Lincoln Trails Map (PDF, 2008)

Dell Vostro A90 + OS X = MacBook Nano!

Thanks to mechdrew's EXCELLENT guide I now have OS X running on my Dell Vostro A90 netbook. Aside from upgrading to 2 Gig of RAM the 'book is stock and so far it's running great. This is a neat little computer and it's going to be great to throw in the bag when I'm riding my bike. Not bad for a $199 computer!


The only real bummer about the A90 is the keyboard. It doesn't feel quite as comfortable as the keyboard on the Acer Aspire One and the arrangement is completely whacked out... But it's workable.


The "Big Daddy" MacBook Pro unibody in the background, Vostro A90 running OS X on the left and Acer Aspire One running Windows 7 RC on the right.

Windows 7 RC on Acer Aspire One

I recently picked up an Acer Aspire One netbook to see if Windows 7 really runs as well on a miniputer as everyone says it does. Walmart had the 1G/160G configuration on sale for $250 so I thought I'd give it a shot. I have avoided the Acer netbook in the past because it is somewhat difficult to upgrade the RAM (you have to take the thing down to the point where you can remove the mainboard from the case to get access to the memory slot) but for this test I felt I could live with the 1 Gig of RAM.

After downloading the RC from Microsoft and getting my trial key I plugged in an external USB DVD drive to the Acer and started the install. Many minutes later I had a working copy of Windows 7 running on the miniputer. Everything seemed to be working fine but I still had 4 entries in the device manager that didn't have drivers installed. A quick visit to my old friend Google turned up this Vista driver for the card reader. The touchpad worked but it didn't have all the nice extras so I snagged this driver from the Synaptics web site.



The good news is that Windows 7 seems to run just fine on the Aspire One. Aero works fine and it seems fairly snappy even with only 1 Gig of RAM. I installed Notes 8.5, Office 2007, Mesh and some of the other Windows Live apps and I still have plenty of space left thanks to the fact that my configuration was equipped with the 160 Gig drive instead of a tiny 4 or 8 Gig SSD. The Windows 7 RC is available for free from Microsoft until "at least July" and it doesn't expire until June 2010 (although it will become annoying and start shutting down every 2 hours beginning March 1, 2010) so feel free to give it a try. It's no OS X but it's a damn sight better than the stinky piece of Redmond crap that is Windows Vista.

Facebook Mobile App Comparison

I actually feel bad for people that are stuck with Windows Mobile based phones. Check out these screen caps of the WinMo based Facebook app and then the iPhone one...




I guess it could be worse, the WinMo peeps could be stuck with a BlackBerry.

Star Trek: TNG Rap

Star Trek TNG Rap (WARNING - EXPLICIT LYRICS) -- powered by Cracked.com

Best Office 2010 Quotes

My apologies for not having the correct attribution. Numero uno...

"This is impenetrable. It’s UI salad. I realize this is not (yet) shipping software, but my god. If you sat me down in front of this, I wouldn’t have the slightest idea where to begin."

And the 2nd best...

"Keep rocking that floppy disk icon, Microsoft."

You suck Microsoft.

Totally.

Suck.