Acer Aspire One Netbook Drops to $329
I've been keeping a close eye on which netbooks offer the most value, and to my eye the Linux-version of the Acer Aspire One netbook is the current front runner. Imagine my delight when I heard last week that Acer dropped the price on this netbook by $50.
Here is what the Acer Aspire One (nicknamed AA1) has over the original Eee PC. Faster processor, more comfortable keyboard, greater pixel dimensions (1024 x 600), and better storage expansion. The AA1 is not without fault, though. The mouse buttons are placed on either side of the trackpad -- a most inconvenient place to use them. Given that fact, I would use this netbook primarily with an external USB mouse.
Technical information about the AA1 is also hard to find on the Acer web site. When you reach the Acer web site, you mostly encounter a sales presentation. Sales presentation? How quaint! So 20th century.
To get the real scoop on the AA1, head to YouTube, where some very smart people will tell you -- and show you - the ropes. First thing is to activate the Advanced Mode, which is nicely described in this YouTube video.
One of the best AA1 explainers on YouTube, SkateAsian, will tell you the things you want to know -- such as how to add Compiz effects to your AA1. Check out Compiz in its full glory here.
Yes, smart computer users install Ubuntu on their AA1. Here's a YouTuber telling you about that.
Back in 1987, Apple Computer had a fine promotion idea for the Mac SE. They offered a full-money-back refund within the first month of purchase. Guess what? Almost nobody sought to get their money back. Acer should try something similar. The netbook category of computers is as new to people today as the graphical user interface was to people in 1987. Let people try out the AA1 in the comfort of their own homes -- and almost nobody will choose to return it for a refund.
If I were Acer, I would add the proviso that this offer is only open to peple who have a blog they have been posting to for more than a month, or who to people who have uploaded videos of their own creation to YouTube. Setting up a blog can be done in less than 5 minutes -- and uploading your own videos to YouTube is so easy that an adult could do it. The videos that SkateAsian and others are uploading to YouTube are invaluable. They tell us the things we really want to know.
And in case you haven't figured it out yet, when you come across the video of a great explainer on YouTube, click on the subscribe button. In the same way they're teaching you the things you want to know today, just as surely they'll be teaching you the things you will want to know tomorrow.
Phil Shapiro
The blogger is an adjunct professor of education and a technology commentator in the Washington DC-area. He can be reached at: philshapiroblogger@gmail.com
Note - You can keep up-to-date with lots of tips about the AA1 on the Acer One User Forum.
Prior blog postings -
YouTube Reaches a Billion Video Views per Day
After Lightning Strikes, One iMac Becomes Two
It Feels Like Freedom is Coming
Book Review - Google SketchUp for Dummmies
Automated Project Management
No matter what business you are in, you have projects. Projects are how businesses make progress. How does your company manage projects? What tools do you use? Email, white boards, post-it notes? Something I see all the time is people managing projects with Microsoft Excel. Although Excel can do a fine job of tracking projects, it is very manual. Obviously, Excel is far better than sticky notes. However, technology makes project management so much easier nowadays that it is almost sad to see businesses struggle with a manual project management methodology.
So why should you consider a more automated approach to project management? Well the number one reason in my mind is communication. Many projects fail because of a lack of communication, and if there is anything technology is good at, it is communication. Here are some examples of automated communication:
- Emails to people when they are assigned a task
- Emails to remind people when due dates are approaching
- Email alerts to management when due dates are missed
- Email alerts to management when customer interaction takes place
- Emails to customers when a task pertaining to them is updated
- Email alerts to management when AR balances exceed a certain threshold
There are also other ways technology can automate project management including:
- Logging who reads and edit files associated with a project
- Prompting for change orders when the project scope changes
- Verifying available resources (people, projectors, trucks, conference rooms, etc.) for each stage of the project
Basically, if you can dream it, there is probably a way to automate it and the return on investment is usually strong and easy to calculate.
Nutrition Facts On The Go
Have you ever been eating out and wondered about the nutrition facts of the meal you were about to order? Well wonder no more. Just send a text message to DIET1 (34381) and type the name of the restaurant and name of the meal you are about to order. Within seconds you will receive a reply that will tell you the number of calories, fat grams, carbs and protein in the meal. Use this with caution, however. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss.
For example, send an SMS to 34381 with the following text:
McDonald's Big Mac
Diet.com will reply with:
Cal: 540
Fat: 29g
Carb: 45g
Prtn: 25g
How to Instantly Communicate with Many People at Once
Have you ever had to call and communicate the same information to numerous people? (For example, to cancel a meeting, to change a meeting location, or to tell everyone you'll be late for an event.) I know I have.
At Nexxtep we are all going in so many different directions helping clients throughout the day that we usually try to converge at the same place for lunch so we can all touch base. We have two ways of disseminating the lunch location to our team. The first method is via a text message group. We send a text message to an SMS group and everyone gets a text message with the lunch location.
The other way we can disseminate the information is via Phonevite.com. I'm sure everyone is aware of those phone tree solutions that call a bunch of people with a prerecorded message. Well Phonevite.com does the same thing and it's FREE if you are calling less than 25 people. To setup Phonevite just go to their website, create an account and create groups for your contacts. Then, assign a telephone number to each group. Now all you have to do is call the assigned telephone number for a group and record your message. Phonevite will call every number in the call group and play the recorded message to them. Even if you can't find a legitimate reason to use this service it's still worth trying.
Happy teching,
Ryan Williams
Ask Me A Tech Question
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It Took Me 30 Minutes to Purchase a MacBook
On Friday morning I stopped by the Bethesda Row Apple Store in Bethesda, Maryland, to buy a MacBook. I reached the parking garage 1/2 block from the store at 9:55 am. When I put money in the parking meter, I had to decide whether I was going to be in the store 1/2 hour or one hour.
Foolishly, I thought I could walk into the store and purchase a MacBook in less than 30 minutes, so I dropped a single quarter into the parking meter. When I reached the store at 10 am, it was mobbed.
Upon entering the store, a friendly store employee showed me a stool near the front door and told me to sit and wait. That I did, for about 10 minutes. A friendly, but harried, salesperson came over to take my order. I knew exactly what I wanted. He committed my order to memory, which seemed a little unusual considering how frantic the store was. In that kind of environment, you're bound to forget something when you reach the stock room.
The salesperson apologized several times for the delay. I didn't have the heart to tell him that if he apologized less, the people waiting behind me wouldn't have to wait so long.
After returning to my car after the purchase, my parking meter had expired -- and I realized I forgot to order iWork. The store was just too franctic for me to be able to think clearly when I was making my order. The whole experience was un-Zen. I barely had a chance to reconnect delightfully with my inner child.
Before I left the store, I noticed on the monitor above the Genius Bar that there were no more free slots for the day. Is Apple a victim of its own success? You tell me.
Is one way to address this situation to expand the number of hours the stores are open? Uhm, yes.
I'd go one step further. Remove some of the merchandise on display. Those central tables in the miniscule Bethesda Row store -- those have got to go. They impede the sales transaction.
Phil Shapiro
The blogger is an adjunct professor of education and a technology commentator in the Washington DC-area. He can be reached at: philshapiroblogger@gmail.com
Prior blog postings -
YouTube Reaches a Billion Video Views per Day
After Lightning Strikes, One iMac Becomes Two
It Feels Like Freedom is Coming
Book Review - Google SketchUp for Dummmies
Interview with Andrew Tanenbaum, Creator of MINIX
I recently had the opportunity to interview Andrew S. Tanenbaum, creator of the extremely secure Unix-like operating sytem MINIX 3. Andrew is also the author of Operating Systems Design and Implementation, the must-have book on programming and designing operating systems, and the man whose work inspired Linus Torvalds to create Linux. He has published over 120 works on computers (that's including manuals, second and third editions, and translations), and his works are known all over the world, being translated into a variety of different languages for educational use universally. He is currently a professor of computer science at Vrije University in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
The following is my interview with Andrew Tanenbaum. I would like to thank him for taking time out of his busy schedule to answer my questions.
When and how did you first get into computer programming and operating system design?
I have been programming since I was at MIT as an undergraduate. Operating system design happened much later, in the 1980s, first with Amoeba, an experimental distributed operating system, then in 1984 with MINIX.
What influenced you to start developing MINIX?
I was teaching a course using UNIX V6 and then AT&T changed the license forbidding people from teaching it courses, the stupidest thing they could have done. They should have paid bounties to people teaching it in courses. I guess their attitude was "The fewer people who know about UNIX,
the better." At that point I decided if I wanted a UNIX-like system to teach, I'd have to write one myself. So I did.
Have your students ever helped you in the development of MINIX?
In the beginning, no. I wrote V1 entirely alone. Later on, many students had ideas and wrote code. I also got funding to hire some students to write code.
What made you decide to make MINIX based on a microkernel rather than a monolithic kernel?
Good software engineering principles dictate that your programs are modular. You don't want a bug in one piece to bring down the whole thing if that can be avoided. A microkernel is much better engineered and is more modular and easier to understand. Monolithic kernels are still too big
and unreliable. My metric is the TV set. The system should run for 10 years with a total of zero failures for 99.9% of the users.
Do you believe that there are certain drawbacks to making MINIX POSIX-compliant?
Not really.
Are there any drawbacks to running device drivers as separate user-mode processes?
There is a small performance penalty. We haven't really focused on performance, but the L4 people have shown the overhead for a microkernel can be reduced to 5-10%
Will MINIX ever have a windowing system besides X11, or is X11 stable and functional enough for MINIX?
Never say never, but X11 seems pretty good to me. I believe it is the only windowing system on Linux.
How well does MINIX run on dual-processor machines? Will MINIX ever be optimized for these types of computers?
We are just starting to work on multicore. It is MUCH harder than single core. I expect all multicore software to be riddled with errors.
Do you expect a lot of Linux users to switch over to MINIX?
Probably not.
What other projects have you been working on besides MINIX?
I have been involved with work on RFID security and privacy. See www.rfidvirus.org and www.rfidguardian.org.
What can we expect to see developed for MINIX in the future?
We are adding some missing features now like virtual memory and USB support, but the focus of the research is very high reliability and self healing.
If Linux's Tux penguin and MINIX's raccoon faced off in a fight to the death, who would win?
Raccoons are quite aggressive. Penguins are not. There would be chicken for dinner.
Andrew Tanenbaum can be contacted through a variety of ways listed at his website, www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/.
Matthew Mikolay (matt.mik<AT SYMBOL>hotmail.com) is a software developer and student in New Jersey. He has interests in open source software, Linux, and security.
Would you like to be a Community Voices blogger? If so, please send a letter of interest and a sample blog entry (what you would post here if you were already a blogger for us) to forums@pcworld.com. We'd love to hear your perspective.
What I Don't Like About Ubuntu Linux....
I've finally done it. I've managed to successfully install Ubuntu on a computer that runs at a decent speed. That said, I thought I'd give you my opinion of Ubuntu. Yes, I am a Linux guy, and I may always support Linux, but that doesn't mean I can't criticize it!
First I must say that the install process was pretty simple. I did test both the text-based and graphic-based installer, and the graphic-based installer was much easier to use. I found that the keyboard detection in the text-based installer was not always correct, and more configurations were asked about the host computer in general. The common user may not know the answer to all the questions asked.
Setting up DHCP might not also be easy for the common user. I forgot to plug my ethernet cable in, and Ubuntu obviously gave me an error, along with a few things to check before retrying the DHCP setup. None of them even included checking if the ethernet cable was plugged in. Sure, it may be common sense, but not all users have common sense.
When I first started up Ubuntu, I was pleased. It was very simple and easy to use. However, installing programs was another story. Ubuntu uses Synaptic to manage its programs, but also has an ?Add/Remove Applications? button under the applications menu. I thought this was a direct link to Synaptic, but it turned out I was wrong. ?Add/Remove Applications? does not list all of the software in the selected repositories, only the ones that this Ubuntu program manager can support. Synaptic does the rest. I wish I was told this before I became frantic over looking for wxWidgets in Ubuntu's repositories.
The next thing that I found complicated was setting up screen resolution. I never really got what I wanted, because whenever I tried to change the resolution, my screen would just go black. I don't know if this was just my monitor, but Linux has never had the greatest support for video.
Although I hate to do it, I must give credit to Microsoft for adding a high level of customization to the window manager in Windows. Microsoft allows you to get rid of certain features to speed up your computer, like having shadows under windows, smooth scrolling, and smooth text. Ubuntu does allow you to change the complexity of the window manager, but only offers three levels of customization. I could not find an option to enable or disable specific features.
Ubuntu does satisfy all of my needs, but is not a perfect operating system like some people claim. Windows and Mac clearly dominate over Linux in certain areas, but I personally prefer Linux because of what I do. The world will never see a perfect operating system. Perhaps the closest we will ever get is Singularity. Oh, and it's made by...Microsoft!?!?!
Matthew Mikolay (matt.mik<AT SYMBOL>hotmail.com) is a software developer and student in New Jersey. He has interests in open source software, Linux, and security.
Would you like to be a Community Voices blogger? If so, please send a letter of interest and a sample blog entry (what you would post here if you were already a blogger for us) to forums@pcworld.com. We'd love to hear your perspective.
You are a "Linux guy" and you say you had difficulty setting up Ubuntu? I'm just an ordinary computer user and I must say Ubuntu is far easier to set up than Windows XP. I installed it (Hardy Heron) on my Lenovo 3000 laptop and everything worked and I mean everything. No driver issues at all. Even the webcam worked beautifully. No drivers needed. I had problems with Vista Home Basic. The laptop would hang often and otherwise crawled. I've been using Ubuntu 8.04 since the past 3 months for surfing the net, word processing, spreadsheets, multimedia and it's working great. NO VIRUS OR SPYWARE which is constant headache with windows. So I'd say this is the thing for me.
Step up to Vista!!
G-Man
Yea, i must agree... the sentance "I've finally done it. I've managed to successfully install Ubuntu". You've managed? As in you've managed to pop the disk into the CD-ROM drive and restart your computer?
Linux guy?
Purchasing Windows XP
As you may or may not know, retailers can no longer sell computers with Windows XP preinstalled. Microsoft designated June 30, 2008 as the end-of-life for Windows XP. However, if you absolutely have to have Windows XP on your next computer there is another option. Through the end of December 2008 you can take advantage of Windows Vista Downgrade Rights.
With Downgrade Rights, customers can purchase select versions of the Windows Vista operating system, including Windows Vista Business and Windows Vista Ultimate, but have Windows XP Professional installed instead. Businesses that choose this option will receive a backup disc for Windows XP Professional and an installation disc for Windows Vista. Plus, as long as the vendor has installed the operating system, you'll be able to receive technical support for the duration of the system's Limited Warranty.
Ryan Williams
Ask Me A Tech Question
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Visiting Google's Cafe Thoreau
I haven't visited Google's headquarters, but I've heard about the various cafe's (i.e. cafeterias) on their corporate campus. If I were to visit the Google campus, I would ask to be directed to Cafe Thoreau. This cafe doesn't yet exist, but maybe it should.
Cafe Thoreau serves healthy, low-cost vegetarian food cooked primarily by solar cookers. The variables that are maximized at this cafe are low-cost and health. Taste, however, is not sacrificed.
Meals at Cafe Thoreau can be cooked using the Villager Sun Oven, which can cook as many as 1,200 meals per day. On weekends, when Googlers are presumably not working, the Villager Solar Oven could be loaned to different community events in San Francisco and surrounding areas.
At Cafe Thoreau, all served dishes have detailed listing of their ingredients. Why? People out there have different food allergies. They're entitled to know what they're eating.
Here's the interesting part. Google can harness the wisdom of the crowds to come up with the best recipes for foods served at Cafe Thoreau. I've got a couple of great recipes to submit. Honest. Check in at http://www.google.com/cafethoreau in a few weeks to submit your own recipes.
By this point you might be wondering why this cafe is called Cafe Thoreau and not Cafe Gandhi. I've been wondering about that, too.
By any measure, Gandhi is who the cafe ought to be named for. Gandhi's gift to the world is so huge, we are just beginning to appreciate it.
But look who Gandhi read. (See the fourth paragraph down.) Henry David Thoreau latched onto ideas eternal in value and resonant within the hearts of all who walk the Earth (as well as those who crawl, swim, and fly.)
Last year the editor-in-chief of PCWorld, Harry McCracken, walked off his job rather than bow to pressure from someone who told him what was permissible or not permissible to write in the magazine. It's almost guaranteed that Harry McCracken has read Thoreau. I'm going to thoroughly enjoy sitting down for a meal with Harry sometime at Google's Cafe Thoreau.
To walk into the future you need vision, courage, smarts and a good cafe. At this cafe the food needs to be well done. Not just "cooked" well done. Well done in thought, too.
And then we all move forward.
Phil Shapiro
The blogger is an adjunct professor of education and a technology commentator in the Washington DC-area. He studied engineering and philosophy in college and is the author of a chapter titled, "Some Thoughts on the Economics of Education Delivery" in the new book Education Technology: Critical Perspectives and Possible Futures. He can be reached at: philshapiroblogger@gmail.com
Prior blog postings -
YouTube Reaches a Billion Video Views per Day
After Lightning Strikes, One iMac Becomes Two
It Feels Like Freedom is Coming
Book Review - Google SketchUp for Dummmies
Computer Backups and Cobian
I am often asked what is the best way to backup work and home computers. Today, just about everyone understands the importance of backups. If you don't, consider this: 100% of hard drives will fail at some point. They are mechanical devices with moving parts. They will fail.
In my opinion, the only way for a backup scheme to be successful over the long run is for it to be automated. A program you might want to consider for this is Cobian Backup. Cobian Backup is a FREE simple backup program developed by Luis Cobian. The program can be executed as either a normal application or as a Windows Service. (Normal applications have to be initiated by a user, either by logging onto the computer or by manually launching the application. Windows Services, on the other hand, do not have to be initiated by the computer user. As long as the computer is turned on, the program is running.) The program can schedule automatic backups for files and directories locally, to shared folders on other computers or to FTP servers, and it can use file compression and encryption.
You can download Cobian Backup here: http://www.educ.umu.se/~cobian/programz/cbSetup.exe
I recommend backing up to external USB hard drives or file servers. For laptop users, I recommend having two backup jobs scheduled. One to backup to a USB drive in your office during lunch, and one to backup to a USB drive at home when you bring your laptop home in the evenings. This way you have multiple copies of your data in the event something happens to either location.
The most important thing is to get at least one backup every day with the process being automated. There are other automated ways to backup office computers which require a network administrator to implement. However, even if you have one of these solutions in place, I still recommend having personal backups of your own. You cannot have too many backups, and I have had to fall back to them too many times to leave anything to chance.
If you have never implemented anything I have recommended in this blog, please do this. Backup your computer daily. Hard drives do fail. I see it all the time.
Happy teching,
Ryan Williams
Ask Me A Tech Question
http://www.techbetter.com/question.aspx
View & Subscribe To My Tech Tips
http://blog.techbetter.com
About Me & TechBetter
http://www.techbetter.com/aboutme.aspx
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