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.

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Dixons are currently selling it for £249 (with free standard delivery), which is the cheapest online price that I can find¹. However, get it from the Dixons site, use the code 10NET before 8am on Monday 1st February 2010 and get a further £10 off!

And, if you use the money back service Quidco, you will get a further 3% back (if my calculations are correct, that’s a shade over £7).

1. I could be wrong – let me know if I am. And eBay doesn’t count!

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A colleague of mine has recently purchased one at, what he thought, was a bargain price from Comet¹. It turned out that the low price was due to it having a far inferior battery. Indeed, the reason why it often garners such good feedback is its 7.5 hour battery life. This one struggles to a couple.

Some users are pointing out that some retailers are referring to this as the “award winning” NC10. In fact, it’s the bigger battery life version that has been winning the awards. Naughty.

So, be careful out there..

1. I’d provide the link but the site was strangely “under maintenance” when I tried

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Some of the methods, however, can be easily transferred to any Windows system – in this post I’ll be concentrating on XP, but I’m sure many of these will work on other versions.

So, here are some of the things that Lenovo did and what you can do that’s similar…

Fixed the drivers of on-board hardware components that were cumulatively causing massive delays.

Ok, so there’s not much we, as individuals, can do to fix drivers. However, it is important to stay on top of Windows drivers to ensure that you benefit changes of this type.

Personally, I have a spreadsheet of download links for my drivers and regularly check them. The other option is to use software that will look for updates for you. DriverMax is a popular example, although others are available.

Tweaked the BIOS phase of startup to temporarily hide some devices from Windows 7, so that the OS only loads the drivers after the boot is finished.

What they’re doing here is hiding hardware devices from Windows until its loaded. This may be a webcam, CD drive, etc. Now, there are some things you can do here for yourself…

1. Create a secondary hardware profile. This gives you an additional boot option where, say, lesser used hardware devices won’t be loaded. This is done by turning off different services (and having different startup options too). I used to have one for gaming, whereas non-gaming services would be disabled, saving memory and boot time.
2. Switch hardware off that you don’t use very often. No, ok, this won’t stop the drivers from loading but there may be some exchange (or handshaking) of information that may be reduced. My scanner and lazer printer, for instance, are used only occasionally, so are left unplugged when not in use. Of course, this also saves on electricity!
3. Uninstall old drivers. When you change hardware, you often leave the old drivers behind. Plug everything in, start up your PC and then find and uninstall any old drivers.

Tweaked Windows 7 to delay the loading of non-essential services and applications until after startup.

Ah, now this is definitely something we can do ourselves.

The first thing I’d recommend you do is to go through the various startup programs and disable those you don’t feel you need (RealPlayer, Quicktime and Java update checkers are popular ones to disable). You can use msconfig, but I find the option within the Tools section of CCleaner a better option.

A quick tip… you’ll find some startup options that don’t appear within the “Startup” folder in your Start Menu. If one of these is only relevant to particular users, who have their own profiles, then note the URL that this startup is running. Disable it and then create the relevant shortcut within the appropriate profile startup folder.

You can also delay when various startup options execute. So, lets say you REALLY want Quicktime, et al, to do their online checks, do they have to do them as soon as the computer starts? Programs such as Startup Delayer will allow you to delay startup tasks.

That’s applications. Now services. You have to be careful with these, but its still worth going through all your services and looking for those that are best set to manual or disabled entirely. There are many websites dedicated to which ones should be changed.

And that’s it. If you have any suggestions on how to improve startup and shutdown, feel free to contact me (or add a comment to this post).

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First of all, let’s kick off with the oft-mentioned absence of the CD/DVD drive in Netbook. You can, of course, buy an external drive at about £40/£50, but when you’ve only paid about £250 for your Netbook, it can seem a steep investment.

If you’ve got a PC at home with a drive, however, you can put your Netbook on the same network and use it. I came across the instructions on a forum – pretty obvious now, but it hadn’t occurred to me to do this.

Next up, something for the Acer Aspire One owners. Kuki is a Linux build specifically for this machine. I’ve put it on a USB key, using UNetbootin, and it’s quite good, with everything seemingly working as it should do. However, I’m assuming that this “live” version probably expects to be working from a CD and, hence, appears to be “read only” – configuration changes aren’t being saved. You’d need to install to unlock its full potential – my plan is to use the Storage Expansion SD card slot and install it directly onto an SDHC card.

Definitely worth checking out.

Lastly, the award-winning Samsung NC10 is available from eBuyer for £268.79 (including free P&P). This has been on sale elsewhere recently at a cheaper price but, and crucially, these have turned out to be 3-cell battery versions, rather than the standard 7.5 hour 6 cell version.

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I’ve come across 3 which, kind of, work.

EasyDeskXP

This I came across quite by accident – its SourceForge hosted site contains few details. And, I have to say, it’s still early days for this application.

It’s not easy to use, I couldn’t find any documentation and it has few configurations options. It also looks hideously ugly – particularly the carbon fibre “look” surround. Horrible.

Easy Mode XP

Next up, is a particular project aimed specifically at EEE PC users. The software is, therefore, branded accordingly but it’s not too bad. However, there are a few niggling issues here and there, including copious spelling mistakes.

The site is in German, but the link I’ve provided is via Google Translate.

FSL Launcher

Now, unlike the previous two applications, this hasn’t been designed for Netbooks, but any PC in general. It’s okay I guess – it’s not the prettiest thing, but not as ugly as EasyDeskXP. It also doesn’t take over the entire desktop, as these easy menus generally do (and whether you find that good or bad, is up to you). Personally, I’d prefer something more like the Linux versions – taking over the entire desktop experience, but allowing you to drop back to the Windows desktop when you want.

Having said all that, it’s the best one I’ve come across so far. Not that this is a huge collection – I was thinking  there’d be more choice.

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Having said all that, it wasn’t as difficult as I though. Register Hardware have an excellent article on how to do it.

The only deviation I found was that my AA1 has an HHD, rather than an SSD. In this case, ignore the instruction to remove the SSD connector. The HHD appears to be connected to the motherboard, so you will also need to remove the daughterboard on the right-hand side of the case first. This is just a further 3 screws (but they’re more of those that are in very tightly, so remove them carefully).

The memory itself was a single 1GB module that I bought online for approx. £12. The other 512MB is actually built onto the motherboard itself and can’t be changed.

1. obviously, there is a little sarcasm here

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Well, due to the popularity of this site, my bandwidth usage has shot up and it’s looking a little dodgy by the end of each month (when my host resets the limit).

So, if you’re enjoying the content please think of donating (there’s a button on each page!) or clicking on one of the adverts. That way, I can upgrade to a package with a higher limit! Meantime, I’ll be taking steps to reduce that limit (which may, unfortunately, mean turning off various facilities on the site).

MyMemory features a wide range of top brand electronics and accessories, including Digital Memory, Blu-ray Media, and Electronic Games, delivered worldwide for free.

The packaging is small but contains everything you might need, including the USB device (which can also house a micro SD card so that you can it for storage as well) and SIM card. The instructions come in a number of small leaflets and individual sheets – probably to save money as some are more general than others (often referring to the “phone” that you’ve just purchased) – and aren’t a great amount of use, containing little technical information on getting set up. However, that turned out to be not a bad thing as the first thing that happened when I did get connected was that the software was updated and looked completely different to the screenshots in the manual!

So, you put the SIM card into the USB device and then plug it in. All software is on the USB key and it installs automatically – it apparently works for Mac as well as PC, but no Linux mentioned. It was a bit flaky at first, as to when it worked and in which USB port, but appears to have settled down now.

Anyway, it did connect and I was instantly onto the internet. That in itself was weird though as, according to the manual and the 3 website, I had no credit. I rang 3 to enquire about this and no matter how many ways I tried to ask the question, they didn’t seem to understand. You see, if you use any bandwidth above what you’ve paid then you’re charged a rather mighty £1 per MB. I’d already used about 7MB, thanks mainly to the software update that it did. As soon as I topped up was I suddenly going to be down £7?

I registered on their site and was told I’d be informed of my password – it turns out that this is sent as an SMS which you view via the installed software. From here I registered a card – for some reason this takes 7 days before it can be used again, but they are happy to take out an initial £10 for topping up. If you need to top up in the meantime, you have to get a voucher from a shop. I now have £10. And a little more. I’m guessing that additional is some free credit that was allowing me to access the internet before. Shame the manual nor 3 themselves were aware of this.

Anyway, they say not to use the supplied software to track your data usage as it’s not 100% accurate. Instead you should use their website. Fine. Except reading various user comments on the internet, it would appear that this is only updated occasionally. Not only that, but right now, after quite a bit of use, my data usage tells me that I’ve not used anything above my top-up allowance. Which is good to know, but that’s all it says. Am I close? Have I got loads left? I have no idea. It would appear that the first thing I’ll know is when I cross the limit and start being charged as some ungodly amount. Hmmm. And to top it all off, it shows my current balance as “won’t expire”. Either that’s a change in policy, or it’s wrong. I’ve emailed 3 to ask about these two “issues” and I’ll report back any results.

Web access speed appears pretty good, although I’ve only been using it in low signal areas so I think an actual speed test result wouldn’t reflect appropriately.

The USB dongle also has a slot for Micro SD cards, allowing you to store on the device as well, although this is limited to 2GB. You are also supplied with a USB extension lead, as the dongle is rather wide and may block nearby USB ports otherwise.

It’s such a shame that the instructions, and indeed 3’s support, left a lot to be desired because, for the price, this is well worth having, if only for the occasional “emergency”. Having said, the inability to accurately track your current usage is a bit of a problem too.

One quick tip – I’ve created an extra profile on my Netbook, which doesn’t launch software that will instantly connect and use the internet (mail notifiers, instant messengers, etc). I then use this when using the mobile broadband, and this reduces the amount of bandwidth consumed.

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However, I’m using it less at home as my main PC has been moved to the dining room but, conversely, more at work and as my employers clamp down more and more on non-work usage of the internet, etc.

Anyway, I’ve compiled some useful software and sites specifically for the AA1, which I think might be of interest…

a1ctl
“a1ctl is a program able to control the fan speed of the Acer Aspire One netbooks, and do some useful other things.” Those other things include controlling processor speed and reducing hard drive noise. An excellent piece of software that I use myself.

For this or the next application to work you may need to install the MSCOMCTL file.

AA1 Fan Control
This installs a desktop “widget” from which the AA1 fan is controlled based on current temperatures. I tried this and although it worked well, a1ctl does the same function with others as well.

Aspire One Backup
“AA1BACKUP is a backup solution for the Acer Aspire One based on free and open source software. It makes an exact copy of the drive, bit for bit, and therefore works with any file system, partition table or operating system. And to emphasize its operating system independence it can be installed from either Linux or Windows.”

Forum wise, I’d recommend bookmarking AspireOneUser.com. Also, macles* is a useful blog dedicated to AA1 users. From here, for example, you can find a set of manuals to download, including a service manual.

Obviously, don’t forget Acers download page, where you can pickup the latest BIOS and drivers.

1. stick that Dell!

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