Newsfeed Readers' King - Google Reader

I have never actually used newsfeed readers alot, as Ḯ'm using lots of different computers all the time (Student at a school chock full of them). They have mostly been small but extensive apps that stays on the computer and fetches stuff 24/7 making a long list of shit you haven't read, and never will (using space on my little eee aswell which is tabu).

Therefore I was pleasantly surprised when I actually went for testing the Google reader, which I earlier suspected was something of the same as all the other readers. Thing is - this one is different, all the feeds are saved remotely on googles servers, and the application is accessible via any browser using your (suspecting everyone has one these days) google account.

Third, it fits my eee screen perfectly (using opera, the one and only).

HOW-TO get Ubuntu working on the ASUS eee (EASY)

For this tutorial I used a running Ubuntu system to perform everything, but it should be similar on other linux systems. The point of this tutorial is to simply tell you what I did in an understandable way, so you can understand how everything works, instead of blindly inputting commands. Allright:

What you need:
a bootable usb pendrive or a memory card larger than 700MB
Another computer to copy the installation files from
Your eeExcellent computer.

What you would do:

-Download a Ubuntu LiveCD (7.10 currently supported - 8.04 will be very soon. Following instructions should be similar)

-Extract the CD to a folder on your computer (right click - extract)

- Copy all the contents from the folder to your memory stick/card and remember the hidden folder called .disk, else you'll get a stupid command line interface instead of a GUI later on.

- Go to the memory card and enter a folder named isolinux. Mark all files inside this folder and copy them. Now go to your root folder on the card (back one step from isolinux-folder) and paste all the files in here, right in - not in any folder or crap. Now rename the copied file named isolinux.cfg to syslinux.cfg.

- Time to run syslinux! If you haven't installed it, do sudo apt-get install syslinux If you don't know if you have it or not, do it anyway.
-- Now find your device name (similar to /dev/sda1, /dev/sdb1 or others) To find this, unplug the memory card, wait three seconds (exactly, else your cat dies) and then plug it in again - now type dmesg in a terminal, and you'll see a bunch of things. the stuff at the bottom is what we look for. Find something similar to my device name mentioned, and remember it wisely.
-- Type in sudo syslinux /dev/sdX1, replacing X with a letter so it fits your device name.
- Now you but the memory card in your eee, and press esc at the bootup, select the card on the menu and then you'll be greeted by the ubuntu livecd/installer menu!

When done, I advice you to install and run the eee ubuntu script, which makes things more readeable, installs some drivers and installs the mighty cool overclocking utility.

This is a video of some standard apps running (ooffice, zsnes, compiz, overclocking utility)

ASUS Eee PC 701 has arrived

Back from my trip to Lithuania, I got my new ASUS eee up and running, and I will tell you the main impressions I have gotten from it after a week of running, hacking and testing it.

The Hardware:
The 900Mhz CPU, clocked to about 600Mhz is really sufficient. It never ran slowly or locked up as long as I've used it. (Though I didn't use heavy programs, only web browsing, msn-client, music player and text-editing). So it is perfectly fine.

The screen size is small. period. But when using it, you stop complaining very quickly and it really doesn't matter - the battery life is better than with a big screen and you can see everything anyway (with a few exeptions like big windows and retard web pages)

The keyboard is small, or wait - other keyboards are bloody HUGE. After using the eee i really felt clumsy when typing on my other laptop, where the keys are big enough to write with two thumbs. I would say my hands are man medium (c), and I write on it perfectly (this was all written on the thing) One thing though, the mouse left and right-click buttons are hard and noisy, which is very annoying - I use an external mouse.


Speakers - Pure love. This is awesome, the speakers are so loud it easily beat my 3x larger laptop, and the sound quality is not bad.

The device has three USB ports, one VGA out, a kensington lock slot and a memory card reader for SD (and SDHC)-type cards which now comes up to 16GB capacities I think. Additionally, it has easy access to the RAM memory slot underneath, so you can extend it to 1 or 2 GB, though the 512mb is so far sufficient for me.

The Software and the Operating System - an unfinished task:
As I loaded it up for the first time, I was presented with the simplistic easy-to-use Operating system Xandros in "Easy Mode". This was good enough. I mean for a person who wants to use the computer for text-editing, web browsing, a couple of games and internet communication. But hey, I am a computer lover, and thus not a user of alredy fixed solutions, so I quickly got my hands dirty and installed the advanced desktop mode. This extended the bootup time by about ten seconds.

Bummer. KDE is to me a useless set of extra editing options. So many extra options that they are unuseable, and in every menu I entered, I could tweak half the system. Adding to this is a aesthetical mayhem, KDE looks bad. My love for gnome got even stronger, and when I experienced severe installation problems such as not being able to install because "something" was wrong, even from pre-configured package sources in the synaptics package manager, I decided to feed the little black guy with Ubuntu, which I've been using for about four years and really gotten in love with. I used three different guides to complete the whole thing, and most of them didn't appeal to me, so I will post what I did to get 'buntu working in a later post.

Now Ubuntu runs flawlessly with its gnome and the stability. the software-issues are long gone, and I have complete control over my UMPC. Installing ubuntu extended the bootup time by another ten seconds from the advanced mode. The ubuntu is still performing super even with compiz desktop effects.

UMPC - A 15 years old invention

Norwegian IT newspaper digi.no now reveals a fairly unknown portable PC that was sold by HP in 1993, but stalled the production which is speculated to be due to software development and requirements.

The Omnibook 425 was built only to serve as a platform for Microsoft's Windows and Office-software saved in ROM-memory and had no spinning hard drive, storing office files in flash memory.

For many the ultimate portable, running on 4 standard AA-batteries and with a battery life of 9 hours with the battery pack included.

A Very Special Heron

The Operating System Ubuntu 8.04, or "Hardy Heron" is released today as a final product, stable enough for end-users to use, and the imporvements are impressive. Among them we find encryption, a windows installer, firewall software and a fine-tuned authorization control.