Eric.Chromick.com

I did a quick test of the Moblin V2.0 beta running from USB on my Aspire One a few days ago.

I realize this is a Beta, but the first thing I tested after wireless was the Intro video, which didn’t work! I wasn’t able to install the Flash player from the browser so I gave up on that.

Sure, I could have gone to the commandline and installed it, but that’s not the point. If you include a video showing how awesome your new OS is, you need to make sure it “just works”! Read the rest of this entry »

Via the Puppy Linux developer’s blog.

NorhTec has announced the upcoming release of the Gecko EduBook. Specs here.

I’m especially excited about this because it really makes me think of the old Tandy Model 100. Decent battery life from AA’s, no moving parts, instant on, just works. Despite having an Aspire One, I have 2 Model 100’s that still get some use, even today. Yes, I’m living in the past, but compared to the laptops of today, well there’s just no comparison. Read the rest of this entry »

For the last week or so, I’ve been very frustrated trying to watch anything from YouTube on my RoadRunner account at home. The tracert suggests that somewhere between Montgomery (Cincinnati) Ohio and Columbus, Ohio they’re dumping packets on the ground.

Up until today, I’d been using HideMyAss.com to get around their problem, but this evening, even that isn’t working. Example – a 3 minute long video of Mike Rowe / Dirty Jobs has taken over half an hour to play. Normally, I wouldn’t wait that long, but I just wanted to see how long it would take to complete.

Anyone have any other proxy ideas for me while TimeWarner discovers and (hopefully) fixes the problem?

I’d like to say I understand this new “feature” from Google, but I can’t. Read the rest of this entry »

“QuickBooks was unable to open the company file” is not the kind of error message I like to hear about the morning after an upgrade. I had applied QB Enterprise Update V9R6 to the server and all the client machines, following the instructions to the letter, rebooting when prompted and logged in from each pc. Everything looked fine. Read the rest of this entry »

I really enjoy the Chuck series on NBC, so every Monday night at 8 EST, I’m parked in front of a tv. When I can’t watch it at its normal time, I depend on Hulu.com or NBC.com for my fix. Hulu usually has the episode available about 1 AM Tuesday.

Monday the 9th I couldn’t get to a tv at 8, so I was looking forward to catching it on Hulu, but no luck. NBC doesn’t have it either and as of Wednesday, I haven’t been able to find any explanation or press releases to explain why it’s not on either site.

Did I miss something of global importance that pre-empted the show?

Links:
http://www.nbc.com/Chuck/
http://www.hulu.com/chuck

After a normal restart yesterday, my Aspire One booted into just a black screen. No POST, no BIOS, no hard drive light activity, just the power button LED on and the fan running fast. I was not very happy…

I went to the Acer Aspire One User Forum and started looking thru the Hardware section. I found this thread Dead aspire one and it looked like many others had a similar experience. After reading many stories of warranty repair or replacement, I was just about to dig up my receipts when I found this post: Re: Dead aspire one.

It seems that a lot of people had success reflashing the BIOS from a USB drive using tools provided by Acer. I don’t know if it’s officially supported by Acer or if it will void your warranty, but if the computer’s a paperweight now anyway, what the hell?
Read the rest of this entry »

Touchpads drive me crazy! Fortunately, Acer was kind (and smart) enough to make Fn + F7 toggle it on & off. And, as an added bonus, this also works in Puppy Linux 4.1.2 retro k2.6.21.7!

If I could see better, or had taken the time to read the manual, I may have discovered this on day one. Maybe this will save someone else some frustration!
Read the rest of this entry »

Via CNN:

I’ve had a lot of .pdf files to read recently and thought pretty seriously about buying a Kindle so I could carry them around with me.  But, after a little research, and some thought, it looked like viewing .pdf’s on a Kindle was iffy at best and potentially a PITA if I had to convert all my documents.

I’ve been carrying around my AA1 and doing most of my .pdf reading on it, but have been a little frustrated trying to find the right combination of magnification and page width to get the most legible view. 

Then I had an epiphany:

Read the rest of this entry »