Today's EEE post

[dvandom]

I took notes at Heckler's talk using my EEE, and by a few minutes in I was going for stretches with "no looking at the computer" touch typing, so it looks like I can adapt to the keyboard. :) I wouldn't want to try using it for all my notetaking, though, because sometimes I have to sketch diagrams and stuff that I can't do quickly in Open Office. Not to mention I rarely sit near an outlet, and an hour-long talk ate about a third of more of the battery strength.

A couple other salient points. OO on the EEE defaults to saving as a Word document (the version of OO we installed on our tablet PCs in the labs default to saving in OO format). And 16 point font is the minimum I can use and not have to lean forward to see what I'm typing.

I saved the file to my SD card, and then used Thunderbird and my gmail account to send a copy to my work account so I can clean it up tomorrow and maybe add a few diagrams while I still remember them.

Comments

[grant-p.livejournal.com]

Interesting...It makes sense for it to default to Word, for convenience, but I'm surprised that they thought to do it.

Also, if you want to save time and default your lab computers to Word, just go in Writer (or anything else) to tool>options>then hit the little + sign next to load/save, and hit General

You will then from there see drop-down menus, with 'document type' and 'always save as'. Just match them with whatever format you want. I do "Microsoft 97/200/XP" for everything, doc, powerpoint, etc. Makes life easier.

ODF is nice when working internationally but not so great when you're trying to just turn in a stupid report.

[dvandom.livejournal.com]

Well, we've switched to telling 'em to export to PDF anyway. This way they can read the commented reports regardless of whether they have OOo or Word or whatever installed at home. And the TAs can use the tablet PCs to write on the PDFs.

[alroderick.livejournal.com]

Dude, you're complaining about being one-third low after an hour? My Acer notebook can't make it more than 45 minutes on a full charge, so cry me a busking river. :)

[dvandom.livejournal.com]

Well, some sessions are 3 hours long, and I wouldn't have a chance to do a full recharge until the end of the day. Not so much complaining as recognizing that it wouldn't be the right tool for the job.

[alroderick.livejournal.com]

I guess that is paper's number one advantage. Like a wise man once said, "The power goes out, who holds all the cards? ()"

[dvandom.livejournal.com]

Paper's number two advantage, over anything but a tablet, is the ease of sketching on the screen in cases where it's important to add a diagram or draw arrows around. Drawing programs are slow and awkward even when you're familiar with them, but on a tablet you can whip out the stylus and sketch something. Not sure if all tablets let you draw on the screen in laptop mode though, some may require you pick either keyboard or stylus, not both.

[lord-xiphos.livejournal.com]

I've had to put off buying that EEE; house repair and car replacement have taken precedence.

My notebook now gets maybe 10 minutes on battery, and that's only if it's idling with the lid closed. So it's mostly a luggable with a built-in UPS at this point.

Can you believe I'm still using the same computer I used to take Tryp to BotCon 2001?