A semi-mysterious picture has shown up on vr-zone.com which claims to show an ASUS Eee PC with a 8.9″ screen. You can see Johnny Shih on the right, but the photo is in too low resolution to see the laptop in detail.
Personally, I think it looks a little too big to be an Eee PC. It looks a little more like the upcoming ASUS U2, but I could be wrong. More discussion can be seen here.
If you’ve stuck with the default Xandros install on your Eee PC, you’ve probably grown used to the easy mode AsusLauncher tabs and icons. You’ve probably also noticed how inconvenient it is to remove, edit, or add additional icons.
An individual by the name of Coyotee on our forums has created the perfect solution to the problem: the AsusLauncher Advanced Editor. Simply put, it’s a graphical user interface for editing easy mode icons. You can set both the command and icon for any entries, or add and remove others. It looks good too!
You can read more about it on the 3 page thread.
Jaffa has posted a hack on our forums that allows the Eee PC’s resolution to go beyond the default limits while using Linux. He has two pictures of what it looks like in the post: in 960×576 and 1280×976.
The hack is accomplished by staring a vnc server and opening a scaled client. As a result, you may have a few issues with it. However, it’s still a brilliant and easy way to get a little more reading space on your Linux Eee PC (especially if you’ve been jealous of the Windows XP hack!)
Nice job, Jaffa!
You can read the full thread here.
The folks over at RISE Security have discovered a vulnerability with the default Eee PC Xandros installation.
It appears as though the pre-installed version of Samba (that is enabled by default) can be exploited to facilitate root access to the machine.
You can read more at the links below:
[RISE Security via Engadget]
There’s a new travel charger for the Eee PC from Incipio. It allows you to use your Eee PC all around the world including North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and more.
However, it’s not just a travel charger- it also includes adapters for both car and airplane. As a result, you can pretty much power your Eee PC wherever you are.
You can find out more about it here.
I came across a post on thekindle pointing to a forum post on eeeph where one of the users shows how he uses FBReader to make his Eee PC go into ‘Kindle’ mode. For those unaware, the Kindle is Amazon’s recently released e-book reader that’s almost impossible to find in stock these days.
While the Kindle and Eee PC are definitely two separate beasts, the Eee PC can actually emulate some of the Kindle’s main features. If you use FBReader, it lets you rotate the Eee PC’s screen to read e-books in portrait mode, and you can assign keys to use for turning the pages- giving you this ‘Kindle’ style mode. You won’t have the paper like screen or EVDO of the Kindle, but you will have a solid 7″ color screen and the ability to other things then simply read.
Jeffrey Wilson over at Laptop Magazine has given up his notebook computer and replaced it with an Eee PC 4G Surf. Each day, he’s writing about his experiences with it. Currently, he’s up to day 3. Here’s a quick summary:
You can click each day to read the full stories.
I think what’s great about his experience is that it’s very similar to most of ours (or at least mine!). I had the same positive first impressions, a little difficulty at first, and am now fully used to the small size and getting maximum space for web pages to display. We’ve ALL had the reactions from people while out and about, confused as to what the Eee PC is- but everybody is genuinely interested in it and wants to know more about it.
I’ve also become used to typing these news posts via my Eee PC- the keyboard is now plenty big for me. I forget that it’s smaller than my other laptop’s keyboard. More importantly WordPress’ admin panel shows up well on the Eee PC’s screen. Actually, this site as a whole does, but that’s the intention. Most websites do show up fine if you bring Firefox to full screen.
So how about you all? Anything give you trouble at first that you’ve now solved or become used to?
If you’ve been waiting to buy your Eee PC 4G in Green, Blue, or Pink; you’re in luck! The Pink version is already available as a special Valentines Day edition which, in my opinion, is a much better way of saying “I love you” than grocery store flowers or candy to the one you love.
The Green and Blue versions are just around the corner (according to htlounge)- they’ll be the same as the 2G surf colors- but with the extra features of the 4G including larger battery and webcam. Hopefully these new colors will allow the retailers to keep more regular 4G units in stock, it seems as though they sell out quite quickly!
I’ve uploaded my review of the DigiLegend case for the EEE- it is available at http://eeepcworld.wordpress.com/2008/02 … e-for-eee/
Unlike the other cases which I have reviewed, the Digilegend case is a satchel-style, with a shoulder strap (but no shoulder pad). This makes it absolutely ideal for carrying around; with the weight of the EEE, it would be very easy to sling the case of your shoulder and forget about it. As one might expect, the shoulder strap is adjustable, so you can make it as long or as short as you wish (within reason!); it’s worth noting, though, that you cannot remove the strap completely without modifying the case, as it is sewn firmly in place at one end, although you could tuck it into the bag…
At $17.50, I think that it is an excellent piece of kit!
ASUS hoped to ship 1 million Eee PC’s this quarter- and they were on track to do so- but now comes word that the Eee PC 8G version will be delayed further until the second quarter as a result of hardware issues connected to the flash memory.
The good news is that the total orders of Eee PC’s did surpass 1 million total for the quarter- ASUS just won’t be able to ship the full 1 million because of the 8G delay. Of course, the 8G does not represent a large portion of the orders and shipments- so the numbers are still quite high.
Still, if you’re holding out for more memory, you’re either going to have to wait a bit longer or stick with a SDHC card instead.
