Indeed, it has been forever since my last update. How better to cap this year, than with a post about what I have been up to, the latter quarter of 2009. Things have been going rather smoothly over the past three months. I finally have fully converted to the Mac side. Our home is now rigged with Macs doling out, and playing back media and resources.
The biggest change so far? The Hackintosh that I worked so diligently upon, is now relegated to a Media/File server. Running 10.6.2, I have rigged my Hackintosh with around 8TB of storage, and run it in a cooled closet 24/7. It is forever on the up, doling out Series/Movies to my other machines.
Speaking of which, I am a proud owner of a brand new spanking iMac. 21.5″ 3.33GHz machine with discrete graphics, 4GB RAM as well as a 1TB HDD, this is one beautiful machine. It has become my main rig, my go-to machine for the day to day surfing. As pleased and satisfied as I am with this week 41 monster, it almost didn’t come to be. But that story is for another day.
In addition to the aforementioned machine, I now also own a Mac Mini which serves as our Media Center. The specs are – 2.53GHz, 4GB RAM, 320GB HDD of pure win. I installed Plex (an offshoot of XBMC) on this machine, and I couldn’t be more pleased with how seamlessly I can combine all my media to be accessible through one interface. And what a beautiful interface. Till date, I was a traditionalist, preferring to keep my series/movies in proper folders and clicking to view the same using Quicktime or MPlayer OSX Extended. But through Plex, I have it all under control using just the Apple Aluminium Remote. And the interface! Wow, it scrobbles all my series information and downloads Episode Information from various sites, as well as Fanart, Music etc.
I debated long and hard before making the switch to official Apple hardware. Hacks and community support, notwithstanding, it is more of a headache to keep a Hackintosh in perfect working condition. I just couldn’t take second guessing an update, or having my entire installation messed up, because I decided to take the claim of “Vanilla Installation” too seriously. I can’t count the number of hours I have wasted on my Hackintosh, and with an iMac and Mac Mini, as well as a MacBook Pro under my belt, I can finally breathe a sigh of relief and get back to working.