Hero Inc.

There’s a new member of my computer family. The new bundle of joy arrived on Wednesday afternoon and has amazed all of those that have seen it in person.  That’s right peeps.  I’m the proud owner of a netbook.

My original intent was not to get a netbook, but to possibly purchase a new mp3 player.  However, most of the ones I found were not better than my current Creative Zen Vision W.  I wanted my new player to be able to play music and videos as well as provide the basic ability to surf the web.  After looking at my options, it seemed that a netbook could produce the same results.  Therefore, I purchased the ASUS Eee PC. For those unable to click the previous link, here are the basic stats on it.

• 40GB Solid State Drive (No moving parts and less weight)
• 1.6 GHz Intel Atom N270 Processor
• 2 GB RAM (I upgraded during the purchase and installed myself)
• 6 Cell Battery (long life)
• Linux (Xandros or Debian variant)

Now before we go any farther, this technological wonder needs a name.  For those that are truly unfortunate to know me, understand that I name my pieces of tech based on, what else, but super heroes (Inventory =>  Old Desktop: Lantern1, Old Laptop: Gray Ghost, New Desktop: Black Panther/Lantern, Media Hard Drive: Cerebro).  The netbook’s name is so perfect that I love to share it.  Based on the color and processor mentioned above, I dub thee Black Atom. It is a combination name based on both Black Adam and The Atom. Bring on the geek jokes.

For those living in fear of Linux because you heard it is “difficult,” then this netbook is perfect for you.  Out of the box and fully charged, Black Atom runs like a charm.  It comes with all of the necessary software already installed and configured for your daily use, such as a browser (Firefox), Office Suite (StarOffice), Music Player (Amarok), Instant Messenger (Pidgin and Skype with web cam ability), Photo Organizer (Picasa) and Video Player (Kaffeine).  The interface is trimmed to not pose as a full desktop.  Some people may hate that, but I think for those non-techies it is perfect for what a netbook is used to do and it gives those techies the perfect ability to make the needed changes through back channels.

Now on to tweaking Black Atom to my liking (opening the Linux up more for my use, adding my music, installing extra software, etc.). I will leave you with a quick video I made of the machine starting up (notice the speed that comes with a solid state drive) and walking through the interface.

For future reference, here are a few great links that are helping me make Black Atom into the machine I want it to be.

• Tweaking for Beginners
• Icons, Icons, and More Icons (In French)
• Install Filezilla