Comments on: So, Santa Claus Brought You a Netbook?

By: Jason Barone

Jason Barone — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 14:14:32 +0000

I love the fact that you’re sticking with free software.

I love these netbooks. I can’t wait until SSDs come down in price and I can’t wait for browsers and web apps to mature more so I can eliminate some software in favor of web-based versions.

By: Erwin

Erwin — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 17:19:53 +0000

I feel sorry for you guys… I have 10:30 hours with the 1005HA :-)

By: Sunil Khanna

Sunil Khanna — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 16:18:07 +0000

I’ve also got Acer Aspire with 6 cell battery, 2 GB ram and running windows 7.

I’ve disabled all unnecessary services and all radios except wifi are usually off.

Still, I’m just getting 1.5 hours max from my netbook.

Can’t figure out what’s wrong.

By: Bailey

Bailey — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 14:10:37 +0000

Nice post. If you only have a 3 cell battery, strongly recommend getting the six cell.

To get longer battery life, you may want to disable google desktop, unnecessary system services, wifi, bluetooth and virus scan while traveling. I can get over 6 hours on my acer aspire running win xp.

By: Dan Oblak

Dan Oblak — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 06:33:02 +0000

Perfect! I was just about to do a similar write-up (for the throngs of relatives, coworkers, and old friends that come out of the woodwork every year about this time to ask the same questions).

I’d done the same thing a couple of years ago (http://macbigot.com/?p=983 ); but it’s exciting to see how the field has improved since then. For instance, we all are doing a lot more ‘in the cloud’ now; and the only thing I am dismayed at is how far behind Pidgin is when compared to the cleaner, less clumsy interface of Adium (a similar tool available for Mac OSX users).

For my next trick, I’m going to hope to turn a higher-res HP mini (the 5101 looks nice) into a Hackintosh — but along with the self-imposed open-source-only rule, I’ll probably include Adobe’s Illustrator (wish they made an ‘Elements’ version), as it’s the only thing I haven’t been able to replace with free software yet (and yes, I’ve tried the lot of vector apps listed on SourceForge).

In fact, if it weren’t for my need of Illustrator, I’d be looking at an easier install overall — because I could go with Linux instead of the Mac OS.

By: Erwin

Erwin — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 01:08:14 +0000

Same gift here! :-)

Still looking for the best sync software with my other laptop…

By: Mike Licht

Mike Licht — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 20:40:12 +0000

Attention: Santa has left the building.

See:

http://notionscapital.wordpress.com/2009/12/26/22877/

By: Buzz Bruggeman

Buzz Bruggeman — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 18:56:53 +0000

Agreed as to the Ram. I have an HP Mini, and adding a second Gig of Ram made a huge difference in performance.

By: Jason Harris

Jason Harris — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 16:27:04 +0000

You’re lucky that Santa brought you the 1005HA. I’ve had mine for a few months now and I absolutely love it.

One tip: Not sure how much RAM it came with, but you can install 2GB yourself pretty easily. RAM is cheap too and will add to the 1005HA’s usability.

-Jason