Ampers & Dot

Only three days after posting this comment about how I don’t fully utilize my 10 month old eee PC, it was stolen from my bedside table during what I can only assume was the most-drugged-out robbery of all time.

Yes, my apartment in a Beacon Hill brownstone was broken into last week - I came home from work to find my apartment door broken off the hinges and the place in half-disarray. I say “half” because somehow (luckily) the thieves didn’t make it into the living room where video games and electronics are, but managed to ransack my fiancee’s jewelry box (interjected side note to crooks: I’m normally not a violent person, but if I EVER come across you wearing my fiancee’s grandmother’s ring, or her twenty first birthday watch then you had better hope the police arrive quickly) and they happened to take my change dish containing less than $3.50, but miss the digital camera sitting near it.

If you want more of the depressingness of this story- you can check out my twitter feed from last Thursday on through the weekend… but I don’t suggest doing that. It got pretty mopey, I think. (Second side note: Thanks so much to all the twitter support from my tweople - it helped to know others have been through this kind of mess and have survived to tell about it. Seriously, thank you twitter support group!)

So anyway, the point of this post. I want to talk about my stolen netbook. I want to tell everyone how awesome it was - because my last blog post might have reflected negatively on it- and that’s not fair to be the last thing I’ve said about it. I loved my little netbook. And here’s why:

• It was uber-gadgety. The number of times people actually stopped to look at it, or marveled at its minuscule size was more than any other gadget I’ve owned. It became a burden, because I could never use it without having to explain its size first, but that’s the fun in cool gadgets, right?
• I suped it up. The EEE cost me $400 when it came out - which is peanuts for a laptop. But within a month I added: $60 for 2GB of RAM, $60 for an additional 8GB of memory, and $80 to import in a Touchscreen and microcontroller kit. I had plans for more suping (LED keyboard light and improved heatsinks) but never had a chance. These additions made the little guy as awesome as it was - and I’m sure the robbers will never even notice the second hard drive.
• It booted XP in under 20 seconds. I swear: one time I got it to boot in 16. No joke. I slipstreamed and configured the lightest XP build possible - and tweaked the startup process so severely that I could get a Firefox window going and figure out the Final Jeopardy answer before the end of the song (not that I ever did… but it was good to know that I could!). I promise you that the crooks will never notice the difference.
• It ran XP smoothly. My EEE came with the Xandros OS - which I liked, but wanted more. Also, I like to tinker… so here’s the progression of operating systems on my netbook: Xandros, XP Pro (full), XP Pro (NP Lited), Xandros, Ubuntu, eeeXUbuntu, eeeBuntu, Kubuntu, XP Pro (custom 20 second boot build). It’s worth noting that I like weekend projects… (click that picture - it’s awesome.)
• I was used to typing on the little keyboard. Sure, it took me a month of constant use (and lots of typos), but I got used to it. I’m guessing it will take the robbers a long time to figure it out. Or a very short time to sell the thing…
• It was insanely portable. Ultimately the EEE’s selling point was also its demise: it could easily be picked up and taken wherever. Including some crack den or pawn shop. But while it was mine I loved that I could throw it in a bag without worry (Solid Slate HD means no moving parts!) and it was so light I would forget it was there.

And many, many more reasons. See, as much as it might not have been the perfect computer for me- I made it my perfect computer. I still used my home desktop for other computing needs and have a jumbo laptop for (presumed) portability. But the netbook was a perfect for couch surfing, flights, quick meetings, killing time, playing games, and throwing in a bag to have internet wherever I went. It was awesome.

So that’s it. I’ll miss you, little guy.