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Thoughts on Opera Unite

Opera UniteI met today’s news about Opera’s new initiative — called Unite — with a mix of shock and awe.

On the one hand, I was sickened by the lack of analysis from the echolalic blogger news corps. It appeared that Opera PR had successfully reached out to all of them, shoved a news release down their throats and waited to give them the go-ahead to regurgitate it on their blogs, using the same screenshots, same content, and differing only in the pithiness of their post titles.

Of course, I could have gotten the same depth of analysis from half a dozen tweets.

Maybe they long ago wrote off Opera and aren’t interested in providing any kind of depth of insight but whatever, who knows — the nouveau press corps blew it. Social media proves its vapidity once again.

But, I digress. I’ll tell you what I think, since there’s a lot in the details of Opera’s announcement that bear inspection, even if I’m the only one to do it.

I’m going to talk about six topics:

* What is Unite?
* The Marketing Pitch
* Why isn’t Opera open source?
* Is Unite really decentralized?
* Owning Your Namespace
* Unite & Activity Streams

Let’s get to it.
What is Unite?

Like Flock before it (Disclaimer: okay, I’m just stroking my own ego here. Note to self: get over yourself), Opera is attempting to take advantage of the rise of social networking (the verb) and bake it into the browser, as a personal extension to one’s computing experience.

They accomplish this by embedding what amounts to a web server in the browser, and making it possible to share files, music and photos and to post notes or chat directly with your friends (or anyone who knows the URL to your account and in some cases, has the right password).

You can download an Opera Unite alpha build to try it yourself.
The Marketing Pitch

Opera Software

The marketing hype for Unite started recently, with a bright red page (above) hosted at opera.com/freedom. Of course this inspired a bit of buzz, and Kas Thomas from CMS Watch even guessed correctly what it was all about:

Folks, let me tell you what’s going to happen. I have a pretty strong hunch (but no inside info, I assure you) on this one. This is something I’ve thought about for years — it has needed to happen for years — and I’ll be thrilled if Opera pulls it off, although whether people will flock to adopt it is another question.

The answer is that Opera is going to embed a web server in itself.

When you fire up Opera, you’ll be operating a secure server and you will be able to serve all kinds of content (whatever you want, basically: bookmarks, contacts, cached content, arbitrary files from a roped-off area of your local storage, web pages of your own) to other Opera users, at the very least, and maybe all browser users, at the very most.

The mystery seems to have paid off, as Unite is topping Techmeme today.

They released a stylized video explaining Unite, remniscent of the Data Portability promotional video from several months ago:

What I find so fascinating about this marketing message is that it presumes that owning one’s own data and “connecting directly” with friends is somehow relevant to people — as though it’s a big problem that people have been complaining about for years, and that Opera has finally answered the call.

But I think they’re missing the big picture here — or intentionally obscuring it — which is that, while the idea of owning your own data may be attractive to neo-libertarians and open source geeks — most people really don’t care and are happy to outsource storage of their data to someone else who can be responsible for backing up their data and fending off hackers. 200 million Facebook users can’t be wrong, right?

People have embraced social networks because they make it easy to share and collaborate using the browser that they already have — and answering the question: “what do I do with all these stupid digital photos sitting idly on my harddrive?”

Let’s face it, bookmarks were pretty lame before we could peak over our friends’ shoulders at what they were reading.

So while Opera is right to seize on to the social networking meme, they’re doing so largely to increase the waning relevance of their browser — not to support freedom as they claim — especially at a time when Google’s Chrome and Apple’s Safari have entered the ring as the new twin contenders for the browser crown (even though no one knows what a “browser” is).

Furthermore, their whole pitch about owning your own data and disintermediating the large social networks will likely resonate much more with a European audience (i.e. one that would give 7.1% of their vote to the Pirate Party) than a mainstream, social network-obsessed American one.

If you consider how Lawrence Eng (Opera’s product analyst) puts Unite into context talking about “the Internet’s unfulfilled promise”, you’ll see what I mean:

Our computers are only dumb terminals connected to other computers (meaning servers) owned by other people — such as large corporations — who we depend upon to host our words, thoughts, and images. We depend on them to do it well and with our best interests at heart. We place our trust in these third parties, and we hope for the best, but as long as our own computers are not first class citizens on the Web, we are merely tenants, and hosting companies are the landlords of the Internet.

Social networking is important, but who owns it — the online real estate and all the content we share on it? How much control over our words, photos, and identities are we giving up by using someone else’s site for our personal information? How dependent have we become? I imagine that many of us would lose most of our personal contacts if our favorite Web mail services shut down without warning. Also, many of us maintain extensive friend networks on sites like MySpace and Facebook, and are, therefore, subject to their corporate decisions via “Terms of Service” and click-through agreements. Furthermore, what does it mean anyway to be connected to hundreds of our “closest” friends? What about our real social networks, the people we want to interact with on a regular basis (like once a week, or even every day)? Why are online solutions to help us with our real-world social needs so few and far between?

We are connected to a Web that has democratized much and is an amazing source of information. However, “the wisdom of the crowd,” along with the notion that our data ought to live on other people’s computers that we don’t control, has contributed to making the Internet more impersonal, anonymous, fragmented, and more about “the aggregate” than the individual. In fact, quite the opposite of the original promise. For too long, we’ve been going online to connect to each other, but sacrificing intimacy as a result.

With Opera Unite, I think we can start moving in a different direction.

Now, it might sound ironic coming from me that I think Opera was wrong to paint their pitch with the paint of libertarian ethos, but if they’re going to succeed, they have to go beyond “owning your own data” to talking about why owning your own data is better or easier. Philosophical rhetoric will only get you so far, as I’ve learned.

Speaking of…
Why isn’t Opera open source?

So, with all that raging neo-libertarian angst, why isn’t Opera open source?

Quite frankly, I have no fucking clue. And with Webkit giving everyone — including Mozilla — a run for dominance over the personal viewport to the web, I simply don’t see why anyone would build on the Opera platform (albeit, their platform is largely the web — though their rendering engine remains proprietary).

Could it be failure of imagination? Is it that Opera hasn’t figured out that the future of the web is in hosted and delegated services? Or, is it that they did figure that out, but desperately want to defeat that future in order to write an alternative future with their browser at its center?

In 2006, Opera didn’t see a business model for open source browsers. Little has changed since then, except that they now have three formidable open source challengers to contend with that have shipped “cloud services”: Mozilla Weave, Google’s Apps and Apple’s MobileMe.

So, although you can build widgets for Opera Unite, you’re still relying on a third party to stay in the room with you… namely, Opera. And Opera isn’t exactly an organization that has behaved favorably towards the open source community in the past. Though that seems unlikely to change, it still begs the question why they believe there is more value is staying proprietary than opening up their browser to outside contributors.

Still, regardless of the decision that they make for their business about open source, there’s a bigger elephant in the room that needs to be addressed:
Is Opera Unite really decentralized?

Opera United

Opera’s CEO Jon von Tetzchner claims that “Opera Unite now decentralizes and democratizes the cloud”, illustrated like this:

Data sharing with Opera Unite

I call bullshit.

Opera Unite does indeed rely on a P2P-like network to function, but the big problem is that you must push all your traffic through Opera’s proxy service:

The set up when using the Opera Unite server in your browser

Not exactly “decentralized” (more on this in the next section).

Furthermore, if you read through the Opera Desktop End User License Agreement (which you had to if you installed the browser — shame on you if you didn’t!), you would have read section 7: USE OF SERVICES (emphasis mine):

Opera Unite and Transmission and Receipt of Content: Certain features of the Software and Services, including Opera Unite, may allow you to post or send content and/or links to content stored on your computer, that can be viewed by others (”User Generated Content”). Opera Software ASA exercises no control over User Generated Content passing through its network or equipment or available on or through the Services. You agree that Opera Software ASA is not liable for any loss of data. YOU MAY ONLY POST OR SEND USER GENERATED CONTENT THROUGH THE SERVICES THAT YOU CREATED OR THAT YOU HAVE PERMISSION TO POST OR SEND.. You agree not to use Opera Unite to upload, transfer or otherwise make available files, images, code, materials, or other information or content that is obscene, vulgar, hateful, threatening, or that violates any laws or third-party rights, hereunder but not limited to third-party intellectual property rights. We do not claim ownership of any User Generated Content. However, by submitting User Generated Content to us, you grant us and our affiliates the right and limited license to use, copy, display, perform, distribute and adapt this User Generated Content for the purpose of carrying out the Services.

You agree that we are not liable for User Generated Content that is provided by others. We have no duty to pre-screen User Generated Content, but we have the right to refuse to post, edit, or deliver submitted User Generated Content. We reserve the right to remove User Generated Content for any reason, but we are not responsible for any failure or delay in removing such material. We reserve the right to block any user’s access to any content, web site or web page in our sole discretion. Opera Software ASA reserves the right to terminate your account if you use your account privileges to unlawfully transmit copyrighted material without a license, valid defense or fair use privilege to do so.

Disputes may arise between you and others or between you and Opera Software ASA related to content or commerce, including User Generated Content. Such disputes could involve, among other things, the use or misuse of domain names; the infringement of copyrights, trademarks or other rights in intellectual property; defamation; fraud; the use or misuse of information; and problems with online auction or commerce transactions. You agree that all claims, disputes or wrongdoing that result from, or are related in any way to, the content of information that you post, transmit, re-transmit or receive through the Services, Opera Software’s network or Software are your sole and exclusive responsibility. Opera Software ASA may at it’s discretion, block certain web sites or domains and re-route you to other pages. By accepting these Terms of Use, You hereby consent to this.

Besides this hands-on approach to their centralized proxy service, Opera also reserves the right to filter the apps that you can install, a la Apple and their approach to the AppStore (because everyone wants an AppStore, right?):

What are the guidelines for approval of an Opera Unite Service?

These are some of the guidelines that apply to services:

* The service must have a sensible name and description
* The service must not have obvious bugs, so ensure that you test it before uploading
* The service must not contain malicious or destructive code
* The service must not contain or use copyrighted information for which you do not hold the rights
* The service must not contain or point to adult or hateful content
* The service should comply with the Opera Unite Service UI guidelines. Any reason for diverging significantly from the guidelines should be documented in the submission
* The service should serve standards-compliant HTML pages that are viewable in all modern browsers on a variety of devices.

I fail to see how this changes our reliance on “large corporations — who we depend upon to host our words, thoughts, and images” of whom Lawrence Eng spoke so disparagingly.
Owning Your Namespace

So, if it isn’t enough that you have to tunnel your connection through Opera’s proxies and place your service’s existence at the mercy of Opera’s filters, they also want to own your identity, something that everyone also wants to do lately.

In order to use Opera Unite, you have to have a my.opera.com account — perhaps not a big deal until you realize that you’ll be assigned a URL like http://notebook.username.operaunite.com/ to access your “self-hosted” outpost on the web.

Chris Mills, Opera’s Developer Relations Manager, explains:

To use Opera Unite Services, you need to log into Opera. This is the same login that you use to log in to My Opera, Dev Opera, or Opera Link.

…

Choosing an Opera Unite name for your computer

This name is basically your computer’s identity on the Opera Unite system — this is the URL that your contacts can go to if they want to make use of your Opera Unite Services, and share them with you.

So, while it’s true that your friends can access your Opera Unite homepage without an Opera account, if they want to host their own Unite server, they’re going to have to both download Opera and obtain an Opera account (and no, they don’t support OpenID).

While there are technical reasons that why this makes some sense (mostly to make it easier to get things up and running), it contradicts the whole promise of obviating central control. Indeed, AllPeers (now defunct) and others offered similar solutions previously. Why did Opera not launch with the ability for me to choose my own URL, or at least mask my homepage URL with something that didn’t tie me to Opera…? Oh yeah, that’s right — it’s all about owning the namespace.

At least Google was smart enough when they launched Wave to build in true decentralization from the start, and to choose a patent license for the Wave protocol that demonstrated that their desire was not to own the network, but to compete on it.
Unite & Activity Streams

Now, I know I sound like a curmudgeon, but I’m mostly just disappointed that few other people took Opera to task over the reality distortion field that Opera’s PR machine generated around this technology launch. But, as someone in the office said to me today, maybe no one cares enough about Opera to bother. Yeah, exactly, like I said before.

Still, there is a silver lining to this cloud computing fiasco which NO ONE else covered: Opera Unite supports activity streams!

It turns out that tucked within the Opera application is a directory called “unite” (on the Mac you can find it at Opera.app:Contents:Resources:unite) which contains a bunch of files with the .us extension (presumably for “Unite Service”). Like Mozilla .xpi files, these .us files are just zip files and can easily be decompressed by changing the extension.

In just about every bundle, there are several pertinent JavaScript files either in a folder called “asdstream” or with “activityStream” in the filename. The one that’s most interesting to me is the “activitystreamparser.js” file in the fridge.as bundle, which starts like this:

activitystreamparser.js — unite

Now, I’m not sure how this is being used, but I imagine it’s being used to output updates on the personal homepage of the site… which is awesome.

I wish that Opera had reached out to the Activity Streams mailing list about this work, but I can also understand that they probably didn’t want to jump the hype stungun. Anyway, it’s a huge opportunity (in my eyes!) for them to join the discussion about the open social web (since they have been essential proponents of web standards on the open web to date) and I invite them to share their goals and ideas for this work.
Conclusion

Okay, so I shit all over Opera Unite, but you can’t come out and promise all kinds of world-changing, freedom-enhancing goodness and then not deliver! — worse, to do so when their newest competitor (Google!) is schooling everyone with the perfect example of how to do it right (see: Wave).

While I have problems with Opera’s marketing approach, I do think that it’s useful to have Unite in the marketplace so that I can point to it as an example of what I want to see happen with the Diso Project — though I’m not willing to rest my success on the fate of any particular browser.

Through a combination of technologies like OpenID, OAuth, XRD, Portable Contacts, Activity Streams and microformats, we’ve been moving in this direction for some time, without having to alter the browser. Of course that’s meant that the browser has been conspicuously missing from the conversation, but that too is changing (see Mozilla’s experiment baking OpenID into the browser with Weave), and with Unite, we have yet another vision to contemplate — though I would have loved to have seen Opera embrace more than just Activity Streams out of all the technologies from the Open Stack.

I’ll give Opera some credit — both for using Activity Streams instead of inventing their own protocol — and also for launching a fairly polished demonstration of Unite concept as an alpha. If they really want to offer transformative technologies, though, I think it’s critical that they align their business policies with their marketing rhetoric and technological objectives, down to the code level. Anything less will result in confusion and worse, more posts like this one!

Posted by Chris Messina on Jun 16th.

Read more:
Thoughts on Opera Unite

We’ve covered a few tidbits of what the Windows 7 Beta has to offer, including the mess of machines we’ve installed it on, but we finally gathered together all our thoughts and impressions of the OS into one meaty pile of words and screencaps. Naturally, we’re working with a beta here, so things can absolutely get better (or worse), and Redmond might be hiding a feature or two in the wings — or for the inevitable SP1 — but we’d say Microsoft has really put its best foot forward here. Check out all our ramblings after the break.

Note: all testing was performed by a real live human blogger, running clean installs of Windows 7 Beta (build 7000) natively on a years old Dell Dimensions 9150 and a brand new Vaio P.

What we love

Installation

It’s fast, painless, and usually complication free — what more could we ask? More here.

Speed improvements
This seems to be the thing people most wanted out of Windows 7, and it certainly seems to deliver. We’d say the benefits are most drastic in seriously underpowered hardware, like netbooks — which is, of course, exactly where it’s most needed. Our Vaio P, for instance, booted in two thirds the time it took with Vista. Naturally, the OS is by no means delay free. We bump into slowdowns all the time, with all sorts of apps, but they seem to happen less often, and Microsoft has done the work of mitigating the traditional “hurry up and wait” aspect of booting up the computer — if you can see the desktop, you aren’t far from making something happen, instead of waiting for 100,000 start-up items to do their thing. We would like to point out that most folks installing Windows 7 might be looking at their first clean install in a while, and the OS is definitely not immune to slow downs as more stuff is installed and more things are going on — as we type this we’re trying to sync a Zune and watching the rest of the OS grind to a halt in the process. Speed gains aren’t just at the surface level, either. File transfer times have been improved, especially with SSD.

Stability
It’s a beta, so we won’t harp on this. We’ve had a few BSoDs, and a couple of failed installations that we feared would “brick” our computer, but ended up failing gracefully. Overall, a pretty tame experience for a beta, but Windows 7 definitely isn’t bug free.

New Taskbar

Ooh, this is a tricky one. We’d say it’s most likely going to boil down to a debate between power users and the casual types. It does introduce a certain amount of interface inconsistency to the OS, with non-active applications taking up the same amount of space and sitting right next to running applications, and it means you’re an extra click away from switching windows within an app in certain scenarios — extra windows are buried in a pop-up menu, though you can turn off this functionality. Also, Microsoft has made the odd move of removing any apps that you “pin” as a permanent icon to the taskbar from the frequent items section of the Start Menu — which will no doubt prove frustrating for people expecting to see their frequented apps in that familiar place.

Certain apps also have “jump lists” that can be accessed by right clicking on the icon, bringing up recent documents, frequent tasks and the like. This kills two birds with one stone, allowing for easier access to more tasks right where they’re relevant, and killing off some of the myriad of icons that tend to populate the system tray. Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait for developers to catch on — most of Microsoft’s own apps don’t even support this functionality yet.

Further cleaning up the system tray is an “Action Center” for listing various nagging warnings — instead of closing them out and forgetting about them, you just leave them in the Action Center and forget about them.

Peek

Gimmicky? Sure. But it’s not everyday that a little gimmick like Peek — activated by hovering over a button on the bottom right hand corner of the screen, turning all open windows into just their borders — gives new life to the frequent task of finding the desktop and hunting for windows.

Peek is also activated when you click on an item in the Taskbar with multiple windows open. A pop-up shows large thumbnails of each item, and when you hover over it all windows — below and above it — disappear into their borders. Perfect for finding that misplaced dialog box.

Windows Explorer

Microsoft has reworked some things here, reorganized some others, and made sure to put frequent and relevant tasks in an easy to find spot across the top. We won’t get into all of it, but overall we’d say things are more intuitive and “pretty.”

Windows Media Center
Microsoft hasn’t done a ton here, mainly a new, easier setup method and some interface enhancements — borrowing a bit from Zune in the now playing section. Engadget HD will be looking into this a bit more deeply, so stay tuned.

Window management

They really went overboard on this one, and we’re loving it. There are bunches of ways to find, sort and place windows now, some of which include:

• Shake: grab the title bar and shake vigorously to minimize all other windows.
• Maximize at top (pictured): drag the title bar to the top of the screen and Windows 7 will try and grab it and maximize it if you let it go in the right spot.
• Pop to the left, pop to the right: Windows + Left or Right arrow key to maximize the window to that half of the screen.

More fun shortcuts like this can be found here.

Gadgets run free

Microsoft axed that constricting sidebar, now allowing Gadgets to litter the desktop however you choose — another good excuse for Peek. Unfortunately, some gadgets seem to chafe at this — we’ll have to wait for updates to many of them before they start to look “right” sans sidebar.

Networking

Microsoft’s done a lot of work here, and it really shows. They might not be to the point of “it just works” yet, but the HomeGroups functionality actually allows mere mortals, using no magic tricks or slight of hand, to set up their own home network, and merge existing networks — and actually find and share media, printers and documents! It’s a crazy concept, we know, and won’t get into all the technicalities — through a string of bad luck or some broken functionality, it didn’t “just work” on our first few tries — but we were able to go through Microsoft’s simple hand-holding process from enough different angles and do-overs to get our PCs talking to each other at last.

Multiple display support

Having set up many a projector in our day, we know the incredibly frustrating task that can be at times. Windows 7 makes it easy — just tap Windows + P and there’s a quick selector menu for choosing to extend, duplicate or isolate the screen to your monitor or the projector.

Microsoft has also improved the general display settings, making it easier to detect and arrange multiple monitors.

Play to device

Speaking of talking to each other, one of our favorite new features is the new “play to device” functionality in Windows Media Player. After you set up device sharing — which is vaguely but not really related to HomeGroup setup — you can right click on a song or playlist and blast it out of any device you have set up to receive such blasts. That means an Xbox 360, a Media Center Extender, a family member’s PC (they obviously have to approve this functionality at the outset), or whatever other devices support this function in the future. You can also stream music and video out of networked collections in the other direction, but that’s way less fun.

Brand new Paint

Aww, it’s so pretty!

What we’re looking forward to

Device Stage

A pretty neat feature, in theory, Microsoft brings device management straight into the OS — no longer relegated to a sub-menu of some media player or control panel. Unfortunately, it didn’t work with any of the myriad of devices we had laying around — including the Zune, Samsung’s super-basic YP-S2 mass storage player, a PowerShot SD1000 or the very D90 (pictured) that Ballmer has demoed this feature with. If Microsoft won’t even drink the Kool-Aid with the Zune, or at least build in default support for mass storage devices and generic cameras, it’s hard to see this catching on, but we’re sure there will be more happening here at launch. There’s a compatibility list here.

Multitouch

We’re working on tracking down some gear to give Windows 7 multitouch capabilities the real once over it deserves. Stay tuned! In the meantime, check out this video of multitouch Virtual Earth 3D running on Windows 7 and a HP TouchSmart.

What it still needs

Good software

Sure, this is an incredibly subjective topic, but bear with us. You know that new Peek feature? Well, guess which one single app didn’t show its border when we activated Peek: Zune. Sure, it’s one of the best looking apps on our whole computer, but it’s also incredibly at odds with the majority of our computing experience, and took us a week or so to master back in the day. If Microsoft can’t latch onto some sort of consistent usability and interface paradigms, not to mention basic software development guidelines, how can we expect anyone else to? The “sameness” of software on the Mac side might be frustrating, but we’d say the frustration of re-learning how to operate nearly every single application on the Windows side greatly exceeds that. Also, we need some better Twitter apps.

WinFS
We keep making fun little baby steps in this direction — for instance, the universal search features now built into the operating system makes it much easier and faster find that one particular file, app or function we were looking for — but we still want the incredible power and promise of WinFS. It’s clearly not happening this generation, but that doesn’t mean we can’t complain about it.

A unified vision
Overall, we get a certain vibe from Windows 7 — and most Windows releases — that there are too many cooks in the kitchen. There are too many ways to do the same or similar things, like set up a network, or play music. Sure, it’s getting easier to accomplish those tasks, there’s the new HomeGroup functionality, a myriad of setup wizards, and the ever-present and intimidating “advanced” setup modes; or the choice between Zune, Windows Media Player and Windows Media Center. Or if you’re failing to accomplish something, the OS is all-too-ready to send you to a help page, but you don’t get the idea that these groups really talk to each other. They might be “linked” together, but they’re not “unified” in purpose. There have been plenty of times when we just had no idea where to begin a task, from the seeming endless options on the left side of the control panel, or when the OS forgot about helping us do the task, and just gave us a link to a help section instead — even if a wizard would’ve been the more appropriate way to go. There’s no simple solution to all of this, but the older and bigger Windows gets, the more obfuscated certain tasks become — and that’s not a fun trend.

What we hope we never see

Image courtesy of Boing Boing Gadgets

Three hundred different overpriced versions of Windows 7. We know that Microsoft sells its operating system to a lot of different people, and we’re aware that some people only need the stuff that’s in Vista Basic, while other people Media Center and motion-filled desktop backgrounds, but please, for the love of Bill Gates, don’t hit us with Windows 7 Home / Basic / Business / Ultimate / Whatever. Build a smart installer and figure out how to put the right components on the right computers, but stick the OS in one box and sell it for one price. If you have to sell some crazy enterprise thing at an extra cost, so be it, but stop confusing consumers and stop overcharging — pick a low, flat rate and stick to it.

Wrap-up

Read the original post:
Windows 7 Beta in-depth impressions

Asus may be pushing the Eee PC 1002HA as the new and improved Eee PC 1000H. The new model is thinner, lighter, and better looking than its predecessor. But after having spent a few months with an Asus Eee PC 1000H I can say there are some reasons you might want to choose it over the 1002HA.

I’ve been using an Eee PC 1000H as my primary netbook for over three months and I’ve already posted a number of articles about the netbook, but it just occured to me that I never put together a complete review of the netbook. So here we go.

The Asus Eee PC 1000H is one of the largest, heaviest netbooks available today, weighing in at 3.2 pounds. Like the MSI Wind U100, Lenovo IdeaPad S10, and HP Mini 1000, this netbook has a 10.2 inch display. But because of the way the netbook is designed, it seems to dwarf those netbooks in size. But there are a few things that make the 1000H stand out, including decent build quality, long battery life, and excellent software implementation.

The model I’m reviewing has a 1.6GHz Intel Atom CPU, 1GB of RAM, an 80GB 5400rpm hard drive, and a 10.2 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel display. It shipped with Windows XP, although it’s occasionally been guilty of sharing its hard drive space with alternate operating systems in a dual boot environment.

Design

The Asus Eee PC 1000H measures 10.5? x 7.5? x 1.5? and weighs more than three pounds, making it one of the largest, heaviest netbooks around. It’s half an inch thicker than the HP Mini 1000, for example, and weighs nearly a pound more.  But it’s still a heck of a lot smaller and lighter than most full size laptops. And unlike the HP Mini 1000, the Eee PC 1000H has 3 USB ports, a full sized VGA output, and a 6 cell, 6600mAh battery.

The computer is made of plastic, but it has a nice solid feel to it. And unlike the MSI Wind U100, which has a lid that wobbles a bit if you push it, the Eee PC 1000H has a nice sturdy hinge. While some netbooks feature hinges that let the lid slide down below the back of the computer, the Eee PC 1000H features a basic hinge that pushes the screen high up over the keyboard. While this migth be slightly more ergonomic, it creates the illusion that the Eee PC 1000H is much larger than similar machines like the MSI Wind U100.

Left: Asus Eee PC 1000H / Right: MSI WInd U100

The Eee PC 1000H also ships with a 6-cell battery, which adds a bit of height to the computer.

If you can get over the bulky size and relatively heavy weight of the Asus Eee PC 1000H, there’s a lot to like about the build quality. The keys are nice and responsive, and there are four user customizable buttons above the keyboard that you can use to quickly launch programs, toggle the screen on and off, or adjust the computer’s CPU speed.

While the netbook does get warm after you’ve been using it for a while, the fan does a pretty good job of keeping the machine cool. I don’t think you could roast marshmallows on the Eee PC 1000H the way you could with the HP 2133 Mini-Note.

Display

The Asus Eee PC 1000H has a 10.2 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel matte display. While it’s not really designed for outdoor use, this netbook stands up to direct sunlight better than a mini-laptop with a shiny, glossy display like the HP Mini 1000. You can adjust the screen brightness by hittin the Fn+F5 and Fn+F6 keys.

I find that the screen is a bit hard to read at the lowest brightness setting, but if you set the brightness to 50% or so, you should have no problem reading text or watching videos.

Asus includes a Windows utility that lets you adjust the screen resolution to 800 x 600 pixels if you need a 4:3 aspect ratio. You can also choose a 1024 x 768 pixel resolution, but since the display is only capable of showing 1024 x 600 pixels, you will either have to scroll your mouse up and down to see the top and bottom of your screen or use LCD compression to squash a few extra virtual pixels on the screen.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The Asus Eee PC 1000H has one of the best netbook touchpads around. While the Asus Eee PC 701 had a tiny touchpad and a single button which rocked to the right or left, the Eee PC 1000H has a nice wide touchpad with distinct left and right buttons. The touchpad also supports multi-touch gestures. For example instead of scrolling up and down on a web page by moving your finger over the right part of the touchpad as you would with many notebooks, you can scroll up and down on the Eee PC 1000H by placing two fingers anywhere on the touchpad and moving them up and down.

Asus did make some comrpomises with the keyboard. Most individual keys aren’t as wide as the keys on the HP Mini 1000. And some buttons, including the Ctrl and Shift keys on the right side of the keyboard are smaller than you would expect them to be.

One complaint many people have about Asus Eee PC keyboards is the placement of the right-side shift key. Since it’s placed to the right of the PgUp key, it’s difficult for many users to press and hold the right shift key while hitting another button on the keyboard. I find that I typically use the left shift key more than the one on the right side so this doesn’t bother me very much. But if you’re a big fan of the right shift key, this may not be the netbook for you. I know it’s a dealbreaker for some people.

I personally like the keyboard and find the Eee PC 1000H easier to type on than the MSI Wind U100 or HP Mini 1000. But that may be due to the fact that I’ve been using this computer for three months and I’ve grown used to it. Your results may vary.

Battery

The 6600mAh battery that ships with the Asus Eee PC 1000H is good for about 3 to 5 hours, depending on what you’re doing with the computer. If you plan to watch videos for three hours straight, your battery won’t last much longer than that. But for web surfing and other basic tasks, I regularly get around 4.5 to 5 hours of battery life.

Asus Eee PC 1000H battery life in Power Saving Mode

The computer uses a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 CPU which can easily be underclocked or overclocked to boost performance or battery life. Asus preloads the netbook with its Super Hybrid Engine software, which basically lets you toggle between Power Saving, High Performance, and Super High Performance Mode. Power Saving Mode underclocks the CPU to run at 1.2GHz, while the netbook runs at 1.7GHz when you turn on Super High Performance.

If you’re watching HD video, that extra bit of CPU power can come in handy. But for day to day use, the Eee PC 1000H runs plenty fast in Power Saving Mode. I usually leave hte Auto Mode feature enabled, which automatically intiates High Performance Mode when the computer is running on AC power. When it’s running on battery power, the Super Hybrid Engine will automatically underclock the CPU.

Software

Aside from the Super Hybrid Engine, Asus includes a utility called EeePC Tray Utility which lets you adjust the display resolution (as I mentioned above) and toggle the WLAN, Blue Tooth, and Camera off and on.

Asus also preloads InterVideo WinDVD, which is kind of funny since there’s no optical disc drive. Still, if you have a USB DVD drive, it’s nice to have some software capable of decoding the video. You also get a copy of StarOffice 8, which is the application that OpenOffice.org is based on. It includes a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, and database applications.

Performance

I wouldn’t recommend editing a two hour movie or playing Call of Duty 4 on the Asus Eee PC 1000H. But if you really wanted to, and didn’t mind the machine getting bogged down, you probably could do both of those things. The Intel Atom CPU isn’t exactly a speed demon, but I’ve had no problems opening several browser tabs simultaneously while listening to music and editing images in Irfanview.

Looking back over my notes, it looks like I never timed the bootup and shutdown times when I first got the computer. But after using it for three months, loading a bunch of applications, and installing the GRUB bootloader for choosing between Ubuntu Linux and Windows XP, I can go from zero to a fully usable Windows desktop in about 70 seconds. I’m petty sure that figure would be closer to 45 seconds on a brand spanking new system. It takes about 20 seconds to shutdown Windows.

Verdict

If you’re looking for the smallest or lightest netbook with a 10 inch screen, this isn’t it. You might want to consider the HP Mini 1000. If you’re looking for the netbook with the best battery life, you’ll probably be better off with a Samsung NC10 or an MSI Wind U100. But if you’re looking for a netbook with decent build quality, a nice keyboard, excellent touchpad, good battery life, and reasonable performance, the Eee PC 1000H could be your machine.

This netbook typically sells for between $450 and $500, which means it costs almost as much as the Eee PC 1002HA which is smaller, lighter, and has an attractive brushed metal finish. But the Eee PC 1000H has a higher capacity battery that could provide an extra hour or two of run time.

There are at least half a dozen netbooks available today with a 1.6GHz Intel Atom CPU, 1GB of RAM, a 10.2 inch display and a large hard drive. But the Eee PC 1000H was one of the first to hit the streets. And to be honest, I haven’t seen much in the models that have followed that have tempted me to sell my Eee PC 1000H and buy a new netbook. We’ll see if that changes once computer makers begin showing off their next generation netbooks at CES in January.

Blast from the past

Just for old time’s sake, here’s a look at the unboxing video I posted on August 22nd, when the Eee PC 1000H first came to live with me:

And for some size comparisons, check out this series of photos I took of the Asus Eee PC 1000H next to an HP Mini 1000:

And an HP 2133 Mini-Note:

You can read more about the Asus Eee PC 1000H in the Liliputing Product Database.

SOURCE

Read the original:
Asus Eee PC 1000H review

There are two technologies that are making a revolution in intra-organizational communications: They are telephone conferencing and web conferencing. Using either web or telephone conferencing, companies and non-profit organizations are now able to hold many more meetings than ever before. The newest web conferencing systems incorporate both online and telephone conferencing and this will surely speed up the growth of virtual conferencing.

Most online conferencing systems allow participants to see one another using web cams and monitors, and to speak and hear one another via Voice over Internet Protocol (VOiP) using a headset or a microphone and speakers.

But what happens if one of the would-be participants does not have the right kind of headset or microphone? And what happens if one of the would-be participants does not have a high speed Internet connection or is away from his/her computer? In previous conferencing set-ups, the person who didn’t have the right equipment might miss the audio or even the whole conference entirely.

This particular problem has now been overcome by integrating telephone conferencing along with video conferencing. For example, if participants do not have the right kind of headset or microphone, in addition to everyone being able to watch the conference online, a teleconference can be used that will allow all participants to hear and talk to each other via standard telephone connections. With some systems, the call-in number and security code for the conference call are even posted within the video/web conference meeting room.

Similarly, when a company holds a combined telephone and web conference, an employee or staff member can take part in the audio portion using the telephone conference connection even if they are away from their computer or away from a broadband Internet connection.

The combined service will make it easier for companies that are already accustomed to telephone conference calling but have not yet made the jump to online web conferencing.

Online web conferencing adds many more features to a normal telephone conference call such as Powerpoint presentations, instant polling and surveys, application sharing and real time notepads for online brainstorming, but some organizations may be holding back from going to web conferencing due to the possibility of leaving behind some of their participants. The new combined teleconferencing and web conferencing systems solve this particular problem and will probably help to accelerate the already rapid growth of web conferencing around the world.

Please visit http://www.MegaMeeting.com or call (818) 783-4311.

Read the original:
How to Use Integrated Audio Conference Calling to Enhance Your Video & Web Conference Meetings