Sadly it has been about two months since I last posted to this blog. Hopefully the next two weeks will see a flurry of activity as I blog about my impressions of traveling with a netbook. I am spending my Christmas break traveling around China with my family.
Despite my best efforts, I’m sure that I’ve packed too much for the trip. However, one way that I tried to lighten my load was to pack my Acer AspireOne (10.1” screen) netbook for my computing needs rather than the MacBook Pro that I usually use. The next couple of posts will combine some highlights of my trip along with a list of the tasks that I try to accomplish on the netbook and how successful I feel that the netbook completed the tasks. During my trip I will have to get reacquainted with the Windows Operating System as this netbook runs Windows XP.
Unfortunately (or fortunately for the sake of my wireless bill) the netbook that I am traveling with does not have a built-in broadband card. Thus, I will be very dependent upon finding wireless hotspots to get the maximum benefit of the netbook. As I waited at the gate prior to my flight I was easily able to connect to the wireless network.
Prior to boarding my flight, I also fired up Audacity to try editing a podcast on a netbook-sized screen, keyboard, and mouse. I did not notice a slower response time using Audacity on the netbook for either importing or editing audio, but it did seem a bit slower than I was accustomed to at generating the final MP3 file. Also, there were some errors with opening saved Audacity projects that required a couple of program restarts.
Due to my long flight, I really appreciated the long battery life of the netbook (the standard battery for the AspireOne lasted over five hours) as I continued editing podcasts and using the word processor. The other netbook feature that I really appreciated was its size and footprint on the seatback table. Even when the person in front of me pushed their chair back, I was able to work on the netbook with the screen fully open. Although I had a scary moment when a drink on the same tray spilled, which makes the option of a spill-proof keyboard a great idea if airline travel will be one of your main venues for using your netbook.
Today I tasted my first experience of researching and bargaining for services through social media. My promotional package with Charter Cable is coming to a close and I’d like to keep my bill at about the same rate for the same bundle of services (expanded basic cable and high-speed Internet). I’m not interested in premium packages, such as movie channels or sports packages. I would just like to have access to basic services for under $100/month. Of course, during the weeks leading up to the end of the promotion period, I received a variety of confusing calls from different Charter customer service representatives with a variety of offers to continue my service. Unfortunately, none of the offers caught my attention, although since one of them was a 2-year contract for high-speed Internet at $29.99/month, I didn’t think that expanded basic should cost me more than another $30/month.