It's An Eee PC!!!

LauraJUnderwood

LauraJUnderwood

Silly Author Person
Joined
Aug 12, 2006
Messages
258
Location
East Tennessee
So as I mentioned the last time I was out here griping (and I thank you all for being conservative enough to just let me gripe and say nothing :cool:), I went shopping to sooth the anger and frustration of the rejection I got.

Sometimes, I just go and get a latte and a cookie and sulk, but those sulking calories are getting harder to remove from my ever expanding behind, so something material went in the works instead.

I bought an Eee PC, model 701 4G-X. Yep, the XP version with a 4G SSD and 512 meg of ram running the aforementioned program.

I am in hog heaven. I have to admit, it is a really cool little machine. :cool:

The device that I normally carry for my light-weight travel companion has been the MobilePro. I have older ones, all purchased cheaply off Ebay, so I am not spending much money on them.

I had finally glommed onto one of the 900c MobilePros, a lovely device that sees all sorts of peripherals and even lets me use an older wifi card (though it is incredibly slow). I have liked it for its screen and its keyboard, though I have gripes with the fact that no matter what I tell the wordprocessing program, it defaults text back to 10 point instead of the 12 point I set it for.

Which means I have to always go back in and redo it before I start printing it out, etc. And I have not taken issue with that too often because I figured it was just something I had to put up with. The only mobile device that didn't do that was Packy (the HP iPaq rx1950).

Yes, I name all my electronic toys. The ASUS has been christened "The Black Pearl" and I even carry it in a Pirates of the Caribbean case meant to hold a portable DVD player because it is the perfect fit and still leaves room for the adapter and the various SD cards and memory sticks and card readers and USB hub extenders and even the 30gig external HD--and it is still a pretty light package to haul around.

At any rate, Packy probably wins as the lightest etoy, but its problem is the darn keyboard. Being wireless, it tends to crap out from time to time, and that is not good when you are furiously typing along on a story. I get tired of it a) eating batteries (the keyboard, not Packy who seems to last a long time without a charge) and b) stopping in the middle of my creativity. I tried to find myself a keyboard that hooked up to the USB connector on the iPaq, but those are hard to come by. Wireless universal keyboards are aplenty.

Still...

With the Black Pearl, I now have a machine that does not change the settings on the font, gives a couple of hours of battery time, is lighter than one of my hardback novels, and fits in a small bag. I will admit the screen is sorta small (and herein The 900c has an advantage--wider screen, better viewing, except in extreme light situations, and wider keyboard as well), and that the keys are sort of tiny compared to what I have used.

On the other hand, as the woman who can brag that she actually wrote the final version her first novel on a Velo 500 (and you wanna talk Small Keyboard) without a hitch, I cannot really complain.

So yeah, I have another geek toy, and whether it makes me a better writer is irrelevant.

It makes me happy, makes me forget the sting of rejection, if only for a moment, and encourages me to go on.

Hey, gotta pay for it somehow... ;)

Laura J. Underwood
 
Hmmm, well, I'm not sure what some of that is, but I congratulate you on your purchase, Laura.
 
The EEE PC is a small laptop computer, about the size of an A5 notepad. It costs about £200 ($400) and weighs about 2lb (including the power supply), making it a smashing little machine for carrying around without worrying too much about either loosing it, or hernias.
I've got one for work and can safely say it is one of the fastest computers to actually use i.e. it starts in under 30 seconds and programmes like Open Office open in less than 10, at least it does with Linux, not sure how it will do with XP after it's had a couple of months to cripple itself.

The Philips Velo was even smaller, a PDA with a keyboard. The keyboard was actually made up of something not unlike little round bullet tops, but well spaced and 'clicky' making it rather better than the then popular Psion MX5 or the HP Jornada 700 series for typing (Had all three at various points). Only real problem was the hinge that held the screen and keyboard together was not up to the job
 
LauraJUnderwood said:
I am in hog heaven. I have to admit, it is a really cool little machine. :cool:
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Surely this can't be true. I thought this involved thick mud, troughs and things.

LauraJUnderwood said:
I had finally glommed onto one...
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What the hell is 'to Glom' ? Oh, I see must mean to stick - Are we back in the mud here. (Tennessee - Mississippi - ah yes it's all coming together now)

LauraJUnderwood said:
It makes me happy, makes me forget the sting of rejection, if only for a moment, and encourages me to go on.
Click to expand...

Now wait just a minute. Sting of rejection. Did I miss something. There we were, happily taking in the fact you have a nice new toy and then all of a sudden you lay all this guilt down on us about some past slight, whilst leaving us to imagine all the details.

Us, who like nothing more than to sit in dark corners and mull over the tea leaves of life.

You were happy enough to let us in on the details of you romance with Inspector Gadget. However, when it comes to the interesting meaty bits - nothing. Come on play the game, out with it.

Are we talking Heathcliff or Clerk Kent here. Handsome or ugly old toothless gimmer.

Facts we need facts how else can we empathise and advise in the short time we all have left.
 
ray gower said:
The EEE PC is a small laptop computer, about the size of an A5 notepad. It costs about £200 ($400) and weighs about 2lb (including the power supply), making it a smashing little machine for carrying around without worrying too much about either loosing it, or hernias.
I've got one for work and can safely say it is one of the fastest computers to actually use i.e. it starts in under 30 seconds and programmes like Open Office open in less than 10, at least it does with Linux, not sure how it will do with XP after it's had a couple of months to cripple itself.

The Philips Velo was even smaller, a PDA with a keyboard. The keyboard was actually made up of something not unlike little round bullet tops, but well spaced and 'clicky' making it rather better than the then popular Psion MX5 or the HP Jornada 700 series for typing (Had all three at various points). Only real problem was the hinge that held the screen and keyboard together was not up to the job
Click to expand...

Yeah, the hinge problem was a thorn in Philip's side. They dropped the line rather than take it to the next level to include a card slot and a color screen on their otherwise neat clamshell design.

I also had NEC MobilePro 400 and 450, and while I was happy to have the card slot, I was not happy with the keyboards. Once NEC enlarged the keyboard to that 92% size, they became much nicer, but of course, that was a Large PDA.

The ASUS is smaller than my MobilePro 880 (which is about the size of one of Sony's mini notebooks and weighs about 2.2 lbs). And it is not as wide as my MobilePro 900c (which actually weighs less than the ASUS, but its still a PDA with a touch screen and a Win CE.Net operating system.)

Small mobile electronic writing devices...they are cool.

Laura J. Underwood
 
Hog Heaven is anything that makes you happy...

Had family in the dairy and hog industry (though they actually lived in southern Indiana).

The sting of rejection. My last thread explains it all. A publisher decided that the second book of my "Demon-Bound" series was not a book they wanted because the publisher who published the first one went under, and their rejection letter seemed to imply that if my book has been a better book, my publisher would not have gone under...

The truth is, my former publisher was not exactly smart when it came to use of cash flow. Good at convincing big names to come on board, but not so good at making sure the authors were actually paid.

My novel Dragon's Tongue not only made back the advance (which I never got all of), but it was well into royalties...

I ended up getting paid with a LOT of books. Problem is, you can't pay bills with books. The utility company doesn't understand the concept... ;)

So having another publisher tell me that they considered it bad business to take on the second book of a series introduced by a failed publisher was an "ooch-ouch" moment. Especially when they implied I was part of the cause of that failure.

Laura J. Underwood
 
Ok. thats more like it.

When you say paid in books are we talking 100's 1000's or warehouses.

I ask because if you have since been published is it possible there could be a kind of 'second hand' market for them (I assume you own the right to distribute them). You could even try Amazon or a local book seller chain, maybe they have a local writer section. Just a thought. You may get some kind of return even if its just the satisfaction that it's being read by someone.

If nothing else it's a lesson to us all. It certainly hadn't occured to me that getting published isn't the end of the trail when it comes to counting oneself sucessful. Sounds like a nightmare that you had to me and for that thanks for the sharing.

regards

Tein

P.S. 'To glom' - new one on me.
 
Two nations divided by a common language. Particularly when it comes to slang, and quaint expressions common to a specific region.

Although "Hog Heaven" is probably more rural that regional, and "glom" is ... well, maybe Laura is showing her age a bit, as I'm showing mine by saying that I understood it without an explanation.

The publisher Laura is talking about was a small but upcoming press, which was poised to break into the big time ... except that it went broke instead. Any outstanding advances or royalties owed to its authors had to be paid out of its remaining assets -- which in this case was printed books. I suspect the number and value of the books may have been something less than what the authors had coming to them.
 
I have heard of Hog's Heaven, though we have "pigs in clover" over on this side of the Pond. ("To glom" is a new one on me.)
 
Teresa: We should be so lucky. On this side of the swamp we have four nations, multiple regions and several towns separated by a something that passes for a common language.
I could travel 40 miles (from Manchester) and easily find myself needing the services of the UN translation department (Not to mention their mediation services). I suspect things are not so different in the States.
 
Where do the other two countries come in?
Or have they given home rule to Burnley and the Isle of Wight while I wasn't looking?
 
chopper said:
whatcha tryin to say? we're damn near civilized on this side of the pennines!
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Now don't take this the wrong way but as I recall the romans are still getting ransom demands for the lost tenth legion which was last seen heading north through Blackstone Edge. And I know they left this side in one piece cos we've got the tunics and there's no sign of blood.

ray gower said:
Where do the other two countries come in?
Or have they given home rule to Burnley and the Isle of Wight while I wasn't looking?
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Isle of Dogs, Isle of Man, 'Thar she blows' and Greenland.
 
TheEndIsNigh said:
I could travel 40 miles (from Manchester) and easily find myself needing the services of the UN translation department (Not to mention their mediation services). I suspect things are not so different in the States.
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In this part of the US, you have to go a long, long way before you notice any differences in the way people speak. As you move east, you get more and more variation, but you'd still have to go a lot more than 40 miles from wherever you were to feel that you were surrounded by people speaking a different dialect.
 
LOL! Go take a nap and come back to a discussion of dialects.

Not that I mind.

For the record, I am from East Tennessee, and we can generally tell when someone "ain't from around these parts." Middle and West Tennessee actually sound different to me. Writers here often get into discussions of "voice" and say that you can tell the difference in the writer's voice and it varies from location to location.

One of my favorite local columnists does a whole speech on the way we speak. If someone offers you a "cheer," it's so you can sit down. Or "he blowed a tar," generally means his tires need replacing.;)

"To glom" is actually suspected to be similar to the Scottish "to glam" and since East Tennessee was settled by a lot of "Scots-Irish," it sorta makes sense. And yes, I suspect using the word shows my age. I still say tin foil on occasion and they haven't made aluminum foil from tin since I was a child.

But yeah, you do have to go a little more than 40 miles to hear a difference in dialects here. And there are more distinct dialects in the eastern seaboard of the US. I am often accused by my fellow East Tennesseans of being a midwesterner because I speak more clearly than my kinfolk do.

Of course, when I hear a recording of my own voice, I hear the East Tennessee Nasal clearly.

Laura J. Underwood
 
My father was from Missouri, Laura, so I grew up hearing some of the folksier expressions used in your neck of the woods.
 
TheEndIsNigh said:
When you say paid in books are we talking 100's 1000's or warehouses.
Click to expand...

I'd have to go look at the exact numbers (its in the letter of rights return), but I am thinking I ended up with around 600-700 books.

I ask because if you have since been published is it possible there could be a kind of 'second hand' market for them (I assume you own the right to distribute them). You could even try Amazon or a local book seller chain, maybe they have a local writer section. Just a thought. You may get some kind of return even if its just the satisfaction that it's being read by someone.
Click to expand...

I have a right to do pretty much whatever I want with them. SRM Publishing is letting me sell through their website. My editor at YDP lets me sell them off the table at conventions. And I can do the Basement Full Of Books thing from SFF.Net if I want to since I am a member (just haven't set it up yet).

If nothing else it's a lesson to us all. It certainly hadn't occured to me that getting published isn't the end of the trail when it comes to counting oneself sucessful. Sounds like a nightmare that you had to me and for that thanks for the sharing.
Click to expand...

As Marion Zimmer Bradley (who bought my first short story) used to say, "No one told you not to be a plumber." The economy being what it is, I have now seen three small press publishers I've been associated with go down, and I have learned that one other publisher I've had a book with for several years is letting me out of my contract when it expires here in a few more weeks. Which is normal. And as I understand it, they have gone through some restructuring.

It happens.

One just learns to "get over it" in some fashion or another.

I let my inner geek run rampant and buy new electronic toys to make me happy. ;)

Laura J. Underwood
 
Just here to bear witness to the diversity of the Eastern Seaboard dialects, LJU. Lived here all but 1 year of my life, and you can hear differences just around Baltimore alone, much less the rest of Maryland and its relative neighbors to the North and South.

EDIT: Haven't ventured far into the palmtop market (beyond the Blackberry work provides, that is), but my congrats on your acquisition, too. I'm kept busy enough with laptops and desktops, nevermind the apps I support, but one of these days I'll have to dig in and "play"... ;)
 
Bill Cosby used to have a wonderfully funny routine wherein he talked about things like that fact that people in Maine can die of a "hat attack."

I wonder if I still have that album? :)

Laura J. Underwood
 
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