MobileViews Blog

Category: Netbook

Netbook (was the now defunct Ultra Mobile Personal Computer)

  • Intel AppUp Webpage Browser Hostile?

    I wanted to try the Intel AppUp beta for Windows 7 netbooks. So, I pointed my Google Chrome browser at…

    http://www.intel.com/Consumer/Products/appup.htm

    This resulted in partially rendered web page and Chrome attempting to use all available processor resources. I had to use Windows Task Manager to terminate Chrome.

    Next up was Firefox. It rendered correctly and did not cause the processor to rev up. However, I could not download the AppUp EXE file using Firefox.

    This forced me to use Internet Explorer 8 which takes forever to startup (why is that). The AppUp webpage rendered correctly and let me download the EXE file.

    Thanks for the terrible user experience, Intel!

  • Windows 7 is a Great OS, But it is Not Touch Screen Ready (video demo)

    Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer demonstrated HP’s soon-to-be-available Notebook Slate (no physical keyboard) running Windows 7 during his CES keynote in Las Vegas last night…

    Gizmodo: HP’s Windows 7 Slate Device Revealed by Steve Ballmer

    Here’s the thing though… I’ve had an Asus Eee PC T91MT netbook for a couple of months now. It has an 8.9-inch multi-touch screen in a convertible configuration (physical keyboard can be used in netbook mode or hidden to use in slate mode). Windows 7 is a great operating system. I happen to like it a lot and have upgraded my desktops and netbooks to it since it release. It is not, however, tweaked for touch use based on my experience with the T91MT. The problem is that Windows 7’s touch screen feature is a combination of the old pen-centric Tablet PC and the hand/finger-centric Surface Table. The result is something neither animal nor mineral. Many, if not most, of the feature remain pen-centric. Finger-tip touch control is an afterthought at best and simply ignored at worst. I recorded a brief video demo using my T91MT in slate mode (physical keyboard hidden in back of the LCD) to demonstrate some of the small but annoying issues I’ve run into over the past few months. And, note that these are just a few of the issues. There are many more.

  • Google Chromium OS on an Acer Aspire One Netbook

    Google Chromium OS installed on a 2GB USB thumb drive running on a first generation Acer Aspire One. This netbook has an Atom N270 processor with 512MB RAM.

  • Blog Post Test Using Eee PC T91MT Pen Input & LiveWriter

    This text was entered using a stylus on an Asus Eee PCT91MT touch screen net book. It is a slow and imprecise so far. typing on a keyboard is a lot faster for me. I wonder it this process becomes faster with practice?

  • People who have never seen a netbook should not write op-eds about them

    I think it was Harlan Ellison who said: Everyone is entitlted to an INFORMED opinion. So, while I disagree with this TechRepublic article subject line, I figured it was worth taking a look at…

    Netbooks are dead. Long live the notebook

    That was the case until I read its first sentence: Netbooks — those underpowered mini laptops with 7-inch screens and unusable little keyboards — are a dying fad. Say what? A 7-inch screen? There hasn’t been a mainstream netbook with a 7-inch screen since the first generation Asus (the Eee PC 701) that introduced the netbook concept in 2007. Quite honestly, I stopped reading the article at that point. The standard netbook LCD screen is 10.1 inches these days with a smattering of models with 9-inch displays (like the touchscreen Asus Eee PC T91MT I recently bought).

  • Testing Live Writer with this Blog

    Installed Microsoft Live Writer on my Asus Eee PC T91MT touchscreen netbook to make blogging a bit easier when using it.