When Software Attacks!

Vista on the Dell Mini 9: Redux

I’ve been chipping away at this for a while now today, and I’ve learned a few things on the way: When Vista says it suggests installing the battery drivers for the system, don’t. The zip file it suggested I install broke power management. Patch the system fully as an admin user before logging in as a restricted user. It will save you hours of time. Sysinternals Diskmon doesn’t work with Vista - you need to run it as admin, and that certainly isn’t an option for my restricted users.

Posted by Rik Hepworth on Tuesday, October 14, 2008

First thoughts on the Acer Aspire One

You can’t say that things never change. I nipped out to Tesco last night for a few bits of shopping – you know, some beer, spices for cooking, etc – and came back with an Acer Aspire One. As you do… To be fair, I have been looking at them closely, and Tesco are by far the cheapest place to get one. I picked up the 1Gb RAM, 120Gb HDD Linux model for about two hundred and fifty nicker, which I thought was pretty reasonable.

Posted by Rik Hepworth on Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Dell Mini 9: A Day In The Life

Colour me impressed. I managed well over four hours’ battery life today and found the Mini 9 a joy to use. I have encountered a snag, however, and it wasn’t one that I expected. You see, I’m now sitting on the 21:30 train from London Kings Cross to Wakefield after having been in the big smoke for a day of meetings. I got onto an empty train and picked a seat with a table – I want to get some work done on the documents required after my meeting and I thought the space would be nice.

Posted by Rik Hepworth on Tuesday, September 30, 2008

First thoughts on the Dell Mini 9

I’m down in London tomorrow, and rather than lug my laptop on the train I’ve borrowed Richard’s shiny new Mini 9. Overall, I’m quite impressed with it. I’m still not sure about the keyboard, even after a couple of hours typing away – the keys are small and some of them are smaller still, which makes typing an interesting experience. However, I’m sure I would get used to it with time.

Posted by Rik Hepworth on Monday, September 29, 2008

Browsers are like buses

You wait around for ages and then two come along, all at once! No sooner have I downloaded IE8 beta 2 than Google announce Chrome! I’ve been using IE8 for a few days and I’m quite impressed. I’ve just downloaded Chrome and I have to say, it’s a darn good browser. The feature I most wanted from any tab-based browser and one I’ve mentioned before in the context of IE is present in Chrome - tabs you can drag between windows.

Posted by Rik Hepworth on Tuesday, September 2, 2008