tomputer

After a couple of days playing with my new Asus EeePC 901 I was left more than a little disappointed: The innovative multitouch mouse pad was limited by the provided drivers - two-finger scroll would work but not pinch-to-zoom. The browser would crash if I tried using any flash recording in websites like youtube or ustream with the in-built webcam. The performance seemed a little sluggish when swapping between applications or even between browser tabs, and I’d describe the interface as something I’d expect to see on a kids “my first laptop” - poor quality icons and use of colour. I also found the default Xandros Linux operating system to be cumbersome - the update manager failed to install updates that it told me were available and it was incredibly difficult to install applications not listed in the update manager. Then when I told the thing to shutdown, sometimes it would but sometimes it would refuse to turn off the power and just sit there with black screen. I spent two whole hours installing seven different packages just to install Firefox 3, and then a further hour changing the Firefox shortcut in the application launcher to load version 3 instead of 2. I thought Linux was supposed to be user friendly these days!? I was left wondering whether perhaps these were just compromises I would have to accept for the portability and battery life that the EeePC could provide?

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Tags: 901, asus, eee, eee901, eeepc, linux, mame, ubuntu, xandros

I’ve been paying attention to the market for portable internet enabled devices recently as I’ve been wanting a device that allows me to read news feeds, browse the web and manage emails while away from home. Most of the devices I’ve seen so far have been frustrating to use for one reason or another. I have a Windows Mobile handset which is fine for reading short plain-text emails or checking train times but anything else is likely to lead throwing either the handset or myself from the top of a very high bridge! At the start of the year I  bought a Nokia N800 “internet tablet” but soon found that the screen was still not a high enough resolution, and there was a lack of thrid-party software (which was impossibly difficult to install anyway). I fount the N800 just too slow and clumsy when browsing web pages or scrolling through RSS feeds. I came to the conclusion that I don’t want to make do with a “mobile internet” experience, I want the full internet (including ajax, flash etc) but in a portable form-factor.

Six months ago a friend bought an Asus EeePC 701. He soon returned it becuase he found the keyboard too cramped and the 7″ screen too small, but I was sold on the concept. Asus have since saturated the market with a plethora of devices and model numbers which  serve only to confuse the consumer but the latest model, the EeePC 901, is significantly improved from that first model and I think has the potential to be just what I’m looking for. The important features for me are:

• 9″ screen
• 1024 pixels wide so almost all webpages will fit without horizontal scrolling.
• Intel Atom mobile CPU running at 1.6GHz - low powered and cool running.
• 802.11b/g and n WiFi and bluetooth built-in
• 1.3megapixel webcam,
• 20GB solid state disk (SSD) if you go for the Linux option, otherwise 12GB so no moving parts and better battery life than a conventional hard disk.

In fact, it’s claimed that with some clever CPU performance management it’s possible to eek out 8 hours from a single charge.

So, just over a week ago I bought one, and put the N800 on eBay. I’ve been playing with the Eee901 for a while now, I’ve used it on the train, taken it when I went away for the weekend and shown it to several friends and colleagues. So far I’ve been very impressed with the hardware, design and build quality but disappointed with the Xandros Linux operating system. However, I made one big change yesteerday which has completely transformend the Eee901 and resolved almost all of my concerns. More on that in my next EeePC post…

Tags: 901, asus, eee, eee901, eeepc, linux, xandros

In May this year I enrolled in a photography course at the Open University. I’ve been interested in photography for a while (I’m on my fifth digital camera in not many more years) but it was when I bought a Canon EOS 400d digital SLR a year ago that my interest became more serious. I had a look at the local college and looked into a couple of one or two day courses offered by local photographers but settled on the Open University’s Digital photography: creating and sharing better images (course code: T189) as being the best value and most comprehensive. It’s a ten week course (run twice a year in May and October) and the focus is a roughly 50:50 split between in camera techniques and the so-called “digital darkroom” of image manipulation on the computer. This may not suit everyone as some believe that a photograph should be taken correctly in the first place and any post-processing is “cheating” but it suited me just fine.  The course is worth 10 Open University points (most OU qualifications are multiples of 20 points) but I intended to do the course to improve my photography rather than to work toward a recognised qualification.

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Tags: digital, digital photography, open university, ou, photo, photography, t189

I installed two nice utilities yesterday to enhance the functionality of WindowsXP explorer. The first - QTTabBar - adds tabs and groups to explorer. Tabs in explorer are just as useful as tabs in a browser as it prevents having loads of windows cluttering the task bar. Folder groups add the ability to group frequently accessed folders together so they can be opened in tabs with a single click in the same way as tab groups in a browser. As a developer this is really useful as one of the first things I do every day is open the same set of folders for my code, server, database etc. Note the slightly confusing installation procedure of having to first install, then log off/on to windows, and finally having to make the toolbar visible from the “View > Toolbars” menu in any explorer window.

The second utility by the same developer - QTAddressBar - is a new address bar that provides breadcrumb functionality so that each folder in a patch can be clicked to jump straight to that level in the path. You can also traverse the folder tree by clicking the arrow between folder names and using the popup folder tree rather than navigating up the tree and then back down a different branch. This is really a clone of the Vista address bar but is really handy to have in XP.

Both of these utilities play nicely together to provide a much friendlier more productive file explorer.

[via lifehacker]

Tags: productivity, qtaddressbar, qttabbar, utilities, winxp, xp

I’ve finally finished sorting through all the photos from Italy last week. I started out with over 500 and got them down to a slightly more sensible 250ish. Highlights are now up on flickr.

Tags: flickr, Garda, Italy, photographs, photos, pics