Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: Rondar on May 31, 2009, 10:19:52 AM
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First, I know this probably doesnt pertain to Aces High much unless I read the BBS for what I want to do. I was thinking of getting a mini laptop, or netbook, as they may be called. Approx a 10" screen. In the summer we work long hours and spend a lot of time in machinery (tractor mainly). What I wanted to do was to get on the internet and be able to look at java based pages for the most part. I know I would probably have to buy a usb mobil phone modem and pay to have data on my phone plan. Will one of these critters do Java pages? Specifically I wanted to watch some stock pages from my scottrade account while in the tractor. Secondary is web surfing and email, etc.
Now, before y'alls get to worrying about driving, :O our tractors have satellite guidance with autosteering. It means it drives itself in the field until you get to the end and then you turn it around and it drives itself the next round again. Lots of our fields are a mile long, so I have a fair amount of time to surf if I would so desire.
I wanted a small laptop like maybe one of these simply because by the time you take a lunchbox, water jug, gloves, etc there gets to be a lot to carry. So I thought a little one might fit my needs. Although, maybe something with a dvd player might not be a bad thought, if I had to get a bigger laptop.
What say you guys?
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Why not, Asus EEE or similar.. should work.
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Yes it should work but you'de probably be better off just signing up for a wireless broadband Internet service than running it through your phone. If the signal's weak where you are you can use a booster.
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I see there are a couple three operating systems for these little guys. Ubuntu, home XP, vista, and linux. I would suppose I would want homeXP?
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I would use xp home. I have an asus eee 900 and love it. I use it everday.
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Rondar...I'm buying this along with my Dell Studio 17
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152093
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http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/hpnetbook/overview.jsp
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Ok, thanks guys. I will do some checking. Currently we have Alltel. And only Altell in our area. I know that Verizon bought Alltel, and at this moment Verizon is making us do everything through altell, but I think I have been told that in June or July we will be switched over to Verizon. So, I cannot get the service and the little laptop yet through verizon, and I really dont want to be tied up to Altell's plan for 2 years from now if I go altel, so I may just have to wait a month. But I am looking and if the right deal comes up I will buy it and just do what I have to do I guess.
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Don't be afraid of what these little suckers can do... I have an Acer Aspire One (9" Version) with the small battery. It came with a 120GB Hard drive, WinXPHome, 1.6GHZ Intel Atom Processor, and 1GB of ram.
While I don't plan on using it for Aces High anytime soon, it is plenty fast enough for just about anything on the internet, including downloads, movies, Flash Games, and Java Applications.
It has wireless LAN networking built in with a small switch to turn it on and off at the very front. With it turned ON, I get a good 2.5-3 hours of battery life. With it OFF I would imagine it would push 4-4.5 hours, and with the big battery they claim up to 9.5 hours of battery life!
No DVD player, no problem. Just purchase a USB thumb drive (you can get 10GB-20GB versions now quite cheaply) and copy your dvd's onto this drive at home... then just use it to watch your movies out in the field (no pun intended).
The first thing I did after getting mine was uninstalling all the proprietary JUNK off of it, and installing AVG. You'll probably want to do the same.... just don't be afraid because these are more capable than you think.
Good luck!
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g/f has a samsung NC-10, nice little bit of kit and a slightly bigger screen/keyboard than the really tiny ones.
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Yeah these mini's are pretty awesome. My HP Mini 1000 plays Half-Life 1 no problem. I mean I have no use for it as a gaming laptop since its mostly for writing and web, but its nice to know that if I'm in my coffee shop I can be an MIT grad Rambo!
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Rondar's satellite guidance went kaputt... :x
(http://www.mtcowgirl.us/images/Pix/Kos_RiverTractor2.jpg)
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LOL thats pretty funny mipoikel. I hope I pay more attention than that tho :confused:
I did buy an Asus 1000HEB from bestbuy. I dont have anywhere local to buy one, only internet. Wife and I went to Wichita and I went in a bb and they had one (several) so I bought it. Still getting used to it but so far its pretty cool.
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I'm currently using the GPS in my Iphone 3G. At first I absolutely hated the lack of live directions but now that I got used to using only the map / location pointer I find it's almost better than the active guidance because it just tells you where you are and lets you make your own decisions.
I've had many cases where the guidance system told me too late to turn from a junction (in heavy traffic and several junctions in a row) so in this sense I like the map-only better as it forces me to check how many junctions there are in vicinity and figure out the correct one.
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Are you using standard "Maps" or another application? I ask because I find that "Maps" works great 95% of the time - except invariably the times when I really really need it, it either can't download the maps at all and I'm looking at a blue dot on a grey background - or it can, but I could swim the Channel faster than it is downloading the section I'm trying to see.
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