Tweets for Acer Aspire One

Whether you are using twitter, or not, there is a incredible amount of data out there that can be used. Here is a twitter group Acer Aspire One that I created using Tweetizen that will allow you to find tweets about the AA1 and follow those threads.

Acer Support experience #1

Last week on March the 5th I contacted Acer support via their US toll free number (1-866-695-2237). The support call was relatively quick, lasting perhaps 10 minutes. The first few minutes were spent navigating their Voice response system, until I was brought in contact with a representative. I was calling to secure a system recover DVD CD set, in the event of a catastrophic failure. Their representative was friendly and courteous, but we must have not communicated well. I am certain I expressed what I wanted as clearly and concisely as possible. Acer's representative seemed to understand my needs and advised that they would send a recovery USB drive. I questioned this, but he assured me that this would allow me to recovery my XP operating system, which is what I was wanting.

One week later I received a envelope Fed Ex from Acer and it contained a 1Gb USB flash drive. The contents of the drive contained the fix for a known video problem with the AA1 where 1/3 of the display is blacked out. Obviously this is not what I had requested.

I will place a call to them again soon, and try again to secure the recovery DVD CD set. So my 1st experience with Acer support, while positive, was not productive.

CamStudio 2 on the Acer Aspire One

I have been using Windows Media Encoder 9 to do some screen recording on the AA1, but have not been all that pleased with the results after being uploaded to YouTube. So I sought out another freeware alternative. I gave CamStudio 2 a go, and have found that it does provide better output, in the form of AVI type files, as compared to Media Encoder and the WMV format. The AVI files start streaming sooner when viewed as opposed to the WMV files that need to fully buffer before the video starts. CamStudio can be downloaded from SourceForge.net at this link, along with CamStudio Video Codec. The additional codec is optional. Installation went well, with no special considerations required during the installation. The CamStudio documentation is good, but hardly needed as most options will be self explanatory to users. Below is a short example of the video CamStudio can produce.

Always Innovating: Introducing the Touch Book

Always Innovating: Introducing the Touch Book

This could be a interesting new design for the netbook experience. Lets hope it comes to fruition.

Testing GPS on the Acer Aspire One

Today, after weathering a head cold, I once again feel human. So this morning I added a few things to the AA1. First I added USAPhotomaps, a program that downloads USGS aerial photo and topo map data from Microsoft's free TerraServer Web site. This is a very nice freeware program, and can be downloaded from the authors site, along with his other work right here.

I tested USAPhotomaps with my two GPS devices. One is a Ambeon Bluetooth GPS receiver the other a Microsoft Pharos USB GPS receiver. Both receivers worked with USAPhotomaps with out a hitch. Here is a sample screen capture of this program focused on a local near by park.

After this test I went on to download Google Earth 5.0 to see how it would work with these same devices. Once again, both devices worked right off the bat with Google Earth, and the new version or Google earth also now encompasses Land, Sky and Sea. It keeps getting better with each revision.

Google Earth does warn you that the screen resolution of 1024x768 is less than optimum but it will let you continue and it will run just fine on the Acer Aspire One.

Here is a screen capture of the first screen on Google Earth after the initial startup.

Woot Sellout

Woot Sellout

Not only has it been busy at work, but now I'm a bit under the weather with a cold. But today you might want to check out the reburbed Asus Eee PC 2G Surf 800MHz Netbook for 159$ and 5$ shipping.

The Netbook Effect: How Cheap Little Laptops Hit the Big Time

The Netbook Effect: How Cheap Little Laptops Hit the Big Time

I can already tell it's going to be one of those days in the office, so I doubt I will much time to write today. But here is a good article for anyone interested in netbooks.