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.

Asus EEE 900 update

I've had this for a while now, so I think the observation period is over, and I can make some conclusions.
I am using this mainly for Internet use. In that role it's almost perfect. It boots quickly, connects to wifi quickly, and surfing seems smooth and seamless, and I haven't noticed any web pages Firefox doesn't like. The keyboard is still too small for me to touch-type on, but you don't do much typing if you're just surfing.
The Unix experiment has been a moderate success. Easy Peasy has a nice interface, is quick to boot, and the installed apps (that is, the Easy Peasy ones, not the stock ones) work very well. However, it is still difficult to find and install additional software. I want Control Panel apps for controlling my keyboard and touch pad. The updater is rather annoying, saying I need to update files every time I boot up. Especially annoying is it saying I should upgrade to Unbuntu 9.4. I have no idea if this is better than Easy Peasy, and while I know that Easy Peasy is a version of Unbuntu, I'd only like the installer to tell me about new versions of Easy Peasy. Also, I am still up against memory storage problems with only 4gb on board, so all these updates are filling up the SSD. I save all my files to a 8gb SD card, so only system programs and files are on the SSD.
As a portable media player, again, a qualified success. It plays all music formats fine, but video sometimes stutters and it's won't play HD video (of course, only my newest work PC will).
When I travel via plane later this year, I may take either this or my small but powerful Archos 605 media player. The 605 is smaller, lighter, a touch screen, has a longer total run time as I have an additional battery for it, and has a 160gb drive, but the Asus has a larger screen, is more flexible, a keyboard, USB ports. Not sure which I'll take. The Archos is better on the plane, and while I'm traveling, the Asus is better once I get there. Most likely I'll take the Asus.

I like the Asus enough that I'm not going to update to another netbook. I feel it would be a waste of money to gain that addition 20% comfort and usability.

Asus EEE 900 running Easy Peesy!!!

It works!!!!  Help page told me to hit esc when booting and select the USB stick.  I tried to change it in the BIOS, and that wasn't working, but this did!  A screen came up and asked what I wanted to boot off of, I selected the USB stick, and it booted Easy Peesy.  It's a simple interface, but still a LOT more powerful than default.  I'm gonna play around with it a bit before I wipe the Asus and install it permanently.  I wonder how this will effect the F9 restore option?

Asus EEE 900 MUST- KEEP- TEMPER

I'll go back to the story later, this post is current time.

I'm still trying to get better use out of this puppy.  I'm still stuck using the default dumb (easy) interface.  I thought I had outsmarted the machine, and planning on installing Easy Peesy Ubuntu, made especially for laptops, and it even lists my PC900 on the compatability list.  I followed the directions at http://www.geteasypeasy.com/.  I went out and bought a 4mb USB stick for it, downloaded and ran the installer and installed it on the USB stick, but now I cant figure out how to boot off of it.  I tried changing the bios, tried all three USB ports, but can't get it to work.

Let me step back.  There was one weird thing I did to get to the above.  I couldn't get the Asus to run the installer program, so I D/L the windows version and ran it on my desktop PC.

Gonna check the help page

Asus EEE 900 analysis pt 3: other annoyances

One thing that's annoying about the PC900 is that it has a hard time connecting to wifi. Even though it's at 100% signal, the ASUS sometimes fails to connect on startup and gives me an error. A simple click and it works though.
I'm jumping ahead in the story, but I'm wondering if it's this version of linux's problem? If I installed another version, I'd lose the simple interface (good for me, bad for dad), but it might fix the problem. I'm installing another version (Ubuntu) on a USB drive, gonna try booting with that and see if it changes anything.

Asus EEE 900 analysis pt 2: Keyboard

It's been said before, but I have to say it again: the keyboard is too small. None of these post have been fully done on the 900 as I type slower on it or there are many errors. The most common errors are a single space after a period, and hitting the 9 key instead of the I key. If the lights are on and the laptop is on a table, I can go at an ok speed touch typing while looking at the keyboard, or even slower 'hunt and pecking'.

I use my left pinky to hit the Shift key, so the layout of the arrow keys and the right shift key doesn't bother ME, but I understand that putting the shift key to the right of the up arrow annoys some. I must like this part of the layout, as I can use all four arrow keys in the dark without any problems.

I miss having a separate numeric keypad. I use it a lot on a regular 101 keyboard, and I keep hitting the wrong number on the top row of the small keyboard because it's shifted one over, with the 1 key being at the far left side of the keyboard, instead of the ` key.

Asus EEE 900 analysis pt 1: DRIVE SPACE

I knew this computer would be short on drive space, but I figured I'd delete the programs I wouldn't use (e.g. Skype, Learn Chinese). There's no way to remove any icons or uninstall any programs with the 'easy' GUI.
There's a Disk Space program, and out of the box, it's 66% full. Once it's done doing updates, it's 87% full. This leaves me with 526mb to work with. There's an Add/Remove Program application, but I can't remove anything, just add a handful of selected programs, and even one can fill the rest of the drive. These programs, once installed, can be removed, but that's it.
OK, how to fix this? I found out about the Terminal/Console. This get me to a linux prompt, and I remember some of the commands I used 20 years ago: CD (change directory), LS (list). Still I didn't seem to find a directory were the installed programs were, and no way to remove them. (A week later I did finally find the programs, but I didn't have permission to delete them.) The default console is real dumb, as I couldn't even cut or paste, so as I explored and attempted fixes, plus using the undersized keyboard (great for hunt and peck, but I can't touch type with it without hitting the wrong keys all the time), I had to keep double checking my work to make sure I was typing the correct command.

I check the wiki I found, and see one of the easy things to do is change the default console. I change to one where I CAN cut and paste from another window.

One problem down.

Asus EEE 900 arrived and unboxed and observed

I was eager for the day when this was to show up. As mentioned above, this was an inexpensive computer with the specs to match: 8.9" screen, Card reader, microphone (but no web cam), 3 USB ports, undersized keyboard (90%), Wifi, Intel® Mobile 900 MHz CPU, 512MB DDR2 RAM, 4GB SSD (really?), speakers, VGA out, earphone jack, 9"x 7" x 1.5", 2.2lbs (1kg). Linux.

The package came with the computer, the battery, AC recharger, customer service sheet, user manual, and recovery CD (computer has no drive). Not much. The battery was clipped on and I charged it up while looking at the paperwork. The customer service sheet was a quick reference sheet, and the manual wasn't much better, but gave more detailed descriptions of the installed apps.

This leads directly to my first comment: it's setup to be an appliance. I was shocked that the interface was a series of tabs (Internet, Work, Play, Settings) with giant icons for the various programs. I was expecting it to be much harder to use, or at least similar to the mac or PC graphical user interface (GUI). However, this has turned into a bad thing, as I'm stuck with it (for now), and can't modify it at all (except for a favorites tab where I can have a BEST OF installed programs list).

Asus EEE 900 ordered

I've finally bought my first laptop. I'd been planning on getting some sort of laptop for a while: I bought a wireless mouse 4 months ago, and bought a external DVD/CDROM 2 months ago. I knew I wanted a netbook, but I was originally planning on getting a Samsung NC-10 at around $425. Instead, I saw a refurbished Asus EEE 900
on Woot.com for $150. There was a slightly upgraded version (2gb SSD and Windows XP instead of Unix) for $175 on their sister site, but I knew XP needed a full GB of RAM, and b0th models had 512kb.
Also, I wanted to try a unix machine to see the differences from Windows and Mac. While I TTY and use UNIX to access an old email account to this day, I haven't used unix since college back in the 80s.
Finally, I wanted to try the cheapest machine I could find to help me decide what features I liked when getting a 'real' laptop later. What features did I hate, which could I live with? This might be fun. A friend called it a hobby.
This is 180 degrees from my regular views on computers. I believe computers should be appliances, and work every time, not constantly needing attention and upgrades. This is why I don't do PC gaming anymore: I hated the 'upgrade game' I had to play whenever I bought a new game.

I ordered it and waited for it to arrive.