Matt, where do you see the OS lacking? What kind of stuff are you doing on the machine?

Once I got KDE up and running (which runs so well, btw! I was shocked) I was very happy.

I still haven't spent alot of time on my EEE (4gb), so I can't provide a very extensive review. I did loan the machine to a couple who did a 3 week trip to california with it and they were super happy with the machine. From my perspective, it doesn't look more used or abused even though it was bouncing around in a topbox on dirt roads around the grand canyon. I don't think I would have loaned them a Macbook Air if I had one for their trip

Matt, are you running with a larger virtual display? That was the one thing they complained about was that they had to tab around off-screen because some dialog boxes were too large for the 800x600 display.

__________________
http://davegtravels.com - RTW on a DRZ
All the way south - Texas to Tierra del Fuego in '08-'09

So I've been using the eee PC as my main machine for about two weeks now - first week on the road in Cannes and the second week at a lab in Yorkshire.

I've spent some more time with the OS and got the KDE running pretty much as I want it - but as you say the 800 px screen is limiting in some cases - but frankly the only issues were with software setting dialogue boxes - hooked it up to an external display at 1024, put the settings in and from there on everything has been fine.

I am finding the repositories a bit limiting on Xandros though - I've still not found a decent RSS reader, a decent Podcast agrigator and the flickr plugins are very limited. The problem is since Xandros have officially said that the debian repositories will break the distro...

I'll give it another week - I'm managing to do 99% of what I need a laptop on the road to do - in fact I'm managing to use it as my main work machine - so on the road with the bike shouldn't cause a problem.

m

__________________
------------------
http://thelondonbiker.com/blog

Watch some of my camp cooking videos

AIM: mattcashmore
SKYPE: matthewcashmore
MSN: matthew@matthewcashmore.com

Quoi?, Sorry, Parlay Vouse, Anglaisee???

__________________

Lol - I'll try agian.

I am finding the {online databases containing software for linix operating systems} a bit limiting on {the particular version of linux the eee ships with} though - I've still not found a decent {news feed} reader, a decent Podcast {downloading software} and the flickr {uploading tools}. {another more widly used version of linux} {online databases containing software for linux operating systems} will break the {operating system the eee pc ships with}

That makes even less sense. Next time I'll write it in binary.

m

__________________
------------------
http://thelondonbiker.com/blog

Watch some of my camp cooking videos

AIM: mattcashmore
SKYPE: matthewcashmore
MSN: matthew@matthewcashmore.com

No no !
I prefer the second version , at last I am beginning to understand .

__________________
Blessed are the cracked, for they let in the light. - Spike Milligan
"When you come to a fork in the road ,take it ! When you come to a spoon in the road ,take that also ."

Heheh, I forgot about the broad audience here . That is what makes this forum good.

To nerd out a bit more..sorry folks:
I'm a longtime work linux user (I write software for linux clusters) and haven't had it at home for many years, so I don't have any ideas on what people use to do .. homely things. I have apples at home

What portable media player are you sycing to? What do ipod users use?
What podcast agrigators have you tried? Do you want?
People still use the GIMP for photo retouching?
How about video editing?
Any other tips for blog/youtube/writing/photo-travel workflow?

I plan to write scripts / light apps to fill in the gaps if necessary. But I'm pretty lazy, so I'd like to find things close enough Everything I do will be free/open for others to use, of course. That'll be the nice thing about not working, I own my own ideas again!

__________________
http://davegtravels.com - RTW on a DRZ
All the way south - Texas to Tierra del Fuego in '08-'09

Welcome on board we need a linux nerd here. I have trouble running video on mine straight out of the box. I use unix at work but just a few commands no programming. So I think I can follow instructions but I've tried a few lines from other forums without success. Any ideas? I can bring up the terminal window but I need a guide in there! I only have the 2GB version so it may be limited. My current video settings are XV + OSS.

If you give me one of the videos, I'll try to figure out how to play it on the eeeeee. Oh yeah, I'll tell you how I did it afterwards.

__________________
http://davegtravels.com - RTW on a DRZ
All the way south - Texas to Tierra del Fuego in '08-'09

what do you guys think of the panasonic tough book?

Daveg, PM me your e-mail address and I'll send you a vid.

I've got three toughbooks that I've purchased used over the years. They are great, but quite bulky, and they run Windows, so by the time you put on anti-virus, etc. (mandatory for a travel computer, I think) the old ones I have run quite slowly--my last one literally took 20 minutes to boot up (again, this is an old one overtaxed by anti-virus software). I have recently picked up an EEE and am very impressed with its price, features, and quick boot up.

I really like the idea of to EEE, but one of the main reason for carrying a laptop is to run Mapsource and the GPS. So I need Windows. And Mapsource must be installed from CD, (though I have seen cracks to bypass this), but my US Topo map wants the CD in the drive to upload maps to the GPS, and to view on the computer. And my 100gig harddrive is almost full as it is on this machine.

So sadly the EEE is not for me.

What is the next best laptop for the road then?? One running Windows, with a 100+gig harddrive and a CD/DVD drive, and most importantly, one that will survive life in the top box on the back of a KLR.

Cheers for your thoughts

The EEE will run Windows and you can buy many many external CD drives (quite small too) - Buy an Amacom 24x Slimline CD-Rom Drive with USB 2.0, #AMA-BYCD2-U - eXpansys UK - but your drive space is still a problem - you'd have to invest in an external drive or perhaps one of the larger iPods. At which point you start to lose the point of having a very small, light portable machine!

This really depends on how much you want to spend - if money isn't an issue without doubt the best machines to stand up to hard knocks (have a good read back through this thread quite a few have been suggested and I'm just sumarising here) would be a ToughBook - they're doing quite a wide range now, and the semi tough jobs are really quite good.

Middle of the road would be something like the IBM ThinkPad (now owned b Lenovo) - really rugged machines - with almost decent sized HDs and good performance.

Finally, and if this were me this would be my option, I'd go to the local supermarket (as pointed out by Alex) and buy the cheapest laptop I could lay my hands on. Any machine if thrown around in your top box / on the road for any time that isn't something along the lines of a toughbook will die - why waste a lot of money? Factor the cost (around £300) into your travel costs - if you get home and it's still working - bonus!

I've just realised that the first option is pretty much what I'll be taking with me (the eee with external CD and HD) - and apart from running Windows - it works just fine for me :-)

Dave - yay geeks! Answers to your questions....

What portable media player are you sycing to? What do ipod users use?

I'm using a standard iPod - I make a habit of encoding everything to MP3 - so my whole library plays just fine through the bundled music player.

What podcast agrigators have you tried? Do you want?

I've actually not found one at all - I'm also struggling to even find a decent RSS reader - at the moment I'm using the stuff inside firefox and am hunting for a podcast firefox plugin - ideally i just want something that will grab them when I'm online for later use - I enjoy my podcasts - especially Rally Radio
- my only option at the moment appears to get out of the Xandros repositories and head back into Debian - but I'm really concerned I'll brick it.

People still use the GIMP for photo retouching?

Gotta love the GIMP!

How about video editing?

Nothing for the moment - with the exception of extremely basic editing I'm not sure the Eee could deal with it very well - I've got the bundled video recorder working well enough to upload decent diary pieces to YouTube and given it's recording in 3GP I'm quite impressed with the results. I don't think I'll be dropping any of my Z1 HDV stuff to it!

Any other tips for blog/youtube/writing/photo-travel workflow?


This is where I'm putting my time right now... so blog writing - still searching for an off-line blog writer - many available for Mac and PC (in fact the Windows Live one is actually very good - may God strike me down) - some available in the Ubuntu repositories but I can't find anything for Xandros at the moment - so I'm writing in a text editor then copying and pasting when I'm online then dropping in the images - not the most time efficient method of writing but it does work - it also means that if I can't find a wi-fi connection I can grab the SD card out of my Eee and dump the file to the internet cafe computer with ease - and given the Eee is linux I'm not overly concerned about the viruses etc that may get transmitted to me via the card - I run a virus scan on the card when I get it back but that's more to stop me spreading stuff the next time I use a PC.

YouTube - works well - uploading simple 3GP videos from the internal camera works just fine through the browser - file sizes are so small doesn't seem necessary to run a dedicated app for the upload. Might be nice to have a very basic video editing tool that would allow me to top and tail the diary piece with some credits. Am going to try some AVI from my handheld photo camera - but I suspect the file sizes may be an issue on public wi-fi.

Photos - the inbuilt photo manager is actually quite good. I've changed it's home directory to the 8gb SD card that now lives in the machines slot and I dump the images from my camera straight there - I'm carrying a second SD card for when that gets full - at £14.99 storage is cheap!

Workflow wise - it's okay - you can upload albums or selected files to flickr with an upload tool - but it requires authorisation EVERY time it connects which is a bit of a pain - but as you're online when you're doing it, it only takes a couple of seconds and then you're away. Decent tagging options available and album control.

Videos - playing them - not really had an issue - I'm playing stuff encoded in MPEG2 and 4 without issues and most WMV files - I've got some issues with newer WMV files but that's such a small part of what I download I'm not really concerned. Online video streaming (iPlayer etc) works just fine.

I'll stop typing now.

__________________
------------------
http://thelondonbiker.com/blog

Watch some of my camp cooking videos

AIM: mattcashmore
SKYPE: matthewcashmore
MSN: matthew@matthewcashmore.com

Matt what are your video settings. Daveg has offered to help me get my vids to play so I'll send him one to try. I should find time tomorrow.

justabum:

I run windows on my eee (been using it and punishing it for 4 months on the road now) and map source also.

Buy an external dvd drive and install windows from it, and mapsource as well.

Use an usb stick if you need to transfer files and so on.

fantastic laptop

__________________
Peter Kongsbak
South East Asia, USA, Central and South America and Scandinavia.