This week I picked-up a new Acer Aspire One Netbook for $350. I’ve been eying these sweet little machines for a while. What put me over the edge was the change from a Solid State drive with only 8 GB to a HDD with 144 GB. I needed a very portable but fully functional machine. It has 1GB memory installed with a 1.6 GHz Intel Atom processor. It boots in about 12 seconds and responds nicely. I have decided to keep the number of services running on the machine to a minimum with anti-virus and Skype being the only two added that would put a noticeable load on the processor.
So far I give the machine high marks for the most part. I love the overall design with a casing that seems pretty sturdy and a nice glossy lid. The screen is very bright and the keyboard is adequate to effectively pound away. The HDD model puts out a bit more heat and weighs a little more but still not a beast by any stretch. The mouse position is the biggest flaw with the buttons on the left and right of the pad as apposed to just in front. If you use an external mouse or know/learn keyboard shortcuts, it’s a tolerable inconvenience.
The built-in web cam has a nice resolution which will come in handy for Skype sessions. The speakers are a little tiny, but adequate enough to enjoy listening to music.
The machine comes in both Linux and XP. Being that I’m a Windows guy, I decided to stick with XP and was able to load my full version of Office wirelessly by sharing a disk drive from one of my other machines. One funky default setting easily fixed was the power setting for the wireless connection. It was set to maximum power efficiency which caused the connection to be very flaky. By turning that setting to off, it was good to go. That one oversight the company really needs to fix.
This little machine is powerful enough that if one were to get an external mouse, keyboard and monitor, it could become a primary machine for someone. You’d need to in that case purchase an external CD drive if you don’t have another machine to load software and transfer music files etc, across a local network.
In the past I’ve recommended 1and1.com for web hosting. I’ve appreciated there reasonable pricing and overall user-friendly administrative interface. However, their customer service is bottom-of-the-barrel. My account was suspended last Thursday due to a billing mix-up. I immediately corrected the issue on my end but it took them until Monday to rectify the problem. It seems that their tech support is handled in India and their billing in the States. After repeated phone calls with promises made that the situation would be rectified quickly it finally was resolved four days later. For a hosting company, that is really pathetic. Any web host you would recommend? I may be in the market.
Which is the best browser? That all depends on the purpose. Here’s a short summary comparison of the three browsers:
Internet Explorer 7.0/8.0: It launches slow, loads pages slow and has many irksome features in the general bloated fashion of Microsoft. I have little use for IE for home use. However, on an enterprise level, IE makes a compelling argument for it’s use with integrated authentication and compatibility with its Office and SharePoint products.
FireFox 3.0: Still a mainstay on my desktop, FireFox has an amazing array of browser add-ons that make it a browser of choice for developers. FireFox is hands-down the most flexible and feature packed browser with a large developer community. For an all-purpose browser FireFox takes the cake. One important caveaut, add-ons can slow the launch of the browser down to that of IE which is paltry.
Chrome: The fastest browser by far. It launches quick, loads pages rapidly and simply a slick browser. It’s streamline design, not surprising coming from Google, allows for more screen space. I hope that Google doesn’t get the itch to over engineer the browser as it evolves but leaves the simplicity of it alone. For Mac fans, Chrome is on its way; Just hang on.
It’s always fun to do a little show-and-tell. So class, today I want to show you my latest WordPress site. It’s for the IEEE EMC 2009 Symposium that our company, ETS-Lindgren is serving as one of the principal hosts. The site is just gaining steam and will have some pretty nifty code features in terms of scheduling, interactivity, visual tours etc. The graphic design was outsourced which was a real help in getting things moving. The niftiest feature on the site so far is the promo video which is a nice look at Austin. I had the pleasure of working with a local studio to manage and provide the creative direction for the project. The video imported nicely into Flash with progressive download enabling a higher resolution than embedding the video. This method of import resulted in a fairly nice end product for the web. The event takes place next summer so I’ll do a revist to the site sometime down the line when there’s more to talk about.
Not one to usually get on any soap box, but after reviewing the new game Star Wars: The Force Unleashed I couldn’t help but be dissappointed in George Lucas. Let me say that I am a diehard fan of the original three movies. I was out of the country when the first of the next three were released and never quite got the fever for the second group. The video game’s storyline actually serves to tie the two groups of films together which sounds like a great idea. The quality of the game looks excellent and I am sure that Lucas Arts did a steller job with the project as a whole.
My main criticism if you will, is that the gamer plays the apprentice to Darth Vader and is a member of the darkside hunting down the last of the Jedi. While an interesting concept, in my opinion, it goes against my whole experience as a kid of rooting for the good guys.
The magic of the original Star Wars episodes was the triumph of good over evil going against the odds in the face of great adversity. Classic tails of good versus evil have been used to challenge and encourage young people to do what is right with noble character. Star Wars has been one of the mythological stories that shaped the psychi of so many people of my generation. To this day I still have daydreams of defeating the dark side and try to live a life of choosing right over wrong.
Yes, I am no relativist and do believe there is right and wrong. Luke, Hansolo and Leigh expect nothing less from me. The kid inside me just doesn’t get this twist on the classic tail. Call me a simpleton, but I just don’t get the joy of hunting down noble characters as a villan bent on destruction.
Just released, Adobe Acrobat 9 is a major upgrade offering many slick new features such as:
Play media within the document.Acrobat will now convert MOV, WMV, FLV and H.264 files to Flash to for playing audio and video content.
Easy file conversion from Office products.
Robust management for permissions, encrypted data and digital signatures.
Drag and drop documents and multimedia content for flexible presentation creation.
Integrate 3D representation from CAD applications.
Dynamically interact with others via acrobat.com. The new online service allows for collaboration, live meetings, easy pdf creation, file sharing, and online storage.
Check-out the Acrobat 9 Product Comparison for the differences between Acrobat 9 Standard, Pro and Pro Extended.
It’s amazing to think what this will mean for web publishing and presentation of dynamic information. For instance, instead of a simple spec sheet for a product, why not incorporate 3D views of the product, audio descriptions and video tutorials all in a portable format that is cross-plaform compatible
The keynote speaker this morning at Search Engine Strategies Conference in New York this morning was Gordon McLeod discussed the evolution of the online Wall Street Journal. Interesting to note has been the bounce-back of mainstream online media. Like the WSJ many outlets have come of age in their online environment catching-up with the blogosphere. It’s quite impressive the gains made by the slower moving giants.
The best session of the day that I attended was the Business-to-Business Tactics session. This was one of the sessions that had the most practical input for the job that I do. One thing I appreciate about these type of events is the balance of breadth and depth. Probably the best info is related to segmenting the audience with respect to ads and landing pages.
While staying in New York I wouldn’t miss the opportunity to stop-by the John Lennon Memorial. It was a moving experience to think of that fateful day when John was taken at a young age. I knew that Scott Blitstein from mythermos.com would appreciate this in particular. The memorial is right across the street from the Dakota where he lived and was tragically shot on that cold December day in 1980.
The second day of the SES Conference in New York City was excellent. The day started out with a key note from Nick Car, author of "The Big Switch: Rewiring the world, from Editon to Google." Nick gave an interesting talk about the fundamental changes in the way computing and ultimately how business is and will be done. One interesting concept is what he called the worker-less companies. Consider the following companies and their work force:
Skype: 200 employees. They service the same number of customers as the British telecom who employs in the tens of thousands.
YouTube: 60 employees. Let’s hear it for user-contribution.
Craigslist: 20 employees. This site always amazes me as one of the ugliest and amazingly successful sites. Raise your hand if you don’t actively use craigslist on a regular basis.
Plentyoffish: a whopping 1 employee. He’s apparently done pretty well for himself.
What are the implications for the information technology work force? In this day-and-age it sure pays to be well cross-trained. How will computing continue to change the employment landscape in the near and distant future?
The Exhibit Hall was hosted on three floors with over a hundred vendors. All total the show continues again to hold-up to its reputation.
This is my first trip to the Big Apple. As a history major in college, I have a deep appreciation for the architecture and history of this amazing city. Attending the Search Engine Strategies Conference in New York is an amazing experience of witnessing a city rich in history while learning from cutting-edge marketing and technologists teaching about current and future trends.
Once again Search Engine Strategies holds-up to its reputation as a valuable resource worth the time and money. So far today I’ve focused two sessions on regional search and a basic session on web analytics. I’m rounding-out the day with a panel discussion called "Getting Vertical Search Right" and a final session on "How to Train Your Pets to Search".
Attending these types of conferences, more than answering my questions, lead me to know the right questions and information I need to research. For instance, I heard some interesting statistics on some specific countries in Asia and Europe regarding user search patterns and how to reach audiences in those markets. There were some common themes in most countries such as the prominence of Google as the primary search (aside from China where Baidu is king). But other stats such as the prominence of mobile search varies greatly from Japan being a huge market in contrast to France on the other end of the spectrum. These individual country statistics lead me down the path of compiling a matrix for user stats and patterns for each country. The end result then provides a metric for resource allocation in regards to issues such as mobile site development, language translation, localization and local search.
The Search Engine Strategies in New York is a much larger show than the Chicago show I attended in December 2006. It also, perhaps due to its location seems to draw a more international crowd. That may be due however to the maturation of the SES conference as a whole, I’m not sure.
The conference venue is at the Hilton New York which is conveniently located half-way between Times Square and Central Park in Mid-town Manhattan. It is a top-flight hotel with excellent facilities. I am fortunate to have a room on the 33rd floor with a partial view of Central Park.
Beyond the speakers and sessions, the event provides a wonderful opportunity to talk with the major search engines, consultants and pier professionals. I teased out some interesting online marketing budget from other manufacturing companies similar to ETS-Lindgren that they spend around 10% of their budget in online advertising. This by-the-way jives with the overall national average for online advertising. Networking returns some very valuable information to leverage with corporate leadership for substantiating the potential ROI on a larger budget for instance.
After reviewing my options for a new home computer setup, I am pleased with the outcome of my decision. My requirements were: purchase a new machine for home computing and entertainment, upgrade parts to my old Dell desktop and network the two together.
Initially I debated over whether to go Mac, Windows or Linux. While Mac is groovy and Linux is cheap, I have decided for best integration to stay with Windows. All my Mac-loving friends, go ahead and let the tomatoes fly. Yes, I’m staying on the dark side.
The next question was where to purchase the machine and how to go about getting the upgrades done. I considered purchasing another Dell which is OK but have noticed how cheap many of the components were in my old machine. The big box stores don’t offer much better in terms of standard parts. By the time I purchase the machine and upgrade the essential parts I might as well go out and by two new Macs and convert over shelling-out way more than I intended spending.
I considered white boxing a new machine, purchasing parts and putting one together myself. While technically I know how to do the work, the idea of testing compatible parts and getting the network humming was much more trouble than I am willing to put into it.
Finally I’ve turned to my friend Drew Stephens who is the owner of the Cedar Park, Texas franchise of Computer Troubleshooters. Drew is able to build me a new machine, upgrade my old Dell and work out the kinks in my network configuration all for a very reasonable price. I know I’ll have quality components, extend the life of my current machine and enable my family to get the most out of our time online (which is extensive) without breaking the bank.
An added benefit is that I’m supporting a local, independent business that is providing quality service with integrity. I also know that if I have issues down the line I’ll have someone down the street and not in India or Ohio trying diagnose them with no prior history. If Drew built the machine, he’ll know exactly how the box is configured and most likely will be able to diagnose the issue very quickly. Best service and price; why not go local?
Not one to usually get on any soap box, but after reviewing the new game 