MobileViews Blog

Category: Netbook

Netbook (was the now defunct Ultra Mobile Personal Computer)

  • Booting Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook Remix Not Faster From a Hard Disk

    My UNR Acer Aspire One boot time post over on MobileContentToday.com got a response from Chris. He tried it on a Acer Aspire One retrofitted with a 30GB hard drive. Unfortunately, it looks like the boot time is slow even switching from a Solid State Drive (what my Aspire One has) to an HD.

    Hi Todd,
    I’ve installed a 30Gb hard drive in my A110, so I installed 9.04 NBR last night and measured boot time to see if it was much faster. I measured from power on to when the desktop appears (auto login) and I got 65 seconds – with a further 5 for the wireless to connect. So that’s 70 total, then perhaps another 10 or more seconds to start Firefox – not great!

    The distro is definitely the best I have tried yet though, in terms of hardware support. The right-hand memory card reader doesn’t work properly but the left-hand one is fine.

    Chris.

    Originally posted as a comment by chrisdowey on mediabistro.com: MobileContentToday using Disqus.

  • Ubuntu Netbook Remix: Odd Google Calendar SSL Problem

    googlecalhttpsprob

    Ran into a weird problem with Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook Remix + Firefox 3 + Google Calendar. As you can see above, Google Calendar does not render if I use HTTPS (SSL for a secure connection) with the site. However, it renders fine if SSL encryption is NOT used (plain ol’ HTTP). I don’t see think on Firefox running on Fedora Linux, Windows XP/Vista/7, or Mac OS X when using HTTPS. Very odd…

  • Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook Remix 0% Battery Power Situation

    zeropercentbattery

    Anyone who has ever used a notebook or netbook computer understands that battery charge percentage reporting is not even near an exact science. If your notebooks and netbooks are like the ones I’ve used over the years, you’ve probably found your notebook or netbook completely shuts down way before your battery charge gets to 0%. I’ve had some units that failed with a charge over 20% and power management set not to do anything at that relatively high level. So, imagine my surprise when my Acer Aspire One running Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook Remix kept running about 20 minutes after the battery charge indicator hit 0% (see screenshot above).

    I spent quite a bit of time learning about how UNR manages battery power on my Aspire One. And, I’ll be sharing that both here and over on MobileContentToday over the next few days.

  • Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook Remix Great: But Boot Time is Nothing to Write Home About

    I’m really enjoying using Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook Remix (UNR) on my Acer Aspire One netbook (512MB system RAM, 8GB Solid State Drive). However, its boot time is not very impressive. Linpus Linux Lite (which came with the Aspire One) boots in under 20 seconds. UNR took a bit over 36 seconds just to get to the login screen. It takes another 20 seconds after login to see the graphical interface.

  • Microsoft Atheros AR5007EG Wireless Driver Bad for Windows 7’s Health

    win7wifidriver

    I installed the optional Atheros WiFi chipset update provided by Microsoft for Windows 7 Beta on my Asus Eee PC 1000HA netbook this morning. Unfortunately, after the installation and reboot, I was able to see but NOT connect to my wireless network. So, I used Windows 7’s System Restore to get me back to the pre-update state and was able to get online.

    =======================
    Microsoft driver update for Atheros AR5007EG Wireless Network Adapter
    Download size: 1.3 MB

    You may need to restart your computer for this update to take effect.
    Update type: Optional

    This driver was provided by Microsoft for support of Atheros AR5007EG Wireless Network Adapter

    More information:
    http://winqual.microsoft.com/support/?driverid=3846

    Help and Support:
    http://support.microsoft.com/select/?target=hub

  • Podcast 23: Hotspot Shield – Free Ad-supported VPN – A Conversation with AnchorFree’s CEO

    I spoke with AnchorFree CEO and Co-Founder David Gorodyansky about the firm’s free ad-support Virtual Private Network (service)…

    Hotspot Shield

    Clients software for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X are provided free to use with their VPN service. The service also works with an iPhone without requiring any software installation. The iPhone’s native VPN can be configured to work with the service.

    I was very skeptical of the service before speaking with David. But, I developed a level of comfort after speaking with him and am running their software and using their service on my Asus Eee PC 1000HA netbook running Windows 7 Beta.

    I’ll provide more details about some of the things I learned about the service over on my MobileContentToday blog on Monday morning.