Asus EeePC

I first saw this at Scitech exhibition in Singapore. At that time there was a queue for it and retailing at S$500. By the time I got to the Point of Sale, the thing had already sold out. But the kind Asus people were good enough to let people play with their demo models. Mostly linux OS

Fast track

8 months later

So I have become a little addicted to those one-gadget-a-day-deal sites. I logged into Catchoftheday site and instinctively knew there would be a sale for me. After couple of weeks of logging in and following deals, bang; the Asus Eeepc for A$312 + $15 delivery. It came in a lime green motif, reminds me of those Japanese manga-based toys or a South Korean make up kit.

So finally, after a delay of 4 days between order and delivery, I played with it. The keyboard really is pretty poor but then this is supposed to be a better-Blackberry and not a desktop replacement. There is no optical drive, but 3 x USB ports, 1 memorycard port, webcam, built in mic and ready to go. No messy around - so easy to connect and skype ready. in fact within 2 minutes of power on, i was skyping away on webcam.

so all in a pretty good thing to take on trips and assignments.

D'oh! not a road warrior. just a suburbanpeasant after all.

Now I got to find a reason to have this thing....

Gspace

A tool to use gmail to store files. limit to 10mb per file. Probably use it for docs but no media. A bit dicey as it's not condoned by google.

iPod Nano Clone

The ubiquitous made in China thing with machine-translated instructions and stiff buttons. There is already a good site giving information about how to use and firmware upgrade, although searching the site is a nightmare. It is here - mympxplayer.org

Alternatively, I write to Prasanth in Bombay (no, I still refuse to refer to it as Mumbai)

Despite all the claims that it's a multiformat player, the device actually only plays MP3 and .amv files. Transferring mp3 files is a cinch. Transferring video takes various steps. I illustrate with youtube videos.

In order to download youtube videos, just type "kiss" in front of the url - so it's ' www.kissyoutube.xxx' and whatever the url is for that particular file. It will take you to the kissyoutube web page and will give you the download link.

Use VLC to convert youtube to wmv. The parameters are:
- use wizard
- transcode
- video codec : wmv3 (or wmv2)
- audio codec: mp3
- save as asf
- save file as xxx.wmv

and that's it.

To transfer, the gadget comes with a mini cd rom ; it is filled with crap and does not auto run.
You will find it's full of folders. Of these take note of two folders

- mp3 utility ver 4.05
- mp3 utility v3.75

click setup on these two utilities.

the utilities point to a software called .AMV converter. this is the thing that converts wmv, mov, avi (some etc but dont' know if they work, certainly not with mp4 files) to amv.

if it's properly installed, you can right click the file. You will see the option 'Start video transform' - use that to convert your files. Please note that the converted video default saves onto C:\

The rest is easy : simply plug in usb cable from clone to usb port and click and transfer. The device is smart enough to know which files go under which folder: music, videos, text, etc.