The Richter Scale^®

One of the things I find frustrating when I want to write my articles, blog entries, and book chapters is that my handwriting sucks. It’s not unusual for me to have to spend more time deciphering what I wrote by hand than it took me to write it. That’s one of the many reasons I really prefer to type on a computer keyboard. But the problem with that is that it’s not generally been convenient to lug a notebook computer around with me due to size and battery life, never mind boot times.

I have tried using a Palm T/X with a separate keyboard, and while the size is great, the text editing controls via the keyboard are lousy. I’ve also been playing with using my iPodTouch 32GB, but fast typing on the touch screen with my big fingers is nearly impossible without serious typographical errors. And about 10 months ago, I bought an Asus Eee PC 4G - a tiny little notebook computer running on Linux, with a 4GB solid state hard disk. The keyboard and screen ended up being too small for me, the battery life was modest, and the boot process was too long for my needs (and I sold it to a friend who appreciated it much more than I - thanks Angela!). I also ended up realizing I needed a lot more than 4GB of storage.

In late August I purchased the Asus Eee PC 1000H. This is a 10-inch notebook with an 80GB hard disk drive, running Windows XP Home. That’s a nice bit of storage. The machine cost $549 back in August, and is now available from reputable on-line stores for around $469.

At first blush, the Eee PC 1000H is pretty much what I was looking for. It’s got a 6-7 hour battery life and it boots (and resumes from hibernation) in about 15-20 seconds on average. Plus, I was easily able to upgrade it to Windows XP Professional SP3 and get secure networking capability so I could use it on my in-home network. It also has 3 USB ports, and works great for VoIP (Vonage X-Phone and Skype) and even video and music playback. There is no DVD drive, but you can attach an external drive.

The Eee PC 1000H also comes with Microsoft Works, and it’s simple enough to install OpenOffice on it as well. With the native XP support I was also able to install software to run my Sprint data service USB device for easy connectivity in most U.S. metropolitan areas, and with the built-in WiFi, the notebook is usable in any place with accessible WiFi service. And for backup, it has an Ethernet port. Not too shabby. There’s also an SD/MMC Card slot.

I should note, however, that my new, in-the-box Eee PC 1000H seemed to have been used at Asus HQ or some Asus repair facility, as it already had a registered user and some additional software installed on it, as well as a digital video version of an Asus service manual. Not a problem for me, but I would hope that this was an anomaly instead of standard practice.

At the price I paid (and even lower now) this is a pretty decent notebook, with about the same performance as the 3 year old Sony VAIO TX690 I had been using before I got my Fujitsu Lifebook back in March. The Eee PC 1000H is smaller than the VAIO TX in width and depth, but a little thicker in height and a little heavier too. And the screen’s 1024x600 resolution is challenging with some programs and web sites which were not designed with that aspect rate and height in mind (in contrast to the much higher resolution VAIO TX). But it’s also a fifth of the price I paid for the VAIO TX, which also makes it cheap enough to replace in case it gets broken or stolen during my travels.

My only annoyance with the Eee PC 1000H is that the nice big hard disk came pre-initialized in two volumes instead of one large volume (which has always been my preference), but that it a minor issue on the whole.

In any event, the Eee PC 1000H is a pretty nice little piece of hardware, and I plan to put it to good use during our upcoming travels in the Canadian Maritimes and New England starting Sunday. I give the Asus Eee PC 1000H an 8.0 out of 10.0 on The Richter Scale.

For the last 20 months or so, we’ve been enjoying the use of a Hewlett-Packard z565 Digital Entertain System in our living room. I purchased it at the end of 2006, but only got around to installing it a month or so later because I needed to wait for a new TV to arrive too.

The z565 is a full XP Media Center-based PC with HDMI output and we have Amazon’s Unbox software, Slingplayer (to play content from the Slingbox located up in New Hampshire), as well as a TV tuner so we can record and time-shift cable TV content. We’ve even got iTunes running so we can watch TV shows purchased from Apple’s iTunes store, although that’s now been superseded by a new Apple TV box.

So, imagine our disappointment a few days ago when we go and try and turn on the z565 and see the blue power light blink on for the barest moment only to shut off and stay dark. Turns out that the power supply is dead. I should note that we kept the z565 off when not in active use because we didn’t want it to burn out due to the warm temperatures in our Caribbean home. Ironic.

We figured this would be easy to resolve, so we contacted Hewlett-Packard’s support department via on-line chat, got the part number in question, and then discovered that the power supply for the z565, a machine which was less than two years old, had already been discontinued and Hewlett-Packard no longer sells the part either.

And, on top of that, I then discovered that the part number that HP support provided turns out to be different from the part number on the actual burnt out power supply itself.

An on-line search for the part turns up several companies that sell “pulled” (extracted from overstock/returned systems) and/or refurbished power supplies. And they aren’t cheap either. I have ordered two of them just to have a spare after I install one of them. We’ll see how that works out. And it’s not possible to use just any PC power supply due to the form factor and low decibel design of the HP z565.

However, the main point to this long and winding story is that I find it ludicrous that a machine that was promoted as state of the art by Hewlett-Packard less than two years ago is no longer supported with available parts. Of course, I could have “solved” this problem by scrapping the old system entirely, but I did not want to upgrade to a digital entertainment PC running the nightmarishly obtuse and slow Vista operating system, or build a new system from scratch with an old XP license.

It’s a sad statement on the commoditization of technology when an expensive, task specific computer can literally become a giant paper weight so quickly. At least I could find refurbished power supplies from third parties, at least for now.