Love the convenience of this netbook. The only thing I wish I can change is…
my eyesight
The screen is only 10″ so the letters are small and the resolution isn’t the best out there either. So I find myself constanly trying to adjust the contrast and hoping to adjust the color or zooming in in order to read. I guess there is a trade off with the size.
E and I decided to hang out together today. We went to Macoroni Grill, my favorite restaurant, for brunch. Calamari,procuto sandwitch and tomato basil soup. All are wonderful and we were fully stuffed when we walked out of there.
Next, we went to Barnes and Noble to get some books for her to read on the trip to Kenya. She decided on two books, The Shack and the Loving Bones. We sat at the cafe and I whipped out my new netbook and went online. She went to Amazon and looked up these books there. My goodness, the price is almost half of what they are charging at Barnes and Noble. Why! We decided to order from Amazon instead.
Came home, fed the pets and walked Benny. Went downstairs and messed with the new pc and unblocked the shawl and the stockings I’ve blocked on the carpet. All nice and ready now. Then I just vegetaged the rest of the night. Can’t believe how much the cats and dog can sleep. They are all out right now.
Took Evernote’s suggestion and make a wishlist of stuff I like online and sent it to all those that are close to me. They don’t have to worry about coming up with ideas if they are at a loss now. They should all do this to make shopping a bit easier for everybody!
I do love this little netbook. So easy to take whereever I go and its battery lasts and lasts!
I was reading about Evernote on their site and saw the Eye-Fi card again. Wonderful little thing. You can transfer the photos directly from your camera to your desktop or the online social sites like picasa r flickr, etc. I wish one day, this can be extended to video camcorders (HD), and the documents folder on our PCs and the Mac to one central place. You don’t need to worry about backing things up, it’s all done in the background automatically and in the appropriate media means.
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| From Gadgets |
Remember I was bitching about hauling the big Vaio around and how hot it gets that almost burns my leg? Ya, I solved THAT problem. Here is my first impression of this netbook.
Since I have been using Vista and now Windows 7 for a long time, going back to XP take a bit of adjusting. Things are not as well polished as the latest OS. Also, this thing has only 1 gig of RAM. It shows even when I’m typing. Sometimes I would be typing ahead before the letters catch up with me. But that was when Live Update was running in the background. Now, it’s much better. The keyboard is a bit smaller than the standard though. It will take some time to get used to it. The biggest problem for me is the page up and down keys are hidden under the the up and down key. That is, you have to use the combination of the function key with the up and down key to use the page up and down. I just realized that I use those pageup and down key a lot when I’m web browsing to quickly go down a page. (Note, I found that the space bar can do the page down thing. So one down. And shift-space is pageup. Duh! The two finger parrell gesture can move up and down just like the iphone too! Yeah!!)
I looked online for the 2 Gig RAM upgrade. It doesn’t seem as straight forward as it should be. But I didn’t spend too much time on it.
As soon as I got home and plugged this thing in, I used Skype to call L. He sounded like he was falling asleep. But he answered and we talked for maybe half an hour. I’m glad to see him albeit it was dark and fuzzy. Finally after over a month and a half, I am starting to miss this old guy. 😉 I’m still busy and there are tons of things to do. But it is very nice to talk to him and see him and just chat about nothing. The webcam worked. But he said it’s a little fuzzier than when I was on the iMac. Understandable. I can even tell on my end. When I move, you see ghost movements.
The screen is only 10″ so email and blog entry screen both look crammed. But compared to iPhone’s small screen and thumb keyboard, it’s much better. I bought the one with 6 cell battery. Supposedly, it will last 6 hours. I’ll see. I am hoping for a longer and cooler unit than Vaio. And I think I won’t be disappointed.
The touch pad has the same zoom up and down finger gesture as the iPhone which I like. And I just uploade the pictures form the SD card on this thing. I like that! I think it has all the things I want from a light netbook. I just have to get used to the slower processor, the smaller screen and the smaller keyboard. Things are just not as snappy as it’s big brothers but that’s kind of what you expect anyway.
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After using it for a couple of hours sitting in bed, browsing, blogging on this little book. I think I like it more and more. It’s light and the battery goes on and on and on. Right now, it still has more than 80% left which equilents to 6+ hours. I hope that’s true but even if it’s 4+, it’s more than enough for tonight before I clunk out.
I should have go tone yeons ago. 🙂
Perhaps it’s because L kept reminding me of things he is missing overseas, I am feeling especially blessed. I have both the time and the means to pursue those things that I love. I only need to work one day a week for a boss that appreciates what I do. I am knitting, spinning, doing photography and videos and I get to enjoy a drink or a glass of wine when I feel like it. I am drinking coffee that I roasted myself. I get to try grooming Benny and get the right clipper for the job.
I love to learn. Be it a new software, a new tool, a new technique, I really enjoy the process of getting the scoop for a given task. The only things I have to rein in a little is ballroom compeition. It costs so much to go to an event, not only for the flights, the hotel room, food, but also the dances that you have to pay for, not to mention the invenstment in the costumes and makeup and hair and nails. When I retire, I can then really start competing regularly. But for now, I still get to take private lessons and I always learn something new in every lesson.
For right now, my favorite thing to do is to put recorded cooking shows on, surf on the net, knit or listening to the audio book and spin. Life is really good and I am so blessed.
This question has been in my mind lately. Often times, I get the urge to write throughout the day but I either don’t want to haul the notebook out of the backpack or the thought of going downstairs or sitting uncomfortably in front of the PC just prevents me from doing it.
The best device would be small enough to carry around all the time and has internet access anywhere you go. Yes, a netbook sounds nice but you have to look for wireless access still, you can’t just whip it out any time you have an inspiration and have it up and out of your mind. But it is the closest it can get for now. Maybe soon wireless access will be a none issue with the speed of technology advancement today. And everybody will be walking around with a netbook like we have cell phones now.
The iphone is much better than a unitask cell phone and it combines the PDA function with the phone which is what I always wanted. It only lacks the ability of downloading audible books wirelessly that I was able to do with my previous PDA phone running Windows Mobile. I liked that phone a lot but web surfing was not good at all. And it didn’t have the wow factor of the apps on the iphone.
I love my Vaio I can do anything I want on it, but it is big and clunky and the battery gets so hot it burns you when you place it on your lap. Then you need to put a fan under it and that makes it so bulky you just don’t want to haul all that around even in the house.
I love Evernote, it has such a potential to keep everything you want to remember or have a record of in one place, but it requires a computer and the internet access to be as useful as it can be. So that comes back to a perfect laptop with internet access at all times. Yes, it can be done, I know. A usb dongle with a cell phone plan. But why should we pay $40-60 a month just to have the ability to access the interent at those moments of need. It doesn’t justify the cost if you are just a casual onliner instead of a on-the-road business person.
I love my MacBook Air, it’s light and it doesn’t get as hot as the Vaio and it’s powerful. But it can’t do everything I need to do. I can’t upload pictures because it doesn’t have a card reader built in, I can’t run my PC apps because it is a Mac.
There is just no one thing that you can take with you and not have to worry about bringing all of the necessary usb cables and devices along to cover all your needs. Oh, I can’t wait when such a thing is invented and I’ll be the first one in line to get it.
Since Riccardo and Yulia’s show, I’ve been playing with videos, iMovie, iDVD a LOT. It’s very nice to have a project to learn a software. Sony Handycam produced some very good quality videos for me. and I wanted to learn iMovie and iDVD anyway. So this is the perfect opportunity.
However, it’s very time consuming. You need to transfer the videos from the camcorder to the computer. You need to watch the videos to pick the part you want and trim off the beginning and/or the end, compose the project with different videos, save it in the proper format you want to display and possibly do the whole process over and over again until you find a final product that is the most agreeable in the end. I can’t say ‘good’ yet as I am still learning. However, I found out how to put transitions between clips, supress the audio and add a different one in, more to learn though. Uploaded some to the studio’s youtube account.
http://www.youtube.com/letsdancecleveland
And got a few compliments on the DVD I made from the dance videos. A pat on the shoulder, he he.
On the photo side, I finally ordered the quick release fittings for the tripod. So silly buying the tripod and not realizing that I need to buy the fittings too. And instead of the three legged tripod, I also got a single pole tripod for photos. I can be more mobile with this one. There is a halloween party tonight at the studio, I will try it out. Desperately trying to read up and learn the F-stops, the shutter speed and the lingos that go along with them and how to pair them to get better pictures in low light settings which is often at the studio. With no memory cell working properly, it’s so hard to remember what settings I should use. It’s frustrating.
Finished the socks I was knitting and getting ready to start on the Christmas stocking kit I got from Knitpicks. Hope I can finish them before Christmas. Can’t wait to do this, it’ll be my project to learn stranded knitting. Perfect.
Just learned from C that you need pet clipper instead of human clipper to do pet hair. Little did I know. Maybe that’s why the hair wasn’t coming off very easily for Benny when I did his. But I think I aleady recovered the cost of the clipper after 3 haircut for him and lots for Leo. maybe I can invest in the correct clipper for Benny so he and Leo don’t have to share the same clipper. 🙂
So many things to do, so little time….
While trying to imitate how those TV chefs cut onions yesterday, I ran the knife right to my thumb which obviously was not in the right place at the right time. It was in the middle of my preperation for a pork roast dinner for S and C. I put some medicine on it and OK Banded it. The cut was fine and it healed quickly. It didn’t bother me for the rest of my cooking or my cleaning and vacuuming and carpet cleaning. It was only when I sat down to knit the sock I want to finish soon that the cut started to bother me. Aparently the slight pull on the thumb would irritate the cut. I’ll need to put another band aid on to continue knitting.
This is a cleaning day. I did the laundry, dusted and wiped the furniture with the wax soaked cloth. Then I even worked up the motivation and cleaned the carpet. After so many weeks of talking about cleaning the carpet before L left, I finally did it. It’s kind of funny that when he was here, I wasn’t so motivated to clean and keep things in order, now I constantly find things to clean and organize. Maybe I have way too much time on my hands now. 🙂
Waiting for some yarns and kits to come from Knitpicks to try the new technique for fair isle. Can’t wait for it to come and start knitting some Christmas gifts.
Ya, coding today. E wants a poll for the showcase so I went on my site and started playing with pollphp. In the beginning it was not intuitive that the admin is where you go to see all the poll lists and templates. After poking around a while, I finally got the hang of it. But it still took a lot of trial and error to make the survey somwhere close to what I like. And then embed it into a page on the studio site. Pretty happy with what I’ve done.
Last night sitting in bed watching TV and knitting, I got the urge to write. But I didn’t like to balance the heavy and usually hot Vaio on my lap, so I just had to sit and wait out the urge. Having something light like the MacBook Air was certaily suited very well for those moments where hauling a heavy notebook is not desirable. Netbook seems to be the closest to that advantage and it’s not very expensive. hmmm.
Also in the process of figuring out how to be more mobile with my photos and music. Right now, they are on a few external drives shared from a desktop at home. But when I’m on the road, I lose access to them and have to wait till I get home to do what I need to do. Maybe a small external HD would do the job. I’m carrying one to backup the studio data anyway and it would be nice if I can also bring all my “data” with me on the go. Just checked and after all I only have 5 Gig of photos and under 30 Gigs of music anyway. The advantage is I’ll always have those with me when I need to add more photos or listen to some music. The downside is I’ll have to sync it with the hard drives at home so I have a permanent place for them. hmmm. I wonder how online storage works. Will it be easier for backup purposes? I should check into that.
Got up early to take Benny to the vet this morning. He needs dental work to clean around his gum. Now I’m waiting for the caffine to kick in at work. Eyes are dry and tired. Finally got fed up with the jumping chair (it likes to jump down suddenly) and pull the stationary chair over, now I feel like a kid at a grown up’s desk. Everything is so high and I’m sitting so low. When you are tired, everything is an irritation.