50 ways to get more from your Mac mini
Published by GadgetSpy April 7th, 2006 in Gadgets, Computing, Apple Mac.
This article covers 50 ways to get more from your mac mini, ranging from simple tweaks through to extreme customisation.
Mount it somewhere ‘different’
- Mount it on the wall
- Mount it *in* the wall into a plugsocket!
- Stand it on it’s side
- Mount it onto the back of a 42″ plasma
- Hide it under a desk or shelf
- Give it a miniskirt
- Stack it with the speaker greenhouse
- Hang your bog roll from it 
Modding
- Take a trip back to the 80’s - Cram the mac mini into an Apple SE30 case
- Slap it inside the Millenium falcon!
- Turn it into a robot, the MiniPsi
- Skin the Mini mac up - Everything from tiger stripes to the Mona Lisa
- Theft deterrent - Hide it inside a crappy old Dell
- The Mac MiniTosh: 33.3% nostalgia 33.3% hack 33.3% pointless; still 100% Macintosh
- Mac Mini Dock ( Provisional Patent Application has been submitted )
- Overclock it
- Make it portable
- Mac mini faceplate mod
- Buy a book: Mac mini hacks & mods for dummies
- Power it by battery
- Upgrade your RAM
- Mac Mini NES
- Mac mini with Dual Displays
- Install Fedora Core, BSD or Ubuntu
- Core Solo to Duo upgrade
In-car Mac Mini’s
- Put 3 mini macs in the back of a VW Touareg, the world’s first fully autonomous vehicle driven by Mac OS X
- Touch Screen front row in a Toyota Prius
- 2006 Infiniti M45 Sport Apple Mac-Mini with Front Row
- iDash - Mac mini for the car
- The Jeepintosh Mac mini & GPS in a Grand Cherokee
- Mac Mini Carputer
FrontRow
- Install divx support for frontrow - DivX 6 for Mac for Intel/PPC (Universal Binary)
- Use your mobile phone via bluetooth for controlling frontrow by using Sailing Clicker and Snarbs frontrow controller
Increase storage
- Get a mini stack and put your own drive in
- LaCie mini 500g hard drive and hub
Music & Video
- Turn it into a recording studio
- Miglia TVMini HD: Record free-to-air or free cable Digital TV, supports full HDTV resolutions of up to 1080i
- Turn your Mac mini into a media center
- MythTV on Mac x86
- Download some movies!
Server & Hosting
- Tart up your PBX - Yes, Asterisk runs on MacOSX
- If you are that short on space you can always Colocate your mac mini
- Mac mini ISP-In-A-Box
- Mini Network with a Big XServe Style
Keyboards, mice & remotes
- Logitech S530 Laser Mac Keyboard & Mouse Set
- KeySpan Express Remote
- Griffin Technology Airclick USB Remote Control
- Radtech BT500 mini bluetooth mouse
If all else fails you could always install Windows XP…
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Got to love the Infiniti m45 install, frontrow in the back of the car!
Some good links I hadn’t seen before, thanks
re: Miglia TVMini HD
“For 1080i broadcasts, you need at least a Dual G5 processor for it to work properly.”
More Mac mini car installs here… http://www.macvroom.com
Great article
Did you know that you can transform you iPOD intro a remote controler?
Here’s another one: Instead of buying Slingbox get a cheap USB TV dongle like TV Miglia Mini with Elgato EyeTv and download the free, open source application CyTV to be able to stream your video feed across the internet or just to the kitchen computer (free clients available for OS/X and Windows)