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  1. #21 Re: Roadworthy Laptops 
    grumpy old sod jape's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by slabo View Post
    nonon ... look here for making bootable usb's http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/
    yeahyeahyeah! para 2 of link 1 is the way to use unetbootin to do this. Worked for me exactly as described.
    Kinlon R/T KBR JL200GY-2
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  2. #22 Re: Roadworthy Laptops 
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    Quote Originally Posted by euphonius View Post
    Thanks, Slabo. Alas, no instructions there for the Mac OS X installation discussed here.
    I have no experience with mac installations, only linux. 4 years ago, that's what I did 25 hours a day. http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/ can make a bootable usb out of any bootable disc. You have the .iso file, you can make a usb thumb drive bootable just like it were the actual dvd, mac bootable iso's should be no different. Persoanlly i think dvd drives are a waste of space nowadays, just adds more plastic to landfills.

    A quick "iATKOS unetbootin" google didn't turn up with promising results, seems other people tried this and it didn't work. Maybe wait for a mac geek to chime in (ChinaV)? what's the equivalent of unetbootin for mac?
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  3. #23 Re: Roadworthy Laptops 
    grumpy old sod jape's Avatar
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    diskutil is what you are looking for

    http://www.ehow.com/how_5142897_make...e-usb-mac.html
    Kinlon R/T KBR JL200GY-2
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  4. #24 Re: Roadworthy Laptops 
    Senior C-Moto Guru euphonius's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by jape View Post
    diskutil is what you are looking for

    http://www.ehow.com/how_5142897_make...e-usb-mac.html
    this stuff is way above my pay grade, but i think the diskutil thingie is for booting OSX on its native soil, i.e., a mac, not alien soil, i.e., a netbook whose basic OS is... drum roll please... DOS. (anyone remember DOS??) Or am I misreading this? Could I use diskutil on my Mac to burn iATKOS.iso onto a thumb drive in a format that then could be used to boot my samsung netbook using that thumb drive?

    as slabo notes, this would save me the trouble of having to find/purchase a USB disk drive from which to boot.
    jkp
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  5. #25 Re: Roadworthy Laptops 
    C-Moto Guru Fred's Avatar
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    For what it's worth, I have an Asus Eeepc which I carry all the time in my backpack while riding my bicycle in Shanghai, very light and no problem with being moved too much. Bought it 1 year ago with Win XP (official version) for RMB 2,500...
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  6. #26 Re: Roadworthy Laptops 
    Moto Scholar moilami's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by euphonius View Post
    Jape, ChinaV,

    Thanks for your thoughts and suggestions. Maybe we should move this to off-topic, but this topic of how to upfit a netbook is definitely appropriate for this forum. Why? Given the risks of weather, trauma, theft, spilled noodles, puke flying from buses, etc, I've wanted to develop a cheap "road laptop" that I could use for 1) email, 2) skype, 3) web browsing and 4) picture and video editing on the fly. I'd prefer not to carry my Macbook, as that is my main working machine and it would be catastrophic to me if it got puked on or stolen or crumpled.

    So can we create a new thread called Roadworthy Laptops?

    The Samsung was a gift from a Chinese company at their share-listing party, and it's loaded with WinXP in Chinese. Gag me with a hard disk. For an OSX user, if there is nothing uglier and recoil-inducing than WinXP, it's WinXP in Chinese. (I have XP loaded on my Mac in the Bootcamp partition, but I don't think I've ever fired it up.)

    Conventional thinking would be to install WinXP in English over the Chinese version, and suffer with XP. Not for me, thanks. I want nothing to do with Windows ever again, even though, as Jape has noted, it's apparently finally gotten to be a tolerably good operating system. A year ago, when I got this little netbook, I was attracted to Moblin as it had a reputation for support (which seemed to have had an easy interface and some commercial backing), but now I read it's been superceded by something called MeeGo, whatever that is. There must be 100 choices of distro out there, which is 99 too many for me. I'm not that dedicated to this project. I'm not ruling out some Linux flavor, but it seems there's still a lot of churn and partisanship out there. I'm not a technie, and I want an easy path.

    Now OSX -- that's an interesting idea and one that had not occurred to me. So I'll perhaps spend an hour or two this afternoon at least reading up on the idea, starting with that link you forwarded, and see if I can find anyone who's done it on the N128.

    Thanks!
    I would buy the cheapest crap with SSD disk I can get and install GNU/Linux on it. Would work for sure well enough.
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  7. #27 Re: Roadworthy Laptops 
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    traditionally, Thinkpads, especially the T series, were thought to do this well. Recently, since ~2 years, HP introduced the Elite series. After the Thinkpad brand was sold to Lenovo, many people arevsaying Thinkpad isn't what it's used to be. http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en...5-3955549.html

    Have a look. Many are saying HP Elite now beats IBM Thinkpad.

    HP Elitebook 2560p
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  8. #28 Re: Roadworthy Laptops 
    Duct tape savant felix's Avatar
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    I bought a HP DM1 recently with intentions of using it as my roadbook. (yes, i just coined that)



    It received great reviews everywhere so i decided to go for it. I found it on taobao, then went to the shop to buy it directly. I paid RMB 3050 for it, which is a great price for this machine.
    http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=10091367375

    I haven't had a chance to test it on the road yet, but reckon it'll do just fine. 11" is a good size, small and light but with full size keys that are nice to type on. The AMD chip is much more powerful than what you get in a netbook (it handles photoshop CS4 pretty well and plays HD video flawlessly) yet i still get 5 - 7 hours battery in normal use, which is amazing. It's all plastic but feels sturdy enough. Also has the best speakers of any laptop i've owned.

    I reckon it's hard to beat for the money.

    It came with a crappy chinese version of windows 7. I called HP to see if they could give me an english version but they said they couldn't so i just downloaded a hacked one from torrents, wiped the computer and installed that. No problems after. I'm not a trekkie and therefore know nothing about linux and things like that.
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  9. #29 Re: Roadworthy Laptops 
    grumpy old sod jape's Avatar
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    Felix, looks good that. You may not be a trekkie but you knew enough to use torrents and hopefully to turn off all the 'call home' features of Win7. How do you keep it secure against viruses and update OS etc? if you wnat I cna send you a DVD with the Latest Linux install on it. Works fine and very fast and quite secure without all the need for AV, updates in background etc so you don't need to think or be sober. You can try it from a USB drive too.

    Going to take this thread a bit sideways perhaps but i reckon folk usually overspend for their real needs, fine if you have the money but.

    Some of those cheap chinese tabs using early android like 2.1 seem like a good idea, i've read dozens of reviews and some are crap but some OK, you just have to get on the android forums and read the geek stuff to see which chips/models are OK and rootable etc. For not much more than $100-$200 depending on form factor they are a cheap road machine with touch screens I reckon, do all your email, some basic photo manipulation etc and lots of apps and some have GPS. Soon there should be a release of a lot more of touch tablets, should make the cheaper ones even more value for money.

    That will be my next purchase when this ten year old acer 3620 finally (if ever) dies. It is flying along, used daily for ten years, on latest linux natty with a partition of XP for the few progs I can't find in Linux equivalent. All I added was a gig of memory and replaced the DVD drive five years ago. I take it to bits and vacuum the dust out every couple of yeras and can use an LED tv/monitor alongside if i want. Plenty of storage with a spare USB harddrive and DVDs for backup, with further backup and music/photo libraries/document archives etc on 8gb thumb drives kept in the car. I also use dropbox for some important archives. Dunno why you would want more, i can photoshop on it too.

    Laptops can be cheap and good value, this acer certainly is! I also got a cheap Lenovo (win7 2.5 gig dual cpu) for $500 for ex gf's daughter and it has been crashed/bashed in a school bag and car all the time and used at school and home for about two years without missing a beat. Does all her basic games too. MSE and anti-virus and OS etc updates and scans flawlessly in background and along with my running extra anti-malware searches every couple of months and talking seriously to her about cyber bullying and porn and nasty people, it is secure enough for a kid as long as adults have one eye open and check records/histories etc. now and again.
    Kinlon R/T KBR JL200GY-2
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  10. #30 Re: Roadworthy Laptops 
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    Quote Originally Posted by felix View Post
    I bought a HP DM1 recently with intentions of using it as my roadbook. (yes, i just coined that)



    It received great reviews everywhere so i decided to go for it. I found it on taobao, then went to the shop to buy it directly. I paid RMB 3050 for it, which is a great price for this machine.
    http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=10091367375

    I haven't had a chance to test it on the road yet, but reckon it'll do just fine. 11" is a good size, small and light but with full size keys that are nice to type on. The AMD chip is much more powerful than what you get in a netbook (it handles photoshop CS4 pretty well and plays HD video flawlessly) yet i still get 5 - 7 hours battery in normal use, which is amazing. It's all plastic but feels sturdy enough. Also has the best speakers of any laptop i've owned.

    I reckon it's hard to beat for the money.

    It came with a crappy chinese version of windows 7. I called HP to see if they could give me an english version but they said they couldn't so i just downloaded a hacked one from torrents, wiped the computer and installed that. No problems after. I'm not a trekkie and therefore know nothing about linux and things like that.
    Hi Felix,
    Felix, how's your roadbook holding up? Does it strain your eyes to read off a screen that small? I want to get one but I can't find any in stock at HP dealers around Kunming. Seems I'll have to order online. I've only read good things about it, but I'd appreciate a first hand opinion.
    Last edited by slabo; 07-10-2011 at 12:58 PM.
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