Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 20th Aug 2009 12:25 UTC
The big thing in notebooks right now are netbooks. They're cheap, more than powerful enough for day-to-day tasks, and small enough to actually carry around without anyone even noticing you're carrying one (not a bad thing in some parts of the world). However, they also receive a lot of criticism, such as cramped keyboards and displays that are too small. So, at Kaiwai's suggestion, here's a question for you all: how do you use your netbook?
Permalink for comment 379697
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/22/13 22:23 UTC
"Sony gave the PS4 50% more raw shader performance, plain and simple (768 SPs @ 800MHz vs. 1152 SPs & 800MHz). Unlike last generation, you don't need to be some sort of Jedi to extract the PS4's potential here. The Xbox One and PS4 architectures are quite similar, Sony just has more hardware under the hood. Weâll have to wait and see how this hardware delta gets exposed in games over time, but the gap is definitely there. The funny thing about game consoles is that itâs usually the lowest common denominator that determines the bulk of the experience across all platforms. On the plus side, the Xbox One should enjoy better power/thermal characteristics compared to the PlayStation 4. Even compared to the Xbox 360 we should see improvement in many use cases thanks to modern power management techniques." AnandTech does its usual in-depth thing.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/22/13 13:38 UTC
"The Verge has learned that HTC's Chief Product Officer, Kouji Kodera, left the company last week. Kodera was responsible for HTC's overall product strategy, which makes the departure especially notable on the heels of the global launch of the make-or-break One. It's not just Kodera. In the past three-odd months, HTC has lost a number of employees in rapid succession." I really hope HTC pulls it together.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/22/13 13:30 UTC, submitted by JRepin
"It is with huge pleasure that the Debian GNU/Hurd team announces the release of Debian GNU/Hurd 2013. This is a snapshot of Debian 'sid' at the time of the Debian 'wheezy' release (May 2013), so it is mostly based on the same sources. It is not an official Debian release, but it is an official Debian GNU/Hurd port release." Important note: 75% of Debian packages are supported bu Debian GNU/Hurd. Impressive.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 22:06 UTC
"The first killer app was VisiCalc. This early spreadsheet turned the Apple II from a hobbyist toy to a business computer. VisiCalc came with room for improvement, though. In addition, a new architecture and operating system, the Intel-based IBM PC and MS-DOS, also needed a spreadsheet to be taken seriously. That spreadsheet, released in early 1983, would be Lotus 1-2-3, and it would change the world. It became the PC's killer app, and the world would never be the same. On May 14, IBM quietly announced the end of the road for 1-2-3, along with Lotus Organizer and the Lotus SmartSuite office suite. Lotus 1-2-3's day is done." Impressive 30 year run.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 21:45 UTC
"There's a disconnect between how Apple CEO Tim Cook sees his company's tax strategies and how some members of the US Senate view it. That became clearer than ever today after Cook and two other Apple executives testified before Congress, explaining why they're holding most of their international income in Irish subsidiaries like Apple Operations International, which declare no tax residency anywhere in the world. AOI hasn't filed a tax return anywhere in the world for the last five years, yet it earned $30 billion in income from 2009 to 2012, according to a Senate report released yesterday." Just because something is legal, doesn't mean it's just. Apple, Google, Microsoft, and many more - these companies might not be breaking any laws, but it's obvious to anyone that what they are doing is scummy.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 15:53 UTC
The new WebKit Opera for Android has been released. "Opera 14 for Android is built on top of Chromium 26, with a total overhaul of the UI in native code, making it fit well with the latest Android design guidelines. Go get the build from Google Play or point your browser to m.opera.com, and give it a spin!"
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 22:43 UTC
The Verge pointed me to a blog post by Leap Motion - which reveals how their Kinect-like motion control works with Windows 8. "From the second you plug in your Leap Motion Controller, you'll be able to browse the web and interact with your computer just by moving your hands and fingers in the air. With Leap Motion technology and Windows, you can do everything that's possible with multi-touch inputs - without actually touching anything. This also means that existing applications in Windows 7 and 8 will respond to your natural hand and finger movements. Soon, we'll show you how Leap Motion will work with Mac OS X." Quite cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 21:50 UTC
PocketNow interviews Marc Dillon, and there's an interesting note about why Jolla is keeping the display properties under wraps: "We're leaving some of those details out because we do understand that there are a lot of really big players in the market and they tend to take certain components in the market and dominate them. We created the ability to actually be able to run Sailfish on multiple hardware displays and be able to swap components, so this is part of the demand and supply planning phase. We are committed to this industrial design which is a 4.5-inch display, an 8 megapixel camera on the back and a front-facing camera at the front, and the exact specs of the display we'll provide when we're close to delivery." Something you rarely hear anything about.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:15 UTC
"This is my NeXTstation Turbo Color booting the Mac System 7.1 Operating System using a hardware add-on called 'Daydream'. The Daydream has a Mac ROM and a few custom ICs in it and hooked up to the NeXTs DSP port. Turns your NeXT into a full fledged 68k powered Mac." So cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:11 UTC, submitted by Drumhellar
"The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.1, the first feature update of the NetBSD 6 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and enhancements. Please note that all fixes in the prior security/bugfix updates (NetBSD 6.0.1 and 6.0.2) are also in 6.1."More News »
Sponsored Links
Member since:
2005-07-06
I have an EeePC 901 running WinXP, and I can do almost everything that I was able to do before with a full laptop. My old laptop's battery died, so it is now hooked up to my television full time.
Applications:
- Browser: Chromium, occasionally Chrome and IE8
- Development tools: Notepad++, Paint.NET, TortoiseHg, misc compilers & interpreters
- Multimedia: K-Lite Mega, QT-Lite
- Networking: Hamachi, OpenVPN, Google Talk, TightVNC
- Security: AVG, Spybot S&D
- Virtualization: Nothing local, only remote-operated stuff
- Everything else: PortableApps.com running on an 8GB SD card.
I moved some of the standard OS and applications to the 8GB D: drive from the C: drive, replacing their old directories with junction points to the new (awxLink) - this gives me enough room to install both the current Java and .NET runtimes with no problems.
There's only 1GB of RAM, and the drives are SSD, so you don't get a swap file, though virtual memory is turned on. This means that you become acutely aware of how much memory your programs use. This means no Firefox, and I avoid Java apps, though .NET apps can be OK on occasion.
I do most stuff on the SD card so I can transfer my whole environment to another computer if this one dies. A lot of the time I also remote-operate my computers at home, or computers I support or develop for. Digital nomad mode - it doesn't matter where I go.
I never turn the computer off. Never (well, twice for plane trips). I have it set to suspend when I shut the lid. When I want to go somewhere, I shut the lid and start packing up - the SSD means that I don't even have to wait for it to suspend before moving it. I can pack things up in 5 minutes and be out the door. It can stay on suspend for 2 days without recharging.
Multimedia is weak. I suspect that software optimized for the CPU would solve the problem, since the CPU has enough horsepower for the work. I desperately want an Atom-optimized build of ffdshow. Audio decoding has latency issues, more than video. Forget about more than SD resolution video. I can scale SD video up to 1080p HD output on an external monitor, though.
Flash is horrible, the absolutely worst thing on the netbook, worse than Silverlight (which works well). I want to write a proper Flash-blocking Chrome extension. You have to wait for videos to buffer fully before watching them, because there isn't enough horsepower to watch and buffer at the same time, or for that matter do Flash and anything other than a text editor. Flash makes me hate the internet.
If I were to replace this netbook today, I would go with something like an EeePC 1000HE running Windows 7 32bit. I suppose I'd be willing to wait for the computer to suspend (because of the HD instead of the SSD), since Win7 would be too big to fit in 4-16GB - at least I'd get a swap file. I'm keeping an eye on the Ion and the next-gen Atom platforms, to see which does better multimedia for the least cash. ARM is not an option for me, nor is Linux or OS X (I run a couple of Windows-specific apps).