I lied

In the last post I said I was happy with the Asus EEE 900, and that I wasn't going to get a replacement. Well, I did, yesterday. The netbook I had been eying for a while was a Samsung NC-10, which I wanted for the superior keyboard, for a netbook. In doing some weird research, I saw that some website said the only netbook with a better keyboard was the HP Mini 1000. I looked for it and it isn't available anymore. I saw the colors available, and saw the current models, and tried to find out if they have the same keyboards. One strange variation, is the red and painted Vivienne Tam Edition. I saw there was a Vivienne 1000 and also a 1140. I couldn't really tell any differences between the two, other than HD size.
I went to check some retailer sites to see what models they had available so I could try the keyboards in person. Sams Club showed they carried the NC-10, but many items on their site are order only, and you don't seem to be able to check each store's inventory. I chocked it up to experience, and went to Sams on TUE, my day off, to get stuff for the store, and have some extra time to walk around and see if there's anything else I was missing, and wanted to see what netbook they had on hand. They had only one, a Vivienne Tam 1140NR, and it was an open box, return/repair, and they had it marked at $399, hundreds lower than (for example) the $665 at Best Buy. I played with the displayed model and the keyboard felt good, and I couldn't find any problems with it, other than a weird install of XP Home. It has no drive for the CDs, so I wonder how it got that way, maybe a Restore. Sams quoted me a 30 day return policy, so I put the box in my cart and bought it.
Here's what it is:

Intel® Atom™ N270 Features a 533MHz frontside bus, 512KB cache and 1.6GHz processor speed.
1GB DDR2 memory
10.1" SD LED widescreen display with 1024 x 576 resolution
60GB hard drive (4200 rpm)
Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950With 128MB total available graphics memory
Built-in HP webcam
Memory card slot Supports Secure Digital and MultiMediaCard
2 high-speed USB 2.0 ports
Built-in Bluetooth-compatibility
Built-in high-speed wireless LAN (802.11b/g)
Built-in 10/100Base-T Ethernet LAN with RJ-45 connector
Weighs 2.5 lbs. and measures just 1" thin
3 cell Long battery life up to 3 hours (this still sucks)
Vivienne Tam exterior Features a peony-inspired design in vivid reds and violets. The enter key reflects the double happiness symbol.
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition operating system with Service Pack 3 (SP3) preinstalled
Software package included With Microsoft Works, Adobe Acrobat Reader and more. Also includes 60-day trial of Microsoft Office 2007 Home and Student Edition. (I haven't checked these out yet)

I got it home and the first thing I wanted to do was a full reinstall of XP Home. I hooked it up to my external DVD burner, bought earlier knowing I was planning on getting a drive-less netbook. I installed XP Home, but the computer was acting weird. The internal speakers wouldn't work, and the screen was stuck at 640x480. It took me a while but I figure out I needed to install also from the Drivers CD. Once that was done, everything seems to be working fine. I like all the extra little things the HP does/has: a light for the wifi/bluetooth, and a switch to turn them off; a light near the AC socket showing it's being charged; a tiny button recessed above the touchpad to turn it off (lit). The Drivers CD installed a little too much, so I'm trimming it down a bit. I licensed (turned on?) my copy of Windows, so I've cleared that hurdle I thought I might have trouble with.

Gonna play more with it the next few days getting the programs I need to play all my files. In this respect, the Easy Peasy install had everything I needed already. Media Player 11 needs a lot of work to be up to UNIX standards for compatibility. I'll decide in a week or two if it's worth keeping.

Bread Saga

I continue my saga to make a normal loaf of bread in the bread maker. It took me two returns to get a working Breadman TR875. The first was broken, with the lid cracked and broken, and the second was missing parts, the paddle for mixing the dough. Since I got a working model, I've not been able to make a loaf that looks like a loaf of bread- the top always collapses, and the middle is too airy, and the bread breaks in two. I know I'm getting the mix wrong, or at least not adapting for altitude.