Good Eee PC summary
Our last post mentioned the Asus Eee PC and Everex CloudBook ultra-mobile PC's (UMPC, for short). Today a Geeks.com Tech Tips post did a good job of summarizing the features of the Eee PC. Find it here.
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Our last post mentioned the Asus Eee PC and Everex CloudBook ultra-mobile PC's (UMPC, for short). Today a Geeks.com Tech Tips post did a good job of summarizing the features of the Eee PC. Find it here.
It started with the Asus Eee. Now comes the CloudBook by Everex. In this approximately $400 price range, there are two simple, cheap, and highly portable sub-notebook PC's attracting attention. The primary difference between the two machines is that the Asus Eee uses a Solid State Drive (SSD) while the Everex CloudBook opts for a traditional hard drive. This difference makes the Eee more shock resistant, but gives the CloudBook a huge edge in storage capacity. Plus, the CloudBook has a larger battery, eliminating any edge the SSD would otherwise give the Eee in battery life.
The Eee is available at a wide variety of on-line retailers, but demand is high, so there may be a delay in availability. The CloudBook will be available at WalMart as well as on-line.
Neither PC ships with Windows. Both run alternative operating systems that allow users to do most of what they could do on a Windows PC, except, of course, actually run Windows apps. The Eee runs a variant of the Linux OS called Xandros. The CloudBook runs gOS, yet another Linux distribution. Both come with a full compliment of productivity software. If your interest is primarily web surfing (including the ability to use browser-based Web 2.0 applications), email and document creation or editing, these machines will work fine. If you need to run specialized applications that are Windows-only, look elsewhere. Don't forget that a bottom-end traditional Windows notebook PC can often be found for under $500, but it will be much larger and heavier than either the Eee or CloudBook.
Rumors are all of the Internet that Microsoft has placed its next operating system, Windows 7, on a fast-track for release during the second half of next year (2009). This may be based on the perception that Vista is, if not a failure, at least not a huge improvement over XP. There seems to be a consensus that it runs perhaps 10% slower than XP on the same hardware, even with the advanced graphical features disabled. That could change when Vista's Service Pack 1 is released in the very near future.
There is also evidence, at least based on Dell's production, that small business customers continue to choose XP over Vista by a better than 2 to 1 margin. My own new notebook PC came with XP Pro, not Vista, so I clearly fall into that small-business majority. However, the vast majority of consumer-grade machines (such as my son's new desktop PC) are being purchased with Vista. Microsoft is allowing computer manufacturers to continue offering XP as an option on new computers through June 30, 2008.
If Microsoft's next operating system is less than two years away, and with no compelling reason for small business users such as law firms to leave XP, is Vista merely a stop-gap OS like the much-maligned Windows ME?
If your notebook PC didn't come with an integrated web cam, consider the Creative Live!Cam Laptop Webcam on sale at Circuit City until February 9 for $9.99 after a $20 mail-in rebate. Use it for video conferencing or keeping in touch with your family while your travel.
Protecting our clients and ourselves isn't easy in an era of rampant identity theft. Nothing with identifying or potentially confidential information should go directly into the trash. For big jobs (such as destruction of multiple old paper files) there are commercial services available - most of which are mobile and will come to your home or office.
But for the smaller daily destruction jobs, you will want a shredder at home and at the office. Currently (through February 9) Staples is running a sale on shredders ranging in price from $15 to $200. At the top end of that range, the shredders micro-cut the documents and also shreds CD's, DVD's, and credit cards.
