Inverted Reality

 

A new lease of life for an old Mac Mini

I've got an old Mac Mini laying around, I may have found a use for it.. I've thrown it up in the cabinet with my other network goodies and added it to the network as a squid proxy server and fax server. Mac Mini: G4 1.4, 1GB RAM, 80GB hdd, fax/modem. no wifi/bt. Leopard. it's headless, I can administer it from my other machines using screen sharing, which is nice. I'm running "SquidMan" for OS X, which is a GUI squid configurator, the squid daemon comes with it. nice. Configuration is fast and easy. I've loaded up 'sarg' so I can monitor the traffic/logs if I like... (not important to me) I've turned on 'fax sharing' for the internal modem, and plugged it in with the ADSL on a splitter/filter. Maybe I'll come up with some other things for the mac mini to do... I'd like to get a little comms cabinet and tidy this up at some stage too. any other uses? My NAS does the filesharing, etc.... I'll have to see what I can come up with :) What I'd really like is an app/tool that allows me to log usage of a network interface, to hostname/IP level. EG how much data on port 110 for host abc, etc. or how much total data through a network interface for IP xxx... hrmmm. I had a great Linux app that monitored this through IPTABLES once upon a time. James

Filed under  //   Apple   Mac Mini   fax   modem   proxy   sarg   squid  
Posted July 23, 2009
 

I'm still using a G4 Mac

Last year I sold my Macbook Pro, in anticipation of new models. The new models came... I still haven't replaced my old MBP. Why? Well I wanted the new Macbook, only, it doesn't come with firewire, I need firewire for my Canon HV30 video camera. FAIL Apple. So I was looking at a new Macbook Pro. That got me thinking, why not go for the 17" MBP, the new unibody boasts excellent battery life, and it also has the FullHD resolution display (as per the previous model). The only problem is, it's a $6,000 machine here in Australia. Can I justify the expense? yes.... when I'm more cashed up. In the meantime, can you believe I've been using an old G4 PPC Mac Mini? I'm talking 1.42Ghz, 1GB ram, 80GB hdd. It's so old! but you know what, I've got leopard on it and it's working fine. Well, fine for E-mail, web, and some basic tasks anyway! It's amazing how these old machines can still be put to use, especially if it's for basic tasks. I sure do miss the power to be able to edit and encode HD video's! I'll probably be buying a new Macbook Pro in a week or so, if things go as planned.

Filed under  //   G4   Mac Mini   Macbook Pro   leopard  
Posted May 26, 2009