On the Netbook
I’m really liking the EeePC. I have the clam shell model. It’s nice, sleek, and portable. The keyboard feels like a regular keyboard, which is something I did not expect as the models I played with at the store didn’t have nice keyboards. It does video nicely. A few things:
If you put the screen all the way back (which isn’t far) it feels like it will flip over. It hasn’t flipped over but it feels like it might.
It doesn’t have a CD/DVD player so installing software that you don’t download requires an external drive. Yet it comes with a DVD system restore disc.
You can flip the screen, which can be annoying. For instance, if you hit Alt-Home in a browser to get to your home page, the screen will flip. Odd. I’d like to turn that off.
I’d also like to turn off the Eee utilities that hover at the top of the desktop. I don’t use them. Can’t anticipate using them. Haven’t figured out how to get rid of it yet.
The whole no CD thing got me to thinking about office apps. I was going to put MS Office on it but then thought I might try Open Office. So, if anyone knows, I have questions. Open Office any good? I’m used to MS Office. Will an EeePC run office apps OK? And will the EeePC run Open Office OK?
October 19th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
I used to use MS Office when I was in college, but during my last 2 semesters there, a friend showed me Open Office, and I must say, I love it a lot more than MS Office. I’ve never had an issue with it not reading or incorrectly formatting an MS Office created file.
I will caution though, Open Office is more like MS Office 03 than the newer 07. Also, Open Office has a nasty habit of the default file type save option is it’s own format. But if you click down on the file type box, you can select the MS Office equivilant (.doc, .xls, etc).
I’ve got an MSI Wind Netbook, and it runs Open Office just fine.
Hope that helps!
October 19th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Eee version of Ubuntu:
http://www.geteasypeasy.com/
October 19th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
Kristopher, I like my PCs to compatible with my other crap.
October 19th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
I’ve been thinking of picking one of these up next summer in anticipation of my 3rd year medical student rounds.
How is battery life and portability working out for you?
October 19th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
My EeePC 4g came with Open office installed. the forums at http://www.eeeuser.com/ have been very helpful in getting mine to work the way I want it to.
October 19th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
I personally am not a fan of Open Office. Like Jay said, it is much more like Office 2003, rather than 2007. But even then, there is a learning curve to find where some things are. If you are using MS Office on your main PCs, it may drive you crazy going back and forth. If you just want something free to use occasionally, it will certainly get the job done. Don’t expect it to be much smaller in size than MS Office; it has continued to grow as well.
October 19th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
Battery life is great. It advertised 10.5 hours. I get closer to 8.5. Portability is good. It weighs just over 2 pounds and folds up nice.
October 19th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
What other ‘crap’ do you have, Uncle?
My Ubuntu box wirelessly integrates just fine with my wife’s Windows box ( I use her printer) and I have a directory on her box that I often ‘use’.
It’s my opinion that compatibility is an example of FUD initiated by Windows.
BTW, my wife is currently fighting a FB virus, to no apparent avail, while I cruise unmolested about the Intertubes!
October 19th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Since I still use office 03, sounds like OOo is cool!
October 19th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
I still use office 2003 and I find switching between OO and O2003 to be very easy.
I had some clients that I switch over to OO rather than upgrading to O2007 and it saved them a bunch. It works the same for them.
October 19th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
I used OOo for a while before I got my Mac and switched to NeoOffice.
I liked it then. There was a learning curve involved in using some of the more advanced functions (like doing a mail merge to print Christmas Card mailing labels), but it wasn’t too challenging to figure out. Never had compatibility issues between MS Office docs and OOo when working on “work” documents on home computers.
October 19th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Another vote for open office. I have used it for the past couple of years, and no gripes here besides the already mentioned learning curve with buttons. I transfer files from home (Open Office) to work (office 2003) with ease. And, it is free!
October 19th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
A consultant I work with says skip MSOffice and OpenOffice and just use Google Docs and save room on the EEe for other stuff. He tried to find a free version of every program that he had on his desktop and has managed to do it. Splashup is a great web-based photoshop-lite product too.
If you don’t want Google to have your files, OpenOffice is a great alternative, but it is more Office 2K that 2007.
October 19th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
I use Open Office on my Home PC and one of my laptops. No issues or complaints. Does everything I need it to do. Allows me to open .doc and .xls attachments family and friends send my way without having to buy an expensive Microsoft product. It’s a lot easier than asking everyone to send stuff in .rtf instead.
I say go for it.
October 19th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
You made the jump to a netbook, why not make the jump to the cloud. You could try google docs, Adobe Buzzword, there is a cloud version of MS office coming soon. No need to actualy store the files on your netbook. That is what netbooks are desgined for. 🙂
Concerning Open office, you could run into problems converting between file formats for MS office 2007 and open office 3.0. I have problems with excel. If the file is saved in 2003 format, both programs open the excel file just fine. I bounce between 2007 and open office on my home computers. Have 2003 and open office installed on my work computer, the are basically the same program. If you develope complicated files using seldom used features, expect more problems converting between programs
October 19th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
I like Open Office, but I’ve also had occasional reliability problems with it. They’ve been:
1. I haven’t figured out how to use keyboard shortcuts for symbols. I use sigma, delta, and pi a lot in my note-taking and it’s a pain to put them in manually.
2. On my old Mac, Open Office suddenly disappeared, to the point where all I could find was some installation artifact file (although my documents were okay)
3. In upgrading from one version of OO to the current one, the outline format I’d used on my notes got completely screwed up and I had no way of correcting it.
Some of these may just be me not being L337 enough, but it’s still a concern. I still use Office 03 and have never had a problem with it.
October 19th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
I use OpenOffice for everything. As long as you’re not using the esoteric Excel functions it’s fine.
October 19th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
Initially, OO is just enough different to be annoying, sorta like switching between Spanish and Italian.
It took me somewhere around a year (humorous overstatement) to find the thingie that prints addresses on envelopes. Using it is no big deal.
October 19th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
Would you say that MS Office saving documents in MS Office format is a “nasty habit”? OpenDocument is the default format for OpenOffice.org.
If you don’t like it go to Tools–> Options –>Load/Save and change it.
October 19th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
Open Office is excellent. And free. Very close to MS Office in operation. Like anything else, read the directions. My only gripe is all the foreign language dictionaries it tries to download. Polska, anyone?
To turn off stuff you don’t want to start in XP, click on type “msconfig” in the popup, and go to startup menu. Start unchecking anything that you know you don’t want, including stuff with ASUS, eeee, or whatever. Most particularly anything with “remote” in the description.
Restart, tell the popup you don’t want to see it again. Wallah.
BUT, for a laptop it’s a good idea to have your desktop fired up and google the various things you are unchecking to make sure you don’t want that to load. It saves PITA’s when you disable part of the OS on startup. NO, it was not funny at the time.
And DO go to Zonealarm.com and download the free firewall. Price is right and it actually works. So well I cannot ping this box from the office.
Stranger
October 19th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
Another vote for OpenOffice. I’ve not had any problems with it at all, and I’ve used it for several years.
October 19th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
I use Open Office to convert Word documents to formats I can work with, it’ll open old Word Docs that current versions don’t like. But my version of Office is old too and seldom used, the Student and Teacher edition ’03 – I don’t see the benefit of buying a word processing program over and over again.
October 19th, 2009 at 8:30 pm
I’ve got about three or four IDE DVD-ROM drives around, most of which came via curb shopping or dumpster diving.
Take one of these and a $25 IDE to USB enclosure and you too can have a DVD to install Windoze Office.
(Frankly, I could have gone my whole life without needing to relearn how to use MS Word again after they changed to that “dynamic ribbon” crap. How many people tried out OpenOffice because of that?)
October 19th, 2009 at 9:02 pm
I’d say OOo is worth a shot. Let us know when you find something it wont’ do for you.
October 19th, 2009 at 9:05 pm
I use Office 2003 in my Eee. I may be flamed for saying this but … I think it is lighter weight than than open office 3. Just install the minimal components such as Word and Excel … Later versions of office have way to much bloat.
Use google Chrome browser. I use Firefox but heavily customized.
Alt Drag is **essential** on a small screen: http://code.google.com/p/altdrag/
I use Evernote to keep notes synced : http://www.evernote.com/
I have iTunes installed so I can play music from my Macbook over wireless. Itunes (and quicktime) take up more space than office ’03!
October 19th, 2009 at 9:56 pm
Uncle, late to the party here, but I agree on the eeBuntu suggestion. Unless you want to game on it (unlikely, as it doesn’t have the power sucking graphics hardware), you can get as good or superior apps on Linux. I’d way rather use OpenOffice than Office 2007, which is the Spawn of Satan.
I’m quite partial to The Gimp, which replaces Photoshop.
And you will never have to buy an antivirus again. If you keep your netbook for 4 years, that alone will save you basically the entire cost of the hardware.
That said, if you’re an iTunes junkie, I’m not sure if it will work. It very well may run under WINE, although I haven’t tried it. Amarok works fine for stuffing MP3s on my iPod, and Amazon has DRM-free MP3s for sale.
October 20th, 2009 at 2:23 am
“Kristopher, I like my PCs to compatible with my other crap.”
Where do you think Open Office came from originally? Mars?
If you want to load PC games, Tax software, Quicken, or iTunes on it, then yea, don’t go there, stick to Windows. Everything else works fine.
October 20th, 2009 at 7:17 am
Open Office came installed on my Eee. I’ve only made use of the word processing portion of the suite, but that’s all I’ll probably ever need with the Eee. (What? You gonna do your taxes on the thing?)
October 20th, 2009 at 7:22 am
As far as “compatible” goes, my Eee is running the Linux that came installed on it, the eMac I use for a media server is running OS X, and the machine on which I’m typing this is running Win XP.
What do you need to be “compatible” between a netbook and a desktop? All you’re ever going to pass back and forth is documents, and those are pretty cross-platform these days.
October 20th, 2009 at 8:18 am
Well, for compatible, I don’t think my crackberry software works with it, I know there are no poker clients that run on linux, and it’s definitely not compatible with The Wife v1.0.
October 20th, 2009 at 8:26 am
Ah. I grok you now.
I really only use mine for writing and net-surfing; we all tend to view things from within our own paradigm.
(…and as I’ve mentioned before, for writing and ‘net surfing, the OS doesn’t matter; once you’re in the WP program or Firefox, how can you tell which platform you’re using anyway?)
October 20th, 2009 at 8:26 pm
… and it’s definitely not compatible with The Wife v1.0.
This is a disadvantage? I thought it was your computer. 😉
October 22nd, 2009 at 7:25 am
I personally tend to favour SSuite Office’s free office suites. Their software also don’t need to run on Java or .NET, like so many open source office suites, so it makes their software very small and efficient.
http://www.ssuitesoft.com