So, you wanted a cheap notebook?

this:

Hmm, in my case it did not work. Neither with nor without the matching Firefox plug-in. I try to avoid Adobe products because some like the Acrobat reader are crashing way too often and too violently.

That would not be so good.

My EeePC?

I think it's using an mplayer plugin for firefox to do the job, but I'm not really sure because it just worked out of the box ;-)

I bet you could run most of what ran on that using one of the dos-box emulators on a non-x86 platform such as a GPX portable video game, PDA, or even _phone_.

Well, you said you didn't mind CAD on a small screen ;-)

Most consumer grade PCs do that as well but this is a biz version and didn't come with the usual "gizmo" software ;-)

What's noteworthy in this case is that the "just works" is achieved out of the box with the kinds of open-source alternatives being proposed here - mplayer plugin to firefox. all running under linux.

As for safety, booting a live linux CD with comparable out-of-the-box capability in a virtual machine and doing your browsing in that should do pretty well.

cs snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com wrote: > On May 16, 11:55 am, Joerg > wrote: >

same here, my EEE PC's run it via Firefox.

Two schools with EEE PC.

Me, I got 4 initially, currently have 3.

Have run my business from the beach front with one, using a Vodafone USB Modem.

My sales dept. PC broke down recently, and we did all sales on an EEE PC for a week and a half, while we configured a new PC box. We have other spares I could have used, but I wanted to see how it performed.

And if you want, you can plug in a large monitor, keyboard, and mouse, and close the lid.

I used to travel with a back pack and notebook, now I carry a DVD player case over my shoulder, with the EEE PC inside.

For power, I have an EDV002SA battery backup (is really a DVD player backup), that gives me another 3 hours or so. This fits inside the player case along with the EEE PC.

Don...

And can your PDA run standard linux or windows executables without recompiling?

Does you PDA have a full keyboard?

A C compiler that runs on it?

The EeePC is not the world's best laptop, but it's 90% of what a laptop computer is supposed to be, in a the form factor of a large PDA.

That's exactly the problem. And the reason why i do not have one.

AFAIK you can buy one.

So, can EeePC run stuff like DesignCAD-3D or other such Windows apps?

You do know that you can get Windows ones, right?

Yes, but cs_posting wrote that it isn't really suited to run those apps. Well, in that case it ain't too useful for me. The other two reasons are that the battery lifetime is not significantly better than on a Dell laptop and that CostCo charges $549 for the Eee while I can get a basic Dell for around $400. Which does run DesignCAD and all that.

I don't know anything about DesignCad 3D, but I got the impression that you use a lot of "legacy" software? It should run all the older stuff I would think. Apart from dongle issues perhaps.

Sure, the whole point is the compact size and light weight. If this is not important to you, no point in paying for it.

I just bought a couple of laptops for a customer. The original spec was they had to be lightweight. Then they decided the screens were too small - we saved $300 each by going to *larger* screen models.

No dongles here. I never bought SW with those and never will. Yeah, I do run legacy stuff, have to. Except now there are no laptops anymore that perform as well as my old Contura did (using some of the same SW). The EeePC is no exception, it doesn't even come close in battery runtime despite newer battery technology.

It would be, _if_ the battery runtime up to par. But it ain't.

Somehow my impression is that very small laptops are usually overpriced. Or the sales qties aren't there. Which may be because of too high pricing. Kind of like the chicken and egg scenario.

Can the Eee run standard linux or windows executables with out recompiling?

The one I have does.

Why would I want that on a personal device. Dont you have better things to do with your life?

My point is, that if you are not a computer geek, what use does the EeePC really have?

Yes. It is just a tiny PC.

In summary: You don't have any use for an Eee. Other people do. There is no point of contact between these two viewpoints, so there is no perceptible reason for conflict and hence no purpose to your argument.

It's a small, light, low cost, portable media player / web browser / email client.

You can work with Excel spreadsheets and Word documents. There are many free linux applications preinstalled, including OpenOffice. You can download others. Also it can run Windows and standard Windows applications.

Yes, but unlike specialized devices that do those things, it's fundamentally a general purpose computer. If you don't like the default for anything you can change it, either by installing different programs or by modifying the installed programs. And you don't even need a cross-compile environment if you want to do that (I do tend to use an external drive when compiling, though that's not strictly necessary)

Most of the time mine is just a web client. Occasionally I use it to play videos. Even more occasionally, I go in and modify mplayer to add extra features.

Or to put it another way, it's the first laptop that was worth spending personal funds on. It's all the computer I really need 90% of the time, and it's small enough that I have it with me 90% of the time.

The degree to which this is an issue really depends on your usage pattern.

Myself, when away from home I tend to turn the thing on for 15-20 minutes max of checking things online.

If I'm going to be using it for hours, I'm somewhere comfortable already, so I plug it in.

If I were a frequent flier, had regular long train trips that weren't on a city subway, etc then I might be using it for longer periods on battery, and the battery endurance might be an issue.

The original Linux-based Asus Eee runs standard linux executables fine, no compiling required. Not that compiling is all that difficult in Linux.

The newer Windows-XP-based Asus Eee runs standard Windows executables, just like any other XP box.

Runs all standard Linux/Windows apps, screen big enough to get work done, keyboard big enough for touch typing, much smaller than other Laptops, solid state storage (no hard disk to get damaged by rough handling), fits on a standard airline tray with the seat in front fully reclined, allows me to plug into a a USB keyboard/mouse, large screen monitor and Eee power adaptor at home and at work, powerful enough to run all standard business applications and most engineering applications (I still use a high-powered desktop for 3D CAD). Costs $299.99 to $499.99, depending on what model you buy.

I can't get any serious work done in that time frame. Such as creating a

On today's 103% booked out flights getting a seat with a power outlet is like winning the lottery. Doesn't happen, usually.

Well, that's exactly what I and many others want to use a laptop for. A