It wasn’t that I waited for the Apple event, but the announcement of the iPhone 4GS (rather than some other sort of device) was part of the decision. I had been thinking about a mobile blogging solution. While you can do a lot with an iPhone, more with an iPad, my blog creation is pretty much all Windows’centric.
I write about Windows apps so grabbing screenshots etc is best done there. I use Live Writer to compose posts locally (rather than TypePad’s web editor), use RSS Bandit Reader (which can sync with Google Reader but I prefer a local app) to follow blogs and rely on ActiveWords to save lots of keystrokes while writing. That’s why an iPad didn’t really cut it for me but I like their long battery life and portability.
Why a Netbook?
The answer came in the form of a little Samsung NC110 Netbook.
- So far the performance of its Dual Core Atom chip seems ok.
- Cold start-up is about a minute, restore from sleep 10-20 seconds.
- 2GB of ram means multitasking with RSS Bandit, Tweetdeck, Live Writer and ActiveWords running is ok. It will open any DWF (unlike iOS even with cloud viewers) and, at a pinch, even run DWG TrueView!
- Real world battery life seems to be 6-10 hours depending on use.
- 220GB hard drive means no worries about storage, even backup up full resolution photos while travelling.
I considered an Ultrabook but they are still too expensive and fragile to be thought of as a “use or loose” portable device. It’s going to travel, be it conferences to bike trips, and the thought of stuffing a precious Ultrabook into a backpack horrifies me. I could trash three or four netbooks for the price of one Ultrabook.
Live Meshed with my desktop.
I’ve been using Microsoft Live Mesh, before that the Mesh Preview, to compose this blog since 2008. By syncing content it allows the perfection of composing locally, from any Windows device, with the cloud syncing content. Love that I can run heavy CAD/BIM apps on the desktop, grab screenshots there and begin a draft to finish later.
That day:
But none of that is the reason I’ll remember buying this machine. On the way back to work I heard the news; the day Steve Jobs died.
