vigmeister - Slashdot User

Submission + - Solar plane to make public debut (bbc.co.uk)

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vigmeister

on Friday June 26, 2009 @03:43AM

vigmeister writes: "Swiss adventurer Bertrand Picard is set to unveil a prototype of the solar-powered plane he hopes eventually to fly around the world. The initial version, spanning 61m but weighing just 1,500kg, will undergo trials to prove it can fly at night. Mr Picard, who made history by circling the globe non-stop in a balloon in 1999, says he wants to demonstrate the potential of renewable energies. He expects to make a crossing of the Atlantic in 2012. The HB-SIA has the look of a glider but is on the scale — in terms of its width — of a modern airliner. The aeroplane incorporates composite materials to keep it extremely light and uses super-efficient solar cells, batteries, motors and propellers to get it through the dark hours. The public unveiling on Friday of the HB-SIA is taking place at Dubendorf airfield near Zürich."

Submission + - Asus slaps Linux in the face (techgeist.net) 2

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vigmeister

on Tuesday May 26, 2009 @09:33PM

vigmeister writes: "Techgeist has an article about an 'It's better with Windows' website from Asus and MS. I think the article should've been title 'Asus stabs Linux in the back'. "Linux just got a major slap in the face today from Asus. One of the highlights of Linux going mainstream was the wildly popular Asus Eee PC preinstalled with a customized Linux distro geared towards web applications. While I personally never got what the big deal was, I was still happy for all the Linux people out there waiting for this day, but it looks like the cause for celebration won't be lasting much longer. Asus and Microsoft have teamed up and have made a site called It's Better With Windows. The page touts how easy it is to get up and ready with Windows on an Asus Eee PC, while slyly stating that you won't have to deal with an "unfamiliar environment" and "major compatibility issues." While it is silly to state such a thing since Asus built the Linux distribution specifically for the Eee PC, I give Microsoft two points for snarky comments.""

Submission + - Using WiMAX to replace a phone? (lazyelegance.com)

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vigmeister

on Monday May 25, 2009 @11:12PM

vigmeister writes: "I've decided to explore the possibility of using a netbook/MID as a phone while eschewing the services of a cellphone provider. Now that Atlanta (where I live) has WiMAX from Clear, I ought to be connected everywhere within the city to the internet (once I sign up). Theoretically, this should mean that I will be able to use my netbook as a cell phone. Of course, there are some very real issues to overcome and I am simply putting this experiment together to see if it is something that is realistically possible. This could possibly extend to uncapped 3G connections (if they exist anymore) as well. Are there any obvious problems you would foresee? Is there anything I have missed or any other questions I should attempt to answer in this 'experiment' of mine? A major issue is, of course, the fact that my pseudo-netbook has to be carried everywhere and left always on. I've asked slashdot for advice regarding the best OS for this machine. However, if the experment is somewhat succesful, it seems as if using your netbook/MID as a phone might require a relatively customized OS which could possibly be a 'remix' of a suitable Linux distro. Something like Maemo, but not as hardware specific. Thoughts, suggestions?"

Submission + - Best OS for netbooks and underpowered tablets

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vigmeister

on Saturday October 25, 2008 @09:35PM

vigmeister writes: "I joined the netbook bandwagon early this year in a rather odd fashion by picking up an outdated portable tablet (Fujitsu P1510) which just about matches the latest greatest netbooks for their performance and portability features while nipping them by managing to be a tablet and give me a better battery life. I have been happy using XP Tablet on this machine until recently when I have started feeling that by optimizing the OS for targeted use, I may be able to squeeze more out of the device. I don't see very many netbooks or ultraportables around me, so I ask slashdot these questions that are probably useful for a large userbase here :
1) What OS would you recommend for a netbook/outdated laptop? Usage is typically light — web surfing (with multimedia), email, word processing, spreadsheet and reading pdfs.
2) What OS would you recommend for a ultraportable tablet? Usage is similar to a netbook, but now we have a tablet on our hands. There's a little more document editing going on and good handwriting recognition and notetaking software would be great.
I would like for the user experience to be snappy on a computer that is essentially running the equivalent of a 1.2 GHz PIII with 512mb RAM. The other objective for both of these is to maximize the battery life as that is the major drawback of these ultraportables. A small memory footprint would work wonders since the hard drives on these devices are typically slow and completely suck the joy out of using them when swap space is being used. Any tips? If you are still using your outdated laptops/tablets productively, please share with us how you're doing so so we can too."

Submission + - Soviet Video Games from the 70s

Submitted by

vigmeister

on Thursday June 07, 2007 @01:27PM

vigmeister writes: "Russian kids have uncovered and rebuilt some arcade games from the Soviet era. These games apparently offered free play when someone played well, but no list of hi-scores. Roughly 32 of them have been found and although they are based on other arcade games, I hope these games were unique enough to offer playability for the present day arcade game lovers. Wonder when they'll be available for download on the Wii though...:))"

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