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Stinkin' Apple!

I really need a Mac Mini.  Why?  Because at $499 it’s the most inexpensive Mac OSX system you can get, and because I need a Mac OSX system to do web development on Apple’s Safari browser.

Since Safari’s browser market share is so small, I have always generally written it off as not worth my time to make sure that my webpages work properly in it.  But as I’m doing more and more web work, and I now have one product in particular that is generating a lot of interest, I’m getting more Safari/Mac users that want to use my products but can’t.

But I don’t really have $499 to drop on some new hardware right now.  There are some less expensive deals to be found on eBay, going for $150-$200 currently, but they’ll probably be a lot closer to $499 in a couple days when their auctions end anyway.

Anyone have a relatively new (OSX, 10.3 or better) but used Apple system they want to part with?

Posted by Anthony on Jan 19, 2006 | 7 replies
Filed under: Apple, Web Development

Comments:

01. Jan 22, 2006 at 09:59am by kims lab bench neighbor:

have you tried the libraries> they usually have a mac or two that no one’s using (who uses macs?) just to test viewability of your webpages>  Would be much cheap as free.  does macOSX run from linux?  emulator thingy.  i has the software if you have needs.  let kim know, and i can hand them over.  as i don’t use them.    good grammar.  ok, have fun with the remainder of the weekend.  -s

02. Jan 22, 2006 at 12:50pm by Anthony:

That’s a good idea about the library, -s.  It’s much less convenient than actually having a machine here with me to work on, but on the other hand it’s free and it’s much better than nothing.

I don’t think you can run OSX from Linux in an emulator, but even if you could it would require an actual copy of OSX, which I wouldn’t run without purchasing.

Thanks for the suggestions!

03. Jan 22, 2006 at 07:42pm by amanda:

Depending on how simple your needs are for testing Safari, browsershots.org might be good enough.  I’ve never used it but I will try it soon.

IIRC, any Mac with firewire is capable of running 10.4 (it has nothing to do with firewire, just a handy way of distinguishing).  There are certain tricks you can do to get it on an older machine than that, but why bother?  10.3.9 is my system of choice, you can put that on nearly every G3 or better.

Why not get an older, used Mac from ebay instead of a Mini?  The computer lab/library idea is good too.

If you’re not in a hurry, send me the URI and I’ll send you a screen shot. :-)

04. Jan 22, 2006 at 08:06pm by Anthony:

Any Mac that runs 10.3 or better would be fine.  (The current version of Safari requires it.)

I guess I was just thinking that since buying OSX costs what, $130, then even if I found some slow old iMac/eMac for $150, I’m still spending nearly $300.

I’d totally browsershot.org it, but the problem is one of the main scripts I need to test is interactive (requires form input & submission) and I’d need to view a movie of it running to know if it was working properly.

05. Jan 22, 2006 at 09:45pm by amanda:

Well I don’t know how to give you a movie, so I won’t be able to help.

Googling "amazon os X" brought up 10.3 for $85 and 10.4 for $77.  Ebay might do better.  I think you could get what you want for less than $300.

Do you know anything about Pear PC?  I heard it was illegal.

06. Jan 23, 2006 at 08:43am by Anthony:

I’m familiar with PearPC but it’s pretty limited:

Quoting pearpc.sourceforge.net:

CPU emulation may be slow (1/500th or 1/15th...

A lot of unimplementated features are fatal (i.e. will abort PearPC).

Timings are very still a little bit inaccurate.

The timing issue is important since what I want to test is very time-sensitive.  And from the documentation it looks like it’s a lot of work to get it installed.  And it requires buying a copy of OS X anyway; I’d definitely rather spend a little more to get the dedicated hardware if I’m going spend $100 on the OS.

07. Jan 24, 2006 at 04:48pm by Donna:

Anthony, you may want to treat yourself to the mini just to get the iLife package -- a coworker of mine has a two-year old daughter and travels alot.  The DVD’s and photo albums she has created are wonderful (and she makes it look soooo easy).  You seem like the GarageBand type also.

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