My overall impression is that it’s slower than the beta and slower than Safari 3. But that’s gut feel, not with hard data. The “loading” bar is also far less obvious now, and I always find myself wondering whether Safari has stopped working because it takes a while to even start showing activity.

Rumors about the death of the Mac Mini and now, the rebirth of the Mac Mini prompted me to post my own personal wish that the Mac Mini retain many of its current characteristics. At the MIT Museum, we use Mac Minis whenever we can. They are insanely reliable and are easy to place in just about any situation. Here are four different setups we are currently running on the first floor.

This one is hung in a box near the ceiling. It’s been running for over a year. We set them all to reboot after a power loss, so we almost never need access. When I do need to do anything to it, I grab a ladder and plug in a keyboard & mouse.

This one has also been running for about a year. Prior to that it was sitting in a server room for about two years. The enclosure gets a bit warm. We used to have a Shuttle XPC inside but it failed after about 4 months. I think it was the heat.

We have two display tables with baskets attached underneath. The Mini fits in the basket. We used to have two additional setups just like this. This photo is of the CityCar interactive exhibit. There’s another Mini at the other end of the floor in the MIT & the Sea interactive exhibit (below the Mini-in-a-box pictured above).

The latest one to be put into service is a Mini that we strapped to the top of a monster Panasonic projector. The Mini drives the smaller projector to the left in the photo. This Mini is running Vine Server so I can access it remotely. Once we’re done tweaking it, I’ll probably shut off the Vine access.

Our Admissions Desk also uses two Minis, one for the staff to access various admin tools, mail, etc. The other to drive a sign displaying admissions prices, welcoming groups, etc.

In January we’re going to be installing an exhibit developed by the Sociable Media Group at the Media Lab. So far it will have seven Mac Minis in it, as well as an iMac. There will also be a couple of Dells so I guess we’ll see how they hold up in comparison.

My wishlist for the Mini: Keep being ultra-stable, don’t get too heat sensitive. Faster graphics would be nice, but not at the expense of being more finicky.

PS – I have one in my basement at home as well, it’s running this blog, among other things. I think it’s about 3 years old. I have it on a small UPS to deal with short power outages, connected to the web via Verizon FiOS (also very reliable!).

One thing I didn’t buy yesterday was a MacBook Air. I went to the Chestnut Hill Mall Apple store to see what it looked like but they didn’t have any to show. The store won’t have any to look at for two more weeks.

Instead I ordered a MacBook from the Apple Education for MIT site (they are about $100 less there, and there’s a savings on AppleCare). When it gets here in a few days, I’ll clone my MacBook Pro’s hard drive to the MacBook and send the MBP to my son. They only thing I’ll miss, I suspect is the lighted keyboard, something I’ve come to like a lot. I ordered the 250GB drive and I’ll shop around for a RAM upgrade.

Then, with the savings, I’m thinking pretty seriously about an iPhone, something that would be fun to play with for the Museum Without Walls.

The iPhones I looked at at the Apple store had the new location detection firmware. The store is here but the phone indicated it was a good 1000′ southeast of the store, south of what’s labeled Holyhood Cemetery. That’s not exactly pinpoint accuracy. But the Skyhook wifi database may not have included the mall, and thus the iPhone was probably using the Google cell-tower locations to find itself. Skyhook claims 10-20m accuracy in urban areas. That sounds pretty reasonable to me.