Monday, March 30, 2009
Acer Aspire One Review
Last week I picked up one of the new Acer Aspire One netbooks with the 10.1" screen. I went to the local Frys, as they seemed to have the best selection of netbooks in stock. I already had the 8.9" model, but I felt like I needed a bit more screen space. So, I went to compare the HP Mini, the Lenovo S10E, and the Aspire One.
The HP mini seemed like a solid machine, but they only had the SSD model (which, I understand has horid write times), not to mention they were also refurbs. The HP keyboard definitely takes the cake. However, it seems to have a wider and shorter screen than the others. Between the SSD model and the fact they were refurbs, the HP was out of the running.
I was really interested in seeing the Lenovos because, well, it's a Lenovo. But, after getting my hands on one, the keyboard was *really* disappointing. It really reminded me of the keyboard on the 8.9" EEE. I will say it had a very solid look and feel, and the screen was certainly the best of the three.
Now, to the Aspire One. Interestingly, Fry's did not have any out for display, and absolutely refused to open one for me. One of the things that was drawing me to it was the 6 cell battery, which reviews were saying could get anywhere between 6 and 8 hours of run time depending on which battery you got. Without being able to touch one, I was in a bit of a dilemma. It finally came down to these things:
Battery life. One of the main draws of a netbook is having it run forever without needing to plug in
My happy experiences with the 8.9" model
The rave reviews on Amazon
So, I bit the bullet and picked one up. I have to same I'm absolutely ecstatic about it! It still has a small form factor, it's plenty light enough, and the reviews on battery life were pretty much spot on (I'm getting anywhere from 5-6 hours on a full charge). Now, don't get me wrong, it's not going to blow you away with speed, but I've compiled Mono, and have used the 8.9" with the same specs for doing dev work, and it's plenty good enough. As far as speed, it seems to take a while to launch resource intensive apps (Visual Studio, Open Office, etc), but once the app is open, it appears to run just fine. The keyboard is the same as the 8.9" model, so I didn't have to adjust to anything, and the extra screen space is just what I wanted.
I currently have it dual booting between Windows (only for VS, given there isn't enough power to run it in a VM), and Ubuntu. The little guy only comes with XP home, and it will stay that way until I can get my hands on a USB CD-ROM drive and put Pro on there. Ubuntu was a bit more of a hassle than it has been in the past, but I did get it working. To start with, Wireless didn't work out of the box. After looking around, I compiled the latest madwifi driver, and that did the trick. The big sticking point was no sound. I read plenty of posts on ways to remedy it, and nothing worked. Finally, in desparation, I decided to try the latest Alpha release of Jaunty. I did the upgrade using Update Manager, and I was pleasantly surprised to see everything "just work!" Wireless: works. Sound: yep, got that too. Built-in web cam: of course.
If you are on the fence about whether or not to try a netbook, I really suggest you give it a shot. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. I do suggest you try all of the options out there. The biggest key points to look at are:
Weight
Keyboard
Battery life
And in my opinion, the Acer finishes first in two of those three (with the six cell battery, it's the heaviest model at 2.8 pounds).
Stay tuned for upcoming posts where I'll discuss my experiences with Adobe AIR, C#, and Java.
The HP mini seemed like a solid machine, but they only had the SSD model (which, I understand has horid write times), not to mention they were also refurbs. The HP keyboard definitely takes the cake. However, it seems to have a wider and shorter screen than the others. Between the SSD model and the fact they were refurbs, the HP was out of the running.
I was really interested in seeing the Lenovos because, well, it's a Lenovo. But, after getting my hands on one, the keyboard was *really* disappointing. It really reminded me of the keyboard on the 8.9" EEE. I will say it had a very solid look and feel, and the screen was certainly the best of the three.
Now, to the Aspire One. Interestingly, Fry's did not have any out for display, and absolutely refused to open one for me. One of the things that was drawing me to it was the 6 cell battery, which reviews were saying could get anywhere between 6 and 8 hours of run time depending on which battery you got. Without being able to touch one, I was in a bit of a dilemma. It finally came down to these things:
So, I bit the bullet and picked one up. I have to same I'm absolutely ecstatic about it! It still has a small form factor, it's plenty light enough, and the reviews on battery life were pretty much spot on (I'm getting anywhere from 5-6 hours on a full charge). Now, don't get me wrong, it's not going to blow you away with speed, but I've compiled Mono, and have used the 8.9" with the same specs for doing dev work, and it's plenty good enough. As far as speed, it seems to take a while to launch resource intensive apps (Visual Studio, Open Office, etc), but once the app is open, it appears to run just fine. The keyboard is the same as the 8.9" model, so I didn't have to adjust to anything, and the extra screen space is just what I wanted.
I currently have it dual booting between Windows (only for VS, given there isn't enough power to run it in a VM), and Ubuntu. The little guy only comes with XP home, and it will stay that way until I can get my hands on a USB CD-ROM drive and put Pro on there. Ubuntu was a bit more of a hassle than it has been in the past, but I did get it working. To start with, Wireless didn't work out of the box. After looking around, I compiled the latest madwifi driver, and that did the trick. The big sticking point was no sound. I read plenty of posts on ways to remedy it, and nothing worked. Finally, in desparation, I decided to try the latest Alpha release of Jaunty. I did the upgrade using Update Manager, and I was pleasantly surprised to see everything "just work!" Wireless: works. Sound: yep, got that too. Built-in web cam: of course.
If you are on the fence about whether or not to try a netbook, I really suggest you give it a shot. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. I do suggest you try all of the options out there. The biggest key points to look at are:
And in my opinion, the Acer finishes first in two of those three (with the six cell battery, it's the heaviest model at 2.8 pounds).
Stay tuned for upcoming posts where I'll discuss my experiences with Adobe AIR, C#, and Java.
Sunday, March 19, 2006
Where to begin
So, it's been a while since I've updated this blog, but such is life. I had hoped to do weekly (at a minimum) posts, but things like work and a wife get in the way :D So, tonight I thought I would start some threads that I intend to follow up on this week, as time permits. I'm travelling to Boston on the back half of this week, so maybe some time in a hotel room will allow me to do some posting, if I don't get to it before then.
Voice Over IP and Asterisk
I think computer telephony is one of the most interesting fields to be in. Especially now that Voice Over IP (VoIP) has taken off the way it has, specifically with SIP. My company recently relocated our headquarters to downtown Oklahoma City. As part of this move, I pushed over a switch to a VoIP phone system. I've been checking out Asterisk since early fall of '05, and really liked what I saw. It has an awesome community behind it, tons of really nice features, and because it's open source, is completely extensible. This week I hope to write more about experience deploying it. However, it has held up well enough that the first week went by extremely smooth, to the point I was able to take a day off!
Switch to an Apple
So three guys I work with have now switched over to using Mac's. I found this interesting, since two of the guys were pretty hard core Linux fans, and a constant source of reference in my Linux dealings. Their switch peaked my curiousity, and I started checking out OS X. As it turns out, I think it's really a great looking OS. As luck has it, I've managed to get my hands on a brand new Mac Mini. It's a dual core Intel model, with 2GB of RAM and a 100GB hard drive. I just got it this weekend, but so far, I like everything I've seen on it. I've needed a couple of external apps along the way to get it just the way I like, but that's been true of Windows and Linux as well. I'll definately say that my experience getting familiar with Linux has certainly paid off on my Mac. But, more about that this week.
I think those are the main points I want to go off for now. Hopefully my next couple of postings will be informative to someone going through the same things. So long for now.
Voice Over IP and Asterisk
I think computer telephony is one of the most interesting fields to be in. Especially now that Voice Over IP (VoIP) has taken off the way it has, specifically with SIP. My company recently relocated our headquarters to downtown Oklahoma City. As part of this move, I pushed over a switch to a VoIP phone system. I've been checking out Asterisk since early fall of '05, and really liked what I saw. It has an awesome community behind it, tons of really nice features, and because it's open source, is completely extensible. This week I hope to write more about experience deploying it. However, it has held up well enough that the first week went by extremely smooth, to the point I was able to take a day off!
Switch to an Apple
So three guys I work with have now switched over to using Mac's. I found this interesting, since two of the guys were pretty hard core Linux fans, and a constant source of reference in my Linux dealings. Their switch peaked my curiousity, and I started checking out OS X. As it turns out, I think it's really a great looking OS. As luck has it, I've managed to get my hands on a brand new Mac Mini. It's a dual core Intel model, with 2GB of RAM and a 100GB hard drive. I just got it this weekend, but so far, I like everything I've seen on it. I've needed a couple of external apps along the way to get it just the way I like, but that's been true of Windows and Linux as well. I'll definately say that my experience getting familiar with Linux has certainly paid off on my Mac. But, more about that this week.
I think those are the main points I want to go off for now. Hopefully my next couple of postings will be informative to someone going through the same things. So long for now.
Saturday, November 12, 2005
A brief follow-up, and selecting a distribution
First, I want to post a follow up to my last post. Apparently, I'm not the only one thinking this. This article on ZDNet talks about whether or not open source is in the midst of a bubble, much like the .com bubble from a few years ago. It appears you really have two options: 1.) Form the community, and once formed, you have the chance to charge for support, enhancements, etc., or 2.) Create a closed source, proprietary system, providing the source to customers until a sufficient customer base has been established that it is essentially a community, and then convert to pure open source. As I said in my previous post, I'm quite keen to follow this, and see what happens over the next couple of years.
So, I've been trying to decide exactly what distribution to settle on. A product I use at work requires Redhat Enterprise Linux 3 (RHEL3), but that uses a 2.4 kernel, and outdated software. So, I was looking for something more modern. I thought about sticking with the Redhat family, and going with Fedora Core 4. However, I decided to branch out from the Redhat umbrella. I've tried installing several distributions, namely Suse 9.2, Mandrake Powerpack 2005.1, Gentoo, and Ubuntu.
Admittedly, Suse 9.2 is old, so I didn't go with it. I tried to install Gentoo onto an external USB drive, and needless to say, that doesn't work. Well, technically it worked, but not realistically. Running any OS off an external USB drive is too slow to be used, as I discovered when I thought I would be smart and install Windows onto that drive. It was ridicilous how slow it ran. As for Gentoo itself, Given enough time or experience with Linux, I can definately see how Gentoo is a great distribution for servers, as it does allow each application to be compiled in such a manner that they are all highly tuned for your machine and/or setup. However, for a notebook, it takes too damned long to install software, and is way too much work.
So, next, I loaded Ubuntu. I chose to go with Hoary Hedgehog, since it was the latest and greatest. Several people I work with have been raving about Ubuntu. I did find it extremely easy to install, and for an average user like my wife, I think it's a great distro. It, or Linspire, probably have the best chance of being a "desktop" distro. However, as a developer, I was quickly frustrated when I had to download and install a bunch of crap to a point where I could build some software. So, bye-bye Ubuntu.
That left Mandriva Powerpack 2005.1. I had installed Mandrake 10.1 a while back, and had really good luck with it. My experience with 2005.1 has been equally good. It comes with a lot of stuff right out of the box, including everything I need for development! It detected my hardware, and worked great, right out of the box. I have it setup where I can build software I need for work, plus it has Apache, MySql, and anything else I want.
While I agree choice is a good thing, I do think the pluthera of distro's out there make it very intimidating for anyone wanting to switch from Windows to Linux. I think Live CD's are a great idea, and an excellent way to become familiar with tools, etc. But until you install and use a distro, how can you ever know how well it will work? I also chose to stick with the mainline distro's. I thought about trying FreeBSD, but from what I read, that would be more trouble than it's worth for a laptop environment. I hope to get a desktop machine up and running soon so I can have a play with it and OpenSolaris.
Well, now that I have had all that fun installing various flavors of Linux, I think I'm ready to call it a night, sit back, drink some Egg Nog, and see if I can find a good football game to watch.
So, I've been trying to decide exactly what distribution to settle on. A product I use at work requires Redhat Enterprise Linux 3 (RHEL3), but that uses a 2.4 kernel, and outdated software. So, I was looking for something more modern. I thought about sticking with the Redhat family, and going with Fedora Core 4. However, I decided to branch out from the Redhat umbrella. I've tried installing several distributions, namely Suse 9.2, Mandrake Powerpack 2005.1, Gentoo, and Ubuntu.
Admittedly, Suse 9.2 is old, so I didn't go with it. I tried to install Gentoo onto an external USB drive, and needless to say, that doesn't work. Well, technically it worked, but not realistically. Running any OS off an external USB drive is too slow to be used, as I discovered when I thought I would be smart and install Windows onto that drive. It was ridicilous how slow it ran. As for Gentoo itself, Given enough time or experience with Linux, I can definately see how Gentoo is a great distribution for servers, as it does allow each application to be compiled in such a manner that they are all highly tuned for your machine and/or setup. However, for a notebook, it takes too damned long to install software, and is way too much work.
So, next, I loaded Ubuntu. I chose to go with Hoary Hedgehog, since it was the latest and greatest. Several people I work with have been raving about Ubuntu. I did find it extremely easy to install, and for an average user like my wife, I think it's a great distro. It, or Linspire, probably have the best chance of being a "desktop" distro. However, as a developer, I was quickly frustrated when I had to download and install a bunch of crap to a point where I could build some software. So, bye-bye Ubuntu.
That left Mandriva Powerpack 2005.1. I had installed Mandrake 10.1 a while back, and had really good luck with it. My experience with 2005.1 has been equally good. It comes with a lot of stuff right out of the box, including everything I need for development! It detected my hardware, and worked great, right out of the box. I have it setup where I can build software I need for work, plus it has Apache, MySql, and anything else I want.
While I agree choice is a good thing, I do think the pluthera of distro's out there make it very intimidating for anyone wanting to switch from Windows to Linux. I think Live CD's are a great idea, and an excellent way to become familiar with tools, etc. But until you install and use a distro, how can you ever know how well it will work? I also chose to stick with the mainline distro's. I thought about trying FreeBSD, but from what I read, that would be more trouble than it's worth for a laptop environment. I hope to get a desktop machine up and running soon so I can have a play with it and OpenSolaris.
Well, now that I have had all that fun installing various flavors of Linux, I think I'm ready to call it a night, sit back, drink some Egg Nog, and see if I can find a good football game to watch.
Sunday, November 06, 2005
Making money with open source
As I mentioned in my first post, I have just recently begun a foray into Linux, and the natural progression to open source. I think Linux is great, and has come a LONG way since I first looked into it back in 2000. I'm also very impressed with the vast number of quality open source projects out there. But, one question sticks out in my mind: How do these folks make any money???
Now, I understand there are a lot of projects out there done out of pure love of computing, programming, or whatever, and hence are not concerned with making money. But, those aren't the projects I'm talking about. The projects I'm talking about are the likes of Ubuntu, Ximian, Eclipse, and Asterisk. These are commercial products, adverstised as such. How are they supported though?
I understand a lot of these projects fund themselves by selling support. I know Ubuntu is in this category. So is Asterisk, although they also get money off of selling hardware. Ximian is now under the Novell umbrella. I'll admit, with the exception of one trial run, I've never actually used Eclipse. Now, I work for a company that produces and sells software. We also sell support. However, there is no way the revenue we get from support could ever fund the company. It does a good job of funding support, but not sales and R&D. So, surely there is something else going on, right?
I have a few thoughts on this. First, perhaps these projects are running off nothing but venture capital (VC) money. If that's the case, that seems to support the theory that we are in the midst of another growing tech bubble, and when the VC guys realize they will never make money, will these projects wilt up and die once the money runs out? If that is not the case, are these developers working for sub-par wages? I have a hard time believing that, but if they do, doesn't that make them the hippies of our generation, with cries of "Free love, baby! being replaced with cries of "Free software, baby!"?
There is one other OSS model I forgot to mention, and that is the model employed by SugarCRM. They have a plethora of options, from free, to a couple of purchase options, to an appliance server, to hosted. Each of the paid options has more features than the free option. It seems like a good way to get users interested with a free option, and when they are ready, upgrade. Although, I'm curious if they get enough paid orders to make up for what they give away for free?
Don't get me wrong, I love open source software, and I think what these companies do is great. I'll just be interested to see what happens over the next 2-5 years, and watch whether or not these projects make any money, or just get by on the pure love of programming.
Now, I understand there are a lot of projects out there done out of pure love of computing, programming, or whatever, and hence are not concerned with making money. But, those aren't the projects I'm talking about. The projects I'm talking about are the likes of Ubuntu, Ximian, Eclipse, and Asterisk. These are commercial products, adverstised as such. How are they supported though?
I understand a lot of these projects fund themselves by selling support. I know Ubuntu is in this category. So is Asterisk, although they also get money off of selling hardware. Ximian is now under the Novell umbrella. I'll admit, with the exception of one trial run, I've never actually used Eclipse. Now, I work for a company that produces and sells software. We also sell support. However, there is no way the revenue we get from support could ever fund the company. It does a good job of funding support, but not sales and R&D. So, surely there is something else going on, right?
I have a few thoughts on this. First, perhaps these projects are running off nothing but venture capital (VC) money. If that's the case, that seems to support the theory that we are in the midst of another growing tech bubble, and when the VC guys realize they will never make money, will these projects wilt up and die once the money runs out? If that is not the case, are these developers working for sub-par wages? I have a hard time believing that, but if they do, doesn't that make them the hippies of our generation, with cries of "Free love, baby! being replaced with cries of "Free software, baby!"?
There is one other OSS model I forgot to mention, and that is the model employed by SugarCRM. They have a plethora of options, from free, to a couple of purchase options, to an appliance server, to hosted. Each of the paid options has more features than the free option. It seems like a good way to get users interested with a free option, and when they are ready, upgrade. Although, I'm curious if they get enough paid orders to make up for what they give away for free?
Don't get me wrong, I love open source software, and I think what these companies do is great. I'll just be interested to see what happens over the next 2-5 years, and watch whether or not these projects make any money, or just get by on the pure love of programming.
Friday, November 04, 2005
But not tonight
So, a colleague of mine has been blogging for a little while now, so I thought, what the hell. If many of you are into computer programming, you may notice the title of my blog is play off one of Don Knuth's lesser known books "Things A Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About." I thought it was a very different book, but a great read. Essentially, Knuth details how he applied lessons learned dissecting large software programs to learning more about the bible. I'll leave at that for now, as that could be material for a future post!
So, why have I started to blog? Well, I've been following a few blogs out there lately, and being fairly opinionated, decided I would put my thoughts out on the web. I'm a senior level software engineer for a software company currently based out of Edmond, OK. I absolutely love programming, and do it for my job, and as a hobby (to my wife's dismay). I also love sports, particularly football, basketball, and bowling. I intend to post about computers, software, the software industry, sports, and anything else that I have on my mind :D
And now, a little biography. I obtained my BS in Computer Science from Oklahoma State University in 2002. I have done a wide variety of programming from Clipper (I'll discuss that in the future), VB, C#, C++, and Delphi, all on Windows. Recently, I have begun a foray into Linux, and that has proven to be really interesting, at least for me.
Well, I think that will do for my first post. The wife is working this weekend, so if I'm not too tied up on Sunday, I'll try to get a post out then. Otherwise, it will probably be mid-week before I get another one done.
So, why have I started to blog? Well, I've been following a few blogs out there lately, and being fairly opinionated, decided I would put my thoughts out on the web. I'm a senior level software engineer for a software company currently based out of Edmond, OK. I absolutely love programming, and do it for my job, and as a hobby (to my wife's dismay). I also love sports, particularly football, basketball, and bowling. I intend to post about computers, software, the software industry, sports, and anything else that I have on my mind :D
And now, a little biography. I obtained my BS in Computer Science from Oklahoma State University in 2002. I have done a wide variety of programming from Clipper (I'll discuss that in the future), VB, C#, C++, and Delphi, all on Windows. Recently, I have begun a foray into Linux, and that has proven to be really interesting, at least for me.
Well, I think that will do for my first post. The wife is working this weekend, so if I'm not too tied up on Sunday, I'll try to get a post out then. Otherwise, it will probably be mid-week before I get another one done.
