This weekend, I’m attending my second Dallas WordCamp, a local event that showcases not just the amazing WordPress blogging system, but things you can do to make you a better blogger, designer, and community builder.

I attended my first WordCamp last year and I had an absolute blast.  I felt very at home in an auditorium full of mostly techy geeks–many of them even geekier than me in some ways!  I sat in a sea of mostly MacBooks and MacBook Pros.  I on the other hand was rocking my portable yet underpowered Eee PC, tethered to a precious spot on the power strip.  Though I didn’t want to admit it at the time, the Eee PC was more of a conversation piece than a true mobile workhorse.  I was working with a less that satisfactory Windows Mobile phone that was far outstripped by the iPhones I could see other people using.  Hell, the thing didn’t even want to make calls properly, let alone do anything fancy.  I felt almost lost–I was usually the most “techy” person in a group, but I had clearly met my matches at WordCamp.

WordCamp is a place that showcases technology, not just for what it can do for blogging, but what it can do for attendees.  That was my first chance to see mobile technology in widespread action, not just how I applied it to my day to day or specialized needs.

This year I am rocking much better technology with my Dell Mini 9 Hackintosh and my iPhone 3G.  Unlike last year, I don’t have to stay tethered to a power strip to stay connected (although I did, mostly because it was there).  I have better processing power, better battery power–and that translates into better communication power in a setting like WordCamp.

Because I have mobile technology that actually works as advertised in a mobile setting, I am able to connect that much more with the presenters and my fellow attendees.  I’m able to see a running conversation about the event, and contribute to that conversation as it happens.  I have choices in how the information being given out gets to me, and I have avenues to even more information as it is shared in the group.  Would I be able to do that with my Eee PC and my sadly dumb smartphone?  Yes, I would–but would I be able to do it as easily, or as elegantly?  Probably not.

I think there is something very important in having a setup that works for you; having the perfect gear is not necessarily about having the newest and fastest laptop, or an HD camera in your bag at all times.  It’s about having the kind of equipment that can get you through the day at a place like WordCamp, that can allow you to communicate and create and evolve on the go.

I find it fascinating to watch technology become a part of our lives and the way we work, play, learn and communicate with each other.  WordCamp is an excellent study in that, not just from a macro level but from a microscopic level, watching each individual participate in their own way with their own gear.  I love watching mobile technology in action, used the way it was intended to be used.

I have taken to poring over the My Dell Mini forums for tips, tricks, and planning my Hackintosh netbook journey in the meantime.  Plus, I’m still warm and happy over the specs of my new baby.  It is just flat out so much more powerful than my Eee PC.  I got the 32GB SSD drive and the 1.3MP webcam, no other real frills to speak of.  I have a USB Bluetooth micro-receiver for when I need to use Bluetooth (which is rare) and I have a stick of 2 GB RAM to put in when the Mini finally arrives on my doorstep.  I wanted to get the pink Mini, but that was an extra FORTY BUCKS.  What a total ripoff, Dell!  So, I got the Alpine White instead.  If I really feel the need to make it pretty, I’ll throw down $15-20 on a skin and call it a day.  Bonus: the white will match my iPhone!

I can’t wait to get my new baby from Dell…it’s going to be a long 23 days in the meantime.

Here are my daily drivers:
- iPhone 3G
- iBook G4
- Seagate FreeAgent 500GB
- iPod nano 3G 8GB
- Canon SD750
- Eee PC 701
- Western Digital Passport 250GB

iPhone 3G: I absolutely love my 16GB white iPhone 3G.  My iPhone is my lifeline, my entertainment, and my productivity wrapped up into a sleek, small package.  It’s my most recent tech purchase and is already one of my absolute favorite pieces of gear.  I use my iPhone for email, light web surfing, reading my RSS feeds, jotting a quick idea into Evernote, keeping up with my busy calendar, communicating on Twitter, reading eBooks, listening to music, and of course making phone calls.  The 2.1 firmware upgrade has given me a great boost in battery life and I have never had a problem with 3G coverage and call clarity.  It’s the best phone I’ve ever owned.  I’ll talk about my favorite apps and iPhone features in another upcoming post.

iBook G4: I am still rocking my trusty and beloved iBook G4, which I purchased in March of 2006.  I’ve maxed out the RAM and it runs Leopard quite happily.  Right now, the iBook has a hinge issue which makes opening and closing the laptop very precarious, so it’s being utilized as a desktop rather than a laptop.  I have a 19″ HP LCD monitor and a Logitech wireless keyboard and mouse hooked up to it, while it is stowed out of sight on the small set of drawers that slide under my desk.  I also have my all-in-one HP Printer, external DVD burner, and external hard drive hooked up to the iBook via a USB hub.  I am looking to eventually replace it on the desktop with an iMac, and I plan on getting a MacBook Pro hopefully sometime this winter, but the iBook is still a solid machine for my needs at home.  I use it for work (Microsoft Office and email), converting videos to watch on my iPhone, web surfing, writing, and some web design.

Seagate FreeAgent 500GB: This is a recent purchase that replaced a 250GB external drive that went out on me.  Because the iBook only has a 40GB hard drive, having an external drive is essential for me.  My husband and I have a large music collection that lives solely on the external drive, as does our iPhoto library.  I have the Seagate partitioned in half–one partition for Time Machine backups, and one partition for music, photos, movies and other things.  I am setting everything to back up to my Amazon S3 account so that if the external ever goes out again, it will not be an emergency!  One of the things I like about the Seagate is its power-saving function–when the laptop goes to sleep, so does the external drive.  That will really help lower wear and tear and increase the longevity of the drive.  It has excellent read/write speeds and looks kind of like a menacing orange Cylon.  Who doesn’t love having a Cylon on their desk?

iPod nano 3G 8GB: My “nano fatty” is one of my all-time favorite iPods.  After seeing the leaked specs, I was prepared not to like it when it was introduced last fall, but after seeing it in person, I fell in love.  It’s so small and sleek that sometimes I lose it in my bigger bags!  It has an incredibly long battery life, and the solid-state hard drive makes it perfect for working out with.  I’ve been using my iPhone a lot lately, but my iPod will not be tossed into some dusty drawer and not used any longer.  I keep it in my purse loaded up with music and audiobooks for my workout and my commute.  I like to keep different music on my iPhone and my nano so that I’m getting more leverage out of both devices.  It’s working great so far, I just need to build my music collection back up after a major hard drive crash!

Canon SD750: I really enjoy using this camera–it has a large, crisp LCD screen, uses SD cards, has a rechargable battery, and takes great photos!  My old camera, the Canon A510, was bulkier and difficult to fit in a smaller purse or a pocket.  The SD750 fits easily in my pocket or purse, which makes it handy for capturing moments on the go.  I’m still playing with the custom CHDK firmware that I loaded on it a while back, so watch the blog for an SD750 update!

Eee PC 701: “Netbooks” are becoming increasingly popular, with new ones popping up on the horizon every day or two.  I am happily rocking the one that started the craze, the Asus Eee PC 701.  I’ve got the 4GB version in Blush Pink, which makes it not only the smallest laptop I’ve ever owned, but also the cutest.  I have upgraded the RAM to 2GB, supplemented the 4GB SSD drive with an 8GB SD card, and added a Kensington USB Micro Bluetooth Adapter.  I am able to carry it almost anywhere in almost any bag I own because it’s so light and small.  I bought it with the intention of using it as a lightweight writing and blogging tool, but it’s so much more than that.  I have gone for days without using the iBook because I just don’t need to–I can do almost any computer task that I need to do on my little pink powerhouse.  I’m running Ubuntu Hardy Heron and it works fantastically well on the Eee PC.  I’ve become a big Linux fan because of this little laptop.

Western Digital Passport 250GB: Since the Eee PC only has 4GB (12GB if you count the SD card!) of storage on board, I thought it’d be nice to get a small external drive for bigger files and backup storage.  So, I picked up a 250GB Western Digital Passport drive (also in pink) that is not much bigger than a deck of cards.  It runs completely off USB power, eliminating the need for a separate power source, and it’s so quiet you can hardly hear it run.  My entire mobile computing setup weighs less than 3 pounds and fits in my purse–how cool is that?

A lot of people have a tech bag or two that they use to cart all their stuff around in, but I stick mainly to purses.  Just because I like electronics doesn’t mean I can’t carry them fashionably!  I favor Coach leather bags for my every day and professional use, but I do have a great Manhattan Portage bag that I use for travel, the gym, or places I just don’t want to carry a nice, expensive leather bag.  I have the Mini Map Bag in pink, which is essentially a vertical messenger.  It’s great for weekend jaunts to the lake or a trip to the coffee shop to write–it easily fits my Eee PC and accessories, plus my wallet, iPhone and other essentials.  It is also big enough to stash my current knitting project, a book, and my DS Lite.

What are your daily drivers and how do you carry them?  If you’re interested in being featured in My Daily Tech, send me an email at jessicafritsche at gmail dot com.

It is frustrating, considering the only place I run Windows is at the office. At home I run nothing but OS X and Ubuntu. So, as an experiment, I installed Windows XP on my Asus eeePC 701 about a month ago to see if it made it any more useful to me.

I did a custom nLite installation of XP so that I could get rid of absolutely anything I didn’t need–this took my installation size wayyy down to just at a gig. When you’re dealing with a 4GB SSD drive, you have to make sure that Windows doesn’t eat up your entire partition! It took a while to install, but when I booted–it was FAST. It booted faster than any normal Windows installation I have ever worked with. I barely had time to blink before I was already on my desktop.

I installed a handful of programs–Firefox, Skype, Microsoft Office (on the SD card to save some space), iTunes (just because), Foxit Reader, and a ClearType utility (a must for making text on the small screen sharp!). At first I was impressed by the performance…but after a week or so with XP on the machine, I started to change my tune.

In my opinion, Windows is not meant for the sub-notebook. Some of the things that have turned me off:

1. Windows and Windows programs can be giant resource hogs. I’ve never had trouble with Skype, not even with video calls, on the eeePC running Ubuntu. But last night I was testing Skype video calling in Windows, and my processor was maxing out at 100%. I’ve also noticed that other programs are not very snappy if I’ve had the computer on for awhile. It’s really zippy after a reboot, but I don’t want to have to constantly reboot my machine to get good performance. I’ve even noticed that my wireless signal is not as solid under Windows–watching anything on hulu.com causes massive amounts of buffering, and I had an utterly crappy voice connection on Skype.
2. Windows is not as smart as Ubuntu. Ubuntu Hardy Heron knows enough to resize many screens for the smaller eeePC. I had trouble with lots of programs trailing off the screen in Windows, with no handy key+mouse combination to move them around. The Move command just flat wouldn’t work because Windows didn’t want to put the screen where I wanted it to go. It has made using the eeePC frustrating for anything more than checking my email and the occasional IM conversation.
3. I just don’t feel good about using Windows anymore. I use it at work because I have to, but I find myself pining for some of the programs on OS X or Ubuntu. I wish I could use the same nice shortcuts and time-saving programs (Oh Quicksilver, I love you so! You, too, Gnome-Do.), and I just think Windows is visually unappealing, even when it’s skinned. Plus, I got a little addicted to the giant treasure trove of open-source software for Linux. It’s like Christmas!

It’s great to be able to watch Netflix streaming or have iTunes on my eeePC, but I’ve discovered that I don’t think it’s worth it. XP is dragging my little laptop down. Maybe if Windows came out with an OS specifically tailored to the sub-notebook or UMPC, I’d bite. I know that Origami is supposed to take the Windows OS and “optimize” it for use on a UMPC, but that’s not the same thing as having an OS JUST for the UMPC and sub-notebook devices.

It’s back to Ubuntu for me as soon as I can install it!

Sadly, I’ve been unable to run it on the eeePC because turning on Compiz turns OFF my ability to drag windows off the top of the screen. This is a big deal on the eeePC’s small screen, because sometimes dialog windows are too long to fit on the screen, and I will have to alt+drag them up so that I can get to all of the choices.

Thankfully, the eeeuser wiki has come to my rescue once again.  Someone posted a very simple line of code that you can pop in the terminal and voila! Dragging windows beyond the top of the screen is enabled in Compiz.

gconftool-2 –set /apps/compiz/plugins/move/allscreens/options/constrain_y –type bool 0

It is important to NOT issue the command as a root user (sudo), but that is the only caveat I’ve found. I am so happy to be able to show off the amazing Compiz effects on my eeePC, and now I can finally use Emerald Theme Manager to make my desktop look awesome!

I am the proud owner of an eeePC 700 4G (my in-depth review soon to come!) and while I see the obvious improvements (bigger screen, bigger SSD), I really feel no need to upgrade. The first thing I did upon receipt of my eeePC was upgrade the RAM from the 512 MB stock to 2 GB. Then I loaded up Ubuntu and added an 8 GB SDHC card to complement the installed 4 GB SSD. It’s so light and small that I can carry it with me everywhere, and I do! I use my eeePC as a portable writing, surfing and media machine, and it does the job impeccably.

I appreciate that Asus is trying to improve on an already great product, but when the eeePC starts getting bigger, heavier, and more expensive, it starts to lose the point for me. When it starts creeping up towards the size and heft of my 12″ iBook, it’s no longer really a sub-portable that I can squeeze into pretty much any purse I own. $549 is only $150 more than I spent on my own eeePC, but it’s enough of a significant difference that it would have been a dealbreaker for me. Now, if the eeePC 900 had included a touchscreen and tablet capabilities, I’d have probably put mine up on eBay and plunked down the extra money. Maybe future releases will include that functionality, which would be a welcome purchase for people like me who are interested in the functionality of a really small tablet PC but are put off by the high prices.

In the meantime, I am still incredibly happy with my eeePC 700. It is an incredible value at $399 (for the 4 GB version) and I have no regrets in purchasing it. My fingers are still crossed for the success of the eeePC 900, because I want to see what else Asus can do with future releases for the affordable sub-notebook category!