(2009-08-17) Ordering Woot Netbook

The current Woot! is the EeePc 900A NetBook (running LinuxOS), for $170! I ordered 2.

Aug21 update: wow, it already got delivered!

Aug23: turning on.

• not seeing any WiFi access points. I've toggled the connection multiple times with no effect. Duh, reboot is always the way.
• Hey, this sucker has FreeMind installed! Awesome.
• Hitting a Cory Doctorow page gets blocked by something called Dans Guardian. I can get the page fine with other machines on the same access point, so it must be installed on the machine. But supposedly that's not the case. But others have similar issue. Here's more confirmation - including instructions on disabling, but If you remove the dansguardian package, FireFox will not work. Somehow the proxy setting in firefox is locked to use dansguardian. Hmm, it's not clear whether that poster is saying that uninstalling the guardian has that effect, or that even disabling it per his instructions has the same side-effect... Later restating makes it sound like there's no problem. But I'm not going to bother for now, as The Boys may be using these machines...

Aug24: stuck it in my bag, able to check email from outside StarBucks. Handy.

Aug25:

• need to look at sleep/idle handling. It was at 60% yesterday, now this morning immediately at almost 0 - had just shut lid.
  • I've noticed the F1 sleep key, but I'm not sure whether it does anything differently than just shutting the lid - need to look at config options
  • The standby mode will drain a full battery in about 22 hours, so consider switching off the Eee PC rather than putting it in standby mode.
• frequtly get broken page in browser on this WikiLog: reloading page always works.
• boy this Keyboard is tiny: haven't decided whether to go back to 2-finger method....
• Parked outside Staples (War Driving) (they block twitter.com), confirmed bank deposit I had just made, printed transaction report to PDF, emailed to mortgage company. I could have done this with my MacBook, esp since I've been in the car, but the NetBook lets me just carry it in my little shoulder bag - the MacBook would be annoyingly large/heavy for that. Plus the fact that the NetBook costs 1/10 of the MacBook means I don't have to be "aware" of it all the time.

Aug26:

• had some weirdness today where it was having trouble connecting to WiFi, then when it finally did, Instant Messaging would work but nothing on the web - maybe just an ISP DNS problem...