Small, cheap, no display: Daring Fireball on last week’s new Mac hardware offerings. I’m quite impressed with the Mac Mini and iWork: both wonderfully affordable, finally giving the average PC user a cheap gateway into the Mac world. Judging by the buzz I’m hearing on various Internet communities, the Mac Mini is it — the Mac that everyone’s getting, now that price is no longer a barrier in a world where people are weary of insecure, virus-infested, spyware-ridden Windows PCs. Myself, I’m still fine with my iBook G3, now 2.5 years old and still going strong. With the iCurve that Amy gave me for my birthday last year plus a keyboard and optical mouse, it’s just about as good as a desktop system.

The iPod Shuffle is an object of complete indifference. To begin with, I don’t care much for the iPod, or for music players in general, since I’ve never felt the need to have a constant soundtrack running through my life all hours of the day. The “Shuffle” concept is of even less worth to me since I mostly listen to baroque and classical works which are split up into movements played in sequence. Shuffled playback would only disjoint the repertoire. No, if I want music on the go, I’ll listen to it on whatever music-playing combo device I end up purchasing to replace my Palm.