I got a first generation Asus Netbook in exchange for some work I did on a cheer-led display. I’ve been playing with various things and using it for some interesting things. Now it was heavily modified, extra SSD and Bluetooth inside soit’s battery is poor (40 mins) compared to my notebook from System76 (3 hours) with it’s 8 cell battery.
Today I will note the most useful things I’ve managed to do with my Asus Netbook running Ubuntu 9.04 (alpha) and some of the things that it can’t do.
- Reading comics in bed using xrandr options to rotate the screen.
- Incidental fact checking, being able to check wikipedia or some other online resource at the pub.
- Checking addresses and phone numbers from emails while en route.
- Making notes and updating my calendar with off the top of head ideas and events.
- Taking down details from business cards, while you were just given it and saving trees.
- Showing off Ubuntu based apps, such as inkscape, openoffice, to people you’ve only just met.
- Showing slideshows to the general public to test your new visual book about FOSS.
Now all of these things were useful in their place, I found that it’s the access of the device that gives it it’s power. Although the size of the Asus limits it somewhat.
Now onto things I couldn’t do:
- Play the Daily Show videos in bed.
- Show off desktop effects to random people.
- Press buttons on most administration panels (vert screen space)
- Press anything on maximised windows (bug in shifting screen)
- Make tea and toast and create world peace.
So the Netbook is a useful device, a bit smaller and a better battery and I could see myself buying a newer one. But it has limitations which programmers should be more aware of. We currently don’t have any automated testing to test gui packages to see if their gui will fit on a screen resolution smaller than 800×600, perhaps we should at least test glade xml files.
I look forward to getting good use out of this one, though it now tends to stay at home when the laptop travels with me for official events.