kage’s posterous

We (Me and the famous Gautam Ghosh) went through over 15 different notebooks based on specfications and ended up with a final list. Since Im more of a techie, I initially concentrated on higher computing power, but thats not really feasible in a notebook. I did a large research piece on what a Netbook really is and what should one look for in a netbook and Who can use it too? So here's the lowdown on that.

The basic configurations in a netbook

Processor: You have the intel atom processor which ranges between 1.60 ghz to 1.66 ghz. That's decent enough to do most of the computing work.

RAM: A must is 1 GB ram, but there are some netbooks that have an additional slot where 1 more GB can be added. That's a great thing to have for additional speed. You can alternatively add the extra 1 GB ram to the netbook but that would void the warranty for the netbook. And warranty can be a pain if the netbook faces a problem, because most vendors aren't direct service partners, they send it to the main netbook company and then get it repaired. This is not usually a problem with sony and lenovo as they are flooded in Nehru Place. A lot of notebooks come with Windows XP home, the ones that come with Windows 7 pre loaded cost more (for the OS). You can alternatively choose a netbook which comes with the basic DOS operating system and then have the guys load windows xp for you.

To run the Windows 7 operating system a minimum requirement would be 2 gb and more than 120 gb hard disk. A last word. You have to see how much you travel. There are 3 types of battery packs that come with netbooks 3 cell - 3-4 hours 6 cell - 5- 7 hours 8 cell - 8 - 10 hours. That means when it's fully charged you can expect it to hit the second number in terms of hours of usage. (8 cell minimum after a year when battery declines youll get between 7.5 hours to 8 hours and it's in first year you'll get up to 10 hours). It's also highly dependant on the particular hardware piece you get and sometimes you can get a raw deal. But that's generally the average you can expect when you get a netbook. Netbooks don't have an optical drive (CD/DVD Reader or writer), you can purchase an external usb enabled one to remedy this. 

So what are the choices?

1. Asus EEPC 1005 HA - the one I have (Rs 21,000) 1.66 GHz, 1 GB ram, Windows XP home, 160 gb hard disk. You get a free online storage sync so if there's a power short you don't suffer with the netbook. Battery life is fantastic Lightest in the series of netbooks Cannot run too many things at the same time, system slows a bit. Resolution is only 1024x768 Smudges are common Sometimes shitty software is bundled in so you have to find alternatives. 

2. Sony W series (Rs 27,000) 1.66 ghz, 2 gb ram, 250 gb hard disk. High resolution Comes with Windows 7 Has higher storage Vaios are very sturdy and have good service. Small keys to use Changing parts or upgrades are very costly. 

3. Samsung ND120 (Rs 23,000) 1.66 ghz, 160 gb hard disk, 8 cell battery pack. Great bang for the buck, comes in with a USB optical drive. Keypad was not good for my big fingers. DOS Loaded though, that means you have to load some operating system on your own. Lower resolution Screen clarity was missing some what. 

4. Lenovo S12 (about Rs 24,000) Same config as above, additional is an extra Ram slot that you can add directly without voiding the warranty. The keypads not the best. But the sturdiness of this machine is awesome if you have the budget. 

5. MSI u100 netbooks (Rs 19,500) Comes with the Windows XP home edition, 1.6 GHz, 1 GB ram, 160 gb hard disk. Something i wanted to get, but they were out of stock and it would have taken 2 more weeks to get it from the time i got my netbook. These are sexy machines, but the warranty is limited to one shop in Noida and not available outside. They are also untested in the indian market, so youll have people say "oh go with samsung or lenovo or asus because they are proven etc". Thats a load of horse shit. I got my viewsonic monitor when it was unproven and it's currently the best piece of hardware I have, so read a lot of reviews and I highly recommend using them as well.

Some other additional notes
 
Keypads are a big requirement for me since i have big fingers, but someone with dainty small fingers should be ok with using any of them. 

Thanksgiving coming up in the states, so if you get someone to ship it to you then you get a much much better deal.

Dell sucks when it comes to netbooks, stay away from them.

Warrantys can be extended, it's better to get an original piece,makes all upgrades really easy (online updates) Hope this is helpful.

 If you need any more info you can call me. I know a couple of dealers I have dealt with a lot so I get some discount from them from the standard market price.

Here's a man who made the quote popular, "I knew that if I failed i wouldn't regret that but I knew

one thing that I would regret is not trying." He was rencently inducted into the Academy of Achievement hall of fame. This is a fantastic series of interviews and I have put down the highlights of the interview.

He has taken the World's largest online bookstore through many breakthrough innovations and recently bought the worlds most customer friendly website in the world, Zappos.com. But what really makes this man amazing is he's honest about hardwork. He accepts luck as a factor and most important drives culture to newer heights.

In a recent interview he shares some insights into the famous question, "Who is Jeff Bezos?".

Jeff Bezos: There's a little bit of that in me, I think. I remember the very first occupation I wanted to be -- when, I think, I was about six years old -- was an archeologist. I would like to point out this was before Indiana Jones. It's a point of pride. Then I wanted to be an astronaut. By the time I was in my high school years, I wanted to be a physicist and then by the time I got to college I wanted to be a computer programmer. That's actually what I studied in school and that's what has led me along the path I'm on.

Two people I always would read about were Thomas Edison and Walt Disney. Those were sort of my two biographical heroes.

I've always been interested in inventors and invention. Edison, of course, for a little kid and probably for adults, too, is not only the symbol of that but the actual fact of that -- the incredible inventor. I've always felt that there's a certain kind of important pioneering that goes on from an inventor like Thomas Edison. Disney was a different sort of thing. He was also a real pioneer and an inventor, doing new things. It seemed to me that he had this incredible capability to create a vision that he could get a large number of people to share. Things that Disney invented, like Disneyland, the theme parks, they were such big visions that no single individual could ever pull them off, unlike a lot of the things that Edison worked on. Walt Disney really was able to get a big team of people working in a concerted direction.

Yeah. So, I went to Princeton primarily because I wanted to study physics, and it's such a fantastic place to study physics. Things went fairly well until I got to quantum mechanics and there were about 30 people in the class by that point and it was so hard for me. I just remember there was a point in this where I realized I'm never going to be a great physicist. There were three or four people in the class whose brains were so clearly wired differently to process these highly abstract concepts, so much more. I was doing well in terms of the grades I was getting, but for me it was laborious, hard work. And, for some of these truly gifted folks -- it was awe-inspiring for me to watch them because in a very easy, almost casual way, they could absorb concepts and solve problems that I would work 12 hours on, and it was a wonderful thing to behold. At the same time, I had been studying computer science, and was really finding that that was something I was drawn toward. I was drawn to that more and more and that turned out to be a great thing. So I found -- one of the great things Princeton taught me is that I'm not smart enough to be a physicist.

(That's kinda funny, once I become a millionaire, this is the exact sort of thing I would say about my education in IITK. How what it taught me was not about Mechanical engineering, but rather being a survivor and opportunity seeker).

I toyed with the idea of starting a company and even talked to a couple of friends about starting a company, and ultimately decided that it would be smarter to wait and learn a little bit more about business and the way the world works. You know, one of the things that it's very hard to believe when you're 22 or 23 years old is that you don't already know everything. It turns out -- people learn more and more as they get older -- that you seem to learn, you seem to realize that you know less and less every year that goes by. I can only imagine that by the time I'm 70 I will realize I know nothing.

The wake up call was finding this startling statistic that web usage in the spring of 1994 was growing at 2,300 percent a year. You know, things just don't grow that fast. It's highly unusual, and that started me about thinking, "What kind of business plan might make sense in the context of that growth?" 

I think there are a couple of things. One of the things everybody should realize is that any time a start-up company turns into a substantial company over the years, there was a lot of luck involved. There are a lot of entrepreneurs. There are a lot of people who are very smart, very hardworking, very few ever have the planetary alignment that leads to a tiny little company growing into something substantial. So that requires not only a lot of planning, a lot of hard work, a big team of people who are all dedicated, but it also requires that not only the planets align, but that you get a few galaxies in there aligning, too. That's certainly what happened to us.

So, it really was a decision that I had to make for myself, and the framework I found which made the decision incredibly easy was what I called -- which only a nerd would call -- a "regret minimization framework." So, I wanted to project myself forward to age 80 and say, "Okay, now I'm looking back on my life. I want to have minimized the number of regrets I have." I knew that when I was 80 I was not going to regret having tried this. I was not going to regret trying to participate in this thing called the Internet that I thought was going to be a really big deal. I knew that if I failed I wouldn't regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not ever having tried. I knew that that would haunt me every day, and so, when I thought about it that way it was an incredibly easy decision. And, I think that's very good. If you can project yourself out to age 80 and sort of think, "What will I think at that time?" it gets you away from some of the daily pieces of confusion. You know, I left this Wall Street firm in the middle of the year. When you do that, you walk away from your annual bonus. That's the kind of thing that in the short-term can confuse you, but if you think about the long-term then you can really make good life decisions that you won't regret later.

Final words of advice.

Image Courtesy: http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/photocredit/achievers/bez0-003

On a comment on Gary's posterous blog, I came across this.

by Jim Lee (one of my favourite artists), originally from Korea, on a Happy Birthday Joker Potrait. Awesome.

Lisa sanders is the doctor behind the brilliant house stories. Here's what she describes about House. Don't you just love the bugger?