The Asus Eee PC 900

I have an Asus Eee PC 900 which is a charming little machine for doing email and browsing the web when on the move, and for running Transcribe! Here are some notes about it. And here is the Wikipedia page about it. And here is a website dedicated to it, with a Wiki and various discussion forums - tons of useful information.

It has a 9" screen, resolution 1024 * 600 (there are also 7" and 10" models), a Qwerty keyboard which is small but usable, three USB ports, a network port, built-in WiFi, various other stuff. 1GB RAM, 20GB SSD hard drive (no moving parts). Weighs under a kilogram and boots up in 23 seconds.

It runs a customised version of Xandros Linux though the interface is very graphical and it's aimed at non-technical users. You can install Windows but why would you want to? It has Thunderbird email & Firefox browser.

To install Transcribe! download and unpack it (right-click the downloaded file and "Extract All"). Then run it by double-clicking the executable file "transcribe" in the transcribe folder. Note about footpedals : I find that the VPE VPedal works fine, appears as /dev/input/js0. But the others described on this page don't work. If you know how to make them appear as hiddevs then let me know.

For connectivity on the move you'll want to be able to connect to mobile phone networks including G3. For this you'll need a USB modem which you get from a mobile phone network provider and which has a SIM card in it, and which costs money to use. You need Linux compatibility of course. In the Asus manual they list compatible devices: Asus T500, Amoi H01, Huawei E220, PAH A91. However network providers have their own names for their devices so it's difficult to know whether the modem you're thinking of buying is really a Huawei E220 (or whatever) inside. In the UK, Three UK www.three.co.uk offer the Huawei E220 by name. Vodaphone online.vodafone.co.uk offer one whose picture looks like it might be a Huawei E220. Apart from Linux compatibility you also need to know what networks it can connect to in what countries. In fact though, I have had no luck trying to use this outside the UK, that is to say, on networks other than 3UK. However WiFi is available in so many places (hotels, coffee shops, airports) that it doesn't seem to be a problem.

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