Saturday, May 11, 2013

My new toy.

After over twelve years my Palm m130 decided to go to that digital graveyard in the sky.  The battery wouldn't hold a charge, the power button didn't work and the only way I could turn it on was to use a pin in the reset button.  I decided to go with the Google Nexus 7 since my wife bought herself one just before Christmas and she just loves the machine.

I picked up the 16 gig version and I couldn't be happier.  Most of the software I use is free and almost replaces the Palm m130 completely in functionality.  The only thing I cannot find that is free (so far) is a contact manager.  I want one that is very similar to what the palm has in that it records names, addresses emails and birthday/anniversary information in one spot.

The device itself runs a version of Linux and from what I see using it... It is great!  I am now using it as my main machine to pick up Google mail, Facebook and Twitter.  The thing just works and I have not had any issues with it locking up unlike a certain operating system I will leave unnamed.  I also installed Avast as it is only a matter of time before the 'nasties' start making the presence known.  I am using Avast as I have switched us all from AVG at home.  I liked AVG until they made a major mess on this netbook and my main laptop that required me to completely rebuild both machines.

On another note PCLINUX finally put out a 64 bit version of their distribution and I am playing with it now.  I wanted the 64 bit as it would recognize all of the memory in my main laptop unlike their 32 bit offering.  Now all I have to do is figure out how to set up dual boot and use Windows 7 only for a few games and Linux for everything else.  If anyone who has done this for windows 7 please leave me a note on where I can find a 'how-to-do' for this.