Zlaxfish Network

The Aspire One is not a multimedia powerhouse, but my primary use for it is to take it to school and work with me as an alternative to lugging my Macbook Pro around.  However, it isn’t my primary machine, which brings up the issue of how do I keep my data together without having to swap files around on a flash drive or something?  Most of these apps I use the most address this issue.

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For those looking to be able to scroll with your finger, check this post out…it worked great for me, although note that the way you scroll isn’t two-fingered like on a Mac, but rather using the pad part of a single finger to scroll while you can tap to click.

Secondly, one nice battery saving feature that does not work out of the box is the Intel SpeedStep technology which allows the cpu to throttle down its speed when not needed in order to save battery life.  The best solution I have found so far is using the voodoo-power kext.  BE WARNED! this may cause issues like iTunes being choppy occasionally  due to the cpu speed dropping during playback, but if you have low battery issues and can handle some possible quirks, this is the way to go.

Andrew Bird’s latest outing, Noble Beast, hits stores tomorrow.  Somehow, my copy was shipped to me two weeks early.  I got the deluxe edition that also includes the extra disc of b-sides and instrumentals, Useless Creatures.  The two discs feature vastly different sides of The Bird, but both have their charms.  Noble Beast itself is a fascinating collection of some new sounds as well as some old, but significantly different than his last outing, Armchair Apocrypha.

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The goal of getting this Acer Aspire One was to create, in essence, a Macbook Mini that would be light, fit my daily needs at work and class, and have great battery power.  While I love my Macbook Pro, I can’t deny the battery issues…in one year of ownership, the battery capacity has dropped to 50%, giving me barely a 1:45 hour runtime with lowest power settings.  Also, lugging it around all the time with books can’t be good for my back.

Enough blabbing, onto the install!

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I recently have been thinking about the sudden surge of Netbooks we have seen and how nice it would be to have such a portable device with great battery life.  The recent realization that my Macbook Pro’s battery in one year has become barely able to get through a single hour and a half class made this clearer than ever that big, powerful laptops have their place but are not a catch-all.  So, after some eBay hunting, I found a sweet deal on an Acer Aspire One:

2.3 Lbs, 6-cell battery for a rated 6 hour battery life, Intel Atom 1.6Ghz Processor, 1GB RAM, 8.9″ Screen

Clearly, not a speed demon but powerful enough for most non-gaming or video needs…

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This is a review I wrote two years ago but I figured I would transfer it here…

Recently, my 3rd generation iPod has been acting
finicky and it seemed the hard drive was dying. I had
been looking at the 5th generation iPod as a possible
replacement until I came across the Pontis MX2020, a
PMP with a bigger screen and for $100 less than the
iPod! It’s 20gb, with a 3.5″ touchscreen, and A/V
inputs and outputs for playing/recording from a TV or
other source. I read a review on osnews.com and I was
intrigued by the fact that it runs on Linux. $200
later, I had it in my hands and I began to play around
with it. You navigate primarily through the joystick
which is pretty responsive and felt surprisingly good
in my hand. (continue reading…)

Yes, this is serious this time, I may actually be finally moving the site from the extremely restrictive Sandvox application to Wordpress…there wasn’t too much to move so we’ll see if I can actually start updating this.