It came with Windows 7 Starter though I've never actually used it. I upgraded the 1GB factory RAM to 2 GB. It runs Kubuntu like a dream, I replaced the factory HDD with an SSD and I have it booting Chromium from power button to login prompt in 26 seconds.
Why I really like it?
It fits in a small backpack. It's no problem carrying it when I bike, unlike a larger laptop, it's got awesome battery life and I've had two major bike crashes where I got pretty descent injuries (chainline failures at bad times, both of them) with the thing in my backpack and it's still working perfectly today. Best initial $250 I ever spent on a computer and the upgrades I put in were totally worth it.
I don't use it for much more than web browsing, it's not a work horse, but it does web browsing like a champ, and I have done some very minor Gimp edits and some other things on it too.
In this particular case Apple suffering may help us all.
Remember the famous patent troll of recent past Amazon? Now Amazon is actually starting to suggest patents are going overboard and trolls need to be shut down. If Apple gets on the losing end of enough of these battles they may actually join hands with Amazon and *gasp* Samsung when they've had enough to lobby to fix the problem.
Until then troll them and the other patent troll companies until they have a change of heart.
As much as I dislike Apple - for being patent trolls and bullies - it makes me sick to my stomach this happened to them. I mean I enjoy the suffering and all, it's just a really bad thing for the tech world in general. The patent trolling, not Apple suffering.
The early shuttle era equipment IS Apollo era equipment.
Every console had to be be more or less rewired between every Apollo mission to accommodate the new/different equipment on the back end and to meet the unique objectives of every mission. MOCR1 and MOCR2 were wired identically, the idea was if you smoked a console or lost a whole room the controller(s) could move to the other control room and continue working.
During the shuttle era the consoles were no longer completely rewired each mission as they more or less standardized on equipment. Eventually all of the hard-wired consoles were replaced with PC's running UNIX (they used Alpha's for a long time, now Linux - Red Hat unfortunately) and of course all the equipment in the server rooms interface with those. The serial networks are now being slowly replaced with IP based equipment. Now that the shuttle is gone the elimination of the serial equipment is increasing.
Another note, the video monitors on the old consoles were HDTV's of their day. Sure they were black and white, but they had more scan lines, nobody that worked on those is on shift at the moment for me to ask but I think they were in the 800 lines range, that's part of why the original Apollo landings were broadcast from a news camera pointed at a monitor instead of from a direct feed - commercial television equipment wasn't designed to work with the video signals we used then.
There is still just a little bit of Apollo era equipment in use today. The drawings of the projection system hint at the mirrors that bounce the projector images to the screen. In MOCR 2 the original mirrors are still used, but they're mostly for tourist and occasional use, the ones in FCR1 were replaced with Mylar mirrors a couple of years ago. The Apollo era mirrors were incredibly thick and NOT safety glass. One of the workers that was sent to remove the ones for FCR1 was one of the same workers sent to install them 40 something years earlier. The telecom frames from the Apollo era are still in use and actively maintained, there's just not as much frame now as their used to be.
More trivia - the communications keysets on those old consoles belonged to the VIS system - which stood for Voice Intercommunications System. That was replaced by DVIS which was Digital Voice Intercommunications system. DVIS in now all but replaced by DVICE, Digital Voice Interface Communications Equipment. They still call all of them keysets. I showed my daughter one of the VIS keysets and asked if she knew what that round thing was for. She had no clue. I explained to her that's how they used to make phone calls.
then it's only for Democrats. Maybe only for Obama.
I'm not a Democrat or a Republican, what I can tell you is over the past couple of months every time I look at Google plus I get barraged by pro Obama crap and I've seen one pro Romney post - straight from the Romney campaign. I know - probably the biggest difference - between left and right wingers is the need for solidarity. Solidarity practically defines left wing so they are more likely to "ripple" by resharing anything that reaffirms their opinions and positions, but I know enough right wingers to know they do enough of their own resharing that they should have at least 10% of the "what's hot" feed.
I'm convinced Google is rigging the What's Hot feed the same way they used to rig the top search results for Bush to turn up embarrassing and negative things while the ones for Obama were positive.
I'm going to go scoff at Obama and Romney now and go vote for Johnson.
It will set a standard that everyone will adopt so Apple will have to watch it closely to insure their devices don't accidentally work with it as well as the version Apple themselves are working on.
Until the wife starts wanting to talk to you about what's going on with the show. You can always reply "Let me know when he's on screen again, I'll go for a headshot."
Funny - they refused to grandfather my unlimited tethering when going from the Evo 4G to 4G LTE they insisted I had to have a different plan for a different connection type.
I know all about corporate spin.
BTW, I spent quite a bit of time within 20 miles of either end of the Lincoln tunnel towards the end of the summer. Their coverage wasn't all that hot in that are either - which really surprised me - Houston had better coverage than NYC.
When the original Evo 4G was new there wasn't anything that really rivaled it, a few came close, but none beat it for at least a few months. Now my Evo 4G LTE is nice, but harder to root. I've still got factory firmware and I'm feeling the abuse.
I could totally write a whole new rant about how they abuse their position with shoving spyware and other shitty software down our throats.
If I'm in a white-collar/uppity area that's close to a central metro I get GREAT LTE or even WiMax most of the time.
I got great coverage all over San Antonio and most of Dallas.
Houston is great inside the loop, really close to the Space Center or most other notable areas, but once you go South of NASA Parkway it tends to cut off. Right now just a few miles South of NASA parkway where 646 crosses 45 you can get a reasonable 3G signal with NOT BACKHAUL AT ALL. Seriously, 3G but no data. There's a Sprint store in that pocket as well. Galveston - I was actually getting a strong LTE connection last weekend - I was still longing for 14.4 modem speeds because I'm pretty sure I didn't have that much even with a strong LTE signal.
In Baton Rouge they should be forced to shut down all of their stores and get fined for false advertising because they claim to cover the area.
To their credit - if I want to text or make a phone call it will work 98% of the time. If I want to use something as simple and lowly as any given TCP/IP based messenger app it's a crap shoot. As long as I'm next to an interstate or a white-collar area it's probably going to work at least a little.
I will say - back when I still had WiMax if I managed to get a WiMax signal it was awesome, as good as having DSL straight into my netbook. They seem to have perpetual back-haul issues these days - crappy through put even when I have a great signal. Works great when I'm on WiFi so I know it's not the handset.
Been a customer of theirs going on my third year. When I get a great signal there's often very little back-haul. I really feel screwed over the way they lured me in with the promise of WiMax, and their LTE is lacking most of the time. Not to mention now that I've upgraded my phone I pay more every month, but they took away my unlimited tethering data plan - they still charge the same.
This is nothing more than a protection racket. When the book gets slammed on them it's going to slam hard - assuming there's a judge out there with enough Internet competence to pull it off.
I've looked seriously at the ASUS Slider. I know the keyboard sucks, but it might just be good enough to fit the niche as long as I don't have to do too much real work.
Of the three netbooks I've bought, one of which was carried by a girl from age four to age eight none of them is borked. They all still work. The first had a warranty repair when the main board had a factory defect early in its life, but it's been great every since.
I bought two 10" netbooks for $250 each. Show me a 10" tablet worth buying meaning capacitive touch screen and an SD slot or barring that at least 32GB on board for about that costs. Seriously, you could kick that $120 eeePC down the hall way all day and still boot it up, and I've abused the hell out of my Acer. I don't see the exposed glass doing too well on a tablet.
This isn't tablet hate - I'm just debunking those particular arguments.
There's a lot of netbook haters out there, and I understand why. Truth is they weren't the right thing for everyone.
I found two great niches for them - children and physically active people on the go.
First of all - children. The first netbook I every bought was one of the 7" eeePC's on that was on Woot.com with a 4GB card SSD. The SSD was so small the included OS couldn't even run its own updates out of the box. I put an ultra small version of Linux and SNES on it (came with a heftier Linux), stuck in a 32 GB SD card - instant portable movie and game machine for my daughter. A couple of years later I upgraded her to a 10" Acer similar to mine and my niece and nephew now have the 7" one. You can fit a lot of movies on a 32 GB SD card if you use the PSP or iPod preset in Handbrake.
Second niche - myself. I bike places, as often as I can. I have a small backpack that's big enough to carry my bike tools, a netbook, and some accessories/other crap I need for my commute to work or just about anywhere else. I BMX a lot and I don't like to carry a bunch of extra garbage I don't need. For coffee shop Internet use - including work responsibilities when I'm consulting - every thing I have to do on the road can be done on my 10" Acer Aspire. I've had two chain related failures on my BMXes while this thing was in my backpack, I wound up tumbling down the road both time my little Aspire took the beating better than I did. Sure a tablet fills this niche for most people, but I like a keyboard and mouse. That being said if Google does come out with a Nexus 10 I'll probably get that and use my old mini Apple bluetooth keyboard on it.
I drool over Ultrabooks - I really want one. Fact is they cost too damned much and they won't fit my physically active lifestyle - I would have to switch to a bigger backpack for more than about a 12" screen, maybe a bit bigger but I don't want to push it too much. Intel's greed - not the kind that motivated them to release Ultrabooks but the kind that made them strong arm manufactures into killing netbooks to do it - is a large part of why they aren't taking off well enough.
If they stopped their excessive manipulation and gave control back to the manufacturers they may see a surge in Ultrabook sales.
Slashdot Mirror
It came with Windows 7 Starter though I've never actually used it. I upgraded the 1GB factory RAM to 2 GB. It runs Kubuntu like a dream, I replaced the factory HDD with an SSD and I have it booting Chromium from power button to login prompt in 26 seconds.
Why I really like it?
It fits in a small backpack. It's no problem carrying it when I bike, unlike a larger laptop, it's got awesome battery life and I've had two major bike crashes where I got pretty descent injuries (chainline failures at bad times, both of them) with the thing in my backpack and it's still working perfectly today. Best initial $250 I ever spent on a computer and the upgrades I put in were totally worth it.
I don't use it for much more than web browsing, it's not a work horse, but it does web browsing like a champ, and I have done some very minor Gimp edits and some other things on it too.
Fine.
Patent abuser then.
Let the trolls attack the abusers.
In this particular case Apple suffering may help us all.
Remember the famous patent troll of recent past Amazon? Now Amazon is actually starting to suggest patents are going overboard and trolls need to be shut down. If Apple gets on the losing end of enough of these battles they may actually join hands with Amazon and *gasp* Samsung when they've had enough to lobby to fix the problem.
Until then troll them and the other patent troll companies until they have a change of heart.
I took this picture while I was in Manhattan this summer. I took the picture due to that saying, there was a part of me laughing hysterically at the glass houses thing.
As much as I dislike Apple - for being patent trolls and bullies - it makes me sick to my stomach this happened to them. I mean I enjoy the suffering and all, it's just a really bad thing for the tech world in general. The patent trolling, not Apple suffering.
Verifiable vote selling at that.
Yes you could. You could verify your vote counted and who you voted for however it couldn't be traced back to you without the receipt.
David Bismark E Voting Without Fraud
The early shuttle era equipment IS Apollo era equipment.
Every console had to be be more or less rewired between every Apollo mission to accommodate the new/different equipment on the back end and to meet the unique objectives of every mission. MOCR1 and MOCR2 were wired identically, the idea was if you smoked a console or lost a whole room the controller(s) could move to the other control room and continue working.
During the shuttle era the consoles were no longer completely rewired each mission as they more or less standardized on equipment. Eventually all of the hard-wired consoles were replaced with PC's running UNIX (they used Alpha's for a long time, now Linux - Red Hat unfortunately) and of course all the equipment in the server rooms interface with those. The serial networks are now being slowly replaced with IP based equipment. Now that the shuttle is gone the elimination of the serial equipment is increasing.
Another note, the video monitors on the old consoles were HDTV's of their day. Sure they were black and white, but they had more scan lines, nobody that worked on those is on shift at the moment for me to ask but I think they were in the 800 lines range, that's part of why the original Apollo landings were broadcast from a news camera pointed at a monitor instead of from a direct feed - commercial television equipment wasn't designed to work with the video signals we used then.
There is still just a little bit of Apollo era equipment in use today. The drawings of the projection system hint at the mirrors that bounce the projector images to the screen. In MOCR 2 the original mirrors are still used, but they're mostly for tourist and occasional use, the ones in FCR1 were replaced with Mylar mirrors a couple of years ago. The Apollo era mirrors were incredibly thick and NOT safety glass. One of the workers that was sent to remove the ones for FCR1 was one of the same workers sent to install them 40 something years earlier. The telecom frames from the Apollo era are still in use and actively maintained, there's just not as much frame now as their used to be.
More trivia - the communications keysets on those old consoles belonged to the VIS system - which stood for Voice Intercommunications System. That was replaced by DVIS which was Digital Voice Intercommunications system. DVIS in now all but replaced by DVICE, Digital Voice Interface Communications Equipment. They still call all of them keysets. I showed my daughter one of the VIS keysets and asked if she knew what that round thing was for. She had no clue. I explained to her that's how they used to make phone calls.
He designed the P-Tube controller boards, any time we're involved with tourist he shows those boards off.
then it's only for Democrats. Maybe only for Obama.
I'm not a Democrat or a Republican, what I can tell you is over the past couple of months every time I look at Google plus I get barraged by pro Obama crap and I've seen one pro Romney post - straight from the Romney campaign. I know - probably the biggest difference - between left and right wingers is the need for solidarity. Solidarity practically defines left wing so they are more likely to "ripple" by resharing anything that reaffirms their opinions and positions, but I know enough right wingers to know they do enough of their own resharing that they should have at least 10% of the "what's hot" feed.
I'm convinced Google is rigging the What's Hot feed the same way they used to rig the top search results for Bush to turn up embarrassing and negative things while the ones for Obama were positive.
I'm going to go scoff at Obama and Romney now and go vote for Johnson.
It will set a standard that everyone will adopt so Apple will have to watch it closely to insure their devices don't accidentally work with it as well as the version Apple themselves are working on.
Until the wife starts wanting to talk to you about what's going on with the show. You can always reply "Let me know when he's on screen again, I'll go for a headshot."
Yeah, instead of playing upside down like so many made you do.
Mario Kart on the other hand would completely rock if you cold have two different players full screen on the same screen on the same couch.
Funny - they refused to grandfather my unlimited tethering when going from the Evo 4G to 4G LTE they insisted I had to have a different plan for a different connection type.
I know all about corporate spin.
BTW, I spent quite a bit of time within 20 miles of either end of the Lincoln tunnel towards the end of the summer. Their coverage wasn't all that hot in that are either - which really surprised me - Houston had better coverage than NYC.
Handset choices are what brought me to Sprint.
When the original Evo 4G was new there wasn't anything that really rivaled it, a few came close, but none beat it for at least a few months. Now my Evo 4G LTE is nice, but harder to root. I've still got factory firmware and I'm feeling the abuse.
I could totally write a whole new rant about how they abuse their position with shoving spyware and other shitty software down our throats.
If I'm in a white-collar/uppity area that's close to a central metro I get GREAT LTE or even WiMax most of the time.
I got great coverage all over San Antonio and most of Dallas.
Houston is great inside the loop, really close to the Space Center or most other notable areas, but once you go South of NASA Parkway it tends to cut off. Right now just a few miles South of NASA parkway where 646 crosses 45 you can get a reasonable 3G signal with NOT BACKHAUL AT ALL. Seriously, 3G but no data. There's a Sprint store in that pocket as well. Galveston - I was actually getting a strong LTE connection last weekend - I was still longing for 14.4 modem speeds because I'm pretty sure I didn't have that much even with a strong LTE signal.
In Baton Rouge they should be forced to shut down all of their stores and get fined for false advertising because they claim to cover the area.
To their credit - if I want to text or make a phone call it will work 98% of the time. If I want to use something as simple and lowly as any given TCP/IP based messenger app it's a crap shoot. As long as I'm next to an interstate or a white-collar area it's probably going to work at least a little.
I will say - back when I still had WiMax if I managed to get a WiMax signal it was awesome, as good as having DSL straight into my netbook. They seem to have perpetual back-haul issues these days - crappy through put even when I have a great signal. Works great when I'm on WiFi so I know it's not the handset.
Been a customer of theirs going on my third year. When I get a great signal there's often very little back-haul. I really feel screwed over the way they lured me in with the promise of WiMax, and their LTE is lacking most of the time. Not to mention now that I've upgraded my phone I pay more every month, but they took away my unlimited tethering data plan - they still charge the same.
Still, at least slightly better than Pecos. Still have family in both.
Nice place to not live anymore.
This is nothing more than a protection racket. When the book gets slammed on them it's going to slam hard - assuming there's a judge out there with enough Internet competence to pull it off.
I've looked seriously at the ASUS Slider. I know the keyboard sucks, but it might just be good enough to fit the niche as long as I don't have to do too much real work.
Not Intel compatible, but that being said I think it would perfectly fit the niche I had the eeePC in.
Of the three netbooks I've bought, one of which was carried by a girl from age four to age eight none of them is borked. They all still work. The first had a warranty repair when the main board had a factory defect early in its life, but it's been great every since.
I bought two 10" netbooks for $250 each. Show me a 10" tablet worth buying meaning capacitive touch screen and an SD slot or barring that at least 32GB on board for about that costs. Seriously, you could kick that $120 eeePC down the hall way all day and still boot it up, and I've abused the hell out of my Acer. I don't see the exposed glass doing too well on a tablet.
This isn't tablet hate - I'm just debunking those particular arguments.
There's a lot of netbook haters out there, and I understand why. Truth is they weren't the right thing for everyone.
I found two great niches for them - children and physically active people on the go.
First of all - children. The first netbook I every bought was one of the 7" eeePC's on that was on Woot.com with a 4GB card SSD. The SSD was so small the included OS couldn't even run its own updates out of the box. I put an ultra small version of Linux and SNES on it (came with a heftier Linux), stuck in a 32 GB SD card - instant portable movie and game machine for my daughter. A couple of years later I upgraded her to a 10" Acer similar to mine and my niece and nephew now have the 7" one. You can fit a lot of movies on a 32 GB SD card if you use the PSP or iPod preset in Handbrake.
Second niche - myself. I bike places, as often as I can. I have a small backpack that's big enough to carry my bike tools, a netbook, and some accessories/other crap I need for my commute to work or just about anywhere else. I BMX a lot and I don't like to carry a bunch of extra garbage I don't need. For coffee shop Internet use - including work responsibilities when I'm consulting - every thing I have to do on the road can be done on my 10" Acer Aspire. I've had two chain related failures on my BMXes while this thing was in my backpack, I wound up tumbling down the road both time my little Aspire took the beating better than I did. Sure a tablet fills this niche for most people, but I like a keyboard and mouse. That being said if Google does come out with a Nexus 10 I'll probably get that and use my old mini Apple bluetooth keyboard on it.
I drool over Ultrabooks - I really want one. Fact is they cost too damned much and they won't fit my physically active lifestyle - I would have to switch to a bigger backpack for more than about a 12" screen, maybe a bit bigger but I don't want to push it too much. Intel's greed - not the kind that motivated them to release Ultrabooks but the kind that made them strong arm manufactures into killing netbooks to do it - is a large part of why they aren't taking off well enough.
If they stopped their excessive manipulation and gave control back to the manufacturers they may see a surge in Ultrabook sales.