I’ve been using my Eee heavily for 5 days now and I figured I would post a second impression. As I mentioned in my previous post, the Eee is tiny and thats why I am loving it so much. Its very light weighing around 900grams which makes it very easy to lug around and pick up with just one hand. I really can’t wait till my next business trip so I could carry this with me.

The Eee version I got was the Linux version which comes with a 20GB hard drive. The system OS is very easy to use because Asus have a very simple and basic interface setup by default. When you first turn on the computer it takes less than 30 seconds, maybe around 20 to boot up. You are then greeted with a colorful and simple icon based interface with tabs on top. If you want Internet apps you click on Internet, if you want work apps you click on work, very easy. Since I wanted a bit more control I installed the advanced interface which is similar to most Linux and Windows based systems.

Here are some quick tidbits: I’ve gotten used to the keyboard but the problem is I can’t type properly on other keyboards now! The battery life is around 4 hours with normal use while the speaker volume is surprisingly louder than my Macbook which is cool and the screen is really sharp and very viewable from a lot of angles. Its also as bright as any other laptop screen. Overall I can’t find much to complain about. Although its a 900mhz celeron the Eee is very snappy with most programs launching nearly instantly.

My only issue with the Eee I guess is that when its running on batteries the CPU speed drops to 630mhz to save power and I haven’t found a way to turn this off. Other than that I have no regrets whatsoever with this Eee, I would definitely recommend it.

Update: Just an FYI, I haven’t seen the Eee 900 in Kuwait. All the ones I’ve seen here are the 7inch screen version, this one is 8.9inch. I ordered mine from Amazon for around KD140 and paid around KD8 for shipping to Kuwait with USWS. It didn’t get held in customs, probably cuz the box is really small. Here are links to the Eee 900 on Amazon:
Asus Eee 900 with Windows [Link]
Asus Eee 900 with Linux [Link]

My Asus Eee 900 arrived today from the States and its amazing. I had seen the previous version of the Eee with the smaller screen but the new 8.9inch screen with the higher resolution is wayyyy better. Like most Eee users have mentioned before, the keyboard is tiny which is going to take time to get used to. Currently I am touch typing this post from my Eee and I am doing fine except every few words I hit a wrong letter or two.

The size of the actual laptop is really tiny as you can tell from the picture above. Its a one lap laptop! I have the 20GB version of the Eee that comes installed with a custom Linux OS and I think its really cool so far. Boot time is like under 30 seconds and FireFox is runs great. I am really loving the Eee.

The Eee cost me KD140 and you can purchase it from Amazon:
Asus Eee 900 with Windows [Link]
Asus Eee 900 with Linux [Link]

Yesterday I posted about the HP 2133 and just awhile ago my partner at work brought his friends HP 2133 into the office. First impressions, its a lot bigger and heavier than I expected. The Asus Eee feels tiny and very light compared to the HP. Windows XP was installed on the HP which was running pretty smoothly. I wasn’t able to test out videos but XP booted up at a decent speed and all the applications seem to open instantaneously. The system I had was the 1.6ghz with 1.75GB of RAM, this version I think costs like $800 which isn’t cheap.

The screen is really great and the keyboard felt like a regular laptop keyboard, big keys and all spaced out nicely. But, the size and weight of this thing has really pushed me towards the Asus Eee 900.

Update: I forgot to mention, the trackpad with the trackpad buttons are the worst I have ever used.

Since my MacBook died on me I have been having a dilemma, what laptop should I get? Here are laptops I am currently considering:

MacBook
I love the MacBook’s and even though mine died I do want to get another one. Problem is there are rumors that a new MacBook will be released in the next few months that will be a significant upgrade from the current ones. Knowing that I can’t possibly get a MacBook now. [Amazon Link]

MacBook Pro
I’ve never been a fan of the aluminum Mac’s. I never liked the PowerBook’s and I don’t like the new MacBook Pro’s. But, I am typing this post out on Nat’s MacBook Pro and I have to admit I do love the screen resolution and the fact that the speakers are loud, two things I had problems with on my old MacBook. But, its huge, I find the 13″ MacBook big so imagine what I think of this 15″ MacBook Pro. I’ve also heard a lot of rumors about a completely redesigned MacBook Pro, one that will incorporate the look of the MacBook Air so I will wait and see what happens with that. [Amazon Link]

MacBook Air
Gorgeous but slow and expensive. I wouldn’t mind paying $2000 if it was at least faster than the cheapest MacBook which costs $1099. [Amazon Link]

So basically with my Mac options I am just going to wait for the next updates and then decide what to get. Until the new Mac’s come out I am considering getting one of those new ultra portable laptops. I figured even if I do get a Mac later I would still have use for one of these, I could for example get a 15″ MacBook Pro and have one of these tiny laptops for when I am on the move:

Asus Eee 900
The original Asus Eee was released awhile back but the new ones come with a larger 8.9″ screen which makes the Eee more practical. The reason I haven’t already ordered the Eee which costs $549 is the HP 2133. [Amazon Link]

HP 2133 mini-notebook
This is the laptop that Apple should have released. It looks like the old 12″ PowerBooks except its even tinier. The screen although only 8.9″ has a resolution of 1280 x 768 which is pretty high. The reason I haven’t already ordered this is because I am still reading reviews on it. Most say its pretty slow but all those reviews had Vista installed on the HP. I want to know how well it performs with Linux or Windows XP. Price for this is $589. [Amazon Link]

Update: After doing a lot of research I’ve decided to go with an Asus 900 for now over the HP 2133. Although the HP looks really pretty its a lot slow than the Asus, A LOT slower. So whats going to happen is Asus for now and once the MacBooks or MacBook Pro’s get revised later in the summer will get one of them.

My favorite laptop sleeve is made by WaterField Designs. It’s the most important accessory for my laptop and I’ve had mine since 2001. Back then I had an Apple iBook and I ordered the sleeve with a Vertigo bag from WaterField and I still use them today. Best of all both the sleeve and bag still look brand new, like I had purchased them yesterday. Thats because they are so well made, all of WaterField’s stuff is hand made in San Francisco. I just ordered another sleeve for Nat’s new laptop and thought I should post about how good their products are. [Link]

I’ve always wanted a Dremel rotary tool but I never had a reason to get one until last night. Awhile back one of my external hard drives died so yesterday I decided instead of getting another external drive I would just swap the damaged drive from inside the case with a new one. I passed by Hawalli, picked up a 500GB SATA drive for KD34 and when I came back and tried installing it into the case I realized I had a problem. The hard drive I got used a different power adapter than the hard drive I was replacing which I was able to solve by using an adapter, problem is the adapter was too big to fit into the case. I needed to cut away some of the plastic to be able to fit the drive so I saw this as an opportunity to finally get a Dremel tool.

I passed by the Dremel dealer today and got myself a Dremel 300 Series Multi Tool and Flexshaft. It came with 55 accessories which will allow me to use the Dremel to engrave, carve, sharpen, grind, clean, polish, cut and sand. I paid KD22 after discount for this set, there was a cheaper set without the Flexshaft and only 25 accessories for KD16 but I figured I might as well get the better one while I am at it.

Once I got back home I used the Dremel tool on the plastic hard drive case and it worked like a charm. I was able to cut through the thick plastic with very very little trouble. Now my drive is working perfectly although I have a hole in the side. If you are interested in a Dremel tool they sell them at Ace Hardware but the prices at the dealer are cheaper. The dealer is located in Shuwaikh and their phone number is 4810844.

I got some pictures of the hard drive case mod which you can check by clicking on continue.

Continue reading ‘Dremel’…

Best Buy Kuwait, the fake Best Buy in Hawalli have the tiny Asus Eee laptops for sale and they are being sold for KD159 which is KD50 more expensive than Amazon. Its really sad how they’ve blatantly copied Best Buy’s logo and name. If it was a crappy shop I could care less but they do actually have a decent collection of stuff so they should also put the effort in coming up with a better name for the place.

As promised, here is the breakdown of current DSL speeds/prices (as of InfoConnect 2008):

If you are looking speeds of 2mb or higher .. you can’t beat Qnets pricing (infoconnect special). And in addition to a free wireless router you also get a scratch (instant prize) and raffle (Mini) coupons for every 20kd spent. I upgraded my connection to 4mb and ‘won’ a extra couple of weeks on my subscription through the scratch coupons.

For those interested in speeds of 1mb or lower; Zajil is the clear choice with their aggressive pricing structure with 1mb at 300 KWD (almost 1/3 the price of last year).

Apparently, there is a new DSL company called Wasel, which has recently been placing advertisements in the newspapers. And while they might be advertising offering DSL, they don’t have a booth at InfoConnect or even a website; We don’t have much information on their offers.

-Posted by K.

*Prices listed are collected from Brochures, Official Websites and Sales Representatives .. prices displayed are for yearly subscriptions.

I have an old PIII 500 with 256MB of RAM and a 20GB hard drive lying around which I wanted to give to someone. I didn’t want to install Windows on it since the person isn’t very good with computers and always ends up getting viruses and trojans installed on his system. The computer was going to be used for Internet browsing, chatting on MSN and Yahoo and copying and view pictures from his digital camera. I decided to install a Linux OS.

The first Linux OS I installed was the latest version of gOS which was released two days ago. From the screen shots it looked like a really friendly and easy to us version of Linux and thats what I was looking for. After installing it I realized that the operating system was running very sluggishly on this really old computer, it wasn’t going to work.

I then remember I had bookmarked a website from Digg which had a list of Linux distros that were meant to be run on really old computers. I went through the list, did some research and in the end decided to try two different ones, TinyFlux and Wolvix.

I tried TinyFlux first and although it ran really well the user interface wasn’t very friendly. I then decided to try Wolvix and not only did it perform really well but the interface was fairly friendly looking with a Mac like dock at the bottom and large friendly icons everywhere. I decided to stick with Wolvix and after playing with it for an hour I think its pretty impressive for an OS thats under 250MB in size. It has Firefox, a music player, video player, photo viewer, and a whole bunch of other softwares all included and there is a ton more I can download all for free.

This is actually the best part of Linux, its free and the majority of the software for it is free. Another good thing is you can try out the OS without installing it, you just run it straight from the CD and if you like it you can install it if not you just eject the cd, reboot and you are back to your old operating system.

If you want to check out the list of Linux distros for old computer click [Here]
For gOS click [Here]
and for Wolvix click [Here]

ZDistrict came to my office a while back and sat behind my desk and asked

Where is your computer
I dont have one I replied.
He had the look of bewilderment.
I am here to think, not to work.
More confusion from ZDistrict (He was actually speechless).

Dilbert

The Windows Gaming Championship should have started on May 10th (yesterday) but the custom PC’s the organizers had ordered were not cleared by the Kuwait customs. The event has now been postponed till May 17th and 18th. Here is a message from the organizer:

Dear All, Please accept our sincere apologies but due to a technical problem, we haveto postpone the Windows Gaming Championship Kuwait event until next week. The event will take place on Thursday 17th and Friday 18th May, on the ground floor of Sharq Market Mall, near Zara and Next from 1pm - 10pm on both days.

With many thanks and best regards,
Louise Hickman

For more information visit the official tournament website. [Link]
Here is the website of the Gulf Gamers. [Link]

Thanks Yousef

Marzouq posted the other day about how slow Aramex has been lately. Well I wanted to share my experience with USWS which for some reason I thought would also be slow. On Friday morning my package arrived in my US mailbox. Late Friday night I get an SMS telling me my package shipped. Today morning I arrived to find my package on my desk. Turned out it was delivered to my office yesterday after I left work. It took 3 days from the US to Kuwait. Thats fast.

My item was a Western Digital 500GB hard drive. Its my first USB 2.0 drive (other then my passport drive). All my main external drives are firewire but since I ran out of firewire ports and the USB 2.0 version is much cheaper I decided to get it. The drive cost me $170 from Amazon and Marzouq has a review on it. The drive arrived just in time because I only had 4GB of space left. Now the total of my hard drives add up to 1.7TB.

I was in Hawalli yesterday when I decided to pass by the store Best Buy Kuwait (not official Best Buy just a copy). Turns out they had the Sony UMPC on display. I had only seen it before online so it was cool seeing it in person. Its super tiny and I really wish Apple would come up with something like it. They were selling it for KD699. [Link]

Busynow gave me this link for another online computer store in Kuwait. This one though seems to have much better prices and a more usable interface. You can also pay by Knet or Visa. [Link]

note: it seems the site just launched today

A week ago Z District reviewed the Seagate Portable HD and although I am a Seagate fan I thought the hard drive looked ugly and fragile. This is why I decided to put up a review of the drive that competes directly with the Seagate one, the Western Digital Passport.

I ordered the 120GB Western Digital Passport drive so I could use it to back my MP3s and personal work. I already have an external drive but I needed something much smaller and portable. Since I was going to use it for my most important data, the drive had to be reliable and durable. Thats why I went with the Passport drive, I have never had any problems with Western Digital hard drives and from the pictures the Passport drive looked like it could take a beating. Now that I have it sitting in front of me I can tell you that it can.

The Passport drive case is made from 2 materials, half of it is alluminum and the other half is rubber. The drive feels like its indestructable but still looks really slick and extremely cool. The other positive thing is you only need 1 USB slot to both power and run the drive unlike the Seagate which requires 2 USB slots.

I really am in love with the drive and can’t find a single flaw except for the fact that 120GB is the largest size available. I give it a 4.5 out of 5.

Buy the 40GB WD Passport drive from Amazon
Buy the 80GB WD Passport drive from Amazon
Buy the 120GB WD Passport drive from Amazon