Tuesday, January 10, 2012

This Thin Madness

I really don't understand the 'thin' and 'ultra-thin' craze for notebooks - and it's all Intel's fault - at least for now. If the objective for the 'thin' craze is weight - i.e., the thinner it is, the lighter the resulting notebook, then it is understandable although there are other ways of reducing weight. If the objective is purely aesthetics, then I think the whole thing is crazy. As a direct result of the notebook being very thin, the number of ports (USB or otherwise) tends towards zero; plus the disappearance of the optical drive. Personally, I object to this - so, I will not even consider purchasing an 'ultra-book' (as Intel terms it). I would rather spend my money on a laptop with as many port as possible and with an optical reader/writer built-in.

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Netbook Redux

After reviewing all my previous blogs, I realize that a majority of them involved my 2 netbooks, The Lenovo and the HP Mini. I also realize that I now mostly use the Lenovo as a "download" machine - i.e., whenever I have a download job to carry out (whether via BitTorrent or FTP), I normally use leave it to my netbook and run the jobs overnight. This way I save electricity since the power requirement of the netbook is much less than my desktop PC.

The HP Mini is hardly used at all and remained a "test" machine - i.e., whenever there is a new "designed for netbook" OS comes along, I normally use it to try the OS out. One big flaw in this machine is that the 'lid close detection and sleep' bug is still not resolved for all Linux distributions - so it is useless as a mobile unit - unless I resort to using Windows XP again.

The netbooks also proved to be most cumbersome to use as e-book readers as they are physically awkward to hold in the hands and difficult to use in the 'portrait' orientation. Because of this, and my love of reading books, I succumb to desire and purchased myself an Android tablet (the Acer Iconia A500) which is now in use more often than the netbooks.

The question 'are netbooks dead?' being bandied around the IT industry has now been answered as far as my personal experience goes. I am now left with the question of what to do with the units. Anybody wants to purchase 2 used netbooks? :)

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

A "New" Beginning

As I reflect on the past year activities, I realize that one of the "most forgotten" thing was my blog. Well, it was not totally forgotten - its just that every time I decide to sit down and compose a new blog, something always comes up that require my immediate attention. So, alas, my blog suffered.

This year, however, I resolve (there's that word again :)) to do something about it. I resolve that instead of on giant article every time, I will post snippets on my thoughts on technology and how it affects my life. That's my resolution for 2012.

Speaking of 2012, did the Mayan know something that we don't? Or is it because that their calendar just could not go beyond December 2012 that everyone thinks that is how much time we humans have left. Are we humans going out with a 'bang' or just a 'whimper'?