Leave Your Mac On Or Turn It Off?

One of the oldest unresolved controversies in the computer world is: Should you leave your computer on all the time, or turn it off when it is not in use?

Compelling arguments have been made on both sides. Ill try to sum up the important points on either side, and Ill even give you my recommendation, but ultimately, its up to you.

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Your Mac and Your Kids

For some Mac fans reading this, their Mac is almost like their child.

However, for those of us who have both children and Macs, we have to take responsibility for educating and protecting our children on the computer. This was never made clearer to me than one late night a few months back.

My daughter was upstairs on her computer and my wife and I were downstairs watching a movie. First my daughter called down asking for her mothers birth date. Then, two minutes after getting the answer, she called down and asked for the year. I asked my daughter why she needed to know. She replied, just asking.

Her mother shouted the answer before I could stop her. I paused the movie and said, we have to go see what our girl is up to, because I had a suspicion she was giving out my wifes information online. We were met on the stairs by an ecstatic ten year old that told us she had just won a free pizza. All she had to do was give them all her moms personal information.

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What Can You Do With A Mac Mini?

If you have not seen the newest addition to the Macintosh line, it is worth taking a look. It is a very small computer that is only 6.5 x 6.5 x 2 inches. The Mac Mini is about the size of one of those internal CD-ROM drives you install into a PC. By far one of the smallest computers you can buy. And its relatively in expensive, the base model costs only $499. Additionally, you need not buy a new monitor, mouse or keyboard. It is 100% compatible with PC monitors and PC USB keyboards and mice.

But what exactly can you do with this mini computer? Quite a bit! The base model comes with more than enough features for most computer uses. It is a full fledge Macintosh, nothing small about this machine except its physical size.

In this article I will talk about three main uses for the Mac mini. First, I will discuss what Macs are known for; their audio and video capabilities. Secondly, I will discuss general Internet uses such as browsing, email and chat. Finally I will discuss word processing. These three are some of the most common tasks for most computer users.

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