Potential newbie

Hi all,
I was wondering if all you lovely people can give me some advice. I am a 35 year old mum with minimal self taught computer knowledge......lets face it my twelve year old knows more than me. We have two computers at home one rather ancient desktop and my daughters rather nice laptop ( bought by doting grandparents.) Both run on microsoft programmes ( i know i probably just swore,lol) Anyway mad that I am, I start a uni course in Mental Health nursing come sept and will need a reliable computer. My budget is nonexsistant and as a result I am daring to be differrent amd investigating the potential of cheap netbooks that dare I say it run Linux. I will, hand on heart, only be using it for email, internet and essay writing...mainly because that is all i know how to do. Will linux and open office be up to this job? Will I be able to e mail my essays to tutors etc ( sis in law says she has to submit electronically?) . Am I being too tight for my own good as has been suggested....I don't know but I hope you do!

 

In many ways you're an ideal person to get into Linux, with fewer preconceptions than most peope who've used Windows and think it's all like that!

As to the uses you'v identified:

Email: no problem, though I'd recommend installing a better email program than the one which comes pre-installed on the Aspire One. There's one called Thunderbird which is far better - or you may prefer to use a web-based email service.

Internet (web): again, no problem. The Aspire One comes with Firefox 2 installed as standard; Firefox 3 is better now, but it's not that hard to have both on the system.

Once you've got your machine, come back and we'll tell you where to find the simple instructions for doing these two installations.

Essay writing: OpenOffice will cope, but if you have to email assignments to supervisors it may be best to set it up to use Microsoft formats by defauilt. OpenOffice will happily work with MS files, but if your supervisors use MS Word they may not be able to use OpenOffice files. Word will in fact open OO files, with the aid of a convertor which Microsoft supply, but you may find your supervisors are less flexible than you are!

And probably the most important thing: if you get stuck, ask us in here. Linux is designed to be community-supported software, so ask the community when you need to. Most of us who now use Linux regularly have asked lots of things in the past -and still do; usually someone knows!

The you can impress your 12-year old by having knowledge of a *real* operating system

 

I agree with the last post...

AND your daughter will be really jealous that YOUR netbook takes only 15 seconds to start up!

Suggest it is worth buying a small usb Notebook optical mouse from Asda - £3.75 or so...

I bought my Linux Acer Aspire One from http://www.acerdirect.co.uk/asp/version ... sion&page=
It was a grade A1 recon model - not a mark on it and a clean new system. The cardboard box was a bit battered, but who cares. Had it a month or so and really pleased. I've got the solid state model - nice and rugged - you can even use it on the bus without fear of damaging the disk (it hasn't got one!). Don't pay the extra for the recovery DVD - it comes in the box!

 

I bought my 150 a couple of weeks ago and I love it. Firefox 2 is fine to use as a browser, updating to FF3 hasn't been necessary for me. Open Office is very good and, as has been said, can output in MS compatible format.

 

Just because of its size and OS Linux do not be fooled, this really is a high performing unit, it will do all you want + plus much more such as Video and audio entertainment.
I agree with all that has been said and have personally found this forum really helpful and friendly whenever I have had a problem.

 

Sorry herbiewitch. If you are a student writing essays and reports with charts and pictures or analysing data then I don't think this netbook is for you.

I love my AA1 - it is superb for keeping in touch while on the move, and has some powerful software for reviewing stuff that has already been produced, but I feel that the screen is just too small for any serious original work.

I have just spent a couple of hours trying to produce some documents* with photos and charts in them and a spreadsheet* and I have to say that even with a usb mouse I just can't cope with the small screen. Not that my normal 13" screen is that large, but I am used to knocking up large documents, DTP and complex spreadsheets from 2-3K points of data with my old favourites Lotus WordPro and Lotus 123 - and I'm afraid MS Word, Excel and OpenOffice come nowhere near for ease of use.

Nodoubt others will disagree, but I challenge them to produce examples of any original work produced from scratch on the AA1 of the size and detail which would be expected of a student.

* I cheated with my starting point, by converting existing files to .txt and .csv and importing them into Open Office and then trying to manipulate them and insert pictures and produce charts.

 

Got to disagree with the last post.

I've just finished a degree myself and although I didn't use this netbook at the time..........had I had it, I would have used it.
I did indeed use Open Office.....no problem at all. Just remember when you save a file, make sure you pick the Word file format option.

This is a suprisingly good machine. I bought it to replace an aging Palm handheld. Well, it is infinitely better than that ........
I have access at home to a Dell laptop with a huge screen and a desk top that runs Linux or XP........yet at the moment, I find that I'm using this out of preference.

As for e mail, I use Yahoo webmail because you never lose a thing if your computer crashes.

Please don't think that because Linux is free then it's rubbish.
It's a fully functional piece of software and in many ways works so much better than Windows.
At the moment, the only thing that I've discovered that it doesn't do is sync files to my Ipod.....and I know that if I fiddled long enough, I'd get that to work too.

Good luck with your course.
Phil

 

I repeat...

BUT the challenge is still there...

 

I really don't know why I'm doing this, but here we go.the

When I first qualified, most of my course work was written on a Sperry Rand portable typewriter.
It suited be fine, in fact, most of my colleagues were envious of the technology that I held at my finger tips.
I returned to University a few years ago covering computer courses.
I learned HTML, Java Script and C++. I also worked at some Maths courses.
HTML might have been tricky using such a small screen as you need to be able to see across the code. A big screen might help but the course would have been dooable using an AAO. Javascript....easy as we only wrote tiny snippets of code. C++.........we were given a specific piece of software to use and it was for Windows, but I daresay that there's a Linux alternative.

It all depends on the nature of your course. Something that involves a lot of graphics like say organic chemistry, then probably no.
However, if all that you are likely to be doing is writing, then probably yes.
Oh and another few things.
1) Cost.........ideal for students.
2) Portability....easy to lug around.........
3) Size.

Course essays are a measure of intellect, not RAM or screen resolution and as far as I know, most universities will still accept work written with a biro.

Phil

 

Which part of my challenge do you not understand?

 

The part that tells me that the only way to respond is to sit down and write some sort of university assignment or thesis from scratch using nothing but an Aspire One...........which I believe is dooable for certain courses.
BUT............I gave all that up years ago, so I can't or have no intention of proving myself right.
I could get some of my old stuff and load it onto my AAO and see it run, but there wouldn't be any point.

I also firmly believe that an AAO would be totally useless for a course like carpentry.................the flimsy plastic just won't take an edge.

Phil

 

But that is just what I have tried and it is not do-able. Until you try it you are in no position to refute that...

Theory and practice are very different things...

 

I will not take the challange, but I use it to write LaTeX documents and it's perfect while on the go. Anyway, the larger the screen the better you feel when working.
QtOctave barely fits in the screen, so I use the old plain Octave from a console. And since I've been lately using a lot my university's SSH server (I can leave it compiling all night long ) I can say that the screen size of the Aspire One is just perfect for this. My other laptop (14' screen) is better when coding large projects or doing really long reports.

All in all, I say that the Aspire One is perfect for short-to-middle sized essays, taking up notes (it feels so good when you can type faster than you write!) and storing lots of books all in a tiny portable device. It's a nice entry level laptop, but only if your vision is fine and your hands are somewhat small.

 

Thanks for that Xephandor - at last someone who has actually used it in a student environment!

Sorry - can't agree with you about the need for small hands. Mine are pretty standard male hands and I have no problems.

However, when typing in a lot of text fast, the screen seems to hiccup, missing parts of words and sometimes the cursor jumps back to the middle of a block of text. I have seen this reported on the Minibook forum where it was put down to slow processor speed - which I find stange, given the really slow machines I worked on back in the 60's and 70's without seeing it! I wondered if this is a Linux problem of if there is some form of auto backup going on? Any ideas? Maybe it is on a forum here, but I couldn't find it.

 

Well, I use it for web development when I am in the train. So my machine is also a complete web server. I am not exactly a newbie, but you see that the machine can do a lot. Writing documents and e-mailing is no problem. And others have given good suggestions on the matter. The only problem that could arise is when the institute wants you to install some software of its own for the training. In that case, come back to us and we may be of help. Note that if you ask most companies if they support Linux, they answer "no". But that does not mean it does not work. Only that they do not know or that they do not want to invest the trouble to be able to guarantee it.

 

Hi all,
Thank you for all your help. I think I should be able to manage with the acer now I have had a chance to look at your comments. Thank you particularly to Freddie for sending me a few open office documents to open on daughters laptop.I now know that at least the uni will be able to open my work. I am not sure if the uni give us any software to use but if it won't open on the acer I could always use the defunct desktop. It is temperamental but as long as i don't lose my essays mid write ( which it won't if I don't use it for them) then I'm not too worried.No doubt this is not the last any of you will hear from me, but by for now. Beth

 

herbiewitch - Glad you managed to cut through all the confusion!

Don't forget my first post in this thread - the AA1 with solid state memory is now down to £118 inc VAT! - £20 less than I paid a few weeks back :-( - and you can pick up post free if you live near Huddersfield!

Good luck!

 

I love my AA1. I went from owning a 17" laptop to the AA1. I also have a desktop PC for gaming with 22" and 17" windscreens but that get used basically for only gaming.

As for what I do on my AA1 that challenges it, I use Coreldraw9 and AutoCAD. I have also used it to create 4 websites. I usually have Frontpage, CDR9 and CAD running at the same time. Is the screen small, yes but it is legible. The thing I like about the AA1 is that I can do the work anywhere, from the comfort of my couch, on the thrown, in the bathtub, in bed or outside et al. I can hold it with one hand and type and edit with the other. Basically it has become an extension of me :lol:

Below are 3 of the websites I have created with it and check the handyman images and you will see two of the CAD drawings of roofs created on the AA1, created with out the use of an external mouse even

Megan Joy's website (from American Idol )
Handyman website
Electritians website

With that said, I would stick with Windows. I do not think I can run Coreldraw or AutoCAD on other OS's. Maybe there is a way to do so but a headache to figure out and with the price of the two programs, not worth the try. I cannot say that I am a big fan of Microcrap but what are you gonna do.