 1TB HD model currently rings up at just over 12 grand. At least there is free shipping.

What’s remarkable isn’t that both problems had problems, but in how easy it was (or not) to recover from those problems. The Dell died first. Or rather, it didn’t die, but had to be put out of its misery. I managed to contract a bad case of spyware/adware. All the adware removal and anti-virus tools at our disposal couldn’t rid the computer of its unwelcome guest. IT hooked me up with a replacement laptop, but that one burned down, fell over, and then sank into the swamp (it had an undiagnosed hardware problem). The third laptop worked. All of my files were transferred over and I was ready to get back to work. Or was I? The replacement came installed with all of my “core” applications, but I use much more than just the core applications. So I had to install a number of other applications and set up all my preferences and options for the applications before I could really begin using the computer.

The experience rescuing my wife’s MacBook Pro was quite different. The computer still works, but it appears to have the graphics problems that have plagued the early MacBook Pros (the computer still works, but the screen is black). We connected the MBP to a spare Mac Mini with a firewire cable. Then it was simply a matter of running Migration Assistant, selecting the user accounts, and letting it run. A couple of hours later, the Mac Mini was up and running with my wife’s account and applications intact. The only real problem we encountered is a few applications that store a full path name in the preferences (for reasons I won’t get into, when we imported the account we changed the account name). These problems were pretty simply to solve, though. Overall, the whole recovery experience was fantastic on the MBP compared to the Dell with Windows XP. Just another reason I am sold on Mac.

• The 13″ MacBook and 15″ MacBook Pros are all new. The 17″ MacBook Pro received a small bump, but is based on the old architecture. The MacBook Air was “refreshed” also.
• The appearance of the MacBook and MacBook Pro are now identical apart from the size difference. No longer do we have the plastic MacBooks and aluminum MacBook Pros.
• Ok, that’s not totally true. The white MacBook lives on as a sub-$1000 model. It’s not very compelling from a spec perspective (only 1GB RAM and an Intel GPU), but it does make Macs seem more affordable. I am curious to see how well it will sell.
• Apple spent a lot of time at the launch talking about the new production process. The new models are crafted from solid blocks of aluminum. I assume that means fewer screws.
• The new MacBook and MacBook Pro models have a larger glass trackpad that supports multi-touch.
• No more antiglare displays. The new models have glossy LED displays. This isn’t a big deal to me, but I know it is for many people.
• No more Firewire 400 on the MacBook Pros. It’s Firewire 800 only.
• No more Firewire on the MacBooks – at all. It’s USB only. Color me shocked. Apple always seems to find a way to differentiate their consumer models from their pro models. I guess this is one way they are doing it now.
• No Blu-ray. Steve said Blu-ray is a “bag of hurt.”

I am impressed with how large hard drives are getting in laptops. My first generation MacBook Pro isn’t that old, but these new laptops have 2-3 times the hard drive capacity. It’s getting to the point where a laptop is having enough storage to be a primary work computer for creative types (some would argue that has been the case for a while, but I have found the disk space lacking).

This time the “one more thing” from Steve came at the beginning. Apple also announced a new Cinema Display with built-in USB hub, iSight, microphone, and speakers. Most interesting is the combined cable with plugs for the display, USB, and (the surprise) MagSafe power to hook up your laptop. The MagSafe plug is a nice touch, meaning I wouldn’t have to crawl under my desk to plug in a power cord.

Update: Apple Insider has posted a photo set of a tear down of the new MacBooks. It’s amazing how few pieces there are when it’s all disassembled.

1. Time Capsule

Steve Jobs introduced Time Capsule in the keynote speech on Tuesday. Time Capsule is Apple’s new wireless network storage device that is intended to be used with Time Machine. One thing troubles me, though. Before Leopard was released, the developer versions of Leopard allowed Time Machine to be used with USB hard drives connected to an Airport Extreme. That functionality is not present in the release version of Leopard.

At first, many people thought there must be a technical reason – perhaps it required more testing. Now, it seems, that the motivation was purely financial – encouraging people to buy Time Capsule. I bought an Airport Extreme in anticipation of being able to use it to backup the computers in my house. Now it looks like I might have to use something other than Time Machine. Perhaps I’ll buy Chronosync licenses for the rest of my computers.

2. There be Dragon(s) Here!

One of the big names in speech recognition is Dragon Naturally Speaking. Many lawyers use Dragon while drafting letters, pleadings, motions, and other documents. Unfortunately, Dragon hasn’t been available on the Mac … until now.

MacSpeech, makers of iListen, announced a new product at Macworld – MacSpeech Dictate. MacSpeech iListen has received good reviews, but many have reported it being a little slow at times. For Dictate, MacSpeech licensed the Dragon speech recognition engine from Nuance. Simply put, Dragon is fast.

If you have been interested in dictation software but have been disappointed with the options available on the Mac, you may want to take a look at MacSpeech Dictate. You probably won’t be alone, either – Dictate won a Best of Show award at Macworld.

3. Ntractive Elements SBM Nnounced at Macworld

Tuesday at Macworld, Ntractive announced Elements SBM, their entry into the CRM software market (SBM stands for Small Business Management). Elements is a Web 2.0 application, meaning it utilizes advanced web application technologies. Because of this, Elements’ strength seems to lie in the ability to access your data from anywhere. Still, from the information available on the Ntractive website, it appears that some desktop integration is present. Ntractive is currently accepting sign-ups for their public beta. There is no word on when the beta is likely to begin, though. I am not sure that the Web 2.0 thing fits our needs, but I will still be signing up to take a look.

4. Fujitsu ScanSnap S300M

At Macworld, Fujitsu announced the ScanSnap S300M, a portable version of its popular ScanSnap scanners. The two main things you need to know about it are: 1) it runs off USB power; and 2) it doesn’t come with the full version of Adobe Acrobat. The ScanSnap S300M is expected to ship in March.

Edit: How could I forget the ScanSnap?

The MacWorld San Francisco keynote speech was today, and, as expected, Steve Jobs introduced a new Mac sub-notebook called the MacBook Air. I won’t go into all the details of the MacBook Air because you can learn everything you need to know at the Apple website and the Apple Store. Instead, I just want to share a few impressions and surprises:

1. As rumored, the MacBook Air has an optional external optical drive. What surprised me was the price – $99 – which is very competitive with everything else on the market.
2. The Big surprise regarding the optical drive was Remote Disk, which allows the MacBook Air to share the optical drive of another Mac or PC on the same network. I think we should expect to see few sales of the external optical drive because the MacBook Air seems like a much better second computer than a primary personal computer.
3. The multi-touch trackpad was a nice feature. Rumors had suggested some kind of multi-touch capability on a new Apple product, but people weren’t sure whether the rumors were linked to the sub-notebook or some other product being developed. I don’t see much need for the extra multi-touch features. I already use two-finger scrolling on my MacBook Pro. Rotating and zooming makes sense on an iPhone, but how often do people need to do that on their computer?
4. The MacBook Air ships with 2GB of RAM and isn’t upgradable. It’s nice to see Apple ship a laptop with a reasonable amount of RAM, but design considerations probably drove the decision more than generosity (if you can call “not price gouging” on RAM upgrades generous).
5. According to Steve, the MacBook Air gets 5 hours of battery life. If this is true and unaffected by the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field (see, e.g., Wikipedia), I’ll be pretty excited. I regularly got 2+ hours out of my 12″ PowerMac with the wireless on. Getting 5 hours of wireless use without adding ugly external batteries (I am looking at You, Michael Dell) is quite an accomplishment.
6. There was some concern over the fact that the battery was not user-replaceable. However, many sites are now reporting that Apple will replace the battery for $129 (parts & labor included in the price). That’s a tidy sum, but paying $129 every 1-2 years to keep your laptop going is a small price to pay for the size and convenience of the MacBook Air.
7. Finally, we come to the price. I was hoping the MacBook Air would come in a little cheaper (in the $1600-1700 range). Having watched the keynote, though, I can understand the price point. A lot of engineering went into the MacBook Air, and, judging from the reaction of the crowd, I think Apple will have no trouble selling many, many MacBook Airs at $1799.



8. The big shock came from seeing the price of the 1.8GHz model with the SSD drive. One of the benefits of SSD drives is their superior reliability. If that’s the only benefit, I don’t think many people will find the price justifiable. I look forward to seeing battery life and performance tests for the new drives. Hopefully Bare Feats will get their hands on one soon.
9. I am confused about Apple’s choice to list two models. Both the 1.8GHz processor and the SSD drive are upgrades on the base MacBook Air. They could just as easily have had a single model and make everything an upgrade of that model, like they did with the Mac Pro.

I look forward to the day I can visit our local Apple Store and see the MacBook Air in person. If they’re shipping in two weeks, that day can’t be too far off …. can it?

I am considering getting a smaller notebook than my current MacBook Pro. I have wondered myself a few times if I am better off getting a MacBook instead of the new sub-notebook (MacBook Mini?). Previously, I was drawn to the pro laptops from Apple because the graphics chips and keyboards were vastly superior to those in the consumer models. Now, however, the keyboards are mostly comparable (I love my new iMac keyboard, which was seems based on the work done for the MacBook). The graphics chip in the sub-notebook is also likely to be closer to that in the MacBook due to heat and power-consumption issues.

Ultimately, I think I am not likely to want an optical drive in a sub-notebook. If I was going to use it frequently, I would probably just get a MacBook. However, I don’t think I would want to use it frequently. In that case, it would be spending most of its days in a drawer in my office. Undoubtedly, whenever I wanted to use it, the optical drive would still be in that drawer in my office – safe, but unusable. But, that’s just what I think. Let everyone know what you think by voting in the poll!