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by Keith Robinson

(Illustration by Brad Fitzpatrick)

Last week Apple announced the new, more powerful, Mac Mini. Just as I was putting the finishing touches on my own tricked out Mini.


I'd been planning on writing this feature for weeks now and last week's announcement made me a bit nervous. What if all the work I'd done to trick out my Mini was now obsolete? Turns out that while some of it would be a bit easier, for the most part all the pimpin' I'd done could be done to the make the newer machines the best they could be too.

What you'll find beyond the jump will show you, regardless of what flavor of Mini you have, a bunch of cool ways to upgrade, hack and modify your little machine into the coolest computer in your home.


Mini for media storage and playback

The Mini is great for media storage, and with a little bit of work, media playback. I first got my Mini to be used as a glorified stereo and media storage unit. I didn't even have a real monitor for it, I just hooked it up to my old TV. The display was pretty weak, most of the time I used my VPN and iTunes to control it remotely. I dumped all my mp3s, my photos and miscellaneous files onto it and let it sit, using it only to pull files from occasionally.

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I've learned recently that it can do so much more.

A Really Big Monitor: Your TV.

To truly trick your Mini out you'll want it hooked up to your TV. There are quite a few newer televisions that can handle the Mini's DVI out, either directly—as mine does—or via a VGA adapter. I've got it hooked up to a 50" Samsung DLP with HD and it looks great.


If your TV doesn't have a DVI or VGA input you can buy a Video adapter and use that, although the picture won't be all that great. I've tried this on an older Sony Wega we've got and it looks pretty blurry.

You'll need to spend a bit of time tinkering with your display settings and the TV's On Screen Display to get it right. Pay particular attention to the resolution, the positioning and the zoom. From Apple:

Picture zoom: Picture Zoom will typically allow you to adjust the size of the picture displayed on the TV. Use this in conjunction with the Overscan option under Display Preferences on the Mac mini to get an optimal picture size


Reader Aaron Smith sent in a picture of his Mac Mini hooked up to the TV. He says, "Front Row looks SICK on the big screen."

This image was lost some time after publication, but you can still view it here


More speed and Power!

This isn't as much of a concern with the newest Minis. However, if you're like me and you're working with an older model you'll need to upgrade the RAM. This can be a bit tricky, as the Mini is a pain in the you-know-what to open. I used the two putty-knife technique detailed in this Macworld article and was able to do it without any damage. However, it was a bit freaky and took a steady hand.


Since you'll be working with lots of large files, video and a variety of media, you'll want to max the RAM out.

More storage!

While you're at it, be sure and up the storage as well. I went with this great LaCie firewire hard drive that fits in perfectly with the mini. Sure you could go with something a bit less...fancy...but this is about tricking the Mini out. It needs to look good.


More Ports (If you need 'em)

The newer Minis have quite a few more USB ports. I needed to add a hub to make sure I could easily connect to my iPod and Cameras for easy media transfer. I went with style again and got the Belkin hub with Mini form factor.


Audio

Getting good audio from your Mini can be as simple as as using an AirPort Express or Monster cable. Or you can kick it up a notch and try something like the M-Audio Transit that'll give you more options and higher quality sound.


I went with a knock-off Monster cable that connects right into my receiver and it works great. To be honest though, I'm no audiophile and I'm still working some things out to get the best possible output.

iTunes and iPhoto on an external drive

Now that you've got the storage, memory and ports you need, it's time to configure iTunes and iPhoto to store files on your external drive. You don't have to do this, but I like to keep all my permanent files in one place (if possible) and the Mini's hard drive just isn't big enough.


This isn't all that hard to do, but it does take some tweaking. iTunes is actually pretty simple. You just go into your "Preferences" and under "Advanced" you can simply browse to a location on your external drive. If you've already got a library, just copy it over first and delete it off the Mini when you're done.

iPhoto is a bit more challenging, but not all that hard. I followed the instructions from this Mac OSX Hints posting and that worked just fine.


Soon you'll have all your media organized and stored in a shared location that will take a long while to fill up.

Front Row and Media Center

On the new Mac minis you'll have Front Row (a really neat media center UI) natively installed. This is great! For those who don't have a Mac Mini, you'll need to do some hackery to get it working. We've covered this before and it's fairly straight forward. Another option is using a Front Row knock-off like Media Central. The new Front Row (with Bonjour support) is pretty nifty though and I'd recommend that.


Remote Control

The new Minis come with a killer remote that'll work with Front Row, but you may want more control than that. I've gone with the new Logitech s530 a wireless keyboard and mouse set made especially for the Mac. It looks great and gives you a bit more control than the remote.


More resources

There are many options you can explore for your Mini. Here are some links to some great resources.


D. Keith Robinson is an associate editor of Lifehacker. His special feature Getting To Done appears every Monday on Lifehacker.