A friend of mine has started using Jolicloud on her Netbook. This is a Linux distro that has been designed specifically for Netbooks. Indeed, they boast 98% compatibility across the Netbook market.

Now, it’s not the only one available, but unlike the others, this allows you to install the OS via Windows – the installation resides on the drive to what looks like Windows as a very large file. No messing with partitions, etc, and you can simply uninstall it via the standard Windows process.

Installation was easy and all my Aspire Ones hardware was recognised and configured.

The default interface is very black, although you can change this, with program categories down the left hand side. Down the right hand side are your various document folder shortcuts (including a shortcut to your Windows files, which is very welcome – although this doesn’t work until you perform your first system update). Click on any category and the main centre of the screen is filled with the programs available.

The “cloud” part of the name is a clue to how a lot of this works – many “programs” are merely shortcuts to websites, but running under a toolbar free version of the Chromium web browser so they look like a standard application. Unfortunately, without forward and back buttons some sites are not particularly easy to navigation – Gmail being an example of an exception.

And they’ve avoided a lot of the hassle of Linux installations, by making you select programs from their site. This means the choice is a lot more limited, but ensures that installs are incredibly easy.

And, Jolicloud even integrates Wine so you can, theoretically, run Windows applications (I tried one and it crashed, but that was hardly a good test!).

So, am I keeping it? No. An uninstall beckons. I have to say, it is good. But for power users it lacks badly. And I found it slow – delays occur often and at one time the main “desktop” appeared to crash (and disappear) entirely.

If you’re after an easy to use alternative and all you use your Netbook for is basic office tools and internet use, then this may be perfectly adequate. Unfortunately, it lacks a lot of the applications I need on a day-to-day basis. Yes, I can continue to dual boot with Windows, but Jolicloud doesn’t offer me anything extra. Boot times are quick, yes, but using XPs hibernate feature means that Windows is just as speedy. Now, if someone wants to offer a more powerful Linux distro but with just as easy to install applications, then I’d be interested.

Last night, after putting my Aspire One into hibernation only a few hours earlier, I turned my Netbook on to find it performing a full Windows boot. Not only that, but as soon as it started loading my profile, it would instantly turn off.

Worry.

So I booted under safe mode. It turned off.

Panic.

I rolled it back to the previous restore point. It then worked. Hurrah.

And it’s behaved since.

The restore point was taken yesterday morning  – I wonder why? I can’t remember installing any kind of update or running any kind of system function that would have created a restore point. Hmm, I’m guessing something happened though and my first reboot after that caused the power issues.

It definitely need an eye kept on it.

My original list of Useful Netbook Software was rather popular so I’ve gathered together some more suggestions for getting the most out of your Netbook.

I’ve seen many similar lists on other sites but they seems to suffer from at least one of the following…

1. Concentrating on applications which are, well, generally useful and not really Netbook specific. Free antivirus? Hmm.
2. Recommending the same old “popular” choices – irfanview, OpenOffice, etc.
3. Recommendation are mainly around the theory of moving everything OFF your Netbook, so it’s online apps and USB storage.

I’ll try and avoid all 3. Some may be of use for non-Netbook owners, but they should all have a very specific advantage to those of use with these handy, portable devices.

Scrybe

Scrybe provides gesturing support to your touchpad – in particular those that support multi-touch (such as the Acer Aspire One). Draw a pattern on the touchpad, for instance, to launch a particular application.

Even if you don’t wish to use this facility, you do get an upgraded version of Synaptics touchpad driver.

TouchFreeze

TouchFreeze is a nice idea but I’m not sure how well it’s yet been implemented – it didn’t work for my netbook and there hasn’t been any updates to the software for a while. None-the-less, it’s worth a try.

In a nutshell, it disables your touchpad when you being typing so that your palm doesn’t accidentally do something it shouldn’t do!

winsupermaximise

This adds a system tray icon which, once clicked (or you can press a hotkey combination), will “super maximise” the current window – that is, it will resize so the title bar is actually above the screen boundaries, thus saving those extra pixels that you don’t want to waste.

Yawcam

Most netbooks come with webcams but few include any kind of software to make use of them. Yes, you can install Skype and video call, but is that all it’s good for?

Yawcam will add some much needed abilities to that webcam – video streaming, image snapshots, a built-in webserver, motion detection and FTP uploads.

Live Mesh

There are a number of providers of free folder synchronisation (that is sharing folders across different computers) but I, personally, prefer Microsoft’s Live Mesh.

The files are also accessable online – up to 5GB worth.

What sells it to me is its simplicity. I have a folder on my desktop which I’ve set up with Live Mesh to share – anything placed in that folder is automatically shared across all my PCs. This therefore provides a quick and easy way to share data with a portable device such as a Netbook.

AltDrag

Quite how I missed this from my original list, I don’t know.

With the smaller screen resolution of Netbooks it’s often the case that program windows aren’t always visible on screen, in particular with the top bar hidden off screen so you can’t move it back in view, or it may be a window without a “dragable area”.

Linux has a great function that allows you to move windows with the mouse when pressing the ALT key. Well, now, you can have this on Windows too thanks to AltDrag,  a small, free application.

Desktops

Desktops is a Microsoft utility that provides multiple desktops – ideal for those cramped Netbook screens. Quickly swap between different desktops with the system tray icon or with shortcut keys.