Asus Eee PC S101 Review
Eee PC S101 first look
We all know by now what a netbook is and the general philosophy and purpose behind them. Netbooks are meant to be two things. 1) Cheap, and 2) Extremely portable. But ever since the first milestone concept of an extremely affordable and portable notebook for third world countries, the OLPC, netbooks have steadily been increasing in price. The Asus Eee PC S101 weighs a mere 2.3 lbs, has a 10.2″ screen, ships with 1GB of RAM and a 16GB SD as well as a 16GB SSD for a whopping $699 suggested retail value. Ouch!
The S101 is expensive. But that’s not to say it isn’t also “Insanely great”. Asus finally got it right. Up until now the so called netbook genre of notebooks have been utility machines. They have been made under two conditions 1) to be cheap, and 2) to be extremely portable. Design has always been an afterthought in netbooks resulting in the clunky “Fisher Price — My first notebook” scepticism. Although the Asus Eee PC S101 is rather pricey in comparison to other netbooks, it is rightly so. Everyone agrees that when you buy an Apple product you pay a sort of “Apple Tax”. Mac fanatics don’t mind paying a little more because they feel they are getting a better quality machine with a sleeker design. Arguable this may be, the same principal applies to the S101. The hardware is pretty standard and on par with others in it’s genre:
Specifications:
- OS: Windows XP Home
- Processor: Atom N270
- System Memory: 1024MB
- Hard Drive: 16B SSD + 16GB SD
- Screen: 10.2″ LED 1024×600 (16:9)
- Wireless: Atheros Wireless b/g/n + Bluetooth
- Webcam: 0.3MP
- Battery: 4Cell
S101 Keyboard
I have been using the S101 as my main machine for several days now and it has surprisingly held up well performing everyday tasks. Surfing the web, emailing, watching standard definition videos and listening to music. The absolute first thing I did after unpacking the S101 and creaming my pants was to ditch Windows and install Ubuntu. The install went beautifully without a hiccup. I installed the root partition on the 16GB internal SSD and mounted the 16GB SD as /home. What blew my mind was that everything just worked. I did not have to install any drivers for my accelerated graphics, nor for my wifi or bluetooth. Hibernation works perfectly when I close the lid, the VGA port auto-detects and configures when an external monitor is attached, and the multi-touch trackpad even worked out of the initial install. I love Linux and I have been using it for years but this is the first time I have had a machine, notebook specifically, that has had absolutely no issues to resolve after the initial install. There is no debate that Linux is ahead of the OS game when it comes to device support out of the box.
Battery life in the S101 has been a dream. With heavy web use while listening to music with the LED back-lit screen at 100% I can generally expect 3.5-4 hours. The Eee PC S101 truly is an all day notebook computing solution. With wifi turned off while writing this article and an essay for school I have received just over 4 hours so far with my battery meter reading 25 minuets remaining.
When performing the install I made a conscious decision to not have any swap space on the SSD hard drive to save read/write cycles. Because of this the machine comes to a screaming halt when it runs out of memory. I plan to upgrade to a 2GB memory module shortly but be aware 1GB of memory is pushing my limit. Maybe I’m just spoiled, but for $700 any modern machine should come with at least 2Gigs.
S101 Case
Outside of some minor issues the Asus Eee PC S101 is an extremely adequate machine for doing daily tasks. They keyboard is plenty big to type comfortably without your fingers being cramped as with smaller netbook models and the multi-touch trackpad is perfectly sized as well. A small letdown is the 0.3MP webcam Asus provides with the S101 as opposed to the 1.3MP lens that ships with other cheaper Eee models. The webcam however is still decent quality and works perfectly fine out of the box with Skype. The integrated microphone also has surprisingly well sound quality as compared to other integrated solutions. The machine runs very cool and absolutely silent.
Although you may pay a similar “Apple tax” when purchasing an Asus Eee PC S101 I feel the device merits the price tag. As with all of Asus’ Eee models price will rapidly come down and I feel this will be a very popular netbook in months to come. One thing to keep in mind when shopping for the S101, or any netbook for that matter, is that Microsoft offers a 15-35% off discount when you use their Live Cashback service. With the Microsoft cashback and an eBay coupon I ended up saving 35% off ($245) making this machine only $455.
Sticker Street Art
Check out some of the amazing work presented at the 2008 Sticker Awards. The first artist interviewed in the video is my good friend Tom, mad props man!
John’s Tux Penguin Pumpkin!
A friend bought me a pumpkin from some hippies outside of class on Tuesday. Here’s the end result:
yay!
Lux Delux — The Cross-Platform Online Multiplayer Risk Clone
I. Hate. Shareware.
I can’t stand it. The very thought of a shareware application running on the Linux platform sickens me. It goes against everything I stand for and believe in in the open source community. That being said Lux Delux is the first shareware program I have legally purchased, ever.
Lux Touch
I first discovered Lux on the iPhone/iPod Touch platform of all things, and I have to give SillySoft props for their marketing strategy. The iPhone application, Lux Touch, is very minimal as compared to the desktop version, but is still incredibly intuitive and fun to play. As of this post there is only one map and no online play but I hope to see that change. There haven’t been many games on the iPhone platform that have “wowed” me, but Lux Touch definitely takes the cake. Perhaps the cake reserved for Chell from Portal?
Upon playing Lux Touch to death on my iPod I decided to see how the desktop application compared. I was absolutely ecstatic to see there was a native Linux binary. Ahh Java, my memory eating-core file dumping friend, I love your cross platform approach. After playing the demo for several days I decided to bite my pride and purchase my first shareware application. Normally in this situation I would look for a crack, but something in me decided I wanted to support these fine developers, especially for monetizing an application on the Linux platform. The desktop version of the game has hundreds of maps, brilliant artificial intelligence, and best of all network play!
If you’re a Risk lover, I guarantee you will love this game. If you’re not a Risk lover I guarantee you will be one after you play this game. It’s addicting as crack yet less expensive. Hop over to Sillysoft.net and give the demo a try.
Top 5 Security Applications of 2008
2008 has been a giant fork in the road separating Internet usability and security. We have seen numerous vulnerabilities in several fundamental protocols created decades ago, threatening the entire infrastructure, as well as leaps and bounds in the web 2.0 cloud-computing era. Kaminski revealed his DNS cache poisoning vulnerability effectively creating a system administrators panic world-wide. Robert E. Lee and Jack Louis of Outpost24 leaked a fundamental vulnerability in TCP Sockets creating a new era of DoS attacks. 2008 also has been an evolutionary year for web applications and the cloud computing frenzy. People now more than ever are more willing and likely to store data online through third parties. There’s no arguing the benefits of cloud computing, but are we making the transition half-hazardly?
So here are the top 5 essential security applications of 2008 for systems administrators and security enthusiasts.
With Kaminski’s DNS cache poisoning vulnerability being actively exploited DoxPara’s DNS checker has made our number one most essential security application of 2008. The chilling reality about this vulnerability is that every DNS server was exploitable including Microsoft’s DNS, Bind, Netware, and many many others. All the major DNS servers scrambled to patch their software, however many have been left vulnerable. Do yourself a favor and troll over to DoxPara to test your ISP’s DNS servers. If you fail you might want to look in to switching to the free and secure OpenDNS public servers.
#2 Nessus Network Vulnerability Scanner
2008 has been the year of the vulnerability. Ever other Tuesday, almost without exception, Microsoft has been releasing remote code execution patches for their software and operating system. Apple has been releasing more security updates than ever, and even Linux/Unix operating systems have seen a growth in security patches, many even being kernel-level. Whether you work for a large corporation or want to test the security of your machines at home Nessus is a great solution to scan your network for vulnerabilities.
If you’re living in the US I’m unfortunate to say your constitutional rights no longer have any meaning or merit. With the Patriot act literally ripping your right to privacy from your very hands it’s not uncommon for TSA officials to legally search through the files on your notebook. 12,000 notebooks are lost in airports each week. Don’t let your private information leak. Encrypt your drives with TrueCrypt and rest assured that nobody will be bruiting that encryption anytime within the next millennium.
It’s hard to imagine a day I won’t use an open wifi network. It’s harder to imagine a day when the entire Internet uses SSL. Prevent the eavesdropping assholes at your college and work from sniffing your non-SSL traffic by using an encrypted VPN. Whether you install OpenVPN on your home server or pay for a service such as HotSpotVPN know that your traffic is encrypted, sniff-free, and safe.
#5 Snort Network Intrusion Detection
Script kiddies are more rampant than ever. Period. I cannot tell you the number of idiots who try to brute force my servers on a daily basis. “Snort detects thousands of worms, vulnerability exploit attempts, port scans, and other suspicious behavior.” Snort is an absolute gem of open source that could easily be sold for hundreds of dollars. When you deploy a server don’t forget to implement Snort.
Honorable Mention: GRC ShieldsUP
Steve Gibson, my favorite security researcher, receives this honorable mention for his excellent idiot proof basic network vulnerability scanner. ShieldsUP is the best quick and dirty “need this fast” network vuln and port scanner. Though ShieldsUP is not nearly as comprehensive and extensive as something like Nessus, it’s an unbelievable web-app to bookmark.