My Home Setup

by Khürt on November 26, 2005 · Comments

In November 2005, I bought a mac mini to use with my iPod nano ( kind of backward I know ) and I love it. I followed that purchase with a MacBook in the summer of 2006. The MacBook is now my main machine. The mac mini specs are:

  • 1.42GHz PowerPC G4
  • 1 GB DDR333 SDRAM
  • ATI Radeon 9200
  • 32MB DDR video memory
  • 80GB Ultra ATA hard drive
  • SuperDrive (DVD±RW/CD-RW)
  • DVI
  • 802.11g AirPort and Bluetooth
  • Mac OS X 10.5.6
  • 500GB G-Drive Q External FireWire HD

G4 Mac mini

At first I connected the Mac mini to my existing Dell Trinitron monitor, keyboard and mouse. Later I bought an Apple Wireless Keyboard and Apple Wireless Mighty Mouse because I liked the design so much. Since my “office” was in the unfinished unheated basement of my home I was only able to use the computer during the summer. The cold winters made it challenging to use the mini for more than 20 minutes at a time. After purchasing the MacBook I used the mini less often so in the spring of 2007, I decided to move the Mac mini to the family room. The Mac min was connected to my Sony KV-34HS420 34″ FD Trinitron WEGA HD-Ready CRT TV via an XtremeMac XtremeHD cable. However, there was always contention between someone wanting to sync an iPod and someone wanting to watch a show. So I move the Mac mini back down to the basement.

I then bought an AirPort Extreme (AE) Base Station on eBay and along with an Apple Time Capsule (500GB) configured a WDS network. I attached a an HP USB printer to the AE base station. It was a promotional item from Apple when I bought the MacBook. I set the Mac min and MacBook to backup wirelessly to the TimeCapsule and bought an G-Drive Q 500GB firewire external drive to store my music.

13" White MacBook

With all the media in one external Firewire drive, backups are easier, and I can connect the drive to another machine should the Mac mini need to be replaced.The Mac mini is running iTunes and with the Bonjour service providing access to the music library to all the other iTunes enabled machines in the house. The Mac mini also has an iPod dock so that my wife and I can update our iPods.

The MacBook specs are:

  • 2.0 GHz Intel Core Duo
  • 2GB RAM
  • SuperDrive (DVD±RW/CD-RW)
  • 802.11g AirPort and Bluetooth
  • 80GB HD
  • Mac OS X 10.5.6

In Spring 2009 I took advantage of Apple discounts to purchase a 20″ iMac for the kids and a White 13″ MacBook for my wife. I bought another 500 GB G-Drive Q and attached it to the iMac and move all my photos and video to that drive. The Mac mini still manages my music library.

20 iMac

20" Intel iMac

iMac specs:

  • 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
  • 4GB 800 MHz RAM
  • 250GB HD
  • Bluetooth, 802.11n AirPort
  • 500GB G-Drive Q External FireWire HD
  • SuperDrive (DVD±RW/CD-RW)
  • Mac OS X 10.5.6

I bought a Apple AirPort Express on eBay and used the WDS to create a wireless mesh network. The AirPort Express is connected to the input jack of my home stereo. Using my iPod Touch running the Apple Remote app I am able to control the Mac mini and direct playlist to my stereo.

I am a big fan of Google and their services. A few years ago I purchase a number of domains for myself and my kids (the wife wanted nothing to do with it). Google Apps provides email, calendar, contacts list and other collaboration solutions (Google Docs, Google Video, Google Chat) to entities large and small. I have setup those domain to use those services. Google has also been good about integrating their services with OS X Leopard. I use Mail.app with Google IMAP for email, Google Calendar with iCal, and sync my Google contact list with AddressBook.