opening up the eee pc

Tech, Web

Just read this great article
 from the Download Squad about enabling full desktop mode on the eee pc. I was initially looking at installing mysql, php and apache and using it for web development and came across the website. Very easy to understand for someone who has never used linux before but it gives me an appetite to really dig in and discover what this baby has to offer.

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Only two years left

Thought Provoking

From the eternally interesting Seth Godin comes an inspirational and original post.

Here’s a question that you should clip out and tape to your bathroom mirror. It might save you some angst 15 years from now. The question is, What did you do back when interest rates were at their lowest in 50 years, crime was close to zero, great employees were looking for good jobs, computers made product development and marketing easier than ever, and there was almost no competition for good news about great ideas?

Many people will have to answer that question by saying, “I spent my time waiting, whining, worrying, and wishing.” Because that’s what seems to be going around these days. Fortunately, though, not everyone will have to confess to having made such a bad choice.

The best bit comes near the end.

You get to make a choice. You can remake that choice every day, in fact. It’s never too late to choose optimism, to choose action, to choose excellence. The best thing is that it only takes a moment — just one second — to decide.

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Thoughts on the eee

Tech

I’ve had the eee pc about a month now and I thought I would post some thoughts about how I have found it. The short view is that it does everything that I need in a portable laptop. The keyboard is great and is comfortable for me to type on (I used to be able to touch-type on the Psion 5mx series after some practice). It is small but not small enough to fit into a jacket pocket the 5mx was. It is very light and every application that you need to be productive is included. One big flaw with the model I have is that there is a socket for a modem but a rubber block has been inserted to indicate that the model is disabled. When I go home, dial-up is a necessity and this is a major setback. I used it yesterday to phone home using skype and just used the microphone and speakers that come with it. The call quality was good on my side and while my Mum said that the quality was not as good as a phone call, it was still great quality. At work, almost everybody in the office has been over drooling over it and they almost all said that they were going to buy one when it became available in Germany in the new year. Watching youtube videos is a bit difficult, there is no iTunes, of course, for Linux and no wbloggar type application but on the whole, I highly recommend it.

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Sit-up or pay up

Thought Provoking

Tim Harford on how economists can help you get a six-pack.

If I do not do 200 press-ups and 200 sit-ups each week, they’ll start sending my money to a charity, $100 at a time. (I chose the hugely deserving DC Central Kitchen.) They will shortly offer the same dubious privilege to countless others via a new company, Stickk.com – customers name their own pledges, sign pro-forma contracts, and put their cheques in the post.

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Travel Insurance

Thought Provoking, Travel

From the Undercover Economist

My girlfriend and I were planning to fly to Frankfurt on a budget airline. We were offered travel insurance, which I didn’t think was worth the £4.95. Still, my girlfriend insisted on both of us taking the insurance. Assuming the chance of surviving a plane crash is negligible, you do not get to enjoy the benefits of the insurance should a disaster happen. Most likely your family will get paid for your death. So the worst-case scenario is that you’re £4.95 poorer and dead; or at best, alive, but still £4.95 poorer. What is the rationality of taking out the insurance?

Great answer, especially the final line of the answer.

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Boring Millionaires

Tech

Another interesting story from Vallywag about an entrepreneur during the early days of tech. The funniest paragraph is shown below.

Too many Valley millionaires have no good stories to tell, and no firsthand advice on getting rich other than “Get hired at Google in 2002.” That doesn’t qualify you to be a VC, or to start your own company, or hahaha to make it as a model. It makes you what Burn Rate author Michael Wolff dubbed “the walking dead” — rich guys no one wants to talk to. And if you’ll pardon my snobbery: Suddenly having a lot of free time and a new laptop doesn’t make you a writer. Are boring, self-aggrandizing Googler memoirs now circulating among book agents and publishers? Tragically, yes.

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