One of the first features I wanted to set up on my Eee, was the ability to use my mobile phone (a Nokia N95) as a modem, as a backup in case there’s no WiFi or Ethernet connection available.

I’ve found a couple of guides on the Web for how to set up a Linux-running Eee for this, but have found that they didn’t quite work “out of the box”. The closest I found was these instructions on the EeeUser forum; what follows is heavily based on these tips, but with a couple of changes and clarifications based on what worked (or not) for me.

This guide assumes the following:

• Your Eee is the Linux version, running the “stock” Eee/Xandros OS. It doesn’t matter if you’re using “Easy” or “Advanced” (KDE) mode, though I’m still running mostly in “Easy Mode” with the big icons (I plan to ditch these soon and just run the IceWM window manager, but that’s for later.)
• You have an S60-based phone (mine is a Nokia N95, but other S60 3rd Edition phones, and possibly S60 5th Edition ones like the Nokia 5800 and N97, should work the same).
• You have a data package with your mobile network provider, and the SIM card in your phone is set up accordingly. If you already use the Internet on your phone, you should be fine. (Some network providers don’t like you using your phone as a modem unless you upgrade to a higher-level—and usually higher-priced—data package, so check your contract’s terms and conditions to see if this is the case.)
• This method involves a USB (cable) connection between your Eee and your phone. Apparently, it’s possible to do this over Bluetooth if you have a USB Bluetooth dongle plugged in and configured, but I haven’t got round to this yet—if/when I do, I’ll post back here with how it goes (or not).

The steps to take are as follows:

1. Connect your Eee to your phone using the USB cable. Assuming that the phone then displays the “what connection mode” list, choose “PC Suite”. Keep the phone connected and powered up throughout the following steps.
2. Bring up the “Network Connections” utility:
   • In Easy Mode, choose the “Internet” tab, then the “Network” icon (not “Wireless Networks”).
   • In Advanced Mode, there’s a Network icon in the “tasktray” at the bottom of the screen, where you bring up the menu and select “Configure Network Connections”.
   • Alternatively, if there’s no icon in sight, fire up a Terminal (Ctrl-Alt-T) and enter “sudo kcontrol &” to bring up the KDE Control Center (sic), and select “Network/Network Connections”.
3. Select the “Create” button.
4. Choose “Dial-up” as the connection type.
5. On the “Select Hardware” screen, you should see your phone listed as “/dev/ttyACM0″. If it’s not there, check the cable connection and the phone (is it switched on (!), in “PC Suite” mode, etc.). Select the phone from the list, and then the “Next” button.
6. Enter “#99*” as the dialup number (this is standard for GPRS/3G “modem” dialup connections), and a single space as the username/password.
7. Complete the wizard process, and don’t opt to auto-connect on boot, or connect straight away (we’re not ready yet).
8. You now need to edit two files as per the EEEUser forum post, so go on over there and follow steps 5 and 6 (Note particularly the part about your phone’s data access point, as this depends on the network you’re using. If you can’t find this on your phone, you’ll need to do a Web search for your network “APN”; it shouldn’t take you long to find, but please don’t ask me!)
9. Once you’ve saved and closed these two files, return to the “Network Connections” utility, highlight the new connection you’ve just set up, and select “Connection/Connect…”.
10. If all goes well, you’ll see a dialogue box appear, reading “Initializing modem…”. (In my experience, this stage can take some time (20-30 seconds or so), so please be patient.)
11. When connection is completed, the dialogue box will disappear and the connections utility will show that you are connected to the Internet via your phone.

(I must make it very clear once again that 95% of the hard work here was done by “Buxton” at the EeeUser Forum, and I have only added to his efforts above where I found my experience differed from the post, and where I felt some points needed making more clearly.)

A point or two to make from my testing so far:

• Be aware that unless your phone can access a 3G or 3.5G data network where you are, you’re going to find that Web pages, etc. load rather more slowly than they would via a home LAN/WLAN connection. If you only have GPRS or (worse) GSM data to call on, you’re about to get a history lesson in what the Web was like to access in the mid-1990s (i.e. at 56K modem speeds), except that the Web has become a whole lot more “bloated” in that time…
• Watch your data consumption, especially if you’re on a tight data limit with your network provider, and definitely if you’re roaming abroad. In fact, to be careful, I’d recommend you just don’t do the latter at all, unless you are very careful and know exactly what you’re doing, or else you could be hit with a heart attack-inducing bill when you come home!
• If you can access WiFi where you are, I’d do that instead…

However, this is a handy backup option to have if you and your Eee find yourselves out of reach of an access point. Hope this is useful, and if I get this working over Bluetooth in future, I’ll let you know.

I just stumbled upon this promising site in the comments on engadget. One thing that impressed me when I was an Eee owner was the vibrant community at eeeuser.com. Here’s to hoping that mininoteuser can become just as awesome. When I signed up a couple of hours ago there was only 4 (four) members of the forum. Here’s to hoping that grows a little.

Here’s the link to the site

It’s been a while since I did a review on my blog, the last one being the iPod Touch 8Gb, and seeing how I’ve just a new toy I thought now would be the perfect time to do the second one. Click below to carry on readying…

(click image to enlarge)

I recently acquired an Asus EEE PC-701 4G, from a very very kind person (you know who you are). I’m not sure whether it’s classified as a sub-notebook or a handheld computer, or what. I know it’s not a UMPC as those have very specific specifications, into which the EEE PC does not fit, either way it’s bloody small. Standing for ‘Easy to Learn, Easy to Work, Easy to Play’ the EEE PC is designed for those who aren’t perhaps as tech savvy as some people, the marketing is aimed towards education, and older people and priced to match with models from £189 to £239.

“omfgz robotchicken ftw!!!111″

I have the 4G model, the range comprises of the 2G, 2G Surf, 4G, 4G Surf and 8G models. The number denotes the size of the SSD (solid state drive) storage, and the Surf models lack a webcam and come with a lower capacity battery. It is initially available in ‘Galaxy Black’ and ‘Pearl White’ with ‘Powder Blue’, ‘Lush Green’ and ‘Luscious Pink’ to follow soon.

Specifications
CPU: 900MHz Intel Celeron
RAM: 512Mb (expandable to 2Gb)
Storage: 4Gb SSD (Solid State Drive)
Screen: 7″ LED backlit TFT (800×480)
Wireless: 802.11b/g
Ports: 3x USB 2.0, VGA out
Other: SD/SDHC card reader, VGA webcam

First impressions
On taking it out of the box the first thing that hits you is how light it is. At 890g it’s less than 30% the weight of my MacBook, and the MacBook isn’t a heavy laptop. Popping it on top of my MacBook (as you can see in the photos below) it’s also got a much reduced footprint, whilst being pretty much the same thickness. The finish ‘Pearl White’ isn’t quite as glossy as the MacBook, it’s more off white with a silkier sheen to it. The battery simply snaps into the back of the unit, and the mains charger is more like something you’d get with a mobile phone than a laptop – very compact for travelling. I popped it on for it’s initial charge which took about 3 (very painful) hours whilst I went through everything else in the very small box. You get a small neoprene slip case which is quite handy if you plan to carry it in your backpack, a Quick Start Guide, a thicker User Manual and a Restore CD containing extra drivers (we’ll get to those later).

Using the EEE PC
Once the charging light had gone out, I unplugged it, brought it over to the sofa, opened it up and turned it on. It was one of the quickest boot times I’ve ever seen, 13 seconds from pressing the power button to being ready to use. This is partially due to the rapid read/write speeds afforded by the SSD, but largely the custom built Linux distribution installed on the EEE PC. Yes, I said Linux. The EEE PC runs a custom built variant of Xandros, which itself is a variant of Debian. Over the standard Xandros KDE desktop they’ve implemented an application launcher called ‘Easy Mode’. It contains nice big icons and a simple tabbed layout, giving you access to pretty much anything the average user would need such as FireFox, Thunderbird, Pidigin (IM), Media Player, Internet Radio, Google webapps, Open Office and a handful of games. If you’re so inclined you can have a fiddle around in the console (alt+shift+t) to enable the full desktop, and the familiar task bar, desktop and start menu. Obviously with it’s diminutive form factor the keyboard and trackpad have been made smaller, however unlike the Toshiba Libretto of days past this keyboard is actually usable, sure it takes a bit of getting used to, but I can touch type comfortably on it after a little practise. It was able to handle pretty much anything I threw at it including YouTube, networking, and film trailers. Finally, should you manage to mess something up somehow on the EEE PC, simply reboot and hold down F9 and it’ll restore the main drive back to ‘out of the box’ condition in seconds. Out of the box you’re left with 1.3Gb of space on the SSD.

Easy Mode on the EEE PC

Hacking the EEE PC
It’s only been available for a month or two, but the EEE already has a large fan-base, and a healthy portion of those (including myself) have been exploring alternative uses and ways of running the EEE PC. EEEuser.com is the largest online fan base, covering all manner of hacks from turning it into a car computer, to making it touch screen or running Windows 3.11 on it if you so wish. My chosen hack in comparison is rather vanilla, but was still adventurous. I initially had a nightmare making a bootable USB drive, but then after a bit of googling it turned out the tools recommended on the eeeguides.com tutorial which I used don’t play friendly with Vista or Mac OS X, so I ended up creating a XP install on my MacBook using BootCamp just to make the USB stick! Anyway, so once that was done I followed the guide to the letter, and ended up with my nlite’d version of Windows XP on my EEE PC. Thing is I hadn’t installed anything and I already only had 1.2Gb of space left! So I followed this guide to Slimming Down Windows XP and managed to cut about 650mb of crap out of my install. Then once I reduced the page file to 250mb I had a whole 2.5Gb to play with. After installing cut down versions of Microsoft Office 2003, Adobe Photoshop and a few other choice tools I’m left with a much more manageable system and 1.9Gb free! See some of the screen shots below, click the images to enlarge.

Conclusion
Insanely small, incredibly well built, speedy, fun to use and cheap. Asus aims this product squarely at the general public and education in specific, and it certainly fits that market well, but I feel the Asus has more potential than that, and so do many other consumers, so much so that it’s near impossible to get hold of one in the UK at the moment. With it’s lack of moving parts, small size and solid build quality the EEE PC is perfect to throw in your backpack to take camping, or on a business trip, or anywhere else you fancy going for that matter. With a 24 month warrantee, features you wouldn’t expect for a laptop at this size or price point, and an undeniable air of cool the Asus EEE PC-701 is a hit with me.

Voici une preuve que l’installation de l’OS eeexubuntu s’est bien passée. En utilisant les wiki et quelques conseils donnés sur mon blog, vous devriez obtenir le même résultat vraiment bluffant, léger, parfait pour une utilisation optimale de ce magnifique petit laptop.

Ma configuration finale (eeexubuntu, sur le disque interne SSD, une SD Card de 8Gb pour les données, vidéos, son, documents):

• Compiz, voir wiki et mon fichier de configuration donné ci dessous.
• Adode flash, récupéré via les packages synoptics
• Vlc, récupéré via les packages synoptics. Dans les options de vlc, activez comme sortie vidéo (Output) X11, sinon le rendu sera bleu lors des mouvements du cube et autres “geekeries” de compiz
• eee cam tray, voir wiki
• Skype, voir wiki

Si vous avez des questions, des soucis, que je peux vous aider, n’hésitez pas à me contacter.

Acabo de leer en Xataka, que la versión de 8 gigas de disco SSD y 1 giga de Ram del Asus EEE, va a venir con una pantalla de 10″, todo ello en la misma carcasa del modelo con pantalla de 7″.

Sin duda una grandísima noticia, pero que a falta de comunicado oficial, se queda en un gustoso rumor.

Se dice que el precio (en América) rondará los 499$, lo que incluso traducido a € por la regla de €=$ a mi me convence.

El caso es saber cuando estará disponible.

En resumidas cuentas, que yo sigo hecho un lío sobre que modelo comprar, arggggg.

PD: Encima para colmo corren rumores de un nuevo ultraportátil de Apple, lo que me faltaba oiga!. (Vía Macrumors)

Visto en : Xataka