There is however one lightweight software program that can make a huge difference. The software eeectl allows a user to control and overclock Asus Eee PCs. One of the control settings can be used to adjust the brightness of the netbook’s monitor to increase it to acceptable levels. The portable software program can be executed without installation and provides access to its features and settings in the Windows system tray.

The Backlight setting can alter the brightness of the Eee PC. Options range from lowest to ultra bright and it is usually a good idea to play around with the settings to find an ideal one. The ultra bright mode can for example nearly double the cd/m2 value of the netbook. The trade-off is a reduced battery life and changes in the display of black values due to the increased brightness.

Asus Eee PC users who think that their netbook’s computer monitor brightness is to low should give eeectl a try to find out if it can change the brightness to a more appropriate level.

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UNetbootin can be used on either Linux or Windows. In this article, we’ll be illustrating the Linux side of things (naturally).

Note of warning: Not all usb installations will work on all machines. This can be an issue with your Bios or your USB drive. If you install an OS that doesn’t work, try another. But after all that work, you might wind up with a machine that simply won’t boot from a USB drive. You have been warned.

Now, on with the installation.

Getting and using UNetbootin

The first thing to do is download a copy of UNetbootin. For our purposes we’ll download the Linux universal install binary (named unetbootin-linux-299). Once that has finished you will need to issue the command chmod u+x unetbootin-linux299 in order to make the file executable. Once the file is executable, su to the root user and issue the command (from the same directory unetbootin-linx-299 is stored) ./unetbootin-linux-299 to see the application running. But you’re not ready just yet.

Depending upon your distribution, you might come across an error involving p7zip-full. This might be in your distribution’s repositories. If you use Mandriva you can install p7zip but you will not have the full package. If you use Unbuntu you can get p7zip-full with the command apt-get install p7zip-full.

Before you run the application you will need to insert and mount your usb drive. Stick in your usb drive and then issue dmesg to find out where your usb drive is located. Mount that and then issue, as root, ./unetbootin-linux-299. When yo issue the command you will see the UNetbootin window.

UNetbootin Main Window

Once this window is up and running you are almost there.

If you have very specific needs for your distribution you will most likely have an image file downloaded to use. If you do not you can select your distribution from the drop down list. First you select the distribution and then you select the version (or release). NOTE: Unless you have a very large USB drive you will most likely want to use a netinstall  version of your distribution.If you do happen to have a large USB drive you can go ahead with a full distribution. If this usb drive is for rescue purposes, or just to have a version of Linux with you at all times, a distribution like PCLinuxOS Minime is a greate choice.

Once the process is done you will have two buttons to click, Reboot and Exit. Don’t bother with the Reboot button. Click the Exit button and UNetbootin will close. You can now unmount your drive and reboot your machine to see if the installation works.

When your machine boots you will need to make sure it first boots from the usb device.

If you’re interested to see what PCLinuxOS Minime looks like, take a look.

PCLinuxOS Minime

And that’s it.

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They were able to compare the Asus Eee PC models 701 and 900 in white and the 701 in black. Both white models are using the same keyboard while the black keyboard looks and feels different and the assumption can be made that the black 900 model will have the same keyboard as the black 701 model.

The first obvious difference becomes obvious when you place the black and white keyboards next to each other. The black keys seem to be a bit smaller and use a wider spacing than the white ones. They also go deeper which means that the user will receive more feedback from the keyboard in comparison to the white keyboard.

The texture of the black keyboard uses rougher plastic which makes it easier to grip. I have not tested it myself but it looks like the difference between a notebook keyboard and a usual desktop pc keyboard at first glance. Maybe the difference are not that big but the comparison seems valid.

It’s still strange that Asus would create different keyboards for different colored models and the reviewer at Laptop Mag came to the conclusion that this may be caused by the manufacturing process and not by design itself.

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A friend of mine told me about the Asus EEE PC which is a subnotebook with an 7 inch screen, a 900 Mhz Intel Celeron M cpu, 512 Megabyte of Ram and a 4 Gigabyte Solid State Disk. This is not a notebook that you can use to play games or big applications but it could be ideal for my situation for several reasons.

It comes with a keyboard which is definitely a plus over those PDAs that I looked at. Sure there are external keyboards for those PDAs but it would mean that I would have to carry that around as well. A 7 inch screen is much nicer than the screens that the PDAs use.

Another advantage of the Asus EEE PC is the price of €299 and the Linux operating system. Future versions will also see Windows XP as the operating system of choice. The EEE PC boots Linux in 15 seconds which can be attributed to the Solid State Disk drive.

The RAM can be pumped up to a total of 2 Gigabytes of RAM and another Solid State Disk can be added to the Asus EEE PC as well. What I do not like that much is that the battery will not last for more than 3.5 hours according to Asus.

Reviews of the Asus EEE PC complained about the tiny keyboard and the low res display as well. I guess I have to test on before I make a decision. The biggest turnback is the battery power of the EEE PC though.

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