Thoughts from an Indiana Geek

Updates updates updates

2009-08-11T17:57:00.000-07:00

I decided that the blog needed an update, so with the help of Blogger Templates I found one that I like. The wife says it's ugly and that the one I had on there temporarily earlier was better. I like this one though and I am going to give it a bit....if you want lemme know what you think.

Lenovo IdeaPad S10

2008-12-16T23:34:00.001-08:00

So a while back I posted that I was in the middle of testing some of the top net books up for sale. All together I tested three different net books. The Acer Aspire One, the ASUS Eee PC 901, and the Lenovo IdeaPad S10.

So finally the Lenovo IdeaPad S10. The specs on this system include a 10.1” (1024x500) widescreen, 512MB DDR2 RAM, 80GB Hard Drive, and the 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor. At first I was a little worried about the system only having 512MB of RAM, I mean it is XP but still that’s not a lot of RAM After popping the battery in and going through the normal XP setup I was up and running. Believe me when I say, you don’t really miss the other 512MB of RAM at all. It preformed just as well as the other two net books even with less memory. I LOVED the 10” screen, you wouldn’t think another inch of screen would matter, but it does. I also liked the feel of the Lenovo, it felt very solid and seemed to be very well put together.

I also liked the easily accessible door on the bottom of the system that gave access to the memory slots as well as the hard drive. The other two systems have to be taken completely apart to get to the hard drive if you wanted to upgrade it. The Lenovo is two screws, and the hard drive literally slides out. I give mad props to Lenovo for thinking this out! The keyboard on this unit is also my favorite, it is very close to a full blown laptop keyboard, so very easy for even my fat fingers to type on.

Overall I just liked this system better, although I would probably add more RAM just to get it up to 1GB. I give this net book 4.5 out of 5 stars. The only reason this system did not get a full 5 is because of the smaller hard drive and lower amount of RAM that comes standard. The Acer model came with 1GB of RAM and a 160GB Hard Drive, I wish the Lenovo had these same specs.

So out of all three systems, Lenovo takes the gold. Once the Hard Drive and RAM are upgraded this system just plain rocks compared to the other two. Thank You Lenovo for another great laptop.

ASUS Eee PC

2008-12-05T10:45:00.001-08:00

Next up is the ASUS Eee PC 901. The specs on this system were similar to the Acer, 8.9” (1024x500) widescreen, 1GB DDR2 RAM, 8GB solid state drive, and the added benefit of Bluetooth. I have say right out of the box I was very unimpressed with this net book. It had the same screen size as the Acer, however the dimensions were much smaller as well as the keyboard. Now I will admit that I do have pretty fat fingers, so that could be part of the reason I hated this keyboard. I did get the opinions from several people, and they all felt that unless you were a kid, it was pretty useless. I will say that it was pretty snappy and I believe part of that was because of the 8GB Solid State drive, however 8GB isn’t much to work with these days. In my opinion it is not worth the extra 100 bucks for this unit. On the Rob scale it gets a measely 2 stars. Sorry ASUS, you may be a top contender in the field, but not in this geek’s eye!

BTW the tests of these machines were performed for the company I work for because we are looking to buy several, this model was sent back without any further consideration.

Acer Aspire One Netbook

2008-12-03T18:13:00.001-08:00

Let’s start with the Acer Aspire One. The model I tested had an 8.9” (1024x600) widescreen, 1.6GHz Intel Atom CPU, 1GB DDR2 SDRAM, and a 160GB Hard drive. Straight out of the box I was impressed with this tiny, lightweight net book. In keeping with the Acer standard it was very well put together and felt very sturdy, and did I mention shiny! After using the net book pretty exclusively over a weekend I found that it was good for general surfing, but when it came to doing any kind of work it really felt lacking. I ended up reaching for my Lenovo T60. But this is mostly just my preference, I believe with enough time with the device you would get used to the smaller keyboard and screen. This would also be great for kids, my five year old couldn’t put it down. On the Rob scale, out of 5 stars I give it 3.5. This would be a great holiday gift for kids, college students, and anyone that just does mostly email and surfing.

Netbooks

2008-11-19T17:43:00.000-08:00

Over the last week and a half I have been testing some Netbooks for work. We are trying to find one that we like for our district manager's to use in their daily tasts. So far I have looked at the Acer Aspire One with Windows XP, the ASUS Eee PC with Windows XP, and the Lenovo IdeaPad S10 with Windows XP. So far all of them have had features I really liked, but utill I got my hands on the Lenovo I didn't like one completely. I will follow up with a review on each, but so far I like the Lenovo product!

HIV CURED?!?!

2008-11-09T09:46:00.001-08:00

HIV CURED?!?! I just saw this link and had to investigate! If this is for real then this could be the start to saving millions of lives.

Online Photo Editing

2008-11-08T23:54:00.000-08:00

In this day and age it seems web 2.0 sites are taking over the day to day tasks we would normally use an expensive program that we purchased and installed on our local machines. How many times have you needed the services of such a program but you were at work or at a friend's house using their computer?

There are now tons of sites that offer the same services online that you can access from any computer with an internet connection. The first part of this project will start with Online photo editors. Here is a list of several sites that are free ,and although they may not have every feature Photoshop has, they will fit most of your basic photo editing needs.

Election Night

2008-11-04T19:23:00.000-08:00

Whether you are an Obama or McCain supporter everyone should be excited about the tech involved in this year's election. All night I kept on top of the coverage thanks to Twitter's election page, CNN, and from excellent coverage from Leo Laporte over at TWiTLive. No matter who wins thanks to today's tech I believe that this election will be a very early call.

Intro to Me

2008-11-03T17:52:00.000-08:00

Who is Rob Hopkins you may ask. Rob is a small town geek living in what I like to call the "armpit of America" aka Indiana. There isn't much to do here other than watch the Colts suck for the first time in almost a decade. So I pretty much immerse myself in the world of the interwebs. When I'm not doing that I spend some quality time with my wife and our "kids". Well that's enough about all that, lets get to what matters.........tech.