I’ve been a PC/Windows user since 1989, way back when you needed two people to lift some of those old IBM desktops, and storage came in 5″ floppy form. Flash forward to 2009, it’s time to add a media server to my audio/video setup, and I decided to go the easy way… which brings me to the new Apple Mac Mini!

Sure, it would have been cheaper to buy a small box and build a Windows machine, but it would not have been pretty,easy to operate, or as simple as the Mac Mini.

It sits just under the LCD TV on the TV stand. It doesn’t take up much space, does not make any noise and doesn’t generate much heat. As a bonus it comes with a remote controls a media interface and I can use an iPod Touch/iPhone to remote control iTunes.

In the context of my Audio/Video system, the Mac Mini takes the place of my CD player. It feeds an outboard DAC (Digital to Analog Converter) that goes into my stereo system. I have been ripping my CD’s in Apple Lossless so that there is no quality drop from the original CD.

While the Mac Mini is mostly for audio CD’s, I can watch DVD’s, have it networked with my main PC which supplies movies in AVI format and photo galleries, plus I can do all my web surfing from the comfort of my living room.

With OS X in it’s current form, there is little that separates it from my experience with Window. All the basic apps I need for day to day computing are mostly built in, easy to use, and work well.

Could OS X become my preferred operating system? Right now, the answer is no. I have way more experience with Windows XP and as far as I can tell, I have way more options when it comes to applications.

My Windows PC is used for work, like web authoring, photo/video editing, and more obscure things that have not made their way to the OS X platform. If i could find OS X equivalent apps to the ones i currently use, I am thinking it would slow me down until i learned them as intimately as I know my current apps.

Overall, the Mac Mini and the OS X operating system have matured to the point where it makes sense as an alternative to Windows XP/Vista. OS X is so much more functional and usable then it was 5 years ago.

The Mac Mini just seems to work and as a replacement for my CD player it just rocks. I am looking forward to adding a new 24bit/96KHz DAC and finding me some high rez music downloads.

‘Nuff said!