Some Goodies coming from B&H

For those who don't know, my wife and I are going through the process of trying to adopt a child from China. ; It's a long and arduous process, but there are a lot of support groups out there. ;

My wife is very active on a Yahoo Chat Group for families who are waiting to be matched with children with known medical conditions (which we are). ;

As families announce that they've been matched and then eventually start planning for trips, the conversations about computers comes up. ; Many of these families are active bloggers and the families stuck back home want to see and read all about their adventure to travel half way around the world to add to their family.

One of the hot topics has been about using netbooks instead of laptops. ; The reason being that once inside domestic China they have very strict weight limits on what you can carry on the plane and most standard laptops would take up valuable weight. ; The netbooks range between 2-3lbs.

So, to try it out we wanted to get one for our trip to Disneyland next week and since they are so cheap you can always buy another one when it gets closer to our time to travel between now and 4 years from now.

It just so happens that B&H carries computer equipment so I ordered the following:
ASUS Eee PC 1000HE Netbook (black)

My Netgear 8-port gigabit switch died last week, so I checked to see if they carried the model I've been looking for at Best Buy but never finding at the brick & mortar store and sure enough they had that too
D-Link 8 Port 10/100/1000 Ethernet Switch

One of my batteries for my Nikon dSLR has been flagged as reaching it's limit by the on-board battery info option of the menu, so I tossed it and picked up another
EN-EL3e Rechargeable LIthium Ion Battery for my Nikon D80/300

Finally, in order to be able to use the netbook to pull my pics off my camera I needed a USB driven CF card reader. ; Since I have a UDMA card (at Roger's advice), I figured I might as well get a UDMA reader
Lexar Professional UDMA Dual Slot USB Card Reader

The netbook and switch were competitively priced when compared to Amazon and NewEgg. ; So, in my infinite wisdom, I figured I should throw the bone to TMIP for buying through his affiliate link

 

i need a review from you on that netbook once you get it. ; i have considered something like that myself to lighten the load a bit.

 

My external IT guy at my office has one from Samsung, he likes it. ; I can't use it since it only can come with XP Home or Linux, and I need either Vista or Mac OS to connect to work. ; Sony makes one for Vista, but it's about 7x more expensive, and Apple's netbooks won't be out until the fall.

 

Roger, did you see that Apple just released the macbook pro in a 13" version? ; The price is down to about $1100.

 

Just the mention/leaks by the company that makes the touchscreen for the iPhone, that Apple has ordered a lot of either 8 or 10" screens.

 

Yeah I saw that. ; It seems that most of their laptops will be Pros now, plus they're responding to those dumb Microsoft commercials (This one only has 2GB of RAM, never mind that it will still run faster than Vista)

 

If it's the samsung that I think you are talking about, then the model I got and the samsung were rated to be about equal. ; But I found a few reviews that gave the ASUS a slight nudge higher.

I'm going to be loading Windows 7 on it as soon as I get it because I heard that it'll be netbook compliant while the Vista OS is not.

Also, from everything I read, these netbooks aren't meant to be productivity machines used at work. ; At best they are good for casual web surfing and minor amounts of word processing and e-mail. ; You'll kill your eyes and fingers (less than full-sized keyboard) trying to do more.

We are probably going to be using ours as a machine to dump pictures with (as a replacement for the Epson devices), the machine that drives my wife's embroidery software, and a blogging device. ; I've heard of some people who have hooked them up to their TV's with the VGA jack and used them as media servers, but I don't think it's worth it unless you can watch HD video

 

I heard that Apple has egg on their face because they laughed at the Netbook concept and said it would never sell and now it's selling like gangbusters. ;

So, the rumor I heard is that they are going to wait and then release something with some catchy iSomething name and claim that it isn't a netbook.

A friend who works at an Apple Store told me they are told by management that if someone comes in looking for a netbook to tell them that the Apple netbook equivalent is an iTouch

 

Yes, the easiest thing would be the rebirth of the iBook. ; Now that they seem to be eliminating the difference between a Macbook and a Macbook Pro....kind of makes sense with market positioning. ; It also could entail that it would be released with Snow Leopard. ; The iPhone and iTouch are quickly becoming handheld computers, especially with the release of 3rd party accessories such a glucose monitors. ; But people still want to surf the net on something with a almost full size keyboard....

 

Definitely keep us updated Ray. ; I have been considering such a purchase myself - for light duty use like web surfing, e-mail, or message boarding while travelling, and as a photo storage device...and not much else. ; I don't know if you intend to get a cell card for it to connect, or if you are going to rely on WiFi or HiSpeed cables...hopefully the latter as I would likely only use it in hotels with Wifi or with hispeed connection cables.

My Dell laptop is a bigger 17" screen type that is more for portable home use than for travel portable use...it's too much bulk for most travel, though I have been bringing it to Disney since I drive and space isn't a concern with my packing. ; The netbook would be much more conveniently sized for travelling, and being able to backup photos from CF cards is a nice bonus.

Rog, my only concern with Apple eventually releasing a netbook would be the same thing I don't like about their other 'i' things...those darn sealed proprietary batteries! ; If they do make netbooks, I really hope they make the battery accessible by the users so you can just buy a new one and replace it yourself instead of having to send the device to Apple to have it done. ; I love the Sony netbook designs and build quality, but they're usually way too pricey. ; I'm curious to see how Ray does with one of the less expensive ones, which is more along the lines of what I'd want to get.

 

Ray, my former employer has an ASUS eee and he raves about it. ; Like me, he's a lifelong IT guy and general techno-geek, so it takes a lot to impress him. ; I had a chance you play with it a little, and it looks pretty good.

The screen is not very tall so be sure to increase the resolution to its highest setting. ; The keyboard is not terribly claustrophobic. ; Windows XP? ; That's a plus, since I've heard that Vista is nothing but trouble.

I'm thinking about buying one just to back up memory cards during a trip.

 

The one downside is that the only flash cards it reads are the SD and SDHC, but has 3 USB 2.0 ports. ; So, I also picked up a USB 2.0 Card Reader from B&H that reads the UDMA CF cards my D300 uses. ; It'll also handle the SD cards my wife D80 uses.

I'll most likely load Google's Picasa onto the netbook to use as the extractor. ; It's great for cataloging and recognizes the Nikon NEF RAW format. ; Granted you lose the EXIF data when it converts it to a JPEG but it'll be good for uploading to Flickr.

Either that or I'll see about loading Nikons Capture NX 2 on there, but I've been told it's not a great post-processing machine. ; I just need a way to pull pics off. ; If I find it handy enough to carry into the parks, it'll allow me to shoot in both RAW and JPEG (small format for web upload) and offload at key times.

I'll be sure to keep everyone posted. ; Scott Bourne did a post on his blog about how he personally believes the Netbooks are aligning themselves to be a valuable tool in the photographers bag I can see that as happening

 

I went with ASUS because it was a tie between that and the Samsung. ; Most of the major manufacturers seemed to have some bad reviews against them. ; We'll have to wait and see once I get it

 

Well Gary, the cost of portable hard drives has come wayyyyy down; it's too easy to download pics to a netbook/laptop and then backup the photos to an external hard drive. ; Cheaper too. ; Esp. considering the cost of UDMA cards is still up there with the modern large 14 bit RAW files, and perhaps video as well.

 

You can always purchase an external DVD burner and then backup all the pics to DVD each night.

 

That's probably better option than the DVD Burner one I just mentioned. ;