Mac mini = epic fail!

[Cinci Jim]

Was doing some upgrading to the home TV and decided to add a Mac mini to the setup. It pushs HDMI output and it would let me play all the "computer only" content that seems to be cropping up everywhere. Huluplus, Netflix & iTunes all look great. 2 problems... First, other windows 7 machines in the house share across a homegroup; the Mac it seems only likes workgroups. No problem, I'll put my content on my legacy network appliance (WD Netcenter 250GB) and all can map the network drive and all will be good.

The Netcenter EasyLink software only runs on PowerPC, not Lion that the Mac mini came with.

Oh, and no Airplay with the Mac mini. Don't even get me going on iCloud (iClod!) nightmares.

I really wanted this to work, but if you are not able to stay within the fortress walls that Apple builds around their users to "keep them safe" and "being creative individuals in the way we let you" and "assimilate into the mindless fan boy collective" - you are out in the cold!

What an epic fail!

[fourflys]

no comment on the Mac stuff as I love my Mac stuff and have no issues but mine isn't as complex as yours...

I just wanted to share a link that your "epic fail" comment reminded me of... no offense meant, just a fun link on New Year's Day...

http://thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=epic

[akelman]

I have a friend, Cinci Jim, who's done exactly what you tried do. He seems pleased with the setup. But he's very adept with computers and also quite the Mac "fanboy". Sorry it didn't work out for you.

[vqdriver]

that's a funny link.

but i'm in with cinci jim. wifey had drank the koolaid and we were all set to pull the trigger on a mini as well. but then i started asking questions at the apple store and pretty much every answer was "that setup hasn't been tested" or "buy this other apple product to do it." really simple stuff too. but unless you're already in a heavily mac flavored home or it really is a stand alone machine, then it's way more headache then it's worth.

my walkaway impression is that if you're in an apple environment, things are super smooth and super simple. interfaces are pretty to look at and pretty much a mouse click makes things happen the way they're supposed to. but when you have to talk to or work with someone outside your clique, then things fall apart. stick with the cool kids and all's good.

[Cinci Jim]

no comment on the Mac stuff as I love my Mac stuff and have no issues but mine isn't as complex as yours...

I just wanted to share a link that your "epic fail" comment reminded me of... no offense meant, just a fun link on New Year's Day...

http://thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=epic

After reviewing this, I will correct my earlier post "Mac mini = epic failure"

:banana: :crap: :beer: :hello: :cool:

Finally I have connected to the homegroup and it found all the iTunes media! Unfortunately, this means the Windows 7 PC can never go to sleep if the Mac is using music... Soldier on Windows PC and carry your Apple Mac buddy home!

[forrestw]

Macs run Unix[TM] inside. That means that internally they're a S H I T E load more reliable as well as customizable. In fact it's entirely possible to run OS/X on a Dell PC. Microsoft's Windows offering has certainly matured some in recent years but it's still built on a crappy legacy of proprietary cruft and it still uses more resources than the options (osx, linux).

Apple does build an impressive proprietary wall around their Unix core OS but if you know what you're doing you can work around 99% of it. In fact, if there are epic fails in your situation it's that you're using a microsoft-centric ifrastructure. It's interesting that you blame the Mac for having imperfect compatibility with your 99% proprietary Microsoft environment.

Edited in profanity that the forum removed

[Cinci Jim]

While I agree with your comments, I'm not a power user - I use the internet, stream movies & the like. I now have everthing working, with the exception of the network appliance & it's shared drives. From my understanding, unless WD goes back and rewrites a 6 year old driver for Lion, it will never work unless I do some dual boot snow leopard mumbo jumbo which sounds like a not very usable option for everyday users.

The device works fine & is connected to my router and all my windows machines can easity use the 6 year old driver.

The Mac says sorry, no support for PowerPC anymore - go buy new hardware.

Why did Mac stop PowerPC?

[forrestw]

Why did Mac stop PowerPC?
They stopped shipping PPC however far back probably because Intel offered better pricing and I'm sure vertical integration was simpler.

They dropped support for PPC in Lion because that's what software vendors do, eventually drop support for legacies. Lion so far has quite failed to impress me but I'm sure it will mature.

Edit: I miss my PPC mac and POWER workstations but the fact is my phone has more processing power today than my G4 ppc laptop did.

[that guy]

Doesn't the Apple TV do most of what you're looking to do?

[tuco]

While I agree with your comments, I'm not a power user - I use the internet, stream movies & the like. I now have everthing working, with the exception of the network appliance & it's shared drives. From my understanding, unless WD goes back and rewrites a 6 year old driver for Lion, it will never work unless I do some dual boot snow leopard mumbo jumbo which sounds like a not very usable option for everyday users.
...
You ought to be able to do your NetCenter configuration via Windows and then access the NetCenter via Finder on the Mac Mini. Of course, I am not sure what your ambition is per the NetCenter .. but for casual use of the HDMI this is plausible. Same workgroup on the NetCenter and the Mac Mini. NetCenter name or IP for Finder. Need username/password depending on your setup. IIRC, Linux users have accessed the NetCenter. This should allow you to do the same w/o the WDC software on Lion.

Power user notes .. there may be requirements or work to do per CIFS (SMB, Samba) on the NetCenter. Firmware? CIFS (SMB) vs. NFS? Whatever you can do to manage the NetCenter from Windows to set up "basic" SMB or NFS access from the Mac Mini ought to buy you some time with the NetCenter. One can also imagine there is a web interface that can handle all or most of the configuration as well. You need to know the IP or name of the NetCenter for access.

Good luck!

[Cinci Jim]

No Hulu Plus. From what I understand, the Hulu Plus app is done and has been for sometime now - Apple is just worried it will cut into their iTunes TV show business, so no Hulu on ATV2.

[rice rocket]

Macs run Unix[TM] inside. That means that internally they're a S H I T E load more reliable as well as customizable. In fact it's entirely possible to run OS/X on a Dell PC. Microsoft's Windows offering has certainly matured some in recent years but it's still built on a crappy legacy of proprietary cruft and it still uses more resources than the options (osx, linux).

Apple does build an impressive proprietary wall around their Unix core OS but if you know what you're doing you can work around 99% of it. In fact, if there are epic fails in your situation it's that you're using a microsoft-centric ifrastructure. It's interesting that you blame the Mac for having imperfect compatibility with your 99% proprietary Microsoft environment.

Edited in profanity that the forum removed

I've heard all that crap time and time again. *NIX architecture doesn't mean crap when your apps buggy as any other app. My 2 year old Windows 7 box is way more stable than my Macbook Pro, both have 8GB and less than 10% HD utilization. Windows machine is more stable all day, every day. Hands down. No exceptions. :hello: I find it ironic too that my iWork applications crash way more often than my Office for Mac 2011 apps. :crap: That said, the Mac is still my go-to machine, mostly because I like the Mac hardware and UI. I just avoid the buggy apps and reboot when needed, which averages around once a week (my Windows box stays on for months at a time).

Anyways, back to the topic on hand...

Change your Windows machines back to workgroups instead of homegroups. It's your easiest solution, unless you want to "hard wire" all your connections (on the Mac, go to Finder, press Command+K, and type smb://type.ip.address.here/), on your PCs, go to \\type.ip.address.here and right click and mount the folders you want as drives.

For playing content over the network, use a media center app like XBMC which can pick up UPnP devices (includes smartphones, other computers running media sharing apps, etc), and use that. XBMC has Hulu and Netflix plugins, I wouldn't even bother w/ the iTunes junk.

[Cinci Jim]

For playing content over the network, use a media center app like XBMC which can pick up UPnP devices (includes smartphones, other computers running media sharing apps, etc), and use that. XBMC has Hulu and Netflix plugins, I wouldn't even bother w/ the iTunes junk.

In your opinion, XBMC or PLEX?

[rice rocket]

I run XBMC because there's more plugins. Most of them are developed for the Linux side, but they work fine on Windows and Mac as well. Plex was forked off XBMC a few years ago so the underlying code is rather similar, you'll find that Plex developers will often port them to their own program if they see enough demand.

Plex does have the advantage that they use a Mac-specific x264 codec that reduces CPU usage dramatically when decoding x264 content. I'm not sure if the XBMC Mac port has picked up on it yet.

Edit: nevermind, both have had it for the past year and a half. I just haven't kept up on their release notes.


I think Plex's new deal is they have a separate "media server". Seems like just a UPnP server, but there are plenty out there already... No real benefit in my application, since the computer playing the media is also the computer that's storing the media as well. It also takes up extra system resources since it's on all the time, and it's annoyingly hard to uninstall (deleting from Applications doesn't do it, you need to delete some system files elsewhere). That alone has gotten me to not look at Plex again.

[forrestw]

I've heard all that crap time and time again. *NIX architecture doesn't mean crap when your apps buggy as any other app. My 2 year old Windows 7 box is way more stable than my Macbook Pro, both have 8GB and less than 10% HD utilization. Windows machine is more stable all day, every day. Hands down. No exceptions. :hello: I find it ironic too that my iWork applications crash way more often than my Office for Mac 2011 apps. :crap: That said, the Mac is still my go-to machine, mostly because I like the Mac hardware and UI. I just avoid the buggy apps and reboot when needed, which averages around once a week (my Windows box stays on for months at a time).

a. All application software at apple is part of "Other" representing ~11B annual sales, a small fraction of the size of app software at MS as such, better reliability is hardly a surprise -- moot point for me, I haven't used *any* MS office application in more than a decade. I got tired of wordprocessors that needed more resources than high-end CAD systems.

b. I was referring to the OS and your experience is wholly different from mine. Yeah, win7 in a marked improvement over prior versions. IMX it still doesn't hold a candle to to OSX for stability, my experience would be reciprocal to yours. I work OSX and linux both hard and the only times I reboot are when forced by software update -- less frequently than is required on Win machines.

c. Your OSX machine is your 'goto'. A bike that sits idle in the garage unused is unlikely to be worn or need adjustments, a computer that is used less will likewise be remarkably stable. That could explain your experience of reliability.

emacs vs vi shimano vs campy steel vs carbon windows vs mac

all pretty stupid arguments, all valid preferences

[crankles]

MTTF for that 6 yr old WD drive is right about...um...now. I'd back that guy up and put it out to pasture.

[Ti Designs]

Why did Mac stop PowerPC?


Exactly 4 days after I bought one.

Once again, I'm loving the fact that newer technology is making someone else's life more complicated. I simply want something that plays music or video, that's not going to change - clearly that's way too much to ask. I also want a Dura-Ace quality parts group that doesn't have 10+ gears...

[Litespeed_Mike]

I hear ya! The mini is fun, rewarding and frustrating all at the same time when hooked to a TV in the living room.

I run a 2010 Mac Mini (w/ Super Drive) as a HTPC and I like it... The process of making it work gives me a hobby.

The agony of it not always working out gives me a headache at times, I've almost fractured my skull agains a hard wall not getting even a complex solution for simple home networking, media, and gaming.

[martinrjensen]

If this is truly all you want, just go get a Media Player like a Seagate Goflex-TV or Argosy HV355T or something like that. I have the Argosy unit and have had no problems with it. You can build up a music / video server and run your media from that or just copy all your files on to an external hard drive which you can plug directly into the media player. This is about as simple as it's going to get.
As far as change goes, good luck, it won't happen, no change I mean....Exactly 4 days after I bought one.

Once again, I'm loving the fact that newer technology is making someone else's life more complicated. I simply want something that plays music or video, that's not going to change - clearly that's way too much to ask. I also want a Dura-Ace quality parts group that doesn't have 10+ gears...

[benb]

I have several Macs and got an Apple TV free recently..

I'd have said the Apple TV would have been the better option, when I tried to use the Mini attached to the TV it sucked, it's just not designed for that.

But the Apple TV has lots of the same issues.

It really is a situation where you have to be 100% bought into apple to make stuff work "magically". It's pretty horrible when you want to do something with a piece of apple software/hardware and that's not on the apple "blessed list" once you're off that list you're going to get it done way faster on a Windows or "real" Unix box. (Apple has changed so much stuff the Mac is really not that great for Unixy stuff anymore.)

One of the ones that drives me crazy is the Apple TV requires iTunes to be running on my Mac in order to play music/video onto the TV. My other solutions can make do with a teeny daemon process running on the Mac rather then a big heavyweight app.

[martinrjensen]

I was over at a friends house yesterday and he had a Mac Mini connecting to his Windows 7 movie server. I have to say I was quite impressed with the menu at a minimum. He has one issue with a login if it shuts down but other than that it seems to work just fine.
It's benefit appears mainly to be it's small size. I don't think he is running homegroups but I can find out if you want to know, and I can find the exact issue he had with a logon too as I was mainly watching a movie as opposed to thinking about the device. This has a way better menu than my Media player, of course it's a full blown computer and cost 6 times as much, so I guess you get what you pay for but still,I was impressed.