I have it running in a 16gb virtual hard drive with 1 gb of RAM allocated.  That seems to be adequate for it, although I have not done much with it so far.  All I have installed is AVG Free, but it also installed without a hitch, updated, and seems to be working fine.  I’ll report more later as I have a chance to put it through its paces.  So far, it seems more streamlined than Vista, which probably would still be loading in a 1gb RAM machine as I write this and would have taken the better part of an hour to install.

More later.

1.  Increase RAM from the default (and maximum available from Dell) 1 gb to 2 gb, which the system will physically handle.
2. Start with a triple boot system, leaving the original Dell install intact (I selected the Ubuntu system) and adding Windows XP Pro and Ubuntu 8.10.  Eventually, I will probably get rid of the Dell Ubuntu install, leave XP on its small (8 gb) partition, and give the rest to Intrepid Ibex (8.10).
3. I wanted the maximum drive space, so I opted for the 32 gb drive.  My intent was to initially reduce Ubuntu 8.04 (the Dell install) to 8 gb, give 8 more gb to XP and the remainder to 8.10.
4. I wanted to use it with Skype, Elluminate, etc., so I needed the webcam.  I opted for the higher resolution model.

The system is designed to be my portable connectivity.  It’s small and light enough (and easy enough on batteries) to take about anywhere you might need a quick Internet connection.  Here’s what it will NOT be used for:

1. Development (my regular desktop system is set up for that and has plenty of horsepower for it)
2. Video (I have an Archos player that I love for portable video)
3. Media creation (again, my desktop or my Dell XPS laptop work great for that)
4. Writing (the keyboard on the mini is just too small for this.  When I need to write somewhere away from the office or home, I use the XPS laptop … great screen and keyboard, lots of RAM, lots of HD space)
5. Running local applications like spreadsheets, etc.
6. Network troubleshooting (I have an old Inspiron notebook dedicated to that)

What I will use it for:

1. Portable web surfing
2. Checking email
3. Remote access to my other computers, when needed (I use Logmein for this)
4. PowerPoint presentations (the portability is great for that)
5. Online conversations (Elluminate, Skype, etc.)
6. Airplane use (it actually fits on the tray, unlike even my XPS 15 inch, which is a tad too large … and too heavy … and too hard on batteries for a whole flight)

With that in mind, I set out to do the configuration.  So far, everything has worked like a charm.  It triple boots and I have started adding the applications.  I’ll post more here when complete, including all of the “how-to” details for anyone who might want to duplicate the effort.

The video only takes 5 minutes to watch and it’s well worth the time. 

What are the tweaks? Well, here are a couple of things that I found:

1. Dreamweaver is great for PHP scripts. Expression Web doesn’t handle them at all.
2. Dreamweaver handles Java scripting while Expression Web does not

But there’s a lot to like, especially if you do a lot of development in ASP.NET:

1. .NET 2.0 objects are available for use right from the toolbox. That said, they seem to need some additional configuration that might only be available by using Visual Studio to play with the code-behind.
2. If you used FrontPage in the past, and still have a website on a server with FrontPage extensions installed, you can use the FrontPage login instead of FTP. Why is this important? If you use a hosting provider, they normally will only allow you either FrontPage access OR ftp access … not both.
3. Your new code is completely XHTML complaint. No more goofy extensions like FrontPage had. No more non-standard pages that can’t be rendered well by non-Microsoft browsers. I think Microsoft learned their lesson here … sometimes proprietary solutions exclude a lot of users.
4. The interface is similar enough to FrontPage that FrontPage users should have few transition problems with Expression Web.
5. Expression Web can convert current FrontPage sites to standardized sites. Once converted, you won’t be able to use FrontPage any more. Why would you, though, if you had already moved to Expression Web?
6. Expression Web is part of a larger suite of programs that will directly compete with the Adobe suite. The additional packages will begin arriving after the first of the year.

One drawback. If you have used the non-standard Sharepoint in your organization, you have probably used FrontPage 2003 for design tasks. A new package will be available to handle Sharepoint. Apparently, it is basically Expression Web with additional Sharepoint-specific capabilities. I haven’t looked at it yet, so I’m not sure of the differences from Expression Web.

I’m continuing testing. My next task is to set up an ASPX site with both Expression Web and Dreamweaver, both alongside Visual Studio, so I’ll rep;ort on that after I have completed the testing.

Since a future is a contract to buy at a certain price, it stablizes budgeting for an organization that needs the stability. Would there be any way to guarantee prices for airline tickets to be purchased in the future? Right now, the only way to lock in a price on a ticket is to buy the ticket. Since we can buy these well in advance, it essentially becomes a future (fixed price for a future flight). But what if we could lock in the price, but not have to pay for the ticket until it was time to fly? Why should the airline have the money for 6 months just so that we can guarantee the price? Maybe we should keep the money, but still be able to lock in a guaranteed price. payable right before the flight.

How would this work? I have no idea, but maybe someone smarter than me in the area of futures could figure out a way. I’d certainly volunteer to try it out.

When I reset my pda and replaced it in the cradle, ActiveSync wouldn’t connect with it. Understand that without ActiveSync connecting, you can’t sync anything, load any software, or do anything at all useful. The pda becomes a glorified personal calendar. Try as I may, I could not get it to sync.

When I have trouble like this, I usually turn to the Internet. I did several Google searches for the problem and turned up myriad people with the identical problem as mine. Unfortunately, no solution had ever been found and all of the threads just dried up for lack of an answer. Next, I tried using the online troubleshooter. It just has you do things you have probably already thought of. I didn’t find any new ideas there, but did what it said anyway, in the hopes that I had missed something the first time through. Alas, I had not. After reinstalling ActiveSync twice, rebooting my computer several times (including one time with nothing else running), and even installing ActiveSync on a completely different computer (with the same result), I concluded that it just wasn’t going to work.

I got on HP’s site again and found a button where you can chat with a tech. I did that and spent the next hour and a half chatting with techs who basically told me what I already knew and had me go through the same scripts again. No offense, but they didn’t help at all. Finally it was after midnight, so I asked them to suspend the chat and I went to bed.

The next morning I continued the chat with yet another HP tech. He concluded that I needed to send the unit in for repair. Before doing that, I went to my office and connected the unit to my office computer via Bluetooth. That worked fine and the unit was able to sync with that computer without any problem, from both Bluetooth and USB. Now I was really confused and began to focus on ActiveSync and my configuration on my other two computers, neither one of which could get sync to work. Currently, I am waiting for a Bluetooth adapter, which should come tomorrow. I am going to see if I can at least sync my home computer via Bluetooth. It has been a frustrating 3 days in which I have probably spent at least 10 solid hours working on this. Stay tuned.

Another note: ePrompter can check your web-based mail too (Yahoo, GMail, etc.). If you’re like me, I have those email accounts, but don’t check them often. Not checking them periodically causes you to lose the accounts and have to set them up all over again the next time you need them. This solves that problem.

Overall, this is a nice freeware package. It is most useful, well-designed, and small and efficient. I highly recommend it.