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Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

> The single application that I've been spending most of my time in on this
> machine is Firefox. I've previously mentioned that, on my Shuttles,
> Firefox would typically run continuously for days, occasionally even for
> weeks, at a time, before it started misbehaving and needed to be killed
> and restarted.
>
> On the Eee, I don't think I've been able to run Firefox continuously for
> more than maybe a couple of days, before the whole machine starts
> suffering long pauses. (It's always definitely Firefox that's the problem,
> because killing and relaunching that is sufficient to restore things to
> normal, without needing to do anything else, let alone reboot the
> machine.) The beastie only has a half gig of RAM, but then so does my
> older Shuttle. The main difference, I think, is that it has no swap space
> configured--besides the big chunk it would take out of the 4GB SSD, I
> suspect the continual writes would shorten the life of the drive
> considerably.

Maybe the new Firefox ver 3 will help? I was reading that they have done a
lot of work improving the excessive memory usage.

On Tue, 04 Dec 2007 20:03:33 +1300, Murray Symon
<> wrote:

>Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>
>> The single application that I've been spending most of my time in on this
>> machine is Firefox. I've previously mentioned that, on my Shuttles,
>> Firefox would typically run continuously for days, occasionally even for
>> weeks, at a time, before it started misbehaving and needed to be killed
>> and restarted.
>>
>> On the Eee, I don't think I've been able to run Firefox continuously for
>> more than maybe a couple of days, before the whole machine starts
>> suffering long pauses. (It's always definitely Firefox that's the problem,
>> because killing and relaunching that is sufficient to restore things to
>> normal, without needing to do anything else, let alone reboot the
>> machine.) The beastie only has a half gig of RAM, but then so does my
>> older Shuttle. The main difference, I think, is that it has no swap space
>> configured--besides the big chunk it would take out of the 4GB SSD, I
>> suspect the continual writes would shorten the life of the drive
>> considerably.
>
>Maybe the new Firefox ver 3 will help? I was reading that they have done a
>lot of work improving the excessive memory usage.

I think I read that Firefox 3 will need more memory - not for Firefox
itself, but for the "virtual machine" that it runs on or in.

In article <fj2nsu$s1n$>, Lawrence D'Oliveiro did write:

> And, get this: Microsoft is offering a 30% discount to those who want to
> put Windows on their Eee. Da-da-da-dum...

Which begs the question: what's so special about Eee buyers, that Microsoft
deems them worthy of a special discount that it will not offer to its other
customers?

Asus says it's shifting one of the things every six seconds. The thought of
millions of these little PCs growing in use all over the world without
Windows on them must really put the wind up Microsoft. The question is:
what can they do about it?

The most devastating thing they can do is launch a crash project to come up
with a "Windows Svelte" or "Windows Light"--a version of Windows that uses
much less resources, without sacrificing important features, and with some
extras thrown in in the form of learning programs and games, to match what
comes with Xandros on the Eee. And while they're at it, they can get rid of
those steaming piles of excrement known as "Windows Fundamentals"
and "Starter Edition", and replace them with this new version. Of course,
they'd also have to offer it at a very low price.

Can they do it? Not a chance. It would cannibalize too much of their
existing Windows sales. And if they tried tightly controlling how it was
sold to avoid competing with higher-end Windows sales, then it wouldn't be
able to compete full stop.

But even if upper management were against it, it could still be started as
a "skunk works"-type project by a few renegade programmers, that the bosses
don't find out about until it's nearly complete. If Microsoft could pull
this off, it would leave myself, and lots of other Linux fans, speechless.
It would be a breathtaking coup. But, like I said, it's too much of a
threat to their existing business model, so they're not going to allow it.

So what's the easiest alternative? Simple: spread some FUD. Try to dissuade
people from buying these machines, by relentlessly playing up all the
downsides of not having full Windows compatibility. Try to work with the
hardware vendors to offer higher-powered alternatives, running Windows,
that somehow don't cost much more. (Obviously they'd have to cut back on
their fat Windows profit margins.) Perhaps accuse Eee buyers of running
large numbers of pirated copies of Windows, just for good measure.

Would this work? Not for long. So either way, Microsoft are in a difficult
place: the days of their existing Windows business model are numbered.

"Lawrence D'Oliveiro" <> wrote

>I got one! Picked it up from Dick Smith Powerhouse yesterday. I'm using it
> to write this posting now.
>
> Yes, it's absolutely tiny. Keyboard's small, but I haven't found it to be
> a
> big irritation. Previously with touchpads I have a lot of trouble when my
> hands start sweating, but this one has seemed OK so far. Had a bit of
> trouble with phantom clicks, so I just turned off the "tapping" feature,
> and that seems to have put a stop to it.
>
> I thought it would be completely silent, but it's not--in a quiet room, I
> can hear a soft whirring noise--there must be a fan inside.
>
> Anybody else tried one?

I had a play with one in Athens last week. In my fractured English, I got
out my credit card and asked the salesman "How much?"

He responded in a mixture of Greek and English "I don't know - this is our
presales demo model. We think it will sell for about 2-300 euros when they
are actually available. I can't sell you one yet."

I would have bought one on the spot - and tried to!

Nice to know they are on sale here. I may get one today....

Somewhere on teh interweb BTMO typed:
> "Lawrence D'Oliveiro" <> wrote
>
>> I got one! Picked it up from Dick Smith Powerhouse yesterday. I'm
>> using it to write this posting now.
>>
>> Yes, it's absolutely tiny. Keyboard's small, but I haven't found it
>> to be a
>> big irritation. Previously with touchpads I have a lot of trouble
>> when my hands start sweating, but this one has seemed OK so far. Had
>> a bit of trouble with phantom clicks, so I just turned off the
>> "tapping" feature, and that seems to have put a stop to it.
>>
>> I thought it would be completely silent, but it's not--in a quiet
>> room, I can hear a soft whirring noise--there must be a fan inside.
>>
>> Anybody else tried one?
>
> I had a play with one in Athens last week. In my fractured English, I
> got out my credit card and asked the salesman "How much?"
>
> He responded in a mixture of Greek and English "I don't know - this
> is our presales demo model. We think it will sell for about 2-300
> euros when they are actually available. I can't sell you one yet."
>
> I would have bought one on the spot - and tried to!
>
> Nice to know they are on sale here. I may get one today....

They're selling like hotcakes around the world. I read an article today that
says they're "sold out" in Australia and "selling well" in NZ. Today sounds
like a good day to buy one, especially with Xmas around the corner. We may
well sell out soon here too.
--
TTFN,

Shaun.

In article <4756f791$>, BTMO did write:

> Nice to know they are on sale here. I may get one today....

The Dick Smith listing
<http://www.dse.co.nz/cgi-bin/dse.storefront/475780dc00f233ee273fc0a87f3306e1/Product/View/XC5809>
now shows a whole lot of stores, so they've obviously got a new shipment
in.

"~misfit~" <> wrote

>> He responded in a mixture of Greek and English "I don't know - this
>> is our presales demo model. We think it will sell for about 2-300
>> euros when they are actually available. I can't sell you one yet."
>>
>> I would have bought one on the spot - and tried to!
>>
>> Nice to know they are on sale here. I may get one today....
>
> They're selling like hotcakes around the world. I read an article today
> that says they're "sold out" in Australia and "selling well" in NZ. Today
> sounds like a good day to buy one, especially with Xmas around the corner.
> We may well sell out soon here too.
> --
> TTFN,

Damn - price sucks in NZ - 599 vs 499 in Aus.

I am going to wait a while and see what happens.

Cheers,

Brenton

"Lawrence D'Oliveiro" <> wrote

>> Nice to know they are on sale here. I may get one today....
>
> The Dick Smith listing
> <http://www.dse.co.nz/cgi-bin/dse.storefront/475780dc00f233ee273fc0a87f3306e1/Product/View/XC5809>
> now shows a whole lot of stores, so they've obviously got a new shipment
> in.

I had a play (again) with one today at DS lower hutt.

Still cool, but until they get sensible about pricing them here, I am
putting it on hold.

Cheers,

brenton

On Sat, 8 Dec 2007 20:33:50 +1300, "BTMO" <> wrote:
>
>Damn - price sucks in NZ - 599 vs 499 in Aus.
>
>I am going to wait a while and see what happens.
>

Is that $NZ499 in Aus? $AU499 is $NZ563 at the TT rate.

Interesting backgrounder on the genesis of the "Jonney Machine"
<http://members.forbes.com/global/2007/1112/024a.html>. Apparently, getting
the user interface right was the most time-consuming part of the design.