KDE or Gnome?

I have fallen in love with gnome, but every now and then sneak a peek at what the KDE team is up to http://pinheiro-kde.blogspot.com/2009/02/air-and-kde-43.html

Currently, the stability of Gnome kills the KDE4 project. But come July, I will definitely experiment with the newer release. Plasma seems like it can be cool.

We're Incorporated!

We're excited to reveal that we have a new name, a new home, and a new tax id! We are now officially incorporated as EduTech Services, Inc. Much more to share concerning this, but for now, we simply want to celebrate!

Earn a Free Eee PC Laptop Through May 15!

I know these deals all seem like scams, but here is one I am personally standing behind. Revolution MoneyExchange is a new Pay-Pal rival that is convenient and secure, but with one major twist-- it's free! I could tell you much more, but my first recommendation is to go ahead and check them out for yourselves by clicking on our ad. Now here's the fun part-- you can earn an Eee PC for free by doing the following:

1) Click on the MoneyExchange button on the left and create your own account. It takes less than 5mins and it is free. They do ask you for your SSN, but that is for identification purposes only. D&S does not have any access to your personal information after sign up. After you set up your own account, you have automatically earned yourself $25!

2) Next you can continue to earn money by referring currently unregistered friends (you send them an email through MoneyExchange, or add a referral button to your blog or Facebook) . For every referral, you earn $10. So, if you do the math, that means if you get just 40 people to sign on before the end of the May 15 promotion, you have earned $425-- about the cost of an Eee PC with webcam. Furthermore, you can recruit more friends and earn up to $500, and use the additional money for whatever you like as well.

3) Ok, so you've earned the money, now the easy part- pay for your Eee PC with your "free" money. Just login into your Revolution MoneyExchange account and send payment to us (dee@dandsproducts.com) for $420, and we will take care of your taxes and shipping (if applicable) and offer free customization through May 15. That's it!

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Restoring Bricks

Just in case you did not know, we also restore existing machines. While one of my customers was paying for an Eee PC today, they mentioned that they had just paid Best Buy $350 to restore their desktop. I then opened my office door and showed her a 12 year old tower that I just installed Zenwalk on and customized for only $40. Check out the website, and click the button for Current System Customization to request a quote.

Alternate OSs

So I have tried almost every variant of "eee" friendly distros I can think of over the past 2 months since I've purchased my Eee PC. Although I like many things about the originally installed OS, especially the super-fast boot, I cannot help being frustrated by the ways it still limits the user experience. Most notably, as another has mentioned,

Note: The Xandros install uses unionfs for its filesystem, which is very common for Live CD installations. However, one of its features is that the space used by an application cannot be freed once that application is uninstalled. So, if you tried to uninstall OpenOffice to free up a few megabytes on your file system, unionfs would still report the same amount of used megabytes on your system.

In other words, It's a memory hog, and even if you uninstall stuff like crazy, you're still not able to use that memory. Also, just to install basic additional packages, you have to got through as much hassle if not more, than just installing a brand new OS. So in light of that, I've got to switch. I have tried several, most notably- eeeXubuntu, eeeUbuntu, eeeKubuntu, and my favorite incomplete system, eeePCLinusOS. The last one I mentioned, I really cannot wait until they complete their project. These guys are working hard at completing an almost entirely original OS for the EeePC. They have already configured a fast boot system comparably to fastinit, made a lot of nifty green icons, and most importantly, have built a system that can be installed fully compressed so you can spare much of your precious storage space. Keep an eye on these guys, they are creating a monster (a small domestic one of course!).

Update- Everything works!

Here it is customized! The Eee PC looks great with Ubuntu. I spent the weekend trying out most features- adding software, playing with 3D capabilities, subscribing to podcasts, you name it! A big test came this morning when I plugged the VGA out to my projector, and there it was! Just when I thought all hardware worked, I realized that the webcam as well as the movie player do not work with 3D settings enabled. Not a big deal, it is easy enough to just disable it for the rare occasions I use those features. Anyway, this morning, I was even pleasantly surprised by the notification for software updates. I cannot believe I resisted Ubuntu for so long. Time to start spreading the love!

Eeeubuntu Working

I just recently put Ubuntu 7.10 on my 4G Eee PC, and after installing the eeeubuntu script, it works great! The only complaint I have is the inability to use the camera and Compiz at the same time. I chose PCLinux over Kubuntu a little while ago because all of my drivers worked with that OS on my old Acer Aspire. Now, in comparison to other alternative OS's, Ubuntu holds the winning hand for full compatibility with the Eee. I have now totally customized my Eee PC, and have a system which smokes the original Xandros. No big complaints against the default OS, but I like to trick all of my systems out- hat's the beauty of Linux. Oh yeah, Gutsy Gibbon is a vast improvement to Feisty. It is rock solid and gorgeous. Maybe some pics in the future.