Closing the book on Apple's Mac mini

[steve harley]

they whom i call LuKreme wrote:
> Bull.  Last time I 'installed' Office on someone mac I did it from the 
> terminal:

and of course Office and Adobe apps can be installed from dmgs; 
making a dmg is the first thing i do for installation of any app 
that arrives on a disc (not many these days); you can even 
purchase CS3 Premium editions as 3+ GB downloads (only the Master 
Edition is available in a box only); but installing software is 
far from my most common use of an optical drive ...

> I bet an awful lot of mini purchasers (like all those labs with hunded 
> of them, or the robotics guys, or anyone who is using one as a second 
> Mac) would be thrilled to have a mini with no Optical drive.

i have multiple Macs, but if i had a Mini, i'd rather it had an 
optical drive, because one of the machine's main uses would be to 
RIP CDs & DVDs, now and then burn a disc for friend or archiving, 
and probably sometimes play to DVDs; offloading these duties from 
personal laptops is something i think would appeal to a lot of people