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Monthly Archives: February 2009

My New Friend

Here is a deal I couldn’t resist. I know, I’m weak when it comes to computers.

Netbooks are the hot new gadget started by ASUS with their Eee PC and now Dell, HP and others have jumped on board. Netbooks are not really new, but they are finally powerful enough and priced to sell. The average Netbook runs around $300 to $400, but I picked up a basic Dell Mini 9 for $189! Regular price is $249, but I hit a sale along with a discount and free shipping.

Here is the Inspiron Mini 9 next to my Inspiron 1525 for size comparison. The 1525 is a standard 15.4 inch notebook.
I’ll paste the full specs of the Mini 9 below.

I’ve just started playing with my new friend. The netbook only weighs about 2 lbs. and has a nice shiny black finish. It does come in other colors, but for this deal, a different color would have cost more and I was determined to keep the cost under $200. The netbook feels solid and well-made.

I haven’t used Linux much, so I’m excited to learn my way around the operating system. The initial setup was easy. Of course all the software and drivers are already installed by Dell. The first thing I noticed is how fast the machine boots (in less than 1 minute). This version of Linux is intuitive and windows-like, so no problem finding my way around so far. It also comes with many useful Linux programs and really no crapware that often comes with new computers. Nice!

An upgrade I did consider was to increase the memory from 512MB to 1GM, but after using Linux for a little while, it seems to run just fine on 512MG. It’s responsive and peppy. Another upgrade I considered was the hard drive. The netbook comes with a 4GB solid state drive (kind of like a cameras flash memory, so no moving parts). Again, this is fine for surfing the web, but I considered upgrading so that I would have some storage space for photos when I go on vacation. On my last vacation I took about 5GB of photos. The netbook also comes with a build-in card reader, but my Canon Rebel uses a CF card which can’t be read on the card reader. So, I’ll probably still bring my full-sized laptop on vacations.

It already has Firefox installed, which is my favorite browser, so when I’m on-line, I’d never even know I was using a Linux machine. And since the main job of a netbook is to surf the internet, there is really no reason to pay extra for Windows. From what I’ve read, installing new programs on Linux is not as easy as Windows, but so far I haven’t needed anything that didn’t already come pre-installed.

When connecting to my wireless network, I noticed that the Mini picked up dozens of other area networks, many more than my regular laptop and a nice strong signal. So, I assume it has a pretty good built-in antenna.

The sound is decent for such a small machine. It has two good size speakers just below the monitor. The sound is actually better than my full-sized Inspiron. It also has a built-in headphone and microphone jack.

The monitor is only 9 inches, but bigger than some other netbooks and it is sharp and bright.

This is a neat little tool for email, surfing the web and maybe some basic word processing. It runs Ubuntu very well with just 512MB RAM. It has a very small solid-state hard drive, so very little storage space, but storage is not really the purpose of a netbook. So far, I’m very please with the Mini 9. A super netbook for the price. I don’t think I’d be willing to spend more on a netbook.

Full Specs:

— Inspiron Mini 9n —
— Intel® Atom Processor® N270 (1.6GHz/533Mhz FSB/512K cache)
———————–
— MEMORY —
— 512MB DDR2 at 533MHz
———————–
— LCD Panel —
— Glossy 8.9 inch LED display (1024X600)
———————–
— VIDEO —
— Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 950
———————–
— Hard Drive —
— 4GB Solid State Drive
———————–
— OPERATING SYSTEM (Ubuntu) —
— Ubuntu Linux version 8.04.1
———————–
— Sound —
— Base LCD Assembly
———————–
— Wireless —
— Wireless 802.11g Mini Card
———————–
— Camera Module —
— No Camera Option
———————–
— Battery —
— 32WHr Battery (4 cell)
———————–

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Technology | cindy | | Leave a comment |   Dell Firefox Inspiron Mini Mini 9 Netbook Review Ubuntu Linux

Obama’s First Budget

President Obama submitted his first budget to Congress on Thursday.

Watch a video of the President making the case for the vital investments that will lay the foundation for America’s future prosperity:

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Video | cindy | | Leave a comment |   budget Obama

Aquarium, Terrarium, Viquarium oh my!

Well, it all started at Christmas time. I got this really nice Gossamer Falls desktop waterfall from Santa. It’s a really nice cascading desktop waterfall. Here is the photo on the box (plants not included).

It’s supposed to be therapeutic, it is advertised as “perfect for relaxation and meditation”, but for me it was extremely frustrating, because the waterfall has to be position exactly right for it to flow correctly. I can be quite stubborn and I tried all the tips in the instructions and everything else I could think of to get this thing to work properly. I’d get it going just right and a while later the water would lose it’s grip on the copper pipe and splash water all over the place. Finally, after a couple of weeks, I gave up.

Then Rich said, why don’t you put the whole thing in an aquarium, that way if it splashes it won’t make a mess! Super idea, since I already had an aquarium packed away up in the loft. I dug out my 40 gallon tank and all the fish stuff (aquariums are not a cheap hobby). But unfortunately, the base of the waterfall was just a bit to wide to fit inside the tank. Rather than just putting everything back into storage, I got out my hack saw and cut off the edges of the resin base of the waterfall. BTW, resin is safe for fish. Here’s a photo of the waterfall inside the aquarium. I was pleasantly surprised that the aquarium survived over 10 years in storage (without temperature control; so the blazing heat of summer and the freezing cold of winter) with no leaks. Even the light bulb on the tank hood still worked!

OK now what do I do with this mess? Looks like crap! I decided to try a “viquarium”, which is half aquarium and half terrarium. I used gravel and small rocks to build a land area around the waterfall and left the other half as a typical aquarium.

I picked up a little divider at the pet store to help separate the two sides, then covered the base of the fountain with gravel. Getting there! An added benefit to this set up is that I found if I tilted the fountain backward in the gravel it worked perfectly!

A few more touches, background and plants.

Now, what/who will get to live in this lovely abode? Meet Blinky and Slinky! Aaron named Blinky after “Blinky Productions” and Eric just loves Slinkies!

Slinky and Blinky (slinky is on the left with two little green spots on his back)

 

Slinky and Blinky are Fire Belly Toads or Latin name: Bombina orientalis. They are native to China, Korea, and Southeast Asia. They grow to about 2 to 2½ inches in length and have bright orange bellies, hence the name “fire belly”.

Here is a nice shot of the waterfall. You can see Blinky and Slinky to the left.

 

Fire Belly Toads eat crickets, which I pick up at the pet store every couple of weeks. I have a couple of hardy tetras in the fish tank side of the viquarium. Not sure what I’ll put in there. I can’t put too many fish, as there is only about 10 gallon’s of water on the pond side. Once the tank is fully established, I’ll probably get some Neon Tetras. I like those.

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Uncategorized | cindy | | 7 Comments |   Aquarium desktop waterfall fire belly toads firebelly fish Gossamer Falls Terrarium tetras toads Viquarium

Facebook Is for Old People

Illustration by John Cuneo for TIME

 

In this weeks Time Magazine there is an article called “Facebook Is for Old People”, by Lev Grossman. On the web, the same article is called “Facebook is for Old Fogies”. Hmmmm. Anyway, here is the full article: “Facebook Is for Old Fogies“.

The article starts with a brief intro:

Facebook

    is five. Maybe you didn’t get it in your news feed, but it was in February 2004 that Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg, along with some classmates, launched the social network that ate the world. Did he realize back then in his dorm that he was witnessing merely the larval stage of his creation? For what began with college students has found its fullest, richest expression with us, the middle-aged.

Here is a summary of Grossman’s 10 reasons old people have taken over Facebook (see original Time article for details) and my thoughts on each.

1. Facebook is about finding people you’ve lost track of.

I’d agree that this is probably one of the biggest reasons old fogies use Facebook and also a reason why kids don’t need it (yet).

2. We’re no longer bitter about high school.

True, I hardly remember high school and don’t even recognized some of my old high school friends.

3. We never get drunk at parties and get photographed holding beer bottles in suggestive positions.

True, for most of us…

4. Facebook isn’t just a social network; it’s a business network.

True, although this can also be a reason to avoid Facebook.

5. We’re lazy.

I think “busy” is a better word. Life gets much more complicated after marriage, kids and jobs. Facebook gives users the ability to tie into many other online networks such as blogs, twitter, flickr; sort of like one-stop shopping.

6. We’re old enough that pictures from grade school or summer camp look nothing like us.

Ya, so?

7. We have children. There is very little that old people enjoy more than forcing others to pay attention to pictures of their children.

He’s running out of reasons now. There are plenty of online ways to show off photos of our kids.

8. We’re too old to remember e-mail addresses.

I don’t think so and besides, we have address books. Who needs to remember email addresses that change all the time anyway.

9. We don’t understand Twitter.

I don’t understand this reason. Is it, “Cindy is eating a burger and fries” the part that we don’t understand or the twitter network itself? Twitter is much easier to use than Facebook. Anyone who can sent a text message, can twitter. In fact, I’d say that twitter has more to do with whether or not people use text messaging then one’s age.

10. We’re not cool, and we don’t care.

True, we are not cool and Facebook is no longer cool, it’s gone mainstream. Any hot new web site will lose it’s cool factor once it gets very popular. But true, we old people don’t care about being cool.

I think Grossman’s reason #1 is why so many older people use Facebook, to reconnect with old friends. This is a key feature to facebook which probably was not the intent of the creator Mark Zuckerberg, who just wanted to connect current students. But there is still a lot on facebook for people of all ages. With the privacy settings for friends, networks and groups, both young and old can socialize without being bothered much by each other, just like in real life.

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Society Technology | cindy | | 1 Comment |   facebook old fogies old people social networking Time Magazine Twitter