While there are many reviews about netbooks after a few days of use, you hardly find any indication on how the person continues to use it. We all know that new toys are cool in the beginning, but how do new toys affect our habits after a certain period of time?

Over the years, I’ve used numerous devices for different purposes. My first true gadget was a 3com Palm Personal, which I later upgraded to a Pro, so I could use it with my cell phone (infrared) and use the internet on the go. I ten went on to a Handspring Visor Platinum. It was not until I got an iPaq 2210 PocketPC when I started getting into portable video and software development, and after a while, I was forced to get a few devices people requested support for. When I got a PSP, the iPaq was the first gadget that ended up in the drawer next to the Handspring. Due to the bigger screen, as well as the better video format, the PSP became my gadget of choice to watch movies on the go. Bulkier than the iPaq, but it made up for it with the bigger screen. When Apple came out with the first Video iPod (5G) I needed one to make DVD Catalyst work with it (I love this job) and opted for the 60GB model. Eventhough the iPod had a smaller screen, it replaced the PSP due to the storage size. It was great to carry around 1 device filled with more video content than I could watch in a week of non-stop viewing. 10 seasons of Friends, Southpark, Futurama etc, and still have lots of music on there to boot.Next came the Microsoft Zune 30. The first Zune. While it features a slightly bigger screen, it never managed to replace my iPod. The colors looked bad and washed out, and the Zune desktop software was (still is in my opinion) a resource hog and a pain to navigate. I picked it up, made it work with DVD Catalyst, and then it went straight to the gadget drawer.

After the Zune came the Apple iPod Touch. If you have used DVD Catalyst for a while, and followed the website(s) you know how much I love my iPod Touch. While it’s only the 8GB first model, it has replaced all my portable devices with it’s capabilities. It even replaced my computer for answering support questions at nights. Bigger screen, better video quality, and while not as much room as my 60GB iPod, it still has room enough to fit a season of 24 on it with room for a few apps.

Unfortunately, the one thing that caused me to look into a replacement for it is due to some “google labs” options I use in Gmail for providing support. While I type all support questions by hand, there are a few things that are always the same, so I use something called “canned responses” for those whenever needed. Reset DVD Catalyst to it’s defaults, and a thank you note for a PayPal purchase with the link (paypal doesn’t send these out by itself, so I have to do that manually). Unfortunately, for some reason, this did not work in gmail/safari on the iPod Touch, so for sending out those emails, I always had to go back to my computer to answer.

So, because of the Gmail issue, and because I wanted one since they came out, I picked up an Asus eeePC.

I wrote a few articles already on the eeePC, please refer to those for initial impressions, and impressions after a few weeks.

2 Months later.

The eeePC has settled in nicely into my life.

It has replaced my gadgets for the most part. It plays video’s in whatever format I have, and because it runs a full webbrowser (firefox) I have no issues using it for work-emails. During the day, it sits next to my development system, and I use it for emails and non-work stuff, such as checking certain websites for news (slashdot for example). During software testing, when my development system is basically in use, I use it for minor development stuff, and at nights, when I turn off my workstation, I close the screen of the eeePC to put it in standby, and have it close by when watching TV. Once in while I pick it up to check for support emails, or look something up about what’s on TV and such.

When I go somewhere, I usually take it with me, depending on where I have to go and what I have to do. It allows me to keep myself entertained, or do work (if an internet connection is available).

While it has a few games on it, the most used application on the eee is Firefox. It’s always open, and even when the netbook wakes up from standby, it responds fast.

Essential upgrades:

The only issues I have with the eeePC is the out-of-the-box performance and battery life.

I picked up the cheapest 8.9″ harddrive-version of the eeePCs, the 900HD, so it came with the smaller battery. I replaced that with one I picked up from eBay. The replacement battery ($60 or so) is quite big, and sticks out at the back, which is a bit annoying, but the increased batterylife is well worth it. With the defalt battery, it was not capable of playing 1 full movie. The battery ran out near the end of a 2hour movie. The new battery enables me to watch about 4 hours of videos.

The hard drive, while decent in size, was quite slow. The seagate 160gb I replaced with a 320GB 7200rpm Western Digital, and the whole system is a lot more responsive. Especially with Firefox getting bigger and bigger, and a virus scanner running in the background, the difference in speed is phenomenal.

The memory. The eee came with 1GB of memory, which is plenty for Windows XP, however, with the video card taking a share, as well as a few startup programs such as a virus scanner, you will notice a slowdown when you have a few programs running (or firefox with 10 tabs open) I expanded this to 2GB, and everything feels a lot smoother. Switching between running programs is a breeze.

The size:

The 8.9″ eeePC is just the right size for me. The screen is big enough to show me information I need and use without having to scroll, and the physical size of the device is just small enough to make it easy to pick up.

All in all, I’m quite satisfied with my $250 netbook, now if only it had a dual-core processor and a better video card. I hope they come out with a 9″ ION based netbook.

eeePC 900HD Desktop Screenshot

In the past, I looked at the Toshiba Libretto series, but these were too limited in specifications, and also at the Sony UX series, but these were too expensive. When the eeePC’s were announced with the low price and still decent specifications, they have been on my wish-list ever since. So, a few weeks ago, I spend some time looking at the various models, and to get an idea of the sizes, I visited the local computer store. The 900HD was on special, so I picked that one.

The specs are quite limited, especially the processor (900Mhz Intel Celeron) , but with some tweaks, I managed to get it running smoothly.

So, why do I need it?

You never “need” another computer. With my work with DVD Catalyst, I always “need” new toys, and the eeePC is no different. Right now its sitting next to an 13” Macbook and a 17” Dell laptop, so why would I need 3 laptops? The Dell and the Macbook are both used for development and testing. Usually one is running conversions, while the other is used for the rest of the work. The Macbook runs Windows Vista Ultimate (bootcamp) which is my main development platform. The Dell runs Windows XP Media Center, and besides TV recording tests, DVD and video conversion test, it’s the only machine I have that is capable of running “Fallout 3”.

As for the eeePC, its main use for me is portability. A few years ago, I only had the 17” Dell, and when my wife was in the hospital for a procedure, it was quite annoying to carry it with me every day. I stayed overnight with her, but had to go back home to feed the cats, shower, laundry etc. When I got the Macbook, this became easier, but again it was a little bit to carry around. The eeePC, and especially the 900-series (the 1000-series would defeat the purpose because it would be close to the size of the Macbook), is a lot easier to carry around. It would actually fit in my coat-pocket.

So, after two weeks of eeePC, what have I used it for so far?

The main use has been to check emails while watching TV at night. I use GMAIL, and a few Google Labs additions to handle my email. When someone purchases DVD Catalyst through the Paypal button on the Tools4Movies website, I use something called “Canned Responses”. It basically allows me to send a draft email as a reply, and I can keep sending this response over and over. Before the eeePC I used my iPod Touch to check emails, but for some reason, Canned Responses does not work, so whenever I had to use it, I had to go to a laptop, and send the response from there. With the eeePC, I can do it right away.

Besides the email-use, I have used the eeePC to watch a movie, while the wife was watching her own shows. Again, I used to do this with the iPod Touch, but the bigger screen just makes it a bit more comfortable. The thing I did not like was that the battery of the 900HD is not big enough to handle a 2 ½ hour movie.

Ofcourse, I have installed my development tools on the eeePC as well. The main reason why I wanted a small PC was so I could work wherever I wanted, and while the screen size is a limitation, the eee has assisted me already in troubleshooting some bugs with DVD Catalyst. For giggles, I installed DVD Catalyst 3.80 on it when I got it out of the box, and right away I ran into a minor problem with the output folder. On my other machines I did not experience this issue, but on the eee, it allowed me to figure out what was happening, and what I needed to do to fix it. In addition, running conversions on it actually exceeded my expectations. It’s not something I would recommend, but in lack of better options, it is good to know it actually does have a little bit of power to do it.

So, what do I have running on it?

Delphi 7. The development application used for DVD Catalyst

iTunes. Because I converted most of my collection for my iPod Touch.

Mozilla Firefox. I use Firefox for all my internet browsing, and by copying my profile over, I have it setup the same on all my systems.

LocationFree Player. I have a Sony LocationFree base station connected to my TiVo, and with the software, I can watch my TiVo from any location with internet access. I did not expect this to work properly because the video format used (H264/AVC) for it is quite processor-demanding, but it actually works really good.

Pocket Tanks. Classic artillery game, the best of it’s kind, and highly addictive.

Plants vs Zombies. The new Bejeweled/Peggle game from Popcap. Again, highly addictive.

Of course there is a bunch of other stuff on there, but the above is the main part of it.

First thing I did when I got it was replacing the harddisk. I had a 200GB 7200RPM harddisk as a spare, and decided that the 160GB 5400RPM harddisk would make a better spare, and that the faster harddisk would be better. Honestly, I have not seen much of a performance difference. As a test, I used the harddisk from the eeePC in my Dell, and Fallout 3 runs nice from it.

I played around with upgrading the memory, but with more memory I did not notice much performance gain either. Because I make use of the Hibernate feature, which writes the memory to disk, 2GB would actually slow things down for me.

I did a clean restore from the Asus DVD, which unfortunately is a Ghost image, and not an actual Windows XP install, and removed almost all the extra software that was installed. An old version of Adobe Reader, Skype etc. Then I installed Office 2007 on it, and did all the Windows Updates (it comes with ServicePack 2). Stuck AVG Free on it, and installed my own software needs. Then I did some tweaks by disabling services, restore, and a couple of registry hacks to boost performance. Tweaked Firefox to use the memory instead of the harddisk for cache, and as a last trick, I installed the “XP Royale” theme to make it look a bit nicer. The Royale Theme is an official Microsoft Theme for Windows XP that resembles the one used in Media Center.

And this is about it for 2 weeks of eeePC ownership.

I’ve been eyeballing these since they were first released, but with the struggles the last year with the website and stuff, I never managed to get to it. Finally friday I picked one up at the local store for $250. Cheap, but it does the job.

It’s main use is for me to be able to quickly answer support emails when I am not working. I used to use my iPod Touch for this, but with some features I use with Gmail (”canned responses”, for people who purchase with Paypal) the browser on the iPod Touch just doesnt work. I tried numerous things, including running “desktop mode” but it is just not supported on the iPod.

So, with a PC, small, but still running a full-blown windows-version, I can do what I need to do.

I chose the 8.9″” version mainly or its size. I use a 13″ macbook for development, next to a 17″ dell e1705, and both are a bit too big to lug around for appointments. For longer use, the eeePC is a bit too small for typing comfortably, but for something quick, it works just great.

I’m not too happy about the processor, a celeron 900mhz, but I guess I just have to accept the fact that I will not be using the eee as aditional conversion machine. It does convert better than expected though.

Ofcourse I already tried a few things with it that it is not intended for, but I will go into that with a later post.

Firefox 3.5 on an eeePC Screenshot

Everything seems to feel more responsive, and even most of the addons I had did work fine. Only the theme needed to be replaced because it was not compatible.

Firefox is an internet browser, and is similar in functionality as Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, Google’s Chrome and Apple’s Safari. The main advantage of Firefox for me is that it provides a “safe” browsing experience. While unintentional, with doing research on the internet you do get exposed to various malicious websites. Websites infected with some form of virus, or popups of fake virus scanners that ask you to click here to fix your PC. With browsers such as Internet Explorer, these issues are quite hard to get rid of, mainly because Internet Explorer is rooted deep into Windows itself, and if it crashes for some reason, it usually takes something else you have running with it. While the newer versions are safer, they still account for most of the virus/spyware related issues on computers today. Safari, Apple’s web browser, is similarly rooted into Apple’s Mac OS operating system, and while more resilient towards these issues, it has its quirks as well. With Firefox, which works as a separate application, the bad stuff has less of a chance to do serious harm.

I personally have used Firefox back when it first came out. Originally part of Netscape, later made into Phoenix, Firebird and then Firefox, I’ve grown accustomed to how it works, and what it is capable of. From its early days, it offered tabbed browsing, and while now commonly found in all similar programs, it was groundbreaking. I use a “bookmark folder”,Daily, which contains bookmarks to about 10 sites I check a couple of times a day. All I have to do is rightclick on the folder, and click on “Open all in tabs”, and it will take me to the first listed page, and opens the rest to load in the background. Rather than having to wait for each page to load, I can quickly skim through the sites for news items. In addition, when doing searches, things get even easier. While skimming through search results from a site like Google, I just control-click (hold down the ctrl-key and click) on a link to open it in a tab, enabling it to load in the background, while I continue skimming through the results. When I have a few sites selected, I click on the tabs to view the information on the selected website.

All in all, I highly recommend Firefox for any internet user.