New toy!

My new toy arrived Friday afternoon, good timing for uninterrupted experimentation.

What is it? An ASUS Eee PC 8g, a baby computer that will accompany me on my travels. It's considerably smaller (and lighter) than my laptop, and while it is larger than the handheld that it is replacing, I think that it is a very acceptable size (and weight) to join me when I wander on my bicycle.

It is almost as expected. My only disappointment is that I thought it would have an internal modem that I could use for slow (dial-up) connection to the Internet when I don't have access to a wireless connection. There's a (covered up) space in the case for the modem, but no modem. Funny, when I went back to look at the specs, it showed the modem as optional. That's odd, there are no options anywhere to buy the thing. Oops! I did find something that I hope will work though - a 56kbps modem that plugs into a USB port. I've ordered one, and hopefully it will provide me with my desired backup access to cover those times when my bike and I travel places where wireless access isn't available.

It's small, and the little 7" screen is of good quality. The keyboard is a reasonable size for my hands; it's easy to touch-type without errors. Measuring the keyboard, it's 5 1/2 inches across from the left edge of the "A" to the right edge of the "L". For comparison purposes, the same measurement on my HP Jornada (my circa-2002 baby PC) is 5 inches, and on my laptop is 6 1/2 inches. I'm a little surprised that the extra half-inch makes such a big difference in ease of typing.

I think this new baby computer is just what I needed!

Rover approves! He says the keyboard is better for bouncing, and the screen is better too! (For those of you who haven't met Rover, he jumped into my bags on my cross-country trip back in 2002; he's been joining me on my travels ever since.)

Here's a shot of a photo from my galleries. The quality of the display is very good.

Oh look! another funny feature... This crazy device has a camera that to my mind is installed in a somewhat backwards fashion. Why do I say it's backward? Because the camera faces the person sitting at the device. I would have preferred to have it face outwards, but it's an interesting approach to self-portraits. (And of course I'd never use it as a replacement for my camera.)

I just took a photo of myself. It was an interesting exercise since in order to change my positioning in the photo I had to move in the opposite direction, Ah, a mirror!