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From: BillW50 on 6 Jul 2010 13:23 In news:t0p436l1tjb64linp6d1jja907u7mp87hk(a)4ax.com, AJL typed on Mon, 05 Jul 2010 16:49:32 -0700: > "BillW50" wrote: > >>> AJL typed: > >>>> I came into possession of a 'copy' of xp professional so thought >>>> what the heck I'll give it a try on the Eee PC 2G Surf. > >> Just curious! What SP version is on that Windows XP Pro install disc? > > Version 2002 SP3. Oh ok. SP2 would have been good too IMHO, but SP3 is pretty stable too. Btw, which Windows Media Player version came with your SP3 install? All of the ones that includes SP2 I have seen has WMP v10. For me personally, I like WMP v9 and WMP v10 the best. The newer ones I don't care much for. > My biggest complaint so far would be hibernation. It takes 1.5 minutes > to hibernate and 30 seconds to revive. Heck it only takes 40 seconds > to boot from scratch so not much of an advantage there. I imagine it's > because of the slow (read cheap) write speed of the SSDs that Asus > soldered into this model. But with drive space at a premium I can get > an extra 500M by disabling hibernate anyway. So even if it was super > fast I probably wouldn't have used it. Yes I have talked about this before. And I was hibernating 2GB worth of RAM. And SLC SSD are faster at writing than the newer more common nowadays MLC SSD. And yours I am sure is a SLC type. But even still the speed just isn't as good as a mechanical hard drive at writing anyway. Yes booting up is fast enough. Although what I like better is just using standby. I have six EeePC batteries and I usually take two with me during the day. And even the smallest one 4400mah I believe will run in standby for 12 or more hours. I don't know, I should check this to make sure. But it seems that long anyway. Then I have one of those larger 10440mah batteries too. And it will run 5 to 6 hours straight on that one alone with the WiFi running. And it has to last over 24 hours on just standby for sure. > My second complaint is that the video is still choppy. But with a > 500MHz processor that probably is a given no matter what OS it runs. Are you talking about using the Flash Player within a browser? That is the worst CPU hogging player I ever have seen! It takes 3 times more CPU power than WMP does. And other players are not as bad as the Flash Player either. Have you checked the CPU usage during playback? If it pegs or even runs above 80%, playback is going to suffer. Older versions of the Flash Player are much better for slower CPUs. Although if you go too old, they won't work for many websites. And the best bet either way is to use another player besides Flash. I download most of the streams and play them through WMP using K-Lite codecs. They play just fine without pegging the CPU. Under Linux though, all players I have used use the CPU very heavy. So I don't know what you can do about it there. > Otherwise the Surf is running fine on XP. I have everything I use most > often installed now and it left a leeway of 300M on the drive. Just > like the old days I have to keep a close eye on what the apps are > doing on the drive. For example one wanted to install MS NET @ > 100M+... =8-O Yes on my 4G EeePCs, I keep about 200MB free on them running Windows XP SP2. And the OEM Windows for the EeePC has .Net v1.1 installed (which you can uninstall) and MS Works v9, and some other stuff you can dump too. >> Retired your Palms? <sigh> I still use mine, although not a lot. > > My Palm TX is over 3 years old now and the old Blazer browser was > having trouble getting into some of the local hotspots. That's the > last of the Palm PDAs so I had to make a change eventually anyway. Yep, I had wireless with my Palm IIIc using my Kyocera cell phone and a data cable. And have a nice wallet that holds both. Although the wireless was cellular and only at 14k4 speed. Email was ok, but web browsing wasn't so hot. This was like 8 years ago. I don't use that phone anymore and I now live in the fringe area of cellular anyway. I do still have a Palm modem for them too. Didn't use it much though. Only got 4 hours per 2xAA batteries. Using rechargeables, I only got about 2 hours. >> iPod? Congratulations! I guess they are nice, never used one myself. > > It does everything my Palm did only better and faster. (It was a > hundred bucks cheaper too.) Oh nice! >> guess you really need a very large pocket before you can slip it into >> one, eh? > > Were you thinking of the iPad tablet? My iPod (touch) is smaller and > lighter than the TX with about the same size screen so actually a > better pocket carry. Also it has much better battery life so things > have improved all around. Oh yeah, I was thinking of the iPad. So how is the iPod for typing? I sure liked my folding keyboard for my Palm IIIc and IIIxe. Although you need a flat surface to use it. As your lap didn't work too well. A briefcase would have been ok though. My Epson PX-8 from '84 ran for 12 hours and 40 days on standby. It is very much like a netbook, but with a far better keyboard. Heavier too, but about the same size. And screens were horrible back in '84. My Palm IIIc from '99 runs for 12 hours too and about 10 days on standby. My Palm IIIxe on rechargeable AA batteries I don't recall how long it ran for. About 12 hours is my guess. And maybe 10 to 20 days on standby. My Gateway M-465e laptop from '06 with an extended battery and a second battery runs for about 7 hours straight. But I think we are talking almost 8 lbs here. Not very light. Only has a 15.1 inch screen too. And then all of my EeePCs. Which everybody already knows about. ;-) So running time on batteries on these devices are very close throughout the years IMHO. So what does all of yours look like for running and standby times? -- Bill Gateway MX6124 ('06 era) 1 of 3 - Windows XP SP2
From: BillW50 on 6 Jul 2010 13:47 In news:2ik636thpocd7qt07ufeotesqs076cg1dp(a)4ax.com, AJL typed on Tue, 06 Jul 2010 09:30:12 -0700: > "BillW50" <BillW50(a)aol.kom> wrote: > >> AJL typed on Sun, 04 Jul 2010 13:50:36 -0700: > >>> BillW50 <BillW50(a)aol.kom> wrote: > >>> I came into possession of a 'copy' of xp professional so thought >>> what the heck I'll give it a try on the Eee PC 2G Surf. I hate to >>> admit it (after our recent xp/linux wars) but it >>> does seem a bit more snappy under xp. Course I've only been using it >>> for a few hours now so we'll have to see... ;) > >> Well that is good to hear and to be honest, I am not surprised. ;-) > > I wonder if there is a key combination in XP that allows moving a too > large window around on a small screen so that I can get to an 'ok' > button that is off the bottom of the screen? In Xandros it is to hold > the alt and left mouse buttons down while dragging the widow up. But > I've been unable to find anything like that in XP. I do have an Asus > app on the tray that changes the screen resolution and thus allows > scrolling up and down the larger resolution to expose the 'ok' button, > but I liked the Xandros way better. Surely Bill would have thought of > this in his OS... The only one I know of is ALT-Space and press M (M=move) and then use the arrow keys. And I like Windows allowing you to use higher resolutions on small screens. I can't get Linux to do this without hooking up an external monitor and using both. But then what is the point if you need an external monitor to pull this off anyway? Our Intel video also allows higher resolutions compressed on our smaller screens (I think some other manufactures allow this too sometimes). And yes it works if the resolution isn't too big and no scrolling around the desktop. But scrolling through documents or webpages are slow. And small print is hard or impossible to read. So I used it for awhile and I later gave this up. I believe it is a third party Astray replacement called AsTray2 or something. I don't use either anymore, but just eeectl instead. It doesn't have the resolution stuff, but the CPU temp, fan control, CPU speed (you might like that one to speed up video playing), and full control over the brightness of the display. The latter gives you a super bright display (higher than stock) that I need sunglasses just to view the screen with. lol -- Bill Gateway MX6124 ('06 era) 1 of 3 - Windows XP SP2
From: BillW50 on 6 Jul 2010 15:30 In news:i0vqhu$1ub$1(a)news.eternal-september.org, BillW50 typed on Tue, 6 Jul 2010 12:47:07 -0500: > Our Intel video also allows higher resolutions compressed on our > smaller screens (I think some other manufactures allow this too > sometimes). And yes it works if the resolution isn't too big and no > scrolling around the desktop. But scrolling through documents or > webpages are slow. And small print is hard or impossible to read. So > I used it for awhile and I later gave this up. I believe it is a > third party Astray replacement called AsTray2 or something. Ok I fired up AsTray2 (you can't run both versions at the same time, just one or the other). And I can run compressed (no scrolling in the desktop) in the following modes: 800x600 900x540 1024x600 1024x768 AsTray2 calls compressing as Downscaling. And any higher resolution goes back to non-compression and scrolling around the desktop. Regardless if you have Downscaling selected or not. You can edit an ini file and create a Quickswitch. Why the author didn't do this I have no idea. But once you create all of your favorite resolutions, you are all set. I think without Quickswitch, you have a list of every possible resolution and fresh rates. Which is a list of too many to quickly switch between. And I have no idea why AsTray2 does this (it claims it doesn't). But it always defaults to 800x480 from the start. And I hate that one. And this is what Linux uses too. And without any AsTray version, I have Windows using 800x600 and I just scroll up and down to see the whole desktop (thus why I stopped using AsTray2). And no compression (downscaling) either. As most of the time I am not interested in the top of a window anyway and I don't mind to scroll for the few times I want too. I am playing around with AsTray2 right now using compressed (downscaling) at 1024x768 once again and it isn't as bad as I remember it. And it is slower too than without downscaling, but not as bad as I remember. And the tiny text I can still read. Maybe it is the really tiny text I can't read. Or maybe my eyes are better now. lol -- Bill Gateway MX6124 ('06 era) 1 of 3 - Windows XP SP2
From: AJL on 6 Jul 2010 18:54 "BillW50" <BillW50(a)aol.kom> wrote: >which Windows Media Player version came with your SP3 install? WMP version 9.00.00.4503 >The newer ones I don't care much for. I don't use WMP much. I use the VLC media player. But I'm not going to upgrade anything that came on this XP version (and works ok) on the theory that newer is bigger, drive space being at a premium. >yours [Surf's SSD] I am sure is a SLC type. Of course, this being the elcheapo the bare bones model. The SSD is soldered in saving the price of a socket. BTW the cache is disabled also which makes things even slower. I'm not sure that was done to be cheaper or to make the more expensive models (like yours) run faster in comparison. >Yes booting up is fast enough. Although what I like better is just using >standby. I would prefer waiting the extra half minute or so to boot and arrive with a full battery. >I have six EeePC batteries and I usually take two with me >during the day. That kind of ruins the reason for carrying a tiny netbook does't it? >Are you talking about using the Flash Player within a browser? Yes. It chops mostly when internet streaming. Local video file playback is ok. >That is the worst CPU hogging player I ever have seen! Yes, with a faster CPU it could likely handle it. Or maybe just a better hardware/software design. My new iPod seems to handle video streaming just fine on a 300MHz processor. >So how is the iPod for typing? Terrible. It's a pain just to type a URL. This is a capacitive screen (the TX was resistive) that uses no stylus. So you have to type with your fat thumbs on the 3.5" screen. (The screen won't even react to a stylus push, it needs your body capacitance to sense a push.) The software is pretty good at guessing what you want but still it requires a lot of concentration. Fortunately I don't need to do a lot of typing. Bookmarks are a blessing... ;) >sure liked my folding keyboard for my Palm IIIc and IIIxe. I don't know if keyboards are available for the iPod but probably. Its a popular gadget and can run the same software as an iPhone. And there are over 100,000 apps (many free and most under $5) in the Apple app store so a bit more choice of software than the Palms had. (One of my favorite free apps is called BJ, it's 75 blond jokes, very popular with my grandkids...except for the blonds... ;) >So what does all of yours look like for running and >standby times? Course running time depends on what you're doing. Video is rough on batteries. But I mostly surf, email, Usenet, and read ebooks. I figured about 5 hours on the TX and 8 hours on the iPod. But that is an estimate since I seldom let the battery run lower than 75% (about 2 hours on the iPod) in keeping with treating my Li-ion battery well. I'm not sure on standby time as I charge it often (75% rule).
From: AJL on 6 Jul 2010 19:11
"BillW50" <BillW50(a)aol.kom> wrote: >AJL typed on Tue, 06 Jul 2010 09:30:12 -0700: >> I wonder if there is a key combination in XP that allows moving a too >> large window around on a small screen so that I can get to an 'ok' >> button that is off the bottom of the screen? >The only one I know of is ALT-Space and press M (M=move) and then use >the arrow keys. That works! Thank's Bill, that's lots easier than changing resolutions. >And I like Windows allowing you to use higher >resolutions on small screens. How do you get more resolution choices? I only have a choice of 800x480 (native) and 800x600 (makes you scroll vertically). I figured it came with the Asus XP driver. >I believe it is a third party Astray replacement called >AsTray2 or something. Ah, I see an AsTray Plus on eeeuser.com, I'll check it out later, gotta head for a birthday party now. >I don't use either anymore, but just eeectl instead. It doesn't have the >resolution stuff, but the CPU temp, fan control, CPU speed (you might >like that one to speed up video playing), and full control over the >brightness of the display. The latter gives you a super bright display >(higher than stock) that I need sunglasses just to view the screen with. >lol That one too, thanks again Bill. |