Gah. PC dead
I don’t use my PC a whole lot. Jake uses it when ever he wants to use a computer (he doesn’t like using the laptops) and I use it for photo work. The main reason I use it is due to the one app that I really, really miss from MacOS - Google Picassa (and no, iPhoto isn’t the same - it’s slow as hell and limited when you get several thousand photos in it). For the last few weeks it has been reporting “Keyboard locked” and failing to boot until the keyboard is unplugged and reconnected or the power is turned off (really off, power lead out). Switching to a USB keyboard solved that…so I thought.
Now all of a sudden it won’t boot. In fact, short of lighting the power led on the motherboard and lighting the “AGP WARN” led it does bugger all. The power led simply shows that power is getting to the motherboard (I’ve tried a couple of PSUs - same) and the AGP warning light apparantly means I have a 3.3v old style AGP card and the board has shutdown to prevent damage. Given a) the agp card is the same one that has been in there for several years and b) it still does it even with *no* card in the slot I coming to the conclusion that the motherboard has indeed gone pop 
This is a bugger. A right royal pain in the arse. Looking around I have a few options. The obvious of replacing the motherboard like-for-like isn’t really an option - I suspect a P4 2.4GHz mb is tricky to find now and second hand this board looks to go for 80 quid or so on ebay (which is exactly what I paid for it several years back!). Replacing it with a newer one means I need a newer CPU. Except I don’t really want a new CPU. 2.4GHz is more than enough thanks. Of course, replacing the mb and cpu would also mean I need new RAM - gah.
The other option I’m thinking about is just buying a Mac. Couple of problems with this (glossing over the cash issue :)). 1) Picassa. I really use this a lot and would really, really miss it. 2) Jake has a load of PC games (lego ones mainly) that are window only (although this is less of an issue I guess with the new intel macs). 3) this is the real biggy, Apple don’t actually do a Mac that fits what I want..
The Mac Pro is lovely. And stupidly fast. Unfortunately it’s also huge and massively expensive.
The Mac Mini is almost perfect but just a little too limited. I want something that can dual head monitors (ie, two independant video outs ideally both dvi). Something that uses standard cheap SATA disks would be good - and space for a pair to raid them would be good.
Sitting in between these two Apple have the iMac - these are much closer to what I want but have a major problem. They come with a monitor. I already have a very good lcd screen that I have no desire to get rid off. I really don’t want to pay for a new monitor when all I want is a computer. I must admit to rather liking the look of the new 24″ one though…
So, come on Apple, release the Mac Midi please. I’ve even linked to you in preperation for the page. Something about Mac Mini sized but 3 or 4 times higher. A couple of SATA bays (hot swapable while I’m dreaming) and a couple of video outs driven from a vaguely decent 3D capable card (something like the FX5200 in my powerbook would be plenty - I don’t want anything stupidly fast). Make it under £550 for a base model and I’ll take one now thanks. Oh, and if you do release a Mac Midi then I want a quid comission per machine sold for use of the name (or a couple of those uber 30″ panels). Ta 
