Hey, one of my predictions came true. I'm not Nostradamus, I just put in writing what I'm sure many people were thinking. A couple of weeks ago, I said "The Mac mini is begging for a USB hub and card reader that matches it." Well, The Plasticsmith made it happen. They now have the Mac mini shack.
The shack is a little ol' place where your USB peripherals can get together. There's no card reader (yet), but there are 7 USB ports. These guys are progressing from the silly Mac mini skirt, but I hope they don't quit with this hub. 7 USB ports is cool, but where's the FireWire? Where are the card readers? Surely they can cram some more good stuff in there.
You know I can't pass up a good 'shop opportunity, so I did a quick mock up for what I think the Mac mini Shack should be. First, it needs ports on the front and back. The front ones are for connecting your friend's camera, an iPod shuffle, or maybe a portable hard drive. The back ones are for your permanent Mac mini peripherals. I also added two flash card readers. The scale in the drawing is bad, but the idea is one SD slot and one CF slot. You get the idea. Plasticsmith is selling a do-it-yourself shack, so I just might have to see what "guts" I could buy to make this happen. If this thing did exist, I'd buy two. One for the mini and one for work, to use with my Dell. This would not be a goofy plastic box because it has some design to it, it would have some weight, and it would give me the front and back ports and cable management like I want.
Keep at it Plasticsmith. You are real close to getting some of my money.
2005-04-16
Shack Up Your Mac
Posted by ---ryan at 5:52 PM
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2 comments:
Wow, you lulled me to sleep with days of no posts, and then snuck in 3 while I wasn't looking.
I like the functionality of the 'shopped box. It does seem to me though that with the addition of this, and then potentially a firewire harddrive that the very small and sleek mini is suddenly becoming burdened and large. I would like to find a way to build out to the sides, rather than up if possible. Much like that mocked-up dock for a mini that was posted some time ago.
Agreed, it is starting to get too big. I should have chopped the height a bit in my mockup. I don't think a hub needs to be that tall. It would make sense that this could hold a 300 gig drive as well. Honestly, I can't think of more than a couple of USB/FireWire devices that I would plug in to a mini since it can be BTO'd with Bluetooth and WiFi. I just know I'd have those few temporary devices that I'd need to plug in and I HATE digging around behind a computer for that sort of thing.
Like I said, it is evolving. I can't wait to see where things go.
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