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Tag Archives: Mac Mini
Reclaiming My Creative Life With Vintage Macs: The Cigar Box Mini Stack
After months of tinkering, I finally built the Murciélago Mini-Stack: a 2010 Mac mini sitting on top of a 2022 M1 Mac mini, all resting on a cigar box. Two Macs, one keyboard, and zero subscriptions. Here’s how I reclaimed my creative life with vintage hardware I already own. Continue reading
Posted in Computers, Illustration, Joe's Garage, Vector Illustration
Tagged 2010 Mac mini, Adobe CS4, Affinity Designer, Apple hardware, cigar box, desktop publishing, IKEA hack, KVM switch, M1 Mac mini, Mac Mini, Mac stack, Murciélago Mini-Stack, no subscription, retro Mac, Snow Leopard, subscription free, vintage computing, vintage Mac
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The End of the Adobe Era: Reclaiming My Creative Life with Vintage Macs
After three decades with Photoshop — from floppy disks and beige Macs to monthly subscriptions — I finally hit cancel. Here’s why I’m happily back to my old software running on old hardware, and how I reclaimed my creative life. Continue reading
Posted in Blast from the Past, Computers, Curious Clutter, Joe's Garage
Tagged 1990s computing, Adobe, Adobe subscription, analog to digital, beige box, cancel Adobe, Creative Cloud, creative freedom, death by a thousand cuts, digital minimalism, drafting table, future proofing, Mac Mini, Mac nostalgia, Macintosh IIci, old Mac, old software, Photoshop, Photoshop CS4, Power Mac, pre-subscription Photoshop, retro computing, subscription fatigue, vintage Mac
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Party Like It’s 2009!
Last week I wrote about upgrading a Mac Pro tower with a Solid State Drive or SSD plugged into a Peripheral Component Interconnect express card which I placed into one of the PCIe slots within the Pro’s enormous aluminum chassis. … Continue reading
Posted in Computers, Curious Clutter, Joe's Garage
Tagged 2001, Adobe, computer, Joe Williams, Low End Mac, Mac, Mac Mini, tear down, upgrade, USA, vintage
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My Half-Assed iMac
I’ve been tinkering with my Mac Minty which I also refer to as my “Half-assed iMac.” It’s a 2012 Mac mini running Linux Mint, bolted to the back of a 21.5″ Asus VS228H-P monitor with a $9 VESA mount adapter … Continue reading
The Mac Minty
It’s Black Friday, and while the shoppers in the West are killing each other over disposable junk manufactured in dystopian hellholes, I’m at home basking in my frugal nature with my 13-year-old Mac Mini brought back to useful life with … Continue reading
Posted in Computers, Joe's Garage
Tagged 2012 Mac Mini lives, 2025 still using 2012 hardware, 40-dollar computer, anti-Apple, anti-consumerism, Apple hate, Apple obsolescence, Black Friday, breathing new life, cable management shame, cheapskate, Cinnamon desktop, ewaste, frugal computing, frugal life, hardware resurrection, last upgradeable Mini, late 2012 Mac Mini, Linux desktop, Linux Mint, Linux on Mac, Mac Mini, Mac Mini Linux hack, Mac Minty, minimalist setup, old Mac revival, open source, penny pincher, planned obsolescence, RAM upgrade, refusing to upgrade, repurposed Mac, right to repair, second-life Mac, SSD upgrade, sustainable computing, tech rebellion, tech thrift, user-upgradeable Mac, VESA mount
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