Heipei

So, this is not another in-depth review of the latest piece of technology on my desk. Sufficient to say my cellphone-contract expired and I had the chance to exchange my old one. You may remember that it was an o2 XDA Neo, which I blogged about back then. While this cellphone sure had a lot of features and could have been called a “business phone”, it sucked on so many levels for me.

The lesson I learned is that it might sound tempting to have WLAN in your phone, coupled with a big screen and a stylo. Also the ability to put movies on an SD-card as well as music sounds cool, but honestly I didn’t watch a single one. And there there’s the problem of crappy software. The old phone ran Windows Mobile. It has some business-features like a good calendar and good email functionality, but a lot of the really basic stuff was missing. You weren’t able to use MP3s as ring-tones or alarm, it didn’t have a stopwatch or an egg-timer. So you had to download software for that (even for simply playing MP3s in an easy manner). And it couldn’t interface well with anything besides the Microsoft ActiveSync software. The weight of that phone made it all the more worse.

The point I’m trying to make is that you should really ask yourself what you need in a phone the next time you buy one. Think about how often you schlepp your laptop around and if you really need internet on your phone then. Think about your favorite digital camera or iPod and if your phone can or should really replace their functionality. And think about compatibility to your Mac/Linux system as well. I was able to send SMS using Bluetooth and the C510 from Linux in one day, something I didn’t really achieve in the 2 years before with the XDA. And not just using some fancy GUI (I’m using Wammu) but also directly from the command-line (using Gnokii and rfcomm), which for me is the most important part. Yeah!

By the way, the photos it takes are quite ok. I even started a flickr-group for the C510, without a lot success so far.

Trying to take a shot of my new cell-phone (after all it’s raining today so there’s nothing to photograph on the other side of my window), I lacked sufficient natural lighting and the few lamps in my room don’t amount to much when it comes to object photography. A flash is the only logical choice in this situation. Since I still have no external flash which can be oriented and covered/diffused easily I’m still relying on the builtin-flash of the 400D. Flashing something (shiny) head-on gives really ugly shadows and reflections, as we all know. It also makes for skin that looks like it was soaked in a jar of butter. So, I had the really simple idea of reflecting the flash towards the ceiling, where it can bounce back and scatter. I used a small mirror at an angle of about 45 degrees. This only works indoors and with a bright ceiling which isn’t too far away from the flash (1-3m is OK I suppose). Now for the juicy images ;)

Best viewed large, this shows a) no flash at all b) direct flash c) indirect flash. Notice the shadows (or lack thereof) around the phone in the shots.

Another good example, a) direct flash b) indirect flash. People which look greasy on photos (which is everyone) will be happy to see that it doesn’t have to be like that. I also like how the second image has more depth than the first, which looks “flat” from the lack of natural shadows (where the light-source usually is above the object).

Please take note that both of these shots were more than insufficiently lit without a flash, so the natural-looking light distribution can almost completely be attributed to the flash.

With already two full short-trouser-days this year, summer should be right around the corner. As I’ve got nothing else to write I’m gonna post a few photos again, from the walks we took over the last few weeks.

The semester starts next week, but I’m hoping to keep up the regular walks around Aachen.

This is a small review for a small laptop. You might remember that I bought a MacBook a few months back, and may ask yourself why anyone would need two laptops (or even one for some people). Well, I can’t answer that question for everyone, but think about it the next time you buy an expensive cell-phone just so you can go online, read emails and listen to music with it.

The price

If it weren’t for the low price-tag of about 200€ I wouldn’t have bought the Acer Aspire One in the first place. Of course there are different configurations and I bought the smallest one. This means the smallest processor, 3-cell-battery, 512mb RAM and an 8gb flashdrive as HDD. I didn’t try, but I don’t think you can install Windows XP on this one.

Hardware

Not only is the Aspire One affordable, it also weighs in at just 990g. Combined with the fact that is has no mechanical harddrive you can literally toss it around while using it, you can carry it on the hinge connecting display and body.

The screen is crisp and bright enough, although it is glossy. The 1024×600 resolution is no problem if you use the right window-manager and dial down the various GUIs at some spots.

The keyboard was another important factor for me, and I read that it’s better on the Aspire One than on other netbooks of the same size. True enough, I can type quite fluently (I’m writing this post on it right now). It even got the row of F-keys, which is cool for using ion. The mousepad is probably the smallest I’ve ever seen, yet it manages to be usable. You can scroll at the right edge of it.

The battery is the only thing I might consider upgrading in the future, as I can’t get 3 hours out of it right now. Fortunately the power-adapter is small and light.

Something you should buy alongside your Aspire One is an SD-card to extend your hard-drive capacity. I bought an 16gb card which contains my homedir, and the card doesn’t stick out of the body so it’s fine for permanent use.

Linux / Performance

I have to say I was positively surprised at what I’m able to do on this machine. I can listen to a shoutcast-stream, have an IM running, a few shell sessions and still use Firefox ok. The processor in most cases isn’t the limiting factor, but the slow speed of the internal HDD. This is another reason for putting your (big) files, like photos, onto the SD-card, which will be faster in most cases.

I went with Debian GNU/Linux on the Aspire One, I couldn’t even imagine Gentoo on it. Debian just released Lenny and with the default install almost everything worked out of the box. I’ve got suspend-to-ram and hibernate working fine and fast. There are pages dedicated to the Aspire One from multiple distributions and it’s best to read all of them. One thing you’ll probably have to do is build a custom kernel, as the stock ones will eat the data on your left-side SD-slot when suspending (yep, it happened to me ;).

Links

The best resource I found was the ArchLinux-Wiki at: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Acer_Aspire_One. Pay special attention to the part about the Card-reader!

When installing Debian you should also check the Debian Wiki: http://wiki.debian.org/DebianAcerOne