Just so you don't think my entire life is about my EeePC....  Tonight I grill!  It's been the first time since the move.  I bought a couple sirloins and a couple filets and I'm going to town.

My grill of choice is the Weber Performer which is a charcoal grill with a propane assist.  I had the Char-Broil brand version of this type of grill when in Florida and it does the job nicely too, but the quality in construction of the Weber is far superior.  Plastic pieces on the Char-Broil started breaking after only a year.  This Weber is still like new after a year, and that includes sitting out in the snow all winter.  The only thing I really miss about the Char-Broil is the side burner.  I usually blanch my vegetables before grilling them, so for now I have to run inside to do that.

So first you pile your coals up into these little baskets and fire up the propane flame....

Then throw the grate on top and cover.  It'll only be a matter of minutes for the coals to turn white.  That's more than enough time to prep everything that's going to go on the grill.

The Performer is nice in that it gives you a little container to throw your bag of coals and some accessories into:

They expect you to use the little 16.4oz disposable tanks with the Performer, but I typically grill too much to waste my time and money on those, so I bought an adapter hose and a full size 20lb tank that pretty much lasts me all year:

The extra tank does seriously reduce the mobility of the grill, but I pretty much just leave the thing next to the deck.  The hose on the tank has one of those big release knobs so I can easily detach it if I did need to move it.

So the coals are white, time to sear one side....

And you can see I have the area to the left of the coals for indirect cooking like when I want to grill veggies.  Now the other side gets a good searing.....

And it's time to eat! 

MASSIVE EDIT!

In an effort to help people tweak their Eee PC netbook I was telling people how to define their own DL sources and pin dependencies and all of this shit based on experiences from my previous life as a Linux user when there wasn't a lot of cool apps and shit to get things working.... SCREW THAT!  I did all my shit manually, but then I found there's a shell script called pipmyeee that does everything I did but it's a HELL of a lot easier.

Go here and download pimpmyeee. 

Rename whatever the file is called (which is usually pimpmyeee.sh + whatever version) into something simple like "pimpmyeee.sh" (remove the version number).

Go to the folder you downloaded it into (/home/usr/, right?) and open a terminal window with CTRL+ALT+T.  Type "sh pimpmyeee.sh".

Choose the option to enable extra repositories.  This will give your EeePC more servers to download packages from.  Next, select "Enable Fill Desktop (KDE)".

Once that's all done, go to "shut down" using the icon on the task bar.  You'll notice now when you do this, there is a "Full Desktop" option: 

Click on this and you'll reboot into a standard KDE desktop:

I proceeded to remove the Mr. Potato Head and the Planetarium applications to free up some space.  I did this by going to "Launch", "Applications", "System" and then the "Synaptic Package Manager".  For those familiar with Redhat, this is just like RPM.  I also installed Armagetron while I was in the process.  When you're done with this KDE desktop, you can select "Easy Mode" from the Launch menu and get back to the Asus Launcher desktop.  Once there, if you installed any packages, you may not find icons for your newly installed packages.  You will need to know the shell command to execute the particular application.  For example:  I installed Armagetron and have to do a CTRL+ALT+T to open a terminal and then type "armagetron" to execute it.  That is.. until I figure out how to do custom icons and manipulate the Asus Launcher desktop.

One thing I did notice about "pimpmyeee" is that there's options to install "cool" themes.  I think the themes suck and there's no easy way to uninstall them.  So unless you already know how to uninstall the themes or edit them to your liking, I don't suggest "trying" these options.

We don't have these in Florida.  I looked it up and apparently these guys are only really common in the Midwest, Great Lakes and Northeast.  We didn't have them at the last place.  We just had a bunch of bunny rabbits.  Like most squirrels, these guys move fast so I had to zoom into the neighbor's yard to get a picture of this one:

They're cool in the same way black cats are cool. Maybe I can get a better picture of one for my friends back in Florida now that I know to look for them.

Ok... Since I didn't know how well this whole "changing desktop images" think was going to work (and for anyone that's ever changed their startup and shutdown screens in Windows or edited a BIOS boot-up image in the past, you know how it can take a good deal of tweaking to get the image just right) I decided to just grab an image off the web, do some quick and dirty editing of it and copy it over to my USB flash drive.  For this, I decided to just do the login page for now and if it works I'll get to working on all of the different tabs for the different themes.

I started by going on the web and grabbing a desktop background image I liked.  I grabbed a 1024x768 even though my EeePC netbook screen is only 800x480 so I have plenty of pallet to work with:

Now, the login on the Asus EeePC is on the right, so I'm going to have to flip this image horizontally.  If I do this, "Linux" is going to be backwards.  I could just flip where Tux is at, but the gradient in the background makes that easier said than done, so I'm just going to crop the document and flip it and then save it to my USB flash.  The finished product looks like this:

The first thing you need to do to get this image copied over is go to the terminal with CTRL+ALT+T and give yourself Super User access.  You have to be Super User or you're not going to be able to copy files into the "AsusLauncher" directory.  You give yourself this Super User power by typing in "sudo su".  Now be careful when logged in as Super User.  You can completely destroy your install if you decide to get adventurous.

"/home/user/" is your default directory, so all you have to do now is "cd D:" and you're in your USB drive.  Do an "ls" and you should see your modified artwork or the directory that you saved it in.  Now just do that "cp" command to copy the files back over.  Since I've only done the login page so far, I'm just going to do "cp login_page.jpg /opt/xandros/share/AsusLauncher".  For those die hard Unix/Linux/SCO/whatever fans:  Yes, I know I can put the full path in and copy whatever files over regardless of what directory I'm in, but I like being IN the directory I'm grabbing files from so I can do an "ls" and make sure I get the file name spelling right, file extension (JPG vs. JPEG), etc.

Type "exit" to exit Super User and "exit" again to close your terminal window and logout or reboot to see if the image took it's place.....

Ok.  I found shell by doing a "CTRL+ALT+T" (T for Terminal).  Once I was there I decided to look around for the desktop images because it seemed like all of my efforts for trying to change the background image were made in vein.  Even a simple "set as background image" did nothing more than store the file into "/home/user/".

I located a number of JPG files in "/opt/xandros/share/AsusLauncher": 

   

The first image here is the desktop background for the "Internet" tab when you have the "Blue" theme, which is also called "accessibility".  The second is for the "learn" tab while using the "Silver" or "business" theme.  The third is for the "play" tab while using the "Sunset" or "home" theme. 

   

The first image in this row is the desktop background for the "settings" tab while using the "Green" or "student" theme.  The second is for the "work" tab while, again, using the "Blue" theme.  The final image is the login screen.

So it looks like each theme relies on these particular files to be in this directory, with these particular names, to load up as desktop background images.  So it may be that the only way I can change the background right now is to change the images and re-save them with the same name.  I've begun the process by doing a "cp *.jpg /home/user/D:" which copies all of the JPEG's to the mounted USB drive.  Don't worry about mounting the USB drive.  The Asus EeePC mounts it and gives it a drive letter automatically. 

I would try editing the images in Tux Paint, but don't feel to comfortable with that right now. I'm going to stick with good ol' Fireworks for now until I get some more hours with the EeePC under my belt.  Speaking of hours under my belt, maybe I'll figure out how to hack the themes without having to reinstall Linux.

I know a lot of folks like to post the "unboxing" of their new gadgets.  But I was so anxious to bust into this new Asus EeePC netbook, I didn't even want to stop to find my camera.

The netbook I got is the "older" (launched a few months ago) 900 model.  There's now a 901 and 1000, both of which feature the new Intel Atom processor which is slower than my Celeron when it comes to raw CPU number crunching, but is smaller and more efficient, and an upgraded battery that lasts twice as long as mine.  Of course, these models cost more too.  The 1000 series also has a 10.1" LCD as opposed to my 8.9" screen.

There's a lot of netbooks on the market now from a lot of different companies.  I went with the Asus because I trust them as a brand and there's a lot of community hacking and modding already on the net.  To help with the selection process, I got the following matrix from a friend:

ASUS P/N

Model Name

MSRP

Storage

Internet Storage Bundled

Memory

Web Cam

Carrying Case

Battery

Battery life

CPU

LCD Resolution

OS

Software

Wireless

Bluetooth

EEEPC1000N/AW004

EeePC 1000 40G Linux White

$699.99

40GB

20GB

1GB

1.3MP

YES

6Cell

6.0 hours

ATOM

10" (1024x600)

Linux

Open Office

802.11b/g/n

YES

EEEPC1000N/ABK003

EeePC 1000 40G Linux Black

$699.99

40GB

20GB

1GB

1.3MP

YES

6Cell

6.0 hours

ATOM

10" (1024x600)

Linux

Open Office

802.11b/g/n

YES

EEEPC1000HN/ABK009X

EeePC 1000H 80G XP Black

$549.99

80GB

N/A

1GB

1.3MP

YES

6Cell

6.0 hours

ATOM

10" (1024x600)

XP Home

MS Works

802.11b/g/n

YES

EEEPC901N/AW001

EeePC 901 20G Linux White

$599.99

20GB

20GB

1GB

1.3MP

YES

6Cell

6.0 hours

ATOM

8.9" (1024x600)

Linux

Open Office

802.11b/g/n

YES

EEEPC901N/ABK001

EeePC 901 20G Linux Black

$599.99

20GB

20GB

1GB

1.3MP

YES

6Cell

6.0 hours

ATOM

8.9" (1024x600)

Linux

Open Office

802.11b/g/n

YES

EEEPC901N/AW003X

EeePC 901 12G XP White

$599.99

12GB

20GB

1GB

1.3MP

YES

6Cell

7.8 hours

ATOM

8.9" (1024x600)

XP Home

MS Works

802.11b/g/n

YES

EEEPC901N/ABK002X

EeePC 901 12G XP Black

$599.99

12GB

20GB

1GB

1.3MP

YES

6Cell

7.8 hours

ATOM

8.9" (1024x600)

XP Home

MS Works

802.11b/g/n

YES

EEEPC900N/AW047

EeePC 900 16G Linux White

$399.99

16GB

N/A

1GB

1.3MP

YES

4Cell

≥ 2.5 hours

Intel

8.9" (1024x600)

Linux

Open Office

802.11b/g

N/A

EEEPC900N/ABK041

EeePC 900 16G Linux Black

$399.99

16GB

N/A

1GB

1.3MP

YES

4Cell

≥ 2.5 hours

Intel

8.9" (1024x600)

Linux

Open Office

802.11b/g

N/A

EEEPC900N/AW072X

EeePC 900 16G XP White

$449.99

16GB

N/A

1GB

1.3MP

YES

4Cell

≥ 2.5 hours

Intel

8.9" (1024x600)

XP Home

MS Works

802.11b/g

N/A

EEEPC900N/ABK039X

EeePC900 16G XP Black

$449.99

16GB

N/A

1GB

1.3MP

YES

4Cell

≥ 2.5 hours

Intel

8.9" (1024x600)

XP Home

MS Works

802.11b/g

N/A

EEEPC900N/ABK028

EeePC 900 20G – Black

$529.99

20GB

N/A

1GB

1.3MP

YES

4Cell

≥ 2.5 hours

Intel

8.9" (1024x600)

Linux

Open Office

802.11b/g

N/A

EEEPC900N/ABK010X

EeePC 900 12G XP – Black

$529.99

12GB

N/A

1GB

1.3MP

YES

4Cell

≥ 2.5 hours

Intel

8.9" (1024x600)

XP Home

MS Works

802.11b/g

N/A

EEEPC4GN/AW011X

EeePC 4G XP – White

$399.99

4GB

N/A

512MB

0.3MP

N/A

4Cell 4,400 mAh

2.8 hours

Intel

7" (800x480)

XP Home

MS Works

802.11b/g

N/A

EEEPC4GSN/AW004

EeePC 4G Surf – White

$349.99

4GB

N/A

512MB

N/A

N/A

4Cell 4,400 mAh

2.8 hours

Intel

7" (800x480)

Linux

Open Office

802.11b/g

N/A

EEEPC4GSN/ABK010

EeePC 4G Surf – Black

$349.99

4GB

N/A

512MB

N/A

N/A

4Cell 4,400 mAh

2.8 hours

Intel

7" (800x480)

Linux

Open Office

802.11b/g

N/A

EEEPC2GSN/AW003

EeePC 2G Surf N/A White

$299.99

2GB

N/A

512MB

N/A

N/A

4Cell 4,400 mAh

2.8 hours

Intel

7" (800x480)

Linux

Open Office

802.11b/g

N/A

EEEPC2GSN/ABK003

EeePC 2G Surf – Black

$299.99

2GB

N/A

512MB

N/A

N/A

4Cell 4,400 mAh

2.8 hours

Intel

7" (800x480)

Linux

Open Office

802.11b/g

N/A

EEEPC2GSN/API002

EeePC 2G Surf N/A Pink

$299.99

2GB

N/A

512MB

N/A

N/A

4Cell 4,400 mAh

2.8 hours

Intel

7" (800x480)

Linux

Open Office

802.11b/g

N/A

EEEPC2GSN/ABU002

EeePC 2G Surf N/A Blue

$299.99

2GB

N/A

512MB

N/A

N/A

4Cell 4,400 mAh

2.8 hours

Intel

7" (800x480)

Linux

Open Office

802.11b/g

N/A

EEEPC2GSN/AGR002

EeePC 2G Surf N/A Green

$299.99

2GB

N/A

512MB

N/A

N/A

4Cell 4,400 mAh

2.8 hours

Intel

7" (800x480)

Linux

Open Office

802.11b/g

N/A

To give you an idea how small the Eee PC 900 is, I've set it on top of my regular Gateway laptop in the picture below:

Now, I know that's an unfair comparison because my Gateway is a full size productivity laptop with 17" wide-screen LCD.  It even has a separate number pad for God's sake (but that's cool because I can do ALT characters like the Ü in Über!)  But I think it does give you a pretty good idea of HOW SMALL this guy is.

So I'll be doing some mini-"reviews" here on the blog this weekend as I get to play with my new toy.  So far, my biggest complaint is the keyboard.  Now, I knew what I was getting into and fully expected the keys to be small and take some getting used to.  I'm actually not complaining about the SIZE of the keyboard as much as the layout.  Instead of hitting SHIFT, I keep hitting the UP arrow with my pinky.  And the number keys are all shifted over to the left one key due to the lack of tilde in the upper left.  Hopefully I will overcome this.

Just so you know, I opted for the version with Linux installed and the larger SSD(20GB)  as opposed to XP and the smaller SSD (16GB).  I must say I'm not disappointed.  The laptop came pre-installed with Skype, Pidgin (an IM client that works with MSN, Yahoo, ICQ and AIM all at the same time),  Open Office 2.0 which allows me to view and create Word docs, Excel spreadsheets, Powerpoint presentations, etc., a PDF reader, Mozilla's Firefox and Thunderbird... let's just say A WHOLE LOT of apps.  I won't need to be installing much more.  I just need to figure out how to get rid of the bulky Asus branded KDE theme they're using for a desktop.  It's fun for about five minutes and then it leaves die hard Linux fans screaming for a shell in about an hour's time.

Just an FYI, I'm going to post the first thing I figured out about using this thing... I think what I did wrong may be fairly common because when I asked someone at work to help me with network settings, he pretty much ended up doing the same thing I did.

When you see the desktop for the first time, you see the "Internet" tab and then the icon for "Wireless Networks".  So naturally, if you want to find a wireless network, you'll want to click on that icon. 

What I've found is if you type in the WEP key incorrectly or select WEP instead of WPA or some other mistake, you can't ever make another attempt to connect by clicking on this icon again without restarting the system.  It goes through the initial motions, but it seems to hang.  I also found that once you DO connect, when you reboot you'll have to enter your WEP or WPA key again to re-connect to the same network.

It turns out what you really want to do is click on "Network".  This give you A LOT more power and doesn't seem to "hang" if you fat finger your WEP (something that's easy to do on the EeePC).  You can also select for the connection to start "On Boot" and it remembers the WEP or WPA key.  That all said, now I have NO IDEA why there's even a "Wireless Networks" icon on the desktop.  It seems a bit redundant considering clicking on the "Network" icon gives you all the same information and a hell of a lot more power.

No, I'm not going to do this every morning before Chantel leaves for school.  I promise this is it.  But yesterday I left my camera at work and we only had Lois's Blackberry to take pictures and she had to go to work before the bus came.

She's VERY excited when the bus comes.

And she was completely oblivious to my being at the bus stop (of course, maybe she just wanted everyone to think she was "too cool" to say bye to daddy).

There's been a lot of bad blood between Intel and Nvidia.  Intel wants you to buy CPU's instead of upgrade your graphics cards.  Nvidia's argument is that a graphics card upgrade will benefit you more than a CPU upgrade.  But regardless of how YOU feel about how YOU should sepnd your money, you won't get much of an argument out of enthusiasts when you make the statement that Intel motherboard chipsets are more stable than Nvidia chipsets.  There was even rumor that Nvidia would be getting out of the chipset business altogether!

It turns out that Nvidia has decided to set aside it's differences with Intel, and perhaps admit to some extent that not everyone necessarily wants to use an Nvidia based motherboard, and has allowed Intel to license SLI technology for the X58 chipset.

Have a loook at the article on Anandtech.

Today was Chantel's first day of school.  She seemed very excited to go.

Unfortunately, Lois had to go to work before the bus picked her up and I left my camera at work. So I think there's going to be a "Chantel's second day of Kindergarten" post too.

A trip to Taipei isn't complete without a trip to Taipei 101.

First, some pictures from the 89th floor...

Zoomed in a little too far on that last one.  Damn digital zoom.  I wish I had a real camera.  :(

Here's some more pictures of the damper... 

My pictures of the damper always look the same because it's so huge, you can only back up so far to take the picture, and they have this weird mood lighting going on in the room where you can take pictures.

What's new this year is the whole "Damper Baby" concept they've got going on...

Maybe my daughter would get a kick out of that.  I just thought it was weird.

Another thing that's new is the 88th floor.  I took the below picture for two reasons....

First, the whole "We Are Damper Babies" statement.  The other thing is the "New Open".  I think they meant "Now Open".  Not sure.  Anyhoo... The 88th floor just gets you down to the base of the damper.