New computer family addition

A week, I did something somewhat impulsive . . . and bought a netbook. The Acer Aspire One to be specific. I had researched them and was waiting for the improved LCD and 160GB hard drive. Sure, coolor versions will come out later this year, but I had one computer go kaput on me, and the kids were hogging ‘my’ computer. Plus, I had grown accustomed to my laptop for work, working from the porch, the sofa, the bed. And I wanted something very portable.

All in all, the Aspire One is what I expected it to be–a very useful and competent computer. In fact, it performs a little better than I expected, especially after a couple of tweaks and after moving to Google’s Chrome browser which performs much, much better than IE and even noticeably faster than Firefox. I added Rocketdock to make access to apps easier. Heck, I even added a couple of older games, like Knights of the Old Republic, Gothic, and Diablo II. 

However, I could not get Sacred Gold [from gog.com] to run because it requires a 1024×768 resolution, and the Aspire One is capable of only 1024×600. 

All in all, I’m very pleased with it. It has Windows XP SP 3 and 1 GB of RAM, but I’m able to do all that I need to on it, especially as a secondary computer. The other night, when the kids and I were looking through the telescope, I had it out with us to help identify Venus, Uranus, and other objects we looked at.