2…<\/p>\n
My new Asus eeePC 1000he netbook<\/a> makes me pretty happy. It took me a little more than a year to talk myself into it, and waiting that long meant that I got a 10-inch screen, much-improved keyboard, and a purported 8+ hours of battery life (YMMV) for about 75% of what I would have ended up paying for a lesser machine in 2008.<\/p>\n 3…<\/p>\n While cleaning the bloatware from the netbook (which I’ve named “The FMA” until I think of something better), I dug about for the tools I wanted to turn the thing into an open source\/freeware writing machine. OpenOffice<\/a> was a no-brainer for word processing and MS-Office-friendly output, but I MUST<\/strong> bring your attention to Write Monkey<\/a>.<\/p>\n Write Monkey is a full-screen … I was going to say “word processor”, but it’s both more (a writer’s tool) and less (a text editor). The creator promises a distraction-free writing experience, and that’s what you get: just you and the words on a black screen. Word count display is optional, as is a “Write or Die” timer. It has a few nice options hidden in the background that I’m not going to spoil, and an all-keyboard-commands style of interface that I absolutely love; I wrote my first stories on ProWrite 2.0 for DOS 3.1, and this this feels like coming home. (It also has a solid “export to doc format” function that works quite well.)<\/p>\n My current favorite part? The Repository screen, where you can hide all the bits you haven’t found a place for in the story, yet. Brilliant.<\/p>\n 4…<\/p>\n What else did I put on there? A bunch of game-rules PDFs, VLC Portable, bookmarks to Slacker Radio and Graham Walmsley’s Very Fine Dice Roller<\/a>, and I’m pretty much good to go for everything I’d want to do with the thing. (Full disclosure: I also put LotRO on it, just to see if it would run. It did, and the less said (or done) about that, the better.)<\/p>\n Anyone else have a software app they think the whole world should be using? Lemme know: I have tons of free space and a strong desire to tinker. (Note to self: figure out why you can’t boot to the eeebuntu thumbdrive. :P)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 1… This jumped straight to the top of my “stuff I can justify buying for some good reason, while secretly preparing for the zombie outbreak” list. 2… My new Asus eeePC 1000he netbook makes me pretty happy. It took me a little more than a year to talk myself into it, and waiting that long … <\/p>\n![\"Time:](\"http:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/06\/time.gif\" "\\"time\\"")
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