Did you get a measly 3,4 or 8gb SSD with your netbook? I know I did. I immediately switched it out for 120gb SATA hard drive so I could easily run Windows XP, load as many applications as I needed to be productive, and carry my entertainment with me. However, I felt pangs of regret as my HP mini-note then ran hot and was no longer virtually silent. Now, OCZ have made high capacity Solid State Drive’s affordable. For a very cheap $79 ($139 before rebate) you could upgrade your notebook to 32gb running this new OCZ drive. Check out the reviews on NewEgg.com before deciding if these drives will work for you.
Brad over at Liliputing reported that the Asus Eee PC has recently won two awards, PC Pro Hardware of the year, and Stuff Magazine PC Gadget of the year (both UK publications). It was good to see the Asus beating out the Apple MacBook Air (I love my MacBook Pro, but the Air was a disappointment) in the PC Pro Award, and Asus being given the credit by Stuff magazine for defining a whole new genre of computers, the Netbook.
Congratulations again Asus, may you continue to innovate for many years to come.
It’s been awhile since I’ve been traveling and not had access to a printer, but for those of you who might travel to more exotic or less hospitable locations the PlanOn Printstik looks like a worthy portable printing companion. Weighing in at just 1.5lbs, including the paper cartridge and with dimensions of just 1″x10.75″x1.5″ it looks like the perfect match for your mini-note. At $25 for three print cartridges, each giving you 20 full pages (!) you better make sure your printing something mighty important. Julie at The Gadgeter has the full review.
Strapped for space on your Netbook? Want to carry your essential apps in your pocket, with your car keys? Well, Google’s new browser, Chrome has already been modified to run on a USB Stick. You can find the browser for downloading at Carsten’s site (English translation).
Remember that Chrome only works on Microsoft Windows Netbooks (no Linux version). I haven’t tried it yet, but from the comments on the blog it appears to work as expected for many of the users who have.
Thanks to Amit at Digital Inspiration for publishing the link.
Rumored to be available on September 4th, the Dell Inspiron 9 specification is one of the web’s worst kept secrets. A number of blogs and sites have had “leaked” specifications and pictures of the new machine for some time, but the price has been an unknown. The folks over at UMPC portal have a very realistic looking price and spec sheet, showing the standard edition starting at $349 (no webcam, 512K of memory, 4 Gig SSD, running Ubuntu) to the $449 XP Edition (1Gig of memory, Web Cam, 8 Gig SSD). They also have a link to the full specification.
It will be interesting to see how Dell’s entry in to the Netbook world will compete against the established Netbooks already available from Asus, HP, MSI, Lenovo etc. If the price sheet is right, Dell won’t be the budget price champion.
Kevin at Gigaom.com has got some basic information on the different netbooks (including the HP mininote) available for purchase today. He covers the Asus EeePC, HP Mini-note, Acer Aspire One and the MSI wind. Kevin doesn’t cover any new ground in this quick guide, but it’s a good primer if your in the market for a new mini pc/netbook.
If your interested in more comprehensive analysis of what to look for when buying your netbook, check out the shopping tips and recommendations in Jeffrey Wilson’s article over at laptopmag.com. Jeffrey selected the HP2133 mini-note in the category of best mini pc over $500, looking at HP’s high end mininote offering for $729. He selected the ASUS Eee PC 4g in the less than $400 category and the MSI Wind NB in the $400-500 category.
Google launched a new platform browser today, Chrome. Chrome is fast and simple. Google have carefully stripped out any browser bloat, built a new Javascript engine (V8) optimized for today’s web browsing experience and open sourced the code. I downloaded and ran it on my hp mini-note and was very impressed with the performance and the simplicity of the interface. On Google Chrome, I was happily browsing with 10 open tabs and no performance degradation. I suggest you give it a try, I think you’ll be impressed.
Alternatively, you could try Internet Explorer 8 Beta, which was made available for download from Microsoft today. I didn’t.
Here’s a few screenshots from the mini-note running Google Chrome.
Interestingly, Microsoft Live Mail didn’t like Chrome and suggested I use another browser.
Techbargains.com (a favorite site of mine) have put together a list of the different mini notebooks that are available today, or available for pre-order. They include the Asus EEE, HP Mini-note, MSI Wind (pre-order) & Acer Aspire One (pre-order). With the list they have include some basic specifications and a link to where the product can be ordered or the appropriate price grabber page.
The cable that comes with the mini-note power supply has a three prong electrical plug, potentially limiting the places where you can power up and recharge your battery. Cables Unlimited provide a retractable notebook power cord, which not only enables you to plug your mini-note in to any power outlet, it provides a convenient way to carry a good cable length. I plan to pick one up for my next trip.
It’s available from amazon.com.
Over the next few weeks, I’ll highlight some of the best free software that is available for the HP mini-note, running Windows XP. Today, I’m recommending you take a look at a cool Open Source virtual windows manager.
We all know that the HP2133 mini-note has a great display. The 8.9 inch high resolution (1280 x 768) screen is perfect for viewing a single document, watching a movie or browsing the web, but since moving to Windows XP I miss the advanced virtual desktop software that comes with many of the Linux distributions, like Ubuntu. Recently to plug this functional gap, I installed an Open Source Virtual Windows Manager, called VirtuaWin. I’ve been running it on my mini-note now for a few weeks without problems. Now I can easily switch between web browsing, itunes, document editing and editing my blog with a single keypress. No more fussing around with minimizing & maximizing different windows etc. The software is initially configured for 4 virtual desktops, with simple navigation keys (which can be easily redefined) and has additional modules that you can use to add functionality. I kept the default number of desktops and modified some of the navigation keys. I’ve been using v4.0.1 which seems very stable.
You can download the software or read more about it at SourceForge.net (the home of all things Open Source).
Configuring VirtuaWin on the HP mini-note
