Monday, April 27, 2009

I know this sounds funny...

...coming from someone who owns, like, ten or eleven old laptops, but guess where I'm posting from?

The front porch! Without an extension cord!

I totally agree with Breda: The touchpad on this Eee is way too touchy, so I switched off the "tap" function. I'm totally digging this little machine, though. I think all my postings yesterday were done on its bitty keyboard. I haven't even had to throw it back on the charger yet, either, which is cool.

I'm loving the spontaneous cordless freedom. Not even the weather can break my stride... (The western sky is all gray out here; I can think of at least one guy who's going to be bitter if the clouds deliver their promised rain...)

15 comments:

José Giganté said...

You're seriously feeling out over that thing huh? I owned one briefly, but found I liked mac os too much. Now I see the mini 9 from dell is an excellent platform for a hackintosh netbook. I may have to get one.

MedicMatthew said...

Ya know, it doesn't sound funny because you own like ten or eleven old laptops, it sounds funny because, well, of the title of your blog.

Tam said...

Heh.

I use OS X, Win XP, and Linux at any given time during the day now. I guess I'm remarkably catholic in my tastes... :D

Somerled said...

Four and one-half inches of rain fell on us from the storm that's heading your way. The horses are mud balls. There's more coming here--hope it doesn't flood.

The Eee would be a handy barn rig. Let me know if mud daubers can get inside to build nests or not, and I'll consider it.

Warthog said...

WOW, how times change. Actually writing the view from the porch...from the porch..amazing this new techy stuff, LOL

og said...

Dang, you can dress 'em up AND take 'em out!

Guys, we should keep an eye on this trend. Could endanger our very existence.

atlharp said...

Rockin'!!

Yes, you can't beat the freedom of walking around the house with that portable bad-boy. You are getting me all riled up and wanting one.......:-(

Mark Alger said...

OK. Please to tell me the advantage of that over my standard-sized laptop. And no, heat, battery life, weight or size don't really influence me much. But my laptop (with an outboard .3TB USB drive) can contain my entire computing world, including some pretty massive graphics applications.

M

og said...

But Mark, your laptop isn't kewl.

Steve Skubinna said...

Mark, are you deliberately being obtuse in discarding the advantages of a netbook and then demanding a justification for one?

Don't care about battery life, heat, weight or size. Okay fine. You just answered your question, didn't you? Doesn't mean anyone else who does value those characteristics is wrong, does it?

alan said...

The Linux that comes on it isn't too great. I've had much success with Eeebuntu on the Eee. And you can adjust the touchpad sensitivity.

Jeff said...

I spent a couple hours playing with the new one we got at work today, I'm not a fan of that version of Linux. I'm going to try hacking OS 10.4.8 onto it later this week. If that doesn't work its XP. (We need it to run one of those two OS's for what we got it for anyway)

I'm with ya on the tap feature, I usually try to turn it off anyway but this one was really annoying!

Tam said...

Mark,

"And no, heat, battery life, weight or size don't really influence me much."

Then a Netbook isn't for you. :)

That's kind of like saying "Other than ease of parking, good gas mileage, and a back seat, what makes a Civic different from an F150?" Well, other than those things, nothing, really. :D

It's a "horses for courses" thing; different computers do different jobs.

(Oh, on a side note, Linux on a flash drive seems to boot up in an eyeblink compared to Windows or OS X on a platter, although it's not like I've held a stopwatch to 'em.)

Mark Alger said...

Guys! Guys! ::chuckle::

M

The Armed Canadian said...

My WP-2 and Model 102 sneer at your Eee! And I say that with love since I owned an Eee and loved it.

But the Eee pales in comparison when it comes to size, weight and battery endurance. 4-6 hours? Posh! I get 200 hours on my WP-2. And I have a full size keyboard.

Sure it can't do wireless. Or browse the Web. Or even know what the Web is. Or a network for that matter. But for cranking out text, it's great. Of course, I've been writing new software to let this really old hardware communicate because I'm a cheap bastard and won't spring for the $200+ AlphaSmart when a $10 WP-2 can get the job done.

But the little Eee is simply a descendant in a family tree started a long time ago. Strangely, the ancestors are still going strong 30 years later.