The Mobile Office Blog

Life with Ubuntu NBR on my Acer Aspire One

Ben Smith — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 14:22:00 GMT

I've had some time now to evaluate Ubuntu NBR on my Acer Aspire One and I've come to a simple simple conclusion...

...I LOVE IT!!!

I've not had a single compatibility issue nor any reliability issues. I am able to function (very highly, might I add) with this OS on my netbook. I've done a lot of different tasks with no issues.

For dealing with my multi-computer life I have the built in support of Ubuntu One. I am able to store files locally and on the web through this built in file storage service. Whether I am at my Netbook or my PC I have access to all of the files that I'm working on.

For dealing with MS Office documents I have the latest version of OpenOffice. I am able to keep up with my Excel loving boss and my presentation loving peers using OpenOffice. I've done massive analyses and written entire decks using OpenOffice and no one has caught me yet! OpenOffice's compatibility with all of the regularly available MS products has saved me time and time again.

For dealing with images I have the GIMP. I previously adopted the GIMP years ago when I realized that my pirated copy of PS2 was WAY out of date. I've continued to use the GIMP and advise all of my cost concious friends to do the same. The fact that it's baked in to Ubuntu NBR makes it even more user friendly.

For dealing with web development I have gedit, which I used to shun for vi on linux machines. No more!!! vi has become a nightmare now that I have joined the ranks of the living! gedit is a great editor and has awesome, built-in color coding and sdk capabilities for so many languages that I haven't even gotten to experience them all.

To sum it all up, if I were you I'd run out and get Ubuntu NBR for my netbook...and hey, you don't even need to actually run anywhere. The best netbook OS can be found right now, even from your couch!

Want to know something else? Let me know in the comments, fill out my contact form, or you can always reach me on Twitter.

Fixing Ubuntu 9.10 Suspend on an Acer Aspire One

Ben Smith — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:40:00 GMT

Everything appeared to be working fine after installing Ubuntu Netbook Remix on my Acer Aspire One...

...then the AAO tried to go into Suspend mode and it decided to lock up and requiring a hard re-boot. After much soul (and Google) searching, I came across the cause and solution. Suspend will not work right if you're using a SDHC card in the left SD slot without doing the following:

Adjust the linux kernel boot parameters to address an issue with the SD slots

Open up /etc/default/grub in an editor (I use vi)
Edit the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT parameter to include pciehp.pciehp_force=1
Save the file
Run update-grub2

Install a new linux-backports-modules-karmic package running the following command in terminal: sudo apt-get install linux-backports-modules-karmic (You'll need to reboot after this is done.)
Add a script that unmounts/remounts the SD card at the time of system suspension and re-awakening. Here's a link to the Ubuntu help page that contains the unmount/remount script. Create the script file /usr/lib/pm-utils/sleep.d/010_unmount_SD.sh, fill it up with the script provided, and chmod it to 755 per the instructions.

That's it! Suspend will work and it will resume correctly.

Image by Yoppy

Want to know something else? Let me know in the comments, fill out my contact form, or you can always reach me on Twitter.

Forget Download.com, switch to Ubuntu and get an App Store!

Ben Smith — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:03:00 GMT

Whenever I rebuild my netbook, I have to go through the arduous process of getting the software tools that make this little computer a little more fun to use. After a Windows install, I've got to run around the internet to find apps like Google Chrome, Firefox, OpenOffice, the GIMP, a lite twitter client, etc. A lot of times I hit up download.com (cnet's download center) to look for interesting apps to try. More often than not, I end of with something that doesn't meet my needs and the uninstall is more painful than finding the crapplication was. I say...NO MORE!!!

Ubuntu's native Ubuntu Software Center is an App Store for Linux

Realizing that learning to use a standard Linux package manager (like rpm or yum) was a barrier to entry for those new to Linux, the Ubuntu community set out to make software installation and removal easy by following the app store paradigm. With the Ubuntu Software Center, users can:

Browse for applications by "Department"
Search for applications by term
"One-click" install applications
"One-click" remove unwanted applications

Like other popular App Stores, when a user finds an app that they would like or is already installed, it's easy to see what to do!

Once an app is installed, there's no need to do anything to keep up to date with the latest version as the Ubuntu Software Center is integrated into the operating system and application updates will arrive auto-magically along with the regular system updates. I'm glad to see that the Ubuntu community is hard a work bringing Linux to the masses!

Want to know something else? Let me know in the comments, fill out my contact form, or you can always reach me on Twitter.

Windows 7 Gives Way to Ubuntu Netbook Remix

Ben Smith — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 00:23:00 GMT

Well, my days of the using the free Windows 7 Release Candidate are over...I hate getting messages telling me that my computers going to shut down if I don't give M$ some money.

Looking back on my time with Windows 7 on my Acer Aspire One, I must say that I was very pleased with Microsoft's offering this time around! I would suggest that anyone wanting to stay on Microsoft who already has a netbook running XP: Go for it! I had no problems with the RC for the 6 or so months that I used it. Windows 7 was so great that I actually upgraded my wife's Gateway laptop and my work laptop to the full version of 7. (It helps that my wife has a .edu address so she could purchase her Win7 license at a great price.)

Now on to Ubuntu Netbook Remix! It was a really easy install and almost everything works! Take a look:

I'll tell you more about it later. Any specific questions you want answered, just put them in the comments!

Want to know something else? Let me know in the comments, fill out my contact form, or you can always reach me on Twitter.

The Top 4 Mobile Office Technology Posts of 2009

Ben Smith — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 16:19:00 GMT

Well, it's Christmas Eve and the end of the year is upon us. In case you missed them, I've decided to recap the top 4 posts this year based on traffic. I can easily tell which posts have gotten the most traffic using my HubSpot Blog Analytics.

At #1, with a total of 543 views, is "Acer Aspire One Bag: Well, it's actually a sleeve...". This post, written at the tail end of 2008, received a bunch of traffic back in March as the Acer Aspire One was gaining momentum in the netbook market.

In 2nd place, with 289 views, is another post from the end of 2008 about the Acer Aspire One: "Fedora 10 on the Acer Aspire One is nice". This post also peaked in the spring of 2009 as folks who bought the AAO with Linpus Lite pre-installed began looking for an open-source alternative to the pared down OS.

The 3rd most popular post of the year, with a mere 151 views, was written this fall as the Windows 7 release candidate was finalized and I decided to give it a go on the Acer Aspire One: "Windows 7 on Acer Aspire One". I'm still using the release candidate on the AAO and still enjoying it. I'll switch up to a new linux distro as the end of the release candidate life cycle approaches in March 2010.

In 4th place this year we have the post that I wrote about conserving space on the Acer's 8 GB SSD: "Windows 7 Leaves Little Space on the Aspire One's 8 GB SSD".

Well, that's it for 2009, see you in...

Image by toettoet

Want to know something else? Let me know in the comments, fill out my contact form, or you can always reach me on Twitter.

Save Space on Your Acer Aspire One Running Windows

Ben Smith — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 13:41:00 GMT

Last week I wrote about some of the ways I save space on the Acer Aspire One running Windows 7. This weekend I did a little digging to find out where the space went and found a cheap, simple tweak to reclaim 1.2 GB of my 8 GB SSD.

Simply using file explorer, I started to review the files on the AAO's SSD. The first thing I noticed was that the C: Drive had a couple of really large files: pagefile.sys (approx. 1.5 GB) and hiberfil.sys (approx 1.2 GB). I already knew how to control the page file size and am happy with the system performance, so I knew to leave pagefile.sys alone. The naming of hiberfil.sys was also pretty logical and I knew that I hadn't yet disabled hibernation in Windows 7. I also couldn't find a place in Windows to actually turn off the hibernation function.

A simple Google search for hiberfil.sys and I found my solution! Hiberfil.sys, simply stated, is the disk image of the RAM that is used by Windows' hibernation functionality. A few simple steps and I was able to disable the hibernation feature in Windows 7. After disabling hibernation I now have almost 2.5 GB of free space on my 8 GB SSD, up from 1.3 GB last week.

To sum up the simple way you disable hibernation: enter powercfg.exe -h off at a command prompt and hit enter. This will disable hibernation and immediately remove the hiberfil.sys file.

Why disable hibernation? Good question! The simple answer is that I don't use hibernation. I never have enough stuff going on on my computer that I need to save it all for later. I usually just shut the cover on the Aspire One and let it sleep which provides near instant on (about 5 sec.) and uses minimal power (the AAO with the 9-cell battery can sleep for a couple of days with no problems.) If I need to conserve power, I can just turn off the AAO since it turns on in about 30 seconds anyway!

How have you tweaked your Window 7 implementation to reclaim space on your netbook? Let us know in the comments!

Image by edanley

Want to know something else? Let me know in the comments, fill out my contact form, or you can always reach me on Twitter.

Windows 7 Leaves Little Space on the Aspire One's 8GB SSD

Ben Smith — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 12:58:00 GMT

One question my friends ask when they see me with my Acer Aspire One netbook is: What can you really do with a computer that small? The answer is usually: Most of what you can do with your big honking laptop.

One area where their huge machines win the "mine is bigger than yours" game is when it comes to disk space. My AAO has a mere 8GB Solid State drive and, since installing Windows 7, I've used more of the drive than ever before. The optimized install left me with a mere 1.3 GB of space on the internal drive which, in the age of terabytes, can seem a little scary. How long can I go before I've filled the entire drive and Windows decides to not like it?

In order to preserve as much of the space as possible on the SSD, I've set a simple rule for myself: Don't install applications on the SSD! (with only 2 exceptions)

First, the exceptions: Google Chrome and Firefox. Since it IS a netbook I figured I should install the browsers directly on the main drive to allow for maximum performance. To prevent the browsers from hogging all of the space I've limited them to 5 days of history (down from 90) which drastically reduces the amount of data they will store (and gives both browsers a nice performance boost at startup!)

I install all other applications on the 4GB SD card that I've had in the AAO since the day I got it. You see, the AAO has 2 SD readers: 1 that was originally intended to extend the SSD and 1 that is meant to be a regular use card reader. I keep the 4GB card in the "extend the SSD" slot even though my Windows 7 environment treats it like a regular USB reader. I've got folders for the applications as well as my document, download, and other miscellaneous folders.

Anytime I download an application, I save the file to the Download directory on the SD card (I've also configured my browsers to save to this folder by default so I don't accidentally start filling up the SSD.) When I install, I don't let the installer determine the location. I manually pick a new folder on my SD card. Additionally, I've gotten out of the habit of installing default features. I review all of the options available for the custom install and only pick the features that I actually use. You'd be surprised how much space you can save by NOT installing functionality meant for other languages!

Another way I save space is to put media in its proper place:

Don't let photos take up your drive space: Utilize an online photo sharing service like flickr, facebook, or if you're a Google user, Picasa.

Don't let videos hang around either: Honestly, are you really doing video production on an 8GB netbook? Load those videos to Vimeo, Viddler, or YouTube to reclaim that space.

How many copies of the same song do you need on your person at any one time? It's great to have a massive music library so you'll never have to listen to the same song twice, but keep your music on your mp3 player (or your G1, iPhone, iPod) and leave the backups at home! An external USB drive is a great way to keep your music library safely backed up.

So, I'm going to keep happily trucking along with my 1.2 GB of space on my internal SSD and if anything comes up, I'll let you know!

How do you maximize your digital storage space? Post in the comments!

Image by seeks2dream

Want to know something else? Let me know in the comments, fill out my contact form, or you can always reach me on Twitter.

Windows 7 Homegroups Hog The Aspire One's Processor

Ben Smith — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 14:40:00 GMT

Whenever you connect to a WiFi network in Windows 7 for the first time, Windows asks you what type of network you're joining. Your options are:

Home - The idea here is that you've got a secured home network that has a lot of good stuff that is shared and that you'll need access to so Windows 7 is going to be on the lookout for other computers that are members of your "Homegroup"
Work - The idea here is that you're joining your secure work network and you'll be dealing with a network much like you have in the past, with specific shared resources and network locations you'll be accessing
Public - Your sitting at Starbucks (or in my case on the commuter boat going across Boston Harbor) and you just want to access the internet and protect all of your files and resources from the prying eyes of your fellow coffee drinkers (or boaters)

While it's nice that Windows thinks to ask you this to make your life easier and more secure, using the Home setting on my Acer Aspire One has been causing some serious issues. My AAO was sitting idle, running not even a browser, and the CPU was cranking at 57%. This is A LOT of processor when you're running a 1.6 GHz ATOM processor and causes the Aspire One to pretty much grind to a halt.

To troubleshoot the problem, I immediately went to the Task Manager. OK, so I tried to pull it up immediately, but when you've only got 43% of your small processor available, immediate isn't a term that you should be using. I noticed that a single process was using all of the resources: svchost.exe. Svchost.exe is something I've seen for a long time as a running process in all versions of Windows and I had no idea what it even was. Turns out that svchost.exe is a function of Windows that allows applications to use all of the Dynamic Link Libraries (dlls) on your machine and that any number of svchost.exe processes will be spun up by Windows as necessary to facilitate various applications.

So why now was svchost.exe using so much processor when I was not previously having any issues? I decided to right-click on the offending process in Task Manager and then selected Services from the context menu. This took me to the Services tab of the Task Manager with all of the services associated with the process conveniently highlighted. It turns out that the offending service had to do with the Homegroup Listener that was waiting for something to happen on my home network. Eureka!

The solution was simple, I opened up the Network and Sharing Center (by clicking on the Wireless Signal icon in the system tray) and clicked the "Home Network" link under my active network and Win7 prompted me to select the type of network again. This time I told Windows 7 that my home network was a Work network and all is well in the land again! Since the Work network setting is just like the regular Windows networks that I am used to, no big deal and since there aren't any other computers on my home network that utilize the new Homegroup functionality, no lost "ease-of-use" functionality.

Want to know something else? Let me know in the comments, fill out my contact form, or you can always reach me on Twitter.

Win 7 Acer Aspire One Rig: A Few Weeks In

Ben Smith — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 13:16:00 GMT

A few weeks ago I wrote about my easy installation and first impressions of Windows 7 on an Acer Aspire One, and after a couple of weeks with this as my primary mobile machine, I thought you might like to know how it's going.

It's zippy. The big thing that I've noticed is that the AAO with a 1.6 Atom processor, 8 GB SSD, and 1.5 GB RAM is playing very nicely with the OS. From cold boot to up-and-running is about 25 seconds and waking the AAO from a nice nap takes about 2 seconds. Since most of my work is browser based, I'm not running into any memory or processor issues (now.)

It lasts a long time. Maybe longer than most since I've got a huge honking 9-cell battery in the AAO at all times. A full charge is registering at just over 7 hours with a realistic uptime of about 6 and 3/4 hours. The nice thing is I can let it sleep all the time therefore getting amazing wakeup time and only have to throw it on that charger at night.

It plays nice with most software. While I'm not installing tons of stuff on here (there's only about 1.3 GB of SSD space left after the install and updates,) I am able to use all of the software that I use on my bigger work machine. I've installed Google Chrome and Firefox 3.5 for browsing (as I'm not convinced that Chrome and the Atom processor play nice,) Trillian Astra for IM and the GIMP to deal with any images that I want to adjust (I actually made the new blog banner on the AAO using GIMP!)

I can be lazy! Not to start anything, but I am liking the return to Windows after more than a year with Linux on the AAO. I love Linux, but I too like to take it easy sometimes. Microsoft did get the ease of use factor up in the latest version of Windows and it makes for a nice easy time. I've had no stability issues and I've not run into a piece of hardware in the gadget bag that Win 7 doesn't like (yet...where's that piece of wood I keep around...knock...knock.)

So, after a couple of weeks, I can say that, barring any unforeseen bad updates, I'll be sticking with Windows 7 on my Acer Aspire One for a while!

Want to know something else? Let me know in the comments, fill out my contact form, or you can always reach me on Twitter.

Windows 7 on Acer Aspire One

Ben Smith — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 10:52:00 GMT

A week ago, Microsoft stopped allowing the download of the Release Candidate for Windows 7. I took the opportunity to download the RC image so I could give it a workout on my Acer Aspire One. Here's a recap of my install experience and my initial impressions.

I started with a little Googling and found that a lot of folks had issues installing Win7 on their AAOs, mostly due to the lack of disk space. I too fell into the category of those with only 8 GB of space on the OEM SSD. I decided that my best option was to install vLite on my Dell at work and use it to pare down the installation. I was able to remove a few things I knew I wouldn't need (mainly language packs that take up a lot of space in the install files) and cut about 1 GB off of the base ISO image.

The next issue I ran into was that I had to get the ISO on my generic 4 GB USB stick AND get it to actually list as a boot option on the AAO. This is where the pain began. I used a program called bootsect.exe that I found out on the web to make the drive bootable, but alas, it wouldn't show up in the AAO BIOS as a boot option. I tried all of the USB ports, tried tricking the system, upgraded the BIOS to v.3309 and could not get it to work. I had been spoiled by uNetBootin for creating Linux distro installs on my USB stick...

In the end, it turns out that my Dell was not properly unmounting the USB drive and the AAO HATED IT!!! I found this out (by accident) by mounting the drive on the existing Fedora 10 install on the AAO, seeing all of the files where they should be, and then unmounting the drive. The next time I tried, VIOLA!!!

The entire install process took about an hour (with my vLite pared down ISO) and I went through the setup and was surprised to find that Windows 7 was pretty zippy on my AAO! I immediately used IE8 to download the latest Google Chrome browser and have been online ever since. With a 30 second boot time and all of the hardware working as expected with no tweak or additional driver downloads, it's working out great so far!

Want to know something else? Let me know in the comments, fill out my contact form, or you can always reach me on Twitter.

Fedora 10 on my G1...Now My Life is Complete!

Ben Smith — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 14:12:00 GMT

So while my T-Mobile G1 is still running Android 1.5 (which is awesome), now I can have it look just like my Acer Aspire One desktop that runs Fedora 10.

Using dxTop and a Fedora 10 theme, I've got the best of both worlds: 1) A smartphone that kicks ass; and 2) A standard look and feel across my mobile office hardware. Check out the screen shot of my G1 to the right and the screen shot of my AAO below. They look great together!

Want to know something else? Let me know in the comments, fill out my contact form, or you can always reach me on Twitter.

T-Mobile G1 Android Takes on a New Look

Ben Smith — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 21:34:00 GMT

Now that I've gotten the Cupcake (Android 1.5 push) I've been playing around with my G1 a lot more! The new features of 1.5 make the whole experience a lot better!

Instead of extolling the virtues of the new version of the OS and firmware, I thought I'd show off my new Home Screen. I purchased dxTop from the Android Market that has a lot of great features, but best of all it allows you to apply some really cool themes to your G1. I purchased the Steam Punk theme and it looks great! Click on the image to see the full res version.

The image was actually generated by dxTop! It will take a screen shot whenever you click the camera button while not looking at the Home screen. It would be a lot cooler if it could also take screen shots of apps, but there's probably an app for that in the Market...

Want to know something else? Let me know in the comments, fill out my contact form, or you can always reach me on Twitter.

How to Double the Weight of Your Acer Aspire One

Ben Smith — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 12:51:00 GMT

Not many people want to know how they can double the weight of their Acer Aspire One, but I've recently learned how to do just that.

Step 1: Add 9-cell battery to your AAO
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit...

OK, so there's no realy profitting going on here, but the 9-cell battery for the Aspire One does add a lot of weight to such a small and light netbook. If the purpose of a netbook is to have a light portable solution for my internet needs then I may have just moved from pass to fail!

What do I have to gain from adding the 9-cell is a question that I now have to ask myself. It is really nice staying off the power tether for 7 or 8 hours, but now I've got the weight of a laptop in netbook form factor. I've not yet benchmarked the total uptime with the 9-cell, but I'll figure that out over the next couple of weeks and publish what I find.

I might need to buy a 6-cell and see if there's a happy medium out there...

Want to know something else? Let me know in the comments, fill out my contact form, or you can always reach me on Twitter.

Acer Aspire One Bag: Well, it's actually a sleeve...

Ben Smith — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 15:01:00 GMT

I've been looking at all of the cool analytic data found in my HubSpot and realized that there are a lot of people out there looking for a good bag for their Acer Aspire One. Look no more because here is a solutions that works great: the REI X Small E-Wrap Computer Sleeve.

The sleeve is a perfect fit for the AAO and it's massive power brick. (OK, so it's not really a massive power brick, but it is bigger than you'd expect.) At around $20 from rei.com it won't break the bank either!

The sleeve has two velcro openings that make for really easy access and it's padded enough to keep me from worrying as I throw my bag around. Since I carry a lot of stuff, I do need a bigger bag to contain the whole office, but this is a great sleeve to keep the precious Aspire One from getting scratched, smashed, or otherwise defaced by the other goodies in the bag. It's also nice to be able to grab the AAO and throw it in my smaller bag for running around town on the weekends when I need the netbook, but not the whole office.

Want to know something else? Let me know in the comments, fill out my contact form, or you can always reach me on Twitter.

Fedora 10 on the Acer Aspire One is nice

Ben Smith — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 00:04:00 GMT

It is a thing of beauty when you can spend an hour or two completely revamping a machine and not worry about backups. The Acer Aspire One is perfect for experimenting with new operating systems! The trick is to leave the 4GB SD card alone and use it for storing things you'd rather not lose. The 8GB internal SSD is just for the OS and any other cool plugins I can find to play with.

First impression: It was very easy to get everything to work! I'll let you know more about it later this week as I get to play with it more, but it seems to boot quick, utilize all of the hardware well, and hasn't crashed yet.

Want to know something else? Let me know in the comments, fill out my contact form, or you can always reach me on Twitter.

The Acer Aspire One is going back under the knife...

Ben Smith — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 02:18:00 GMT

I've recently read an post on getting Fedora 10 up and running on the Acer Aspire One (find a link on the Mobile Technology News page.) If what is said is true, then I may get back to full hardware functionality with a full Linux distro yet.

Since I'm pretty busy here at HubSpot in Cambridge during the week I'm going to have to wait until the weekend to try it out. Check back next week to see how it went.

Want to know something else? Let me know in the comments, fill out my contact form, or you can always reach me on Twitter.

Wordle Makes Art From Your Blog

Ben Smith — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 19:21:00 GMT

Off the topic of mobile office technology: I ran into a great site today. Wordle.com makes word clouds out of the content from your site. I thought that since it looks so neat, I'd go ahead and put it out here.

OK, so I guess it does have something to do with cloud computing, since it's available over the web and it does make a cloud ; )

Want to know something else? Let me know in the comments, fill out my contact form, or you can always reach me on Twitter.

One Moblile Tech Touchscreen Begets Another

Ben Smith — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 17:17:00 GMT

Okay...so the first didn't give birth to the second, but its sale funded the purchase of the second.

I've retired (and sold) my entire Samsung Q1 rig including the Q1, the StowAway Keyboard and mouse, and the custom RAM mount I used in the car. I know. It's actually kind of sad. The Q1 was a great setup for two years.

With the funds from this transaction I purchased another touchscreen device. I am now the proud owner of a 16 GB iPodTouch. I know...you're saying "old news", but the third battery I'd put into my third generation iPod gave way last week and I had previously vowed not to crack it open again.

So now I am with tunes again and a couple of bucks in my pocket. Don't worry, I've still got the Acer Aspire One which is my primary mobile source of computing power.

Stay tuned for a review of the iPodTouch...

Want to know something else? Let me know in the comments, fill out my contact form, or you can always reach me on Twitter.

Richard Stallman vs. Cloud Computing

Ben Smith — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 16:12:00 GMT

I could have started this post with "Richard Stallman vs. the next thing that he doesn't have source to" but I decided to stay on point.

Guardian has posted and article in which Richard Stallman complains about Cloud Computing saying that web based services are a trap and we're all giving all of our precious data away to the big boys out there.

This type of comment is to be expected from Stallman, the founder of FSF and the creator of GNU who was featured prominently in the open source documentary "Revolution OS" from 2001. His interviews and comments in the documentary reveal that he wants all source to be open and free.

IMHO, his idealistic views lower his credibility on the subject...

Want to know something else? Let me know in the comments, fill out my contact form, or you can always reach me on Twitter.

Ooo...Looky...MobileOfficeBlog.com looks so nice!

Ben Smith — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 21:41:00 GMT

Just thought I'd let everyone know that there is a brand new look to the Mobile Office Technology Blog. Come on over and check it out.

I've also added a Suggest Topic page and a fancy new Mobile Tech News page where I'll post articles and you can vote on them!

Want to know something else? Let me know in the comments, fill out my contact form, or you can always reach me on Twitter.

The New and Improved Mobile Office Gadget Bag

Ben Smith — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 19:41:00 GMT

Previously I described the mobile office tech gadgets that I've been carrying around in the gadget bag for the last few years. I've recently refreshed the bag as I've been transitioning from one platform to another over the past couple of months. Here's what's in the gadget bag now:

Acer Aspire One
- Replaced Linpus Lite with Ubunty 8.04 (Hardy Heron)
- 1.6 GHz Intel Atom processor
- 8 GB SDD (enhanced with +4GB SD)
- Upgraded to 1.5 GB RAM
T-Mobile Blackberry Pearl 8120
180 GB of external 2.5" USB drives
Pharos BT GPS Receiver

Notice how much shorter the list is. I've gone from 7 to 4 in an effort to make room for newer mobile gadgets as they come out. Let's run down why each item is included in the bag now:

The Acer Aspire One is a fantastic little netbook that I picked up for $349. This is less than half the price of the Q1 and I was able to repurpose the RAM that I took out of the Q1 during an upgrade to enhance this little machine. It's zippy, easy to use, and Ubuntu runs fantastic on it. Battery life with the standard 3 cell battery is limited to about 2.25 hours and I am actively searching for the 6-cell extended battery so I can stop looking for open power outlets.

The T-Mobile Blackberry made it in since I wanted a cell phone that could work with WiFi and save on some cell minutes. The 8120 coupled with HotSpot calling makes for more calls, better service, and smaller bills. Additionally, a little Googling and hacking allows me to use the T-Mobile EDGE connection with the Aspire One with a USB tether. Not wireless like before, but for a Linux/T-Mo solution it works like a champ.

I still carry the same 180 GB of external drives (for now.) I'll be consolidating to a single 100 GB drive in the near future.

The Pharos BT GPS Receiver is the same receiver I've had, but I bought a used BT andapter for it on Amazon for cheap. MS Streets and Trips has been replace by Google Maps on the Blackberry (free, always updated, small, geeky.)

The current gadget bag doesn't have a 12-volt option, but since I'm traveling to Boston every week for a while and won't have a car, I figure this doesn't matter. The Aspire One gets charged with the small power brick that it came with and both the Blackberry and GPS get charged via USB from the Aspire One.

Want to know something else? Let me know in the comments, fill out my contact form, or you can always reach me on Twitter.

Cloud Computing with my Mobile Office Technology just got FAST!

Ben Smith — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 18:07:00 GMT

I want to take this opportunity to thank Brian who just installed my Verizon FIOS internet service.

As you can see from the picture, FIOS is fast at my new apartment here in Dorchester, MA. Now I'll need to get more stuff to hook up to the WiFi to see if I can slow it down.

Interestingly enough, FIOS requires the installation of this really big box where the utilities come into the house. This box is wired into the electric for battery backup and they also had to run some new fiber from the telephone into the apartment. Pretty neat.

I only started with the internet service since I'm still paying for Comcast at my condo in Atlanta and my phone service is all through Vonage (and Verizon doesn't offer TV in this location just yet.)

As I play more, I'll keep you updated on how FIOS works for me.

Want to know something else? Let me know in the comments, fill out my contact form, or you can always reach me on Twitter.

Cloud Computing by Pew Research

Ben Smith — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 13:11:00 GMT

The Pew Internet & American Life Project just published a data memo on Cloud Computing that contains some very interesting statistics. Check it out here.Want to know something else? Let me know in the comments, fill out my contact form, or you can always reach me on Twitter.

The Mobile Office Gadget Bag

Ben Smith — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 12:44:00 GMT

For the past couple of years my mobile office has consisted the following components:

Samsung Q1
Sierra Wireless Stowaway BT Keyboard
Sierra Wireless BT Mouse
iGo power adapter with Samsung and LG tips
AT&T LG CU500
180 GB of external 2.5" USB drives
Pharos USB GPS Receiver for MS Streets and Trips

All of these gadgets have served me well and make a pretty powerful impression on everyone at the airport when I pull them out. I'll provide individual reviews of each component in the future, but here's why these made it into the gadget bag:

The Samsung Q1, while not the first slate UMPC on the market, came out early enough in the UMPC game to catch my eye. It's sleek looking, a good performer, and makes for a great mobile Windows XP machine. The upgrades really kick it into overdrive! With both a 3-cell and 6-cell battery in the bag, I've got around 6.5 hours of mobile office time without needing an outlet.

The Sierra Wireless BT Keyboard and Mouse followed the Q1 as I learned that you can't always do everything you need on a slate UMPC. Writing and revising larger documents is a tedious chore by hand (especially when you've been typing for years instead of handwriting.)

The LG CU500 was purchased to be my personal mobile phone and BT 3G connection. While it makes for a great bluetooth modem, it actually lacks in the call quality department.

The iGo power adapter became necessary when I needed to consolidate power bricks and also have a 12-volt option for charging. I couldn't find a Samsung Q1 car kit anywhere and the iGo has at least surpassed my expectations.

180 GB of external drives goes without saying. I actually put these together with some cheap IDE to USB enclosures and some used HDDs from eBay on the cheap. In all, 180 GB cost about $60, and since they're 2.5 inch drives, they fit nicely into small pockets in the gadget bag.

The Pharos USB GPS Receiver made it into the kit when MS Streets and Trips 2007 came out. I had tried an older version of the software and thought it was pretty cool and bought 2007 (for retail...ugh) as soon as it came out.

Want to know something else? Let me know in the comments, fill out my contact form, or you can always reach me on Twitter.

Introducing the Mobile Office Blog

Ben Smith — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 21:53:00 GMT

Welcome to MobileOfficeBlog.com!

Over the past 7 years I've had a chance to acquire and use a lot of mobile office technology gadgets. Now, inspired by my new job and a move towards cloud computing, I've decided to share my reviews, observations, stories with the internet masses.

Stay tuned for more as I get my thoughts in order. Upcoming posts will include previous and current inventories of my gadget bag and then I'll start diving into the reviews/observations of the various gadgets.

Thanks for stopping by MobileOfficeBlog.com! Talk to you soon!

Want to know something else? Let me know in the comments, fill out my contact form, or you can always reach me on Twitter.