Travel light
Wednesday, November 28, 2007 at 08:34PM Travel light in life. Take only what you need: a loving family, good friends, simple pleasures, someone to love, and someone to love you; something to eat, enough to wear, and a little more than enough to drink for thirst is a dangerous thing. —Unknown.
I've had my ASUS Eee PC 701 now for about 24 hours. So far so good. I am using it to create this blog entry. (May help me be brief.)
There is a lot to like about this little sub-2lb, flash-driven computer. Wireless (worked on both home and secure school networks), good open source software (opened Word, Excel, PDF, AVI files), bright screen, excellent track pad with tap to click and scrolling built in, and easy-to-use graphic interface. Hooked up fine to external monitor. Skype works great. Built-in speakers (pretty cheesy, but fine for voice), internal microphone and even camera. Also inputs for mic and headphones. Nice. External USB mouse worked by just plugging it in.
Still getting used to the very small keyboard (typing slowly helps), smaller screen, managing files. Couldn't get my big honking PowerPoint files to open. Can't figure out yet which new version of Skype to download and how to do so. Some of this will take some time. Not sure what software is available for this flavor of Linux.
I am really planning to use this as sort of a dumb terminal to the Internet when I travel. It really struck me how little one needs a computer hard drive with Google Docs, del.icio.us, web-based mail and calendaring, RSS feed reads, etc. I am going to see if I can't use SlideShare.com to do presentations too. My working docs I can also carry and run off a flash drive that the Eee recognized just fine.
If this puppy were half the price ($200 instead of $400), it would make a great 1:1 student machine. Battery lasted a long time today and with a flash memory instead of a mechanical hard drive, I hope it will take some bumps.
I weighed my regular computer bag/back pack this morning: 17.8 pounds (without a book in it) and this only carrying the little Mac 12" PowerBook. The Eee will fit in my suit coat pocket and weighs less than the hardback book I'm reading.
Get yourself one for Christmas! Travel light in life.
