2010 June

HP Mini 5102

Monday, June 28th, 2010
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I bought a Netbook!

Why?

A niche had opened up in my technology-filled life. A gap that my aging Macbook Pro is finding itself less and less able to fill as the battery and various hardware begins to fail. A comfort hole that my Nexus One is too small, and my Desktop is too large to fill. A need that the iPad is too limited to fulfill.

What?

An HP Mini 5102 netbook with the following specifications:

  • Intel Atom N450 Processor with 2GB of RAM
  • 80GB SSD Hard Drive
  • Wireless a/b/g/n adapter
  • 3G cellular modem
  • High resolution 10.1″ touch screen
  • 6 Cell battery rated at ~10 hours

Where?

From New Zealand technology outlet, Ascent. Thanks to ibeardslee from #ubuntu-nz on Freenode IRC for putting the wheels in motion to get these in the country!

How (is it working out)?

Just dandy!

The system doesn’t come with any operating system loaded, but the hardware is 99% compatible with Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. The only gotcha being the 3G modem… It apparently requires some sort of firmware to be loaded by a program that only runs on Windows but I haven’t actually tried to get it working because it pairs flawlessly over Bluetooth to my Nexus One for mobile data.

Everything else from the card reader to the camera works, and I’ve been able to get between 8-10hrs battery life out of normal use (wireless surfing).

Any tips?

  • I found I had to adjust the DPI for the screen as it’s very high resolution (1366×768 on a 10.1″ screen) so my eyes aren’t torn from their sockets. I found that around 120 DPI (up from 96) works quite well. Here’s how you change it:
    System -> Preferences -> Appearance -> Fonts tab: click "Details" and adjust there
  • As great as Ubuntu is, it can be a little heavy at times, so I’m currently using Arch Linux on it and everything is much, much faster. I hope to put up a guide on getting Arch going on this thing as it’s a great OS for the tweakers among us!
  • Switch out Ubuntu’s version of Firefox for Google Chrome or Chromium, much faster. Arch’s Firefox seems OK, though
  • Disable bluetooth and wireless if you’re not using them. Dim the screen for maximum battery life!

Enjoy! Leave a comment if you have any questions!

Broken Blog

Monday, June 28th, 2010
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If you haven’t noticed (I hadn’t!), my blog has been a bit broken for a couple of weeks.

It’s upgraded to WordPress 3.0 now, but that wasn’t without problems and I almost lost all my drafts. Hooray for backups :)

Keeping in tradition with fiddling with blogging software more than actual blogging, I was having a look around and noticed Jekyll which looks to be a nifty, yet simple, git-based blogging platform.

Maybe one day :)