My iMac died, Viva la Mac Mini!

(Also posted on my Jacob's Blog and my Seventh Heaven and Kooler Talk Blogs.)

My 10 year old iMac finally died. I tried to revive it. Failed.

I went back to my older macs, the Performa 6400 and tried to use that, but it was tooooo slooow.

I decided to splurge and get a new Mac.

I have a perfectly good Samsung SyncMaster 900 SL Monitor. I have many USB Keyboards and Mice, all in good condition. I have USB headphones, a dlink wireless USB adaptor, a La Cie Firewire / USB DVD / CD station, so I decided to buy the Mac Mini.



A difficult decision whether to buy the basic version mac Mini costing Euro 599 with a 120 GB Hard Disk or a 320 GB Hard Disk with 2 GB of memory.

As most of my work will be network computing, the extra hard disk was not important. Also I have many hard disks lying around, from 1 GB up to 60 GB.

I checked the memory prices and found that a 1 GB memory costs just Euro 30 while a 3 GB costs just Euro 60. I will have to determine whether it is user installable and then upgrade. So I spent just Euro 599.

Considering I got the new Leopard system, which costs Euro 128 and also the latest iLife software, which costs Euro 78, Thew Mac Mini actually cost me just Euro 400. Foor a 2 GHZ Core 2 Duo, with a 8 x Superdrive station which is a DVD±R, DL DVD±RW / CD RW, and with a NVDIDIA GeForce 9400M video card with 128 main memory with a DDR3 SDRAM, etc., etc., this must be one of the best buys that I have made in a decade.

On my way to the office I picked up Annikki from home to drop her at church. She was amazed to see the size of my new computer - 16.5 cm by 16.5 cm by 5 cm.

The whole computer set up was done in less than an hour, upgraded to the latest system and it is working just fine. The speaker system is a bit tinny, but as I usually used head phones, this is not a drawback for me. The Mac Mini recognised all the hardware I connected and went to the internet without any problem through the dlink adaptor!

Sunil, who has been commenting on my attachment, sentimental, to my iMac and eMac boxes which occupy almost all the space under my office table, may be quite pleased with the size the new Mac Mini box!! :-)

Where did I buy it from?

It does not matter as all Apple products, wherever you buyi it from are Apple fail safe products and the seller is not important!

Indian Grapes at Euro 1.18 per kg

It may be a long drive to Kempele, but certainly worth the effort if you are a grape lover.

This new K- Supermarket is in the centre of Kempele, and you should take the old road to Kempele (not the E4 highway).

As this is a brand new K- Supermarket, look around as you may find several over good offers.

It was a bit crowded yesterday as everyone flocks to a new shop. Will not be so bad today.

Indian grapes, green, are just Euro 0.59 for a 500 gm plastic container (Euro 1.18 per kg!!). The offer is open today and tomorrow as well. A 24 can carton of KOFF beer is only Euro 17.90, one of the best offers this year for beer drinkers.

Three bars of Fazer chocolate for Euro 4 (Euro 1.33 per bar) is also a great buy. This offer is also in the Citymarkets and the other K-Supermarkets (in Joutsensilta and Välivainio).

Citymarket is offering oranges at Euro 0.59 per kg - a great offer. Four 1.5 litre Cokes are also available at Euro 4, which is another great offer.

There is cake ice cream and also normal ice cream blocks at Euro 0.99, both of which are good offers.

Chinese fast food in Oulu

(Also posted on Jacob's Blog.)

There are literally dozens of Chinese, Vietnamese and Thai Restaurants in Oulu serving very nearly the same food and of approximately the same quality. Noodle House was an exception, but due to a paucity of demand for Chinese noodle preparations, it closed down.

What has sprung up in its place is something quite unique. (AWing Restaurant, Kauppurienkatu 5, 90100 Oulu; Tel: 08 333839<; Mobile: 044 544 0880; Managing Director: BILLY LU.)



The Chef is a Master Cook. His dream is to start a school for Chinese cooking in Oulu. Seeing his talents and verstaility, plus a quiet dynamism, he will succeed.,

Billy Lu's Fast Food Restaurant (AWing) was featured in the latest Kaleva Peto Edition. When he called me on Thursday morning; I told him about it. He was thrilled. He now has it proudly displayed in his small and neat restaurant.

When I first walked into his restaurant, I was not captured by his menu or his food, but the beautiful nature of the the owner. He wanted to talk, and he did. I soon discovered much about this young man. I knew I could try a few of his preparations.

On the next visit I asked him to make me a super hot chicken noodle. Boy, it was good. He then prepared a series of dishes for some of the German residents in India House. The sweet and sour chicken with noodle was exceptionally good.

One Saturday evening I visiited the restaurant to be served a special health soup he cooks for himself. It was truly invigorating.

Billy Lu will go far.

If you want anything special, and he has a huge repertoire of dishes at his command, please call him at 044 544 0880. And if you want it spiced - just tell him that you want it as spiced as "JACOB". You will not be disappointed!