I have been reading about netbooks as of late. For me, the thought of an ultra portable laptop that will allow me to access the internet and use tools like ssh to manage linux systems sounds like a great idea. If you add Bluetooth support, I will be able to tether my AT&T Tilt to the netbook and use my netbook anywhere I have cell coverage!
Over the last 2 months I have researched many netbooks and with my brother in-laws input, I decided on and MSI WIND u100. Ultimately I went with the WIND over the HP mini because of disk size and price. For $439, I purchased the MSI WIND u100 (black) with 1GB of memory, 160GB hard drive, Bluetooth, Windows XP, and an upgraded 6 cell battery. The HP maxes out at 60GB hard drive and they only offer a 3 cell battery.
I plan on testing the usibilty, battery life, video playback, etc. I will post a 2-3 part review in the coming weeks. If you have someting specific you want me to review on the device, please let me know.
Excuse me while I get my inner geek on.
I had Red Hat system that needed to be upgrade from running Ruby 1.8.5 to Ruby 1.8.6. Unfortunately, Red Hat really lags in releasing RPM’s for many packages, and Ruby is one of the packages.
Now I have drunk the Red Hat RPM Kool-aid. IMHO using RPM’s on your system is the only sane way to manage a Red Hat based system. Compiling from source is ugly and hard to manage in the long run.
I called tech support (google.com) and found an RPM based solution to upgrade, but I ran into a few problems that I could find no solution for through “tech support” I am going to walk you through installing ruby 1.8.6 on a Red Hat system using RPM’s and solving a little issue after you have installed it.
Read more…
After the grand unpacking of the system (see the review part 2 HERE), I was very excited to power on the rig and see how the box performed! I attached a keyboard and monitor, watched the POST screen flash (with me rubbing my hands in rapt anticipation), waiting for this beast to jump into Windows Vista! Then, suddenly a flash and a screen appeared….”No Operating System Found”! I was thinking, “You have got to be kidding me”.
It is an ASUS motherboard and I had lots of little issues with my old ASUS. I rebooted and jumped into the BIOS configuration, hmmmm RAID is turned off on the SATA controller. Since I ordered the box with RAID-0, either CyberpowerPC never configured anything, or the BIOS got messed up.
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Oh, joy is upon us, dear readers! I FINALLY received my PC from CyberpowerPC. Read Part 1 HERE
I received the PC on the revised date that Cyberpower had promised (10/15/08). I arrived home to find a single HUGE white box, which looked quite beat-up. In case anyone was unsure of the contents of the box, the big “PERSONAL COMPUTER” stamped on the side was sure to clear up any confusion!
Beat-up big white box
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I admit it, I am a phone geek. I love my phone and the accessibility a well designed phone gives me and the productivity lifts I enjoy from said phone. I have been using an AT&T Tilt aka: 8925 aka: HTC Kaiser. The stock windows mobile 6.0 ROM is really quite terrible, but with a custom cooked WM 6.1ROM, the phone is quite excellent. It does just about everything I need it to do. With the new Opera Mobile Browser, the browsing functionality is more akin to the Iphone.
6 Weeks ago, my boss decided he needed a new phone. While he was happy with his Samsung Blackjack, he wanted an Iphone. I ordered him one and went ahead and ordered one for myself. My IT guys support everyone else, but my boss views me as his own personal IT person, so I figured I might as well be familiar with the device and I thought it would be nice to eliminate the need to carry my trusty Ipod Nano. Here is what I found:
Pros:
- The web browser is totally AWESOME! Opera is nice, but I never have experienced such seamless web browsing from a mobile device.
- The new Exchange plug-in is pretty, reading email and displaying attachments is pretty darned slick.
- Once you get the hang of the layout, it is fairly easy to navigate the phone.
Cons:
- You MUST have Itunes to activate your Iphone (We have a corporate account, so we did not need to go to an AT&T or Apple store). This is a pain in the butt in a corporate environment. There really are no management tools for Itunes, so I doubt these phone will make it across our corporation.
- No wonder there is a program called “jail break”. I felt like I was in jail using this phone! There are limited applications (most a not free), you can not edit Word documents, Excel files, etc. etc.
- Notes do not sync with Outlook, that totally sucks
- The phone crashes more often than my Windows Based phone (WOW!!)
- The Ipod functionality IMHO sucks, I prefer the interface of the wheel over the touch interface.
- I could find no functional voice dialing option. I love Microsoft Voice Command, it works in conjunction with my Motorola H700 Bluetooth head set seamlessly (until the H700 died last week!)
- You cannot add attendees to a meeting you set up on your Iphone (total suck)
All and all, I liked the Iphone, but not enough to keep it. If you want a read only device that displays thinks beautifully and you do not need a mobile computing platform, the Iphone is the bomb. If you need a mobile computing platform, the Tilt with a custom ROM is AWESOME. I can recommend a ROM if you want!
