RickyCadden.com

I’ve Been Distro-Surfing

// September 20th, 2009 // 9 Comments » // toys

Over the course of the last 3 days, I’ve checked out plain-jane Ubuntu Netbook Remix, Jolicloud Alpha2, and EasyPeasy v1.5 on my Asus 1000HE EeePC. This is, apparently, also referred to as ‘distro-surfing’. At the end, I’m left with EasyPeasy, for a few reasons.

Ubuntu Netbook Remix

For starters, all three of these versions of Linux are essentially the same thing. Ubuntu Netbook Remix is the ‘core’, and then the other two build on that, with a few tweaks here and there. They all three have the same basic ‘netbook friendly’ homescreen, which is basically an organized list of icons to the various applications. Windows users, it’s essentially your ‘Start’ menu, but it’s there all the time. While this seems silly at first, it’s actually really logical, since a blank desktop is rather useless to most people (and you’re not supposed to have hundreds of icons all over your desktop anyways).

Jolicloud

Jolicloud Alpha2

When I first installed it, I really thought Jolicloud was going to be ‘it’. It has a great application setup, with applications that you would actually recognize and use, such as Facebook, Google Reader, Twitter, etc. It’s quite brilliant until you realize that the majority of these are little more than ‘visual bookmarks’ – clicking on one basically opens the site in a browser window. It also comes with Adobe AIR and WINE installers, though neither of those worked well for me. Jolicloud is, without question, the friendliest Linux version I’ve ever used. Unfortunately, it was slow as molasses on my Asus 1000HE, though it *was* the only one to show my processor performance by default in the taskbar, which I liked.

EasyPeasy

EasyPeasy v1.5

EasyPeasy v1.5 is the latest release, and it makes far less changes to the Ubuntu Netbook Remix interface than Jolicloud did. I like EasyPeasy over vanilla Ubuntu Netbook Remix for several reasons. For starters, it includes more up-to-date applications, like the latest version of Skype, Firefox, and others. While I realize I could just as easily install those on UNR, the fact that I don’t have to is important, to me. Also, I like that EasyPeasy is green instead of that ghastly orange/brown nonsense. I’d definitely prefer a calming blue look, but for the time being, green is far better. Also, EasyPeasy used to be called Ubuntu-Eee, because it was originally designed for the EeePCs. Since that’s what I’m using, it works out awesome, and all of my hardware was instantly supported.

For the time being, I’m dual-booting with Windows 7 and EasyPeasy v1.5. If you don’t know, ‘dual-booting’ means that when I turn my computer on, it gives me the option to either use Windows 7 or EasyPeasy v1.5. I have 2 operating systems installed, and I can choose either or quite easily. (NOTE: EasyPeasy v1.5 currently sets the bootloader timeout to ’0 seconds’. You need to install StartupManager to change this so you can have time to choose. I have mine set to 20 seconds, currently).

Booting back into Windows 7, I’ve noticed several rather important differences:

1. WiFi strength – using the built-in wireless managers on both Windows 7 and EasyPeasy, Windows shows that I have 5 out of 5 bars. Booting into EasyPeasy v1.5 with the computer in the exact same place, I only show 3 out of 5 bars. While I realize that ‘bars’ is a completely non-scientific or exact measurement tool, it is, currently, the one that I have, and thus, it concerns me.

2. Touchpad sensitivity – when using EasyPeasy, my touchpad is noticeably less responsive than it is in Windows 7. I have tinkered with the mouse settings, but still have trouble using the touchpad. Perhaps there’s a better driver I could download?

3. Overall system speed – switching back and forth, I’ve noticed that EasyPeasy *feels* much more sluggish than Windows 7 does. I haven’t really investigated this much yet, but it’s definitely noticeable, particularly when multitasking.

I’ll continue dual-booting as much as I can tolerate, and have my bootloader currently set to default to EasyPeasy, which should help me try to transition. I can, currently, fully work in either OS, so it’s just a matter of personal preference at this point. I *am* getting frustrated that I can’t find good applications in EasyPeasy to duplicate those in Windows, such as Windows Live Writer, Digsby, and a few others. I also have not tinkered with tethering in EasyPeasy, which could potentially be a complete dealbreaker if I can’t do so over Bluetooth (or USB).

Why I Don’t Use Linux On My Netbooks

// September 17th, 2009 // 14 Comments » // technology, toys

One thing that I’m asked about all the time is why I run Windows on my netbooks. Given how much I work in the browser (and Firefox is available for all platforms) it would seem that Linux would be a no-brainer on a netbook. Unfortunately, it’s not, and here’s why: there are too many options.

While choice is obviously a good thing, specifically for the consumer, there is factual data that proves that too much choice leads to indecision. When looking at Linux for my netbook (an Asus 1000HE), I first went to the ultimate EeePC forum, to see what they had to say. Unfortunately, in their ‘Linux’ section, there are 10 different subforums, each for a different netbook Linux variant. I also know of another one, Jolicloud, that’s not even listed in these subforums. That makes 11 different ‘flavors’ of Linux that I could possibly use on my netbook. Contrast that with 3 ‘flavors’ of Windows (XP, Vista, and 7), and you can see why I’m running Windows.

It’s not that desktop Linux is no good. On the contrary, the dabbling that I have done with it proves that desktop Linux has come a long way in terms of the user interface, support, and applications. It’s really brilliant, and I can instantly see the benefits that it has over Windows. The problem is, I don’t know which one to choose.

Given the headache involved with installing a new operating system to a computer, even a netbook, it’s easy to see why more consumers – even folks like myself with a bit of extra knowledge, simply default to Windows. It’s not because Windows is better, nor is it because Windows is cheaper or easier. It is simply because the Windows options are easier to navigate. As mentioned previously, there are only 3 Windows options, as opposed to 10+ Linux options.

So, how to solve this? It would be nice to have a single table that compared each ‘flavor’ of Linux against the others. However, that’s not really a good solution, either, since often these various flavors are simply different user interfaces, with the same guts underneath. Yesterday I installed Ubuntu Netbook Remix on my Asus 1000HE, and ‘out of the box’, it actually works a bit better than Windows 7 did, in terms of hardware support and the like. While that works fine, I can’t help but wonder what the other various distros offer that UNR doesn’t.

Hands-On With The Nokia Booklet 3G

// September 2nd, 2009 // 10 Comments » // toys

Last night I had the chance to spend some time with the Nokia Booklet 3G, Nokia’s new netbook, and I have to say – it’s dang impressive. Comparing side-by-side to my trusty Asus 1000HE, the Booklet 3G is smaller, lighter, and built *much* more solidly. It’s also alot sexier, thanks to the aluminum body and glass screen.

The Booklet 3G is powered by the Intel Atom Z530 processor, which is part of the reason it’s able to boast 12 hours of battery life and full HD video (720p) playback, as well as an HDMI-out port, so you can connect it up to your TV, if you wanted. It will run Windows 7 Starter or Windows 7 Home Premium, and will most likely be available through your operator. It will also come with only 1GB of RAM, and that’s *not* user-upgradeable, unfortunately.

In terms of software, they’re really working on bringing it to the consumer with as little bloatware (or crapware, as the Nokia rep last night called it) as possible. It will have a new Nokia Update application that will check that you always have the latest version of Nokia’s Ovi Suite 2.0 (which is currently in beta, but should be ready for the Booklet’s debut) and other Nokia applications.

The keyboard is extremely comfortable – I had no problem touch-typing, similar to my Asus 1000HE. You can see a pic of the keyboard below, to get an idea of the layout and size of the keys. The touchpad is small, and is not currently multi-touch compatible, like the one on my Asus 1000HE. However, I was able to give some feedback to the product manager on that, and he said it’s likely something we’ll see in the future. Also, the keyboard is not currently backlit, and when I brought it up, he reacted as though he simply hadn’t thought about it. He also made a point to write it down, so that he could investigate the possibilities. The battery is a custom-built 16-cell battery (most netbooks come with 6 or 8-cell) and I have no doubts it really will power through the full advertised 12 hours.

Priced at 575EUR (US$820) it’s certainly quite pricey, though Nokia was pretty clear that they don’t believe most consumers will purchase the Booklet 3G alone – it’ll usually come subsidized through a carrier or something like that, which would be good.

Asus EeePC 1000HE Unboxing

// May 20th, 2009 // 6 Comments » // toys

I’m a big geek, which is why I love making unboxing videos even more than I love watching them. I’m going to assume you like watching them, too. Thus, here’s my quick unboxing video of the Asus EeePC 1000HE that I just got from Amazon.com . It cost me $425 shipped 2-day, with the 2GB stick of RAM that’s pretty much needed for any netbook to be zippy enough.

Installing the RAM took all of 2 minutes. It took me longer to find the screwdriver, honestly. The RAM is right there underneath the panel, all I had to do was release the holding arms and pull it right out, then reverse the process to put the new RAM in. Easy as pie.

Installing Windows 7 RC1 over the Windows XP installation was a bit more tricky, though. By default, the 1000HE uses a ‘Quick Boot’ method that skips the BIOS screen and goes straight into Windows XP. While this is awesome for most consumers, it makes accessing the BIOS and changing the boot drives a bit tricky. Turns out, I needed to press F2 or F10 repeatedly BEFORE the Windows logo showed up, to disable Quick Boot. Then, I rebooted, this time pressing ‘ESC’ repeatedly until I got the boot selection screen. From there, I simply chose USB drive and followed the normal Windows 7 instructions.

Getting things to work is easy, if you can read. There are some specific drivers and such that apparently need to be downloaded from Asus’ website and run in compatibility mode to work on Windows 7. It’s not really difficult, just somewhat inconvenient to have to hunt these down and read up on them. I’ve found the community at Eeeuser.com to be incredibly helpful.

I’ll have more thoughts on this fun new toy as I get a chance to really put it to work.

Asus EeePC 1000HE Unboxing

// May 20th, 2009 // 6 Comments » // toys

I’m a big geek, which is why I love making unboxing videos even more than I love watching them. I’m going to assume you like watching them, too. Thus, here’s my quick unboxing video of the Asus EeePC 1000HE that I just got from Amazon.com . It cost me $425 shipped 2-day, with the 2GB stick of RAM that’s pretty much needed for any netbook to be zippy enough.

Installing the RAM took all of 2 minutes. It took me longer to find the screwdriver, honestly. The RAM is right there underneath the panel, all I had to do was release the holding arms and pull it right out, then reverse the process to put the new RAM in. Easy as pie.

Installing Windows 7 RC1 over the Windows XP installation was a bit more tricky, though. By default, the 1000HE uses a ‘Quick Boot’ method that skips the BIOS screen and goes straight into Windows XP. While this is awesome for most consumers, it makes accessing the BIOS and changing the boot drives a bit tricky. Turns out, I needed to press F2 or F10 repeatedly BEFORE the Windows logo showed up, to disable Quick Boot. Then, I rebooted, this time pressing ‘ESC’ repeatedly until I got the boot selection screen. From there, I simply chose USB drive and followed the normal Windows 7 instructions.

Getting things to work is easy, if you can read. There are some specific drivers and such that apparently need to be downloaded from Asus’ website and run in compatibility mode to work on Windows 7. It’s not really difficult, just somewhat inconvenient to have to hunt these down and read up on them. I’ve found the community at Eeeuser.com to be incredibly helpful.

I’ll have more thoughts on this fun new toy as I get a chance to really put it to work.

Windows 7 Release Candidate Experience Thus Far

// May 4th, 2009 // No Comments » // technology

I’m no stranger to Windows 7 – I’ve been running one of the early betas on a few computers for a while now, but have resisted shifting the whole house over until the Release Candidate was available. I got ahold of the release candidate this weekend, and spent pretty much all of Saturday installing it on the Dell Mini 9, my old Gateway MX6956, and more stressful, our MediaCenter computer. Each presented a different challenge, which Windows 7 seemed to handle quite nicely, after a bit of tinkering. Here’s the skinny:

Dell Mini 9 – After the install, I needed to install a few drivers, all of which are conveniently available in this thread. I did a few of the tweaks found here, and ended up with a fully working install on my 16GB SSD with 7.92GB free. Not bad for a full Windows install, really. I’ve confirmed that WiFi, audio, Bluetooth, and the card reader are all working great. Speed is on par with the previous Windows 7 install, and that’s awesome.

Gateway MX6956 – This is my former production laptop, reduced to a DVD player, basically. It was already running Windows 7 Beta, so upping to Release Candidate was no big deal. I was pleased to see that the Windows 7 installer recognized an older version of Windows, and threw everything from the C:/ drive into a ‘Windows.old’ directory, so that I could access my background images and the like, even after the fresh install. I had to install the Synaptics driver to turn off touchpad clicking, but other than that, this machine did not require any special drivers, and everything (WiFi, sound, memory card slot) just works – awesome.

Emachines T6003 – this is my Media Server, and don’t laugh, it was free. This machine was previously running Windows XP Pro, and has an AMD Athlon 64 3000+ processor, ~3GB of RAM, and uses an ATi Radeon Xpress 200 video card, which I believe is integrated into the motherboard. I first installed Windows 7 RC1 64-bit on this machine, and had everything working, except that pesky video card. Finding a good solution proved troublesome, so I tried just putting the 32-bit version of Windows 7 on there. I’m pleased to report that this worked much better, with less headache. Brilliant.

Tomorrow I’ll report on which applications I’m using on the various machines, as I’m sure many of you are wondering about software compatibility.

I’m Back To Windows

// February 9th, 2009 // 6 Comments » // technology, toys

Yes, that’s right. After the pains I went through to get OS X running smoothly on my Dell Mini 9, I’ve erased it all and put Windows 7 back on there. To be honest, I like it *much* better. I will, though, confess that I can be as stubborn as a mule once I get things how I want them. OS X was cool and all, but it just had too many annoyances that have confirmed I’ll likely never be a Mac guy.

First, when you close the lid, it wants to sleep. This is the DUMBEST thing ever. It can’t simply turn off the display, like Windows can, no no. If you’re closing the lid, obviously you want your computer to go to sleep, which means that any data connections (such as the internet) are disconnected. So…..if you want to leave your computer on every Wednesday night so that it can download and apply updates when you’re NOT using it, tough luck. I could go on, but I won’t. Yes, there’s an application that disables this, but I found it to be kinda unreliable. Plus, it’s my freakin computer, and I don’t want to use it that way.

Next up is the touchpad. Apple thinks having specific areas of your touchpad for scrolling is silly. Instead, they want you to get all touchy-feely with this multitouch nonsense. Now, I can admit that I was running OS X on unsupported hardware, which is attributed to most of the touchpad issues I had (it was overly sensitive, basically), but this multitouch stuff got *real* annoying. I like knowing that I can touch this one portion of my touchpad and it always performs the same action – scrolling.

There were other annoying things, but alot of them were due to the fact that I was using OS X on unsupported, and underpowered hardware. For instance, iMovie took for freakin ever to export a 10 minute video that I edited, and it didn’t even turn out. Yes, that was likely mostly due to the 1.6GHz Atom processor, but still.

The other thing that I already know is that I likely won’t ever have a ‘legit’ OS X experience, because I don’t like Apple’s hardware designs. I think they’re far too minimalistic, and ugly. After discovering how ‘cool’ iMovie and iPhoto are, I went up to Best Buy to play with the Macs, and I noticed that on the newer Macbooks, there’s no touchpad button. The whole stupid thing is a button. Ugh. No thanks. When I looked at the Air, and the various new Macbooks and Macbook Pros, I came home and looked at my Dell XPS M1330 again and realized, it’s a pretty sweet looking machine. Sharp lines, brushed metal wristrest, great styling. The Macs just looked so……boring. Almost sterile.

So I’m back to Windows 7, both on my Dell Mini 9 and my old Gateway MX6956. Neither computer does anything when I close the lid, cause I don’t want them to. Both have clearly defined areas of the touchpad that scroll, and I can touch anywhere else on the touchpad without having to worry about it scrolling. I’m happy.

How To Get QuickLaunch Back In Windows 7

// January 14th, 2009 // No Comments » // cool

If you’re like me, you *love* the QuickLaunch toolbar in Windows. It’s always onscreen, and it’s incredibly efficient – no labels or extraneous information, just a row of icons for applications that I need access to quickly. I currently have 11 applications in there, and only 10 icons on my desktop – most of which only really shortcut to My Computer and various user folders (pictures, videos, etc). QuickLaunch is a way for me to keep my desktop clean. I cringe when I see people with icons all over their desktop.

So, when I installed the new Windows 7 Beta on my Fujitsu P1610, I was sad to see that QuickLaunch had apparently gone the way of the DoDo, replaced by a new, somewhat similar toolbar. In Windows 7, you can ‘pin’ things to this toolbar, and they’re also grouped, sort of. While this works for the most part, it falls short in the efficiency category, where QuickLaunch was so good. Each icon on this new Windows 7 ‘pin’ toolbar takes up 3 times the space it would in QuickLaunch.

Fortunately, I read a post by Tim Sneath at Microsoft today, giving a whopping 30 handy tips for those of us checking out Windows 7. Number 13 on that list is how to get QuickLaunch back in Windows 7!! Here’s how:

* Right-click the taskbar, choose Toolbars / New Toolbar
* In the folder selection dialog, enter the following string and hit OK:
%userprofile%AppDataRoamingMicrosoftInternet ExplorerQuick Launch
* Turn off the “lock the taskbar” setting, and right-click on the divider. Make sure that “Show text” and “Show title” are disabled and the view is set to “small icons”.
* Use the dividers to rearrange the toolbar ordering to choice, and then lock the taskbar again.

Leaking Your Own Products

// January 5th, 2009 // No Comments » // blogging, cool, marketing

In case you’re not keeping up with technology news, Microsoft sent out the latest beta of its new Windows 7 operating system last week, and it ‘somehow’ ended up on the torrents, for anyone to download and install on their machine. I have it installed on 2 of my laptops, my old Gateway MX6956 and my Fujitsu P1610 (dual-booting with XP). Simply put, it’s phenomenal. However, that’s not the reason for this post.

There’s been alot of speculation as to whether or not Microsoft itself put the Windows 7 Beta on the various torrent sites, which are normally a haven for media pirates and ‘cracked’ software. No one really knows for sure, and it’s not likely we will. However, it’s an interesting discussion, specifically due to the conversation about leaks happening in the mobile industry, where most of my writing occurs.

In 2008, Nokia battled product leaks with a vengeance. Despite its attempts, all but one of the 13 S60-powered smartphones that Nokia announced in 2008 were leaked. In the case of the E71, there were full video reviews on the internet MONTHS before the phone was actually announced. The 5800 XpressMusic, Nokia’s first S60-powered touchscreen smartphone, was technically leaked by the company, thanks to its cameo in The Dark Knight, this summer’s hottest film. Many bloggers have pondered whether Nokia seeded any of the unofficial leaks, such as the E71 (I would bet money that they didn’t).

Either way, the question isn’t really ‘are’ leaks good, but rather, *can* they be good? The answer to that, of course, is a resounding YES. In the public’s eye, leaks are exciting – they have the allure of the forbidden fruit, so to speak. With the Windows 7 situation, Microsoft is well positioned to gain from people loading up unauthorized copies – it’s a solid piece of code. On my Fujitsu P1610, which only has a Core Solo 1.2GHz processor and 1GB of RAM, it boots and runs several seconds faster than even Windows XP, which is regarded currently as the best Windows OS on the market.

They’ve also improved the install/setup process dramatically. On my Gateway laptop, it was roughly 45 minutes from when I clicked the big ‘Install Now’ button to when I had popped in a DVD to settle in with a movie with Mrs. Guru. That’s nearly unheard of for ANY operating system, much less Windows.

What do you think? Can companies use leaks like Windows 7 Beta Build 7000 to their advantage, or is all a lost cause? Even Nokia, I’ve noticed, is getting less flustered over leaks, and taking the proper stance of accepting the challenge of announcing an unleaked product. At Nokia World 2008 in December, the company proudly boasted that neither Engadget nor Gizmodo (two of the largest gadget blogs, known for running leaks) had leaked the N97, and even joked about it slightly.