As mentioned before, Dave bought a netbook. I went with the Dell mini 10v, he went with the Asus EeePC 1000HE. Both are almost identical as far as specifications are concerned (CPU speed, screen size/resolution, etc.) What it really boils down to when choosing one of these are the details, such as the keyboard layout, power supply type, battery options, RAM...

If you ever have the need to compare a couple of old CPU’s to see which one is “faster”, a good resource is PassMark’s CPU Benchmarks chart. This chart lists almost any older CPU you can think of and is compiled based on actual scores submitted by users. While certainly not definitive, this gives you a quick comparison of the relative...

You’ll notice that the title of this article does not say format a hard drive but rather erase. Most people are under the assumption that formatting a hard drive erases everything on it. Not true. A formatted drive can have its data recovered easily with utilities like this one. Residual data that remains on a hard drive after it’s been formatted is...

Twitter, the service you either love or hate, will be offering a geo-location service soon. This is something other web sites like BrightKite have tried to get other people to start using. You go somewhere then announce where you are by means of GPS coordinates. Consumer location-aware tech is still something that’s relatively new. There are certain things...

A touchscreen was something only limited to high-end electronics at one point, but now they’re available on just about anything mobile, such as Nintendo DS, all automotive GPS devices, smartphones and so on. Something that has been very slow to adopt the touchscreen are digital cameras. Canon in particular seemingly refused to do it, however that’s...

Note: There is a video at the bottom of this post of my 10v, so be sure to check that out. As I had been saying many times since 2009 started, my plan was to get a netbook as my next laptop. So I bought a refurbished Dell Inspiron Mini 10v. My overall opinion of the unit is that it’s a decent solid build and is definitely the right size. However the one...

For the observant, you’ll notice that a ton of computers are made in the nation of China these days. This is occurring so much that some people absolutely refuse to buy anything made from there, similar to the all-too-familiar MADE IN TAIWAN labels on so many products of the 1980s and 1990s. On the computing front, many refer to Chinese-made computers as...

In a very short period of time I’ve found that in order to get along with a netbook properly, there’s 10 things you absolutely must do. 1. Use Google Chrome Those who know my browser preferences find this a bit of a shock being that I’m a diehard Firefox user, because I’ve made it no secret that I can’t stand the Chrome web...

The old saying goes “if it isn’t broken, don’t try to fix it”. This is a good approach to existing, functional device drivers on your system. However, if you are installing a new device going with the most recent stable driver is probably the best bet. Whenever you purchase a retail device, it almost always comes with a driver CD. Instead...

I just bought a Dell Inspiron mini 10v. It will be arriving either later this week or early next week. After examining all the different ways I could purchase it, I decided to go refurb. Why? Because it’s nearly $100 less than new. For a laptop that’s in the sub-$500 range, $100 is a pretty big consideration. In my situation, I paid 23% less compared...