This Week at Mobile Tech Manor #53: Windows 7, Netbooks and Dead Batteries

Mobile Tech Manor Large 2The end of the week is rushing straight at us, which can only mean one thing — time to share that week with you, dear readers. It’s column #53, and since this is a weekly column that means it has entered its second year! That is so exciting I can’t tell you! It was a fittingly busy week, with Kevin out for a much-deserved vacation, so I was holding down the fort alone. It was like it was when I first started jkOnTheRun, except with a lot better gear surrounding me. Come on in and let me tell you what has been happening at Mobile Tech Manor this week.

Netbooks- What’s in a Name?

Netbooks are growing more popular than ever. I see them out in public all the time, and stores have them in stock as a matter of course. The companies that produce them are still introducing new models, and the prices keep dropping. I don’t believe prices can keep dropping much more, but as usually happens with computers I think components will get better and the prices will hold steady. Which is sort of like a price drop.

I have a few netbooks in MTM currently but my favorite of the week is the HP Mini 5101. The metal casing, small size and good performance make it my choice to grab when I’m heading out the door. The good performance is aided by the fast hard drive; HP decided to only offer it with a 7,200 rpm drive and I am convinced that’s making a difference over similarly configured netbooks. The other netbooks have either a 5,400 rpm or worse, a 4,200 rpm drive. Those netbooks may be gentler on the battery but based on my experience with the 5101 and the faster drive, I’ll take the fast drive every time.

That big 160 GB drive made it easy to install Windows 7 RTM this week. It was a pretty painless install once I made a good USB stick for the install. Netbooks don’t have optical drives, so you either plug in an external drive or use a USB stick, and I chose the latter method. It’s not difficult to build a USB stick for the install; I used the clear instructions and utilities I found on the web. The beauty of this method is that I now have a USB stick that can be used to install Windows 7 on any netbook. I used a nice, big, 16 GB USB stick, which is big enough to allow me to store programs and other needed files for the install in addition to the Windows 7 files.

When I installed Windows 7 Ultimate on the Mini 5101, it took about half an hour. When it was completed I only found a few things that would not work on the Mini, the most pressing of which was no Wi-Fi. I was ready for that possibility, and since the wired Ethernet was working I plugged in and went to the HP Support site to get what I needed. I downloaded drivers for Vista Ultimate, which all worked OK under Windows 7.

Once I installed the wireless LAN drivers I was able to get Wi-Fi working. I ran a Windows Update, after which only two other components were still not working. I downloaded the Synaptics drivers and utilities to get the touchpad working fully. It was doing OK, but the Synaptics configuration options weren’t installed and the scroll areas on the touchpad weren’t working, either.

The last USB “unknown device” was the HP DriveGuard component. DriveGuard is the sensor that detects when the netbook is dropped or jolted, at which point the drive heads are parked to protect the disk from damage. I downloaded the utility from HP and everything was working normally once it was installed.

I’m happy with Windows 7 on the Mini; it’s performing well and the new interface is better for netbooks than XP. I am particularly enjoying having a big battery gauge on the desktop, something that is incredibly useful on a netbook. Aero was working from the first boot with no noticeable performance hit. Once Windows 7 was working properly I immediately loaded up my “must-have” programs to get busy. The list, in the order of importance, for me is:

  • Firefox
  • Google Chrome
  • GoBoingo
  • SnagIT
  • Skype
  • Tweetdeck
  • OpenOffice
  • PDF Complete (pre-installed by HP, downloaded the Vista version)

These programs I had copied to the USB stick that I used for the install so I just loaded them back-to-back. All told, it took me about an hour to get the system built the way I wanted, which is not bad for Windows.

I always install Firefox first and immediately add the Xmarks add-on. This quickly syncs all of my bookmarks and builds my bookmark toolbar in Firefox and brings my environment up to snuff. I then install Chrome and tell it to import the bookmarks from Firefox and in just a few minutes I have both browsers updated with all of my information. I like to have both browsers on Windows systems as I usually find Chrome to be faster, but I do like Firefox better. Google Chrome is faster on the Mini, so it’s my default browser.

I do have one odd situation with Firefox on the Mini 5101. It existed under Windows XP, too, so it’s not a Windows 7 problem. When I use Google Reader in Firefox on the Mini, I usually hit F11 to put Firefox in full-screen mode. I then use the j and k keys to go to the next/previous item in Reader. This doesn’t work in Firefox on the Mini, and I’ve checked everything I can think of. Hitting the j or k key does absolutely nothing in Reader, something I’ve never seen on any other computer. This works fine under the Chrome browser; it’s just Firefox that will not work properly. All other key shortcuts work in Firefox as they should; it’s only the j and k keys that won’t work. This is maddening as they are the most used keys in Reader the way I work. Or rather, the way I should work. I absolutely have to use Chrome for Reader for this reason alone, and my research on the problem has turned up nothing. This only happens on the Mini 5101, and under both XP and Win 7. It is very bizarre.

Speaking of netbooks, this week I was involved in a little debate over Twitter about the term, yet again. Some people are taking offense to the fact that people refer to the new CULV-based laptops as netbooks. My position is, who cares what we call them? They, like netbooks, are small, thin, light, cheap notebooks. They aren’t quite as small, thin, light or cheap as netbooks, but almost. I just can’t get excited about what we call netbooks and what we don’t. They are little laptops, and that’s good enough for me. It’s what they do that’s important to me, not what we call them.

Whatever we call them, I’ve been promised an evaluation unit that I’m excited about. The Mimo 720-S is the external 7-inch display that hooks up to any computer, or netbook, via USB, which adds a touchscreen for additional screen space. This Mimo folds flat for mobility and while I don’t imagine it’s something I’d routinely carry around, it’s cool that I could if need be. I’m thinking that it would be very practical to have a small second screen while working at a desk with a netbook. It’s very cool that it’s powered via the USB, so no brick required.

The Battery is Dead

I ordered a Seidio extended battery for my Palm Pre to add a little battery life. I’m using the free Sprint Navigation service on the Pre and it eats the battery pretty quickly. The Seidio battery is the same size as the original Palm battery meaning it can use the same Pre back for the Touchstone charger. I used the Seidio happily for a week and then one morning I awoke to discover that the Pre had a dead battery, even though it was sitting on the Touchstone charger.

I did some troubleshooting and determined that the Seidio battery would no longer charge with the Touchstone. I could direct charge it via USB but not on the Touchstone charger. I contacted Seidio and they rushed a replacement battery to me. They said no one else has reported this problem.

I installed the new Seidio and so far it’s worked fine all week, though I’m keeping a wary eye on it to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Other than this one problem, I find the 15 percent extra battery to be useful.

e-Books of the Week

Time was tight for reading this week but I still got through some good books. I did most of my reading on the HTC Advantage and that 5-inch screen definitely let me read faster than on the smaller phone screens. I started off the week with a good thriller, “The Siege” by Stephen White. This novel found suspended Boulder cop Sam Purdy in Miami where events sucked him into dealing with a hostage situation on the Yale campus. It was an enjoyable read by all counts.

The next book I read this week has excited me as it exposed me to a new detective series I had previously missed. “Until Proven Guilty” by J. A. Jance is the first book in a series that is now up to 18 novels and it introduced detective J. P. (Beau) Beaumont. Beau is a regular guy who is a good detective in Seattle and I enjoyed the heck out of this book. I was so excited to find another good series to read, and I wasted no time in picking up the second book. “Injustice for All” continued the story of Beaumont right where the first book left him and I raced right through this one, too. I’m just starting the third book in the series and only have 16 more to go. My wallet is going to get awfully thin. Ms. Jance has quickly moved into my “favorite author” club.

Wrap-up

That’s it for this week, I hope you enjoyed sharing it with me. Netbooks definitely offer the most bang for the buck when it comes to mobile devices. Wow, I just checked and this week I have published 12,450 words! It was definitely a busy week. Until next week, don’t sit in one place too long — be mobile.

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