A Note from Denver International Airport

Julie is in stable condition.

This marks the last leg of the United Airline return jaunt from North Carolina.

I'm sitting at United's Gate B92 using the DIA "free" wi-fi for connectivity. Other than a tight keyboard, the Little Asus Eee PC works fine for travel. It is short on memory, so toggling between windows makes it difficult to make links. That is a problem easily solved by adding a few extra dollars to the memory for an upgrade.

And I was disappointed that the hospital which I visited had a strong firewall which made emailing a hassle.Otherwise, the Eee PC worked fine.

A few random thoughts while on the plane from Chicago to Denver:

My cell phone was virtually unusable this trip because I brought the wrong phone battery charger, so this trip was similar to traveling 20 years ago without cellular service. My bad for not getting the correct charger. I heard yesterday that Cindy McCain has three blackberries to keep up with her seven children. I could not manage even keeping one cell phone energized.

Sarah Palin puts down her IPhone and picks up the breast pump at any given hour in her life; I barely wended my way back and forth from the motel to the hospital without making lots of wrong turns and missteps on exits. Speaking of Sarah Palin. I. Love. Her. Can you image relating to H.R. Clinton on that level? Uh uh.

Much more later; my flight is boarding.

Beading: Asus Eee with Crystals & Mirrors

A traveling grad student showed a tutorial on covering her Asus Eee PC with crystals. Here is a picture of her beautifully blinged out PC. She explains about how she glued on Swarkovski crystals onto its top in AK's Blog.

AK used Swarkovski crystals in fuschia, rose, light rose and aurora, in SS12, SS9 and SS5 sizes, gluing them to entirely cover the top of the case.

Using AK's tutorial, I decided to make my little Eee a pretty covering. Not only would it have its own T-shirt case, but it would also be personalized with initials. The T-shirt case was blogged about previously here.

First I sketched two calligraphy capital letters of "N"and "M" on the Eee top, using a ruler and approximating letter placement.

Since my Asus Eee has a light blue top, I used flat backed round crystals in small sizes in two different colors of turquoise and one dark rose color. I also purchased small mirrors at the craft store. Good old Wal Mart rounded out my accessories for the decorations with adhesive backed rhinestones (at a much cheaper price than those crystals). The heart-shaped BigBoxStore rhinestones are at the at the bottom of the initials, along with two earring fronts, tiny square mirrors, and more heart-shaped larger rhinestones.
The initials are painted with acrylics. Although the shadowing does not show very well, those crystals certainly brought out personalization in the middle of the letters.

I used a gel type glue; it was a mess to work with. But I was afraid Elmer's School Glue would not hold up to the light abuse which I tend to give my working machines.

This project took lots longer than I had anticipated, but at least my beading and painting efforts won't allow ownership confusion with any other Asus Eee that might be hanging around at the local coffee shop.

Note: Actual sizes are larger than they appear (the top is 5.5 inches by 7 inches).

T-Shirt Wrap for Asus Eee PC

Now that my little Eee and I will be traveling together, it needed its own wardrobe. So I went to Makezine for some information about sewing a laptop case.

The one shown here was not very attractive, so I made one up from a $3 child's T-shirt and scrap material.
I lined the t-shirt with a fun fabric , inserting toweling as extra padding, and made a pocket from the same material. The pocket holds the laptop mouse and a pen and paper. The inside of the padded T-shirt contains the Eee PC for storage.

This picture is the end product for my blue cover laptop. It just HAD to match!

Asus Eee PC

Yesterday a small package arrived by UPS which I was eagerly anticipating. In it was an Eee computer weighing only two pounds.

Their Website says:

The Eee PC is here, bringing a whole new, highly mobile Internet experience. For starters there’s no technical manual. Buy it, take it home and the Eee PC works right out of the box! It’s so user-friendly, even a Newbie can get started right away. Mobility is another key feature of the Eee PC. It uses Solid State Disk (SSD) technology which provides for energy savings and quiet, shock proof, stable computing. The Eee PC is therefore the perfect tool for the outdoor enthusiast or any active person on-the-go. Weighing in at a mere 1kg, the Eee PC is an impressive little titan for school, work, or vacation.

Eee stands for “Easy to Learn, Easy to Work, Easy to Play". I watched a video prior to purchasing the Eee machine which was a concise review of the product. (Almost half a million people have watched this YouTube video.)


Specifications
Internal memory: 2 GB solid state disk
Memory expansion: slot for MMC/SD(SDHC) cards
RAM: 512 MB DDR2
Processor: 800 MHz Intel Mobile CPU
Operating system: Linux (supports Windows XP)
LCD: 7 inches, 800 x 480 pixels
Networking: 54g Wi-Fi (802.11b/g), 10/100 Fast Ethernet
Peripheral connectivity: three USB 2.0
External video: one VGA
External audio: one headphone and one microphone port
Webcamera: no
Battery: 4400 mAh
Battery life: up to 2.8 hours
Weight: 2 pounds (32 ounces)
Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.5 x 1.4 inches

For under $300, including shipping, this little jewel is going places with me! Sure, it has a small 7” screen and a tight keyboard, but I will not be using it as my primary computer.

I bought it with a light blue cover, and naturally, it needed its own little case! So I am sewing the small computer her own travel wrap. More about that tomorrow.