Mac Mini Review

Why I hate my Mac Mini.

This is the second in a series of occasional technology reviews that are based, not in any subjective way, but around how things are making me hate them.

Today: My Mac Mini.

First off I guess I should preface this with how pretty she is. How whisper quiet. How she boots up so fast.

I use it primarily as a front end to my Personal Video Recorder Server that is running MythTV. To sum up - the server records freeview programs to a hard drive. The Mac Mini connects to the server and shows them on my TV.

So I use very little of the Mac OS itself.

My main gripe? The auto update system.

I think every piece of software comes with a feature the developers shoved in there just to see how much rage they could generate. For me, with OS X, that feature is the auto update system.

It first manifests itself as a chirpy little blue icon that sits at the bottom of the screen and bounces in a happy go lucky, look at me, I'm a happy blue icon kind of way. If I could physically punch an icon displayed by a computer on a TV screen I would happily punch this happy chirpy blue icon in the face till it was dead. And then go after it's mother.

It pops up just after I've started my Mac and gives me three options.
Let's take the "Install and restart" option.

Install and restart. Hmm. How can I put this? I just turned my fucking computer on. I wish to use it. I do not wish to wait for an update to install and then have it restart on me.

The other options are "Not now" and "Ask me later". Both of these appear to mean "Ask me next time I turn my computer on".

Which starts the whole cycle of start my mac, have the urge to go on a chirpy blue icon search and destroy mission, get pissed at being asked to restart the computer that I just turned because I WISHED TO USE IT and then click on "not now".

I did try a second way. I left the dialog alone until I'd finished using my computer. And because I'd finished using it I decided to shut it down. Only to get this message:
"The Update application has cancelled the system shutdown"

Cue the urge to get punchy. My television was expensive. I took it out on my Keysonic keyboard with built in track pad. It's surprisingly still working.

Through gritted teeth back to the update dialog. Still those three options.

"Install and restart".

How can I put this in words a computer that doesn't respond to my voice would understand?
Sadly it didn't understand the phrase "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrfuceatshitanddieyoudirtymother". Slight oversight on Apple's part there I feel.

Translated that roughly means "I've just spent a pleasant two hours watching the very fine Guillmero Del Toro film, Pan's Labyrinth, and now it's gone midnight and I wish to go to bed."

Not stay up to watch a computer that I wish to have shut down instead update itself, shut down, and then start the fuck back up again.

If only there was another option. Like "Install updates and shut down". Man, that would be fine. So fine.

But until then it's a battle of wills. And my Mac hasn't been updated in months.