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Over the past few days I have been considering buying a new laptop. It is for work but far from essential. It will only be used for emails, web browsing, blogging, maybe the occasional word document or perhaps something as adventurous as FTP. So nothing CPU intensive.

Because I wont be doing any gaming or any Windows related tasks I am inclined to install Linux on it (especially after I enjoyed Linux Mint so much), so the specification does not have to be fantastic at all.

The main requirement I have is for the screen to be 15.4″ or under so it is quite portable (17 inch laptops are not fun to carry around) and that the resolution is at least 1024 wide. I get annoyed easily and browsing the web and having to scroll sideways to read a site is quite frustrating. The resolution requirement therefore leaves out the Asus Eee PC and the Everex Cloudbook.

The other important requirment is that it is under £500.

It does however leave me with quite a few options. Now before anyone moans the following laptops vary quite a bit but this is for my requirements rather than a round-up of ultra portables etc. The list is also in no specific order, just how I found them on the net.

At the time of writing the Wind is not actually available and the Aspire is available for preorder.

When I first started this blog post I thought making a list of the laptops I found would give me a nice clear idea of which one I feel is the best for myself. However I feel even more un-decided than when if first started. While I have ruled out most of them I do not feel there is a clear winner.

Initially I was on the verge of getting the HP Mini Note as I liked the look of the screen resolution. However looking around the net the Via CPU in the HP is less powerful than the Atom in the Aspire One and the HP is £100 more. Therefore I am going to rule out the HP.

The Wind clearly does not match up to the Aspire One as the price is quite a bit more while the spec is very similar. Once it is freely available I suspect the price will come down and be more competitive to the Aspire.

If we look at the other end of the spectrum there is the Acer Aspire 5920G. At twice the price of the Aspire One it is quite a big price jump, it is also not the laptop you would chose if you want an ultra portable as it has a 15.4″ screen and weighs over 3 times that of the Aspire (3.36kg vs 0.99 kg). However you do get quite a lot for £450.

The 5920G comes with an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0Ghz, 2048Mb Ram, and GeForce 8600M GS 256Mb graphics, which means this machine should comfortable run Windows Home Premium that is pre-installed.

I think for the time being I may hold off, I am inclined to go with the larger, more powerfully and more expensive 5920G but as it is not a necessity I think I will keep the £450 in my back for a little while.

If you are on the look of for a cheap ultra portable I personally thing the Aspire One looks like a fantastic choice. It is a bargain price with a pretty decent specification. The price of the Aspire one really is a selling point, while £250 will make a noticeable difference on my credit card bill it is only a couple of expensive weekends on the piss. However £450 is quite a lot of weekends out!

I am not the most experienced of Linux users, deep down a am a Windows fanboy, not really out of choice though, more due to the fact I was brought up on them, I have always used them, and the fact that Windows is still the ONLY operating system worth gaming on.

However I have an old laptop that is generally useless with anything other than browsing the Internet or doing some basic work. It was never going to be a gaming machine so I figured Linux offers everything I need + it should perform better than XP. I originally downloaded Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) and for the past 9+ months it has been a decent little machine. Ubuntu offered all the functionality I needed. Granted I didn’t actually need much functionality apart from Firefox, but it did that well. 99% of the time it was used by my Girlfriend to play solitaire or browse the Internet and look at shoes. She doesn’t really share my passion of all things geeky. The other 1% of the time was when I had to leave the office for a meeting or go on holiday.

Anyway as always I get itchy feet and wanted a change, I was going to upgrade to 8.xx (Hardy Heron) but I decided that was too boring and wanted to try something different. Now the thing with Linux is it is not like deciding should I do with Vista Home Premium? Ultimate? 32bit? 64bit? It can be a little more complex than that. Linux comes in many many many flavours (distributions) where basically there is a Linux operating system consisting of the Linux kernal + a bunch of software and libraries. Because Linux is free and open source people have a lot more freedom to do what they want with it, unlike MS where you can’t really do anything with it, certainly not repackage it with your own software than rebrand it!

According to Wikipedia there are currently over 300 distributions of Linux making the choices a little more difficult than which flavour of Vista you want. However the main distributions most people chose include:

• Archlinux, a distribution based on the KISS principle with a rolling release system
• CentOS, a distribution derived from the same sources used by Red Hat, maintained by a dedicated volunteer community of developers with both 100% Red Hat - compatible versions and an upgraded version that is not always 100% upstream compatible
• Debian, a non-commercial distribution maintained by a volunteer developer community with a strong commitment to free software principles
• Fedora which is a community distribution sponsored by Red Hat
• Gentoo, a distribution targeted at power users, known for its FreeBSD Ports-like automated system for compiling applications from source code
• Knoppix, a Live CD distribution that runs completely from removable media and without installation to a hard disk
• Mandriva, a Red Hat derivative popular in France and Brazil, today maintained by the French company of the same name
• MontaVista Software, a commercial embedded Linux distribution found in everything from consumer electronics, networking, mobile, to health, mil/aero, retail and industrial automation devices.
• openSUSE, originally derived from Slackware, sponsored by the company Novell
• PCLinuxOS which is the number 2 distribution on DistroWatch as of April 29, 2008. PCLinuxOS is derived from Mandriva
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux, which is a derivative of Fedora maintained and commercially supported by Red Hat
• Slackware, one of the first Linux distributions, founded in 1993, and since then actively maintained by Patrick J. Volkerding
• Ubuntu, a newly popular desktop distribution maintained by Canonical that is derived from Debian.
• Xandros (not on the list on Wikipedia) I have added this one as it has gained a lot of popularity as it is installed on  he ASUS Eee PC. It is designed to be very user friendly and make the migration from MS to Linux as easy as possible.

Source: Wikipedia

Ok so why is Linux Mint not on the list? Well it is not nearly as popular as some of the other and it is mostly based on Ubuntu (which is based on Debian). The main noticeable differences are the desktop design and user interface.  The latest Mint version (Elyssa) is based on the latest version of Ubuntu (8.04 Hardy Heron).

From DistroWatch

Linux Mint is an Ubuntu-based distribution whose goal is to provide a more complete out-of-the-box experience by including browser plugins, media codecs, support for DVD playback, Java and other components. It also adds a custom desktop and menus, several unique configuration tools, and a web-based package installation interface. Linux Mint is compatible with Ubuntu software repositories.

It has also had some excellent reviews with the main one that sold Mint to me was from Distro-Review.

So time to talk about mint.

I downloaded it via a Torrent, and as always with Linux distributions it was very fast, I think I downloaded it in 10 minutes. It runs from live CD so you can have a play around and decide if you like it before you even have to install it. I have a few minor issues with the live CD as I was using it on my laptop it did not have the advanced graphical features enabled, in fact it did not seem to like the graphics (FX Go 5200) at all and even the text on screen was difficult tor read. Still, no problem it was still easy enough to set up the install which was done in a matter of minutes.

Once the installation was complete I ran into my 2nd problem. The graphics still were playing up, and when trying to automatically install the NVidia drivers from the Synaptic package manager it failed. This led to about an hours worth of frustration trying to download the files from Nvidia and install it all through the terminal which is not an easy task if you are not used to Linux. However then I decided to look around on the net for some installation help it turns out that Mint comes with Envy a package to simplify the installation of the graphics drivers. It literally took 1 minute to install everything properly.

After this little hiccup everything ran smoothly, and Linux Mint is a pleasure to use. It comes with most of the software you probably need pre-installed  including OpenOffice, Firefox, multimedia codecs, drivers etc.

It comes with Mint Update which make updating extremely simple and also Mint Install which links to an online portal of software, you then click install, open the file and everything is done for you.

The rest of the unique mint tools consist of:

• MintInstall: A program to download software from Internet catalogs that distributes mint-files. A mint-file does not contain the software, but it contains all the information and sources to download that software. mintInstall allows users to add software through the use of .mint files.
• MintUpdate: Update-software designed specifically for Linux Mint. MintUpdate assigns updates a safety-level (from 1 to 5), based on the stability and necessity of the update. Updates can be set to notify users (as is normal), be listed but not notify, or be hidden by default. In addition to including updates specifically for the Mint distribution, the development team tests all package-wide updates. This system is designed to prevent inexperienced users from installing updates that are unnecessary or require a certain level of knowledge to configure properly. MintUpdate is currently in beta 1.5 and will be included in the next Mint release. If mintInstall is used to install a program from the default repositories, that program is able to receive updates via mintUpdate.
• MintDesktop: A desktop configuration tool for easy configuration of the Gnome desktop. Also acts as a background process to do various tasks upon login. Also network browsing is made easier (through fusesmb). MintDesktop has received a major overhaul in Mint 4.0.
• MintConfig: (Obsolete from Daryna.) A customizable control center. It gathers all the tools from “Preferences” and “Administration” and organizes them into categories. The purpose of mintConfig was to give users a control center since Gnome didn’t have one. In Daryna only the Gnome Control Center will be present.
• MintAssistant: A customization wizard that appears during first log-in for users, asking a few questions to customize Mint based on the user’s level of knowledge and comfort with various Linux components. It currently asks if the user wants to enable or disable fortune-cookies in the terminal, if the root account should be enabled or disabled, and if Mint should use MintDisk or fstab to mount NTFS-partitions.
• MintUpload: An FTP client that uploads files to a server by right-clicking on the icons and selecting upload. The user will then be given a link he or she can give to other people for quick and easy sharing.
• MintSpace: The larger sibling of MintUpload. Provides an additional 1GB of storage space and files stay on the server for 7 days (rather than 2 days).
• MintMenu: A python-coded menu that allows for fully customizable text, icons, and colors. It shares the same hotlinks to software as the Gnome main menu.
• MintWifi: drivers for quite a few wlan gadgets and mintWifi.py . Located in /usr/lib/linuxmint/mintWifi

Source: Wikipedia

Browsing around Mint is very Windows esque and should be a breeze for even the most novice of users.

Even with the graphical features set to high I found the system ran without any issues.

Overall I am very impressed with Linux Mint. It may not be the version for hardcore Linux geeks but I find it more user friendly that Ubuntu. If, like me, you have an old machine that is a little sluggish then this really is a great OS for it.

For the latest versions and further information go to the main Linux Mint Website.

We are sorry for any inconvenience but we are moving over to a new host and also moving the site over from blog.mightygadget.co.uk to mightygadget.co.uk.

We started the process late last night after a long day at work and due to our stupidity and sleepiness we screwed up the testing process so it has led to the site being down for a few hours! Sorry.

Once all the hosting is sorted out we will be trying to make an active effort to keep the blog as up to date as possible. We have had numerous issues with un-reliable bloggers which we are hoping to rectify. We have a coupe of very delayed posts to make including a review of a Toshiba Qosmio.

Hopefully everything will be running smoothly in a few weeks!!

I was recently provided a sample of the SanDisk Sansa Fuze, the new reasonably priced MP3 player. The player comes in 3 sizes of 2, 4 and 8GB at prices of approximately £55, £70, and £90 respectively (prices taken from play.com). The product also has an option of colours including blue, pink, red, silver, and black. Though Play and Amazon only appear to stock the black version, I am not sure if us Brits are restricted to this colour or not.

One of the first things to note is that this is clearly in the iPod Nano territory. The Fuze is very similar in size to the Nano but is slightly narrower and a little taller, while the nano is more short and wide. It is quite as slim as the Nano (6.5mm) being 7.3mm but I doubt 1mm is going to make a huge difference to the average Joe.

In my mind one of the most important comparisons is price. An 8GB iPod Nano will set you back £134 on Play and is £169.99 RRP. The Sansa Fuze is £89.99 and £99.99 RRP. £44 is quite a large difference, making the iPod Nano around 49% more expensive than the Sansa Fuze. Ouch

It doesn’t look any better for Apple when we look at the 4GB versions. The iPod Nano is £94.99 or £99.99RRP with the Sansa Fuze being £69.99 or £79.99RRP. £25 difference which makes the iPod around 36% more expensive. That does not look to good for Apple.

So anyway lets look at the Sansa Fuze specification:

• Plays videos, music, photos and audio books
• Digital FM radio
• Up to 24 hours for audio playback and 5 hours of video playback with internal rechargeable battery
• Voice recording
• Built-in microphone
• MicroSD/microSDHC slot for additional content expansion
• Videos (MPEG-4) Music (MP3,WMA, secure WMA and audio book file formats), Photos (JPEG).

This makes it a similar spec to the iPod however there are a few additions the iPod lacks. The Fuze comes with a Digital FM radio, voice recording via the built in microphone and also a MicroSD/microSDHC slot for additional storage.

It is worth noting that the Nano has a better screen resolution of 320 x 240 pixels compared to 220 x 176 pixels.

The MicroSD/microSDHC slot is probably one of the main selling points for the Sansa Fuze, and I think it is genius. Basically you can expand the storage of your device using MicroSD cards. Most MicroSD cards come in sizes from 512MB to 8GB, though larger cards are being made, but there is a big price jump. A quick scan on the net and I found an 8GB SanDisk card with adapter for £17.95. So basically you can turn the Sansa Fuze into a 16GB player at a total cost of less than £110. Oh look, even with the extra 8GB storage the Sansa is still cheaper than a 8GB iPod Nano.

Now it is only right that I should warn any potential buyers of one big drawback of using the MicroSD card. When you add new content to the device+MicroSD it takes quite a long time to build the index or library when disconnecting. This really is quite frustrating, however I assume it is unavoidable and it is only needed after you add new content.

I found the actual device quite attractive, the front has a polished black coating while the back is a sort of matt black rubberised coating. Probably not quite as nice as the Nano, but still nice.

The controls are quite iPod esque as well, there is a mechanical clickwheel with a centre button for selecting the item. It is actually very nice to use and combined with the excellent user interface it is a very easy device to use.

As with most MP3 players the supplied earphones are a bit crap. However using some Sennheiser CX500 earphones I found the sound quality excellent.

The radio works excellently, I found no issues with reception.

Video was less promising, files are limited to MPEG-4 files at native screen resolution, which is not eexactly very good support. The quality wasnt amazing either, most likely due to the reduced resolution of 320 x 240 pixels compared to the iPods 220 x 176 pixels.

Connecting the device to the PC is very easy. It works perfectly with WMP 10 or 11 or you can drag and drop as it also acts as a mass storage device. Photos and videos need to be transferred using the Sansa Media Converter. My issue with the connection is the proprietary connector. It really grinds my gears that companies do not use a standard connector link mini-usb, however this is not an issue limited to SanDisk.

Overall I find the player an excellent little device. Yes there are a few issues, but what player is perfect? Its weakest area is probably its video capabilities, but I do not really see this as a huge problem, I would never dream of watching a video on a device with a screen as small as this.

The issue with the device taking ages to merge the MicroSD and main memory is annoying, but I think it is worth it for the flexibility. I am not sure I would want to spend £90 on the 8GB version, I think it maybe better just getting the 4Gb or 8Gb version and buying the 8GB MicroSD card.

If I had to rate this device I would give it a solid 7/10.

Land rover have released a cool little advert during the build up to the Olympic Games. It features Zara Philips (Queen Elizabeth’s grandchild) and supports the British Equestrian Eventing team coinciding with the Olympics.