Well, the iHome may have been a hoax, but it was mere moments after Jobs announced the “headless” Mac Mini at MacWorld before people started thinking about how to turn this expensive tissue box into a home media center for digital video recording, music, and photos. The current HOW-TO on Engadget delves into this subject.
Honestly, I don’t know why people are balking so often at the relatively small hard drives (40GB or 80GB) on these Macs for use as a DVR. Most folks have these size drives on their TiVos, and the Mac Mini has a CD-RW on it (which most TiVos do not) that can be used for dumping stuff down. You can easily set up the Mac Mini to get iTunes or other digital audio servered over your home network from another PC so that doesn’t have to live on the Mini’s HD. In the Engadget HOW-TO, they discuss how to use an old PC you have gathering dust in the basement as a server for the Mini.