According to Wikipedia, Asus announced two Eee PC models at COMPUTEX Taipei 2007 – the Eee PC 701 and the Eee PC 1001. I thought the 1001 was launched a while later, at least after the 900. But then Wikipedia entries are not known for their 100% accuracy.

At the time, the other comparable machine was the one developed by OLPC, the One Laptop Per Child project aimed at making low cost computing available to the developing world. Because of the term “low cost computing”, any similar machine was tagged with the same expectations, which was not much. True enough, when the eeePC 701 was revealed, it turned out to be a very small machine with an almost unuseable keyboard and tiny squint-inducing 7″ keyboard. Nevertheless, early adopters took to the machine and began to laud its advantages.

There must be something to the tiny machine after all, when it came out in the news that the 701 was sold out in Australia soon after being launched there.

ASUS followed the 701 with the 900, then the 901, then the 1000, with the first numeral of each model series indicating the size of the screen.

The default operaing system for the 701 and 900 series was Linux. I bought a 900 Linux in July 2008, along with a copy of Windows XP Home to replace the Linux OS. The install was not successful, and I resigned myself to using Linux and living without most of my preferred apps on the 900. Nevertheless, with the 900, which I took on my panda volunteer trip in August 2008, I was able to edit photographs, go online to upload the photographs, participate in my favourite online forums, as well as update a client’s blogsite.

I’d always known there would be a netbook upgrade in my tech future. It came in January 2009 when I bought the ASUS eeePC 1000H running Windows XP, which I soon christened “H”. It remains my mobile computing machine almost nine months later.

Meanwhile, other companies had been sitting on the sidelines, watching how ASUS fared with its eeePC. When they saw the runaway success, they decided it was time for their share of the netbook market, too. Now, there are netbooks available from Acer, HP, Lenovo, Dell, even Toshiba, too. Most of them skipped the 7″ screen to begin with the 9″ screens as entry-level netbooks in their offerings.

Today, ASUS is not the only company selling netbooks. A lot of my friends prefer Acer. But because I began with ASUS, and it’s never disappointed me to date, I decided to stay with the brand when I upgraded to the 1000H. (By the way, I still have the 900 Linux version, and if anyone would like to buy it off me, please leave a comment. But only if you’re in Malaysia, and preferably the KL / PJ area.)

On the NaNoWriMo forums, especially the NaNo Technology forum, there are increasingly questions from interested buyers for opinions on this or that brand of netbook, or just for suggestions on which netbook is better. When I’m in the mood, I leave a comment, and it’s always for them to go to a store selling netbooks so they can have a first-hand feel for the different machines. I particularly like this comment I just posted in response to someone asking about the HP Mini 110:

The best thing for you to do is to look for a store that carries the HP Mini so that you can test it for yourself. It doesn’t matter what other people say – the important thing is how your fingers like the keyboard, your eyes the screen and your purse the price.

If you are interested in getting a netbook, reading up the specs is a first step. Next step – go to the nearest computer store and put your fingers on all the netbooks available there.

Fictionwise was recently purchased by Barnes & Noble, a major book retailer in the States.

All the above is my roundabout way to say there is now another major player in the ebook market.

For me, there have always been two major players – amazon.com and Barnes & Nobles – maybe because I’ve purchased from them before, despite being located halfway around the world from them. There is a major difference between them – amazon.com is a virtual bookstore, whereas Barnes & Noble is a traditional bookstore with a physical address and outlets around the States.

When I read the news, I thought for a while and realised that, as far as I know, the Barnes & Noble site does not sell ebooks. Well, according to an article in The New York Times’ Gadgetwise section, it used to, but stopped in 2003. The same article also said

The move positions Barnes & Noble to enter the e-book market and compete with Amazon.com as a distributor of digital content.

Aha …

Smart move.

Instead of starting from scratch, B&N has re-entered the ebook market through two established ebookstores.

According to another article in Trading Markets, “Barnes & Noble said it plans to use Fictionwise as part of its overall digital strategy, which includes the launch of an e-Bookstore later this year.”

When I first read of the purchase, I thought one of the things that would happen would be an update of the B&N site to include links to both Fictionwise and eReader. Instead, there will be an e-Bookstore … wait a minute, I wonder if that means Fictionwise and eReader will be merged into the store? Can only wait for further announcements.

The good news gets better. The Gadgetwise article ends with a mention of the news about Fictionwise being “named as a content provider for the company, based in Mountain View, Calif., which plans to release its own e-reader later this year.”

Ooo …

A hop over to the Plastic Logic site for more information got me very excited. The Plastic Logic e-reader hardware will support a wide range of document types, including PDF, DOC(X), XLS(X), PPT(X), TEXT, RTF, HTML, JPEG, PNG, BMP, ePub, and eReader Format.

eReader format – that’s the format of my ebook collection. I’ve been waiting for this ever since Amazon announced the Kindle.

Up to now, I’ve stayed away from any thoughts of replacing the eReader software in my Palm TX. One reason is because the Palm TX is still working very well. The other reason is because none of the ereading hardware so far (Kindle and Sony Reader) support the eReader format. Now, one is coming that will support it.

Hooray … except for one possible hardware flaw.

Plastic Logic has listed its ereader hardware’s specs as Thin (<7mm), lightweight (<16 oz), form factor of 8.5″ x 11”.

8.5″ x 11″?

That’s the size of a sheet of paper.

Too big, even tho’ thin and lightweight.

Hopefully, Plastic Logic will see the logic in making its ereader hardware smaller, or even offering two sizes – the 8.5″ x 11″ and half that.

Meanwhile, I’m still enjoying my growing ebook collection in my Palm TX.

Good thing my dear tech support was online. I alerted him, and he looked into the error for me. His advice was that I copy over the WP installation as he thought some of the files might have been corrupted. And since I haven’t upgraded the installation in a while, I asked if I should go ahead and upgrade to the latest. “Yes,” he said.

So I did. All the time that the files were being copied over, my heart was thumping. I didn’t even dare do anything else on the computer. I just let the files upload without any interrupions. Well, except when I shut down the Windows Live app.

And now, as you can see, I’m back online with a new post. Not the one I wanted to post this morning, but an update of the near heart attack my blog gave me.

All’s well now. Thanks, auyongtc.

I replied to say that she needed to get a cameraphone. “Then, at least, you will have some sort of camera with you all the time.”

I know my photographer friends are rolling their eyes right now. A cameraphone?

Yes, a cameraphone. At least you’ll have something to capture the moment. The picture may not be award-winning, but when you look at it weeks, months or years later, you will be reminded of that particular moment. More than just the image within the frame, the picture taken by a cameraphone will bring back the sounds and the smells from that particular day when you’d snapped that picture. When you look at that cameraphone image, you will not think how wonderful the lighting was, or how striking the angle; instead, you will be reminded of how your handphone¹ has a camera so that you managed to capture a picture of the Best in Show winner lifting his leg to pee on the cup.

Or maybe like me, the pictures remind you of how the battery in your regular camera died at the wrong moment but the camera in your handphone saved the day.

Yes, it happened to me. I was visiting the giant pandas at the San Diego Zoo in November 2006. While riding the Skyfari, I aimed my camera at the giant panda exhibit below, all ready to take an aerial shot when I saw the low battery warning on the display screen. Next thing I knew, the shutter button froze and the camera went blank on me.

That was it, I thought to myself. No pictures of mama Bai Yun and her cub Su Lin, which I hadn’t taken as they weren’t together when I visited earlier that day. I wandered around the other exhibits. At the polar bear exhibit, I saw someone hold up a phone, and I almost exclaimed out loud.

My handphone, my handphone has a camera! I thought as I took it² out, turned it on its side, slid open the lens cover and and aimed at one of the polar bears.

And so that was how I managed to capture some mother-and-daughter moments that late November afternoon at the San Diego Zoo. I know the quality’s not great, but they are precious reminders that I was there and saw my giant panda family.

¹handphone – that’s what we call it in Malaysia; elsewhere in the world, I think it’s also called a mobile or a cellphone
²it – my handphone is the Sony Ericsson K750i, not the latest, but it works for me

… unzips and folds down to become a pen caddy!

Made in Japan. Yes, only the Japanese can think of this. But I like it. It means I don’t have to rummage in the case to look for a particular pen to use. And it’s a travelling pencil case because I plan to take it with me when I travel.

Bought from Isetan, Suria KLCC.