Our Mac mini as a Media Center

After yesterday's review of NewerTech's miniStack, a number of people emailed asking us how we set up our Mac mini as a media center so we thought we'd share our simple and inexpensive solution.

Our 1.25GHz Mac mini running Mac OS X 10.4.3 with 512MB RAM sits on top of our projection TV as does our home theater system, except for the speakers of course. The Mac mini is connected to our TV via an Apple DVI to Video Adapter ($19) and a Radio Shack S-video cable (~$15). The Mac mini is connected to the home theater receiver via a Monster iCable iPod to Stereo cable ($40) obtained from a retail Apple Store. A D-Link DBT-120 Bluetooth module ($40) is plugged into a Mac mini USB port to control the Mac mini with an Apple Wireless Keyboard ($59). We also have an Apple Wireless Mouse ($59).

Finally, we use Front Row 1.0.1 with Front Row Enabler to select among movies, songs in our iTunes library and photos in our iPhoto library. [Bill Fox]

[Happy Birthday to Us! Today marks Macs Only!'s 10th anniversary. We began as a Mac links web site on December 28, 1995, and added commentary, reviews, tutorials and other features over the next two years. Then, we began offering regular daily news updates with our own domain name in July of 1997. -.- Ed.]