Yesterday, I got to work and discovered me and couple of my peers had been recognized for working through a particularly ugly maintenance at the office a few weekends ago. Cool! What I didn’t know was that with that recognition also came a gift card to the mall. Even cooler! A mall that happens to house one of the new Apple Mini-Marts.

So, with my major award (and some extra money), I bought the new server for the deauxmayne — a nice shiny Apple Mac Mini!

I like the design and form factor of the Mac Mini. It’s doesn’t exactly stand out — no bells and whistles, magic lights, lava lamps or other moving parts — but it’s diminutive size sets it apart. It runs a G4 processor, which will be more than enough for my needs as a web and mail server. It has 512Mb RAM (which I intend to upgrade to 1Gb one day), 80Gb hard drive, 802.11g, bluetooth, USB, Firewire…. more than enough goodies for my needs.

Why would I change servers? Well, I’ve discovered that I can programmatically interface with Spotlight (part of OS X), and I believe that will give me the ability to add true searches for the photos on the site. That alone is a big reason to move to the Mac Mini.

So pardon the dust, watch out for the construction crane, and keep coming back for updates. The next couple of weeks of conversion oughta be a fun ride!