Real World Computing
Where's my phone?
There's another alternative device, though, albeit one that's usually missed out when magazines and websites do their roundups of the Eee and its competitors. It's significantly smaller and lighter than the Eee, much like the Asus machine it runs Linux, and it has an 800 x 480 pixel screen. The device I'm talking about isn't marketed as a laptop or notebook, though - it's Nokia's N810 Internet Tablet. You might remember how, back in issue 163, I described how it could be used as a highly effective internet radio device.
There's no getting away from the fact that the Asus wins hands down when it comes to the quality of the keyboard, but in many other respects the Nokia trumps the Eee. It has built-in Bluetooth, for example, and a GPS receiver. I've found that the battery on the Nokia lasts a little bit longer, too. But the key thing for me is that the N810 is truly pocketable, whereas you'll want to sling an Eee into a bag when carrying it around. People think of the Eee as a small device, but the N810 is positively tiny in comparison.
But is it realistic to consider the N810 as an alternative to the Eee? I really do think that in many ways it is, because the N810 is a full-blown Linux machine that you can use for doing pretty much anything that the Eee can do: it's great for emailing and has an excellent web browser. One thing to note is that it doesn't (yet) run OpenOffice, but you can run KDE, which gives you Koffice and that will read and write most Office documents just fine. And, if you happen to be online, you could even use Google Docs. For those that like to "tinker" there are active developer forums for both machines.
What really stunned me when I first came across the N810, though, was its price. Ultra-small devices tend to come with ultra-large price tags (take a look at Sony's VAIO price list for evidence of this!). What's more, the N810 is screwed together in typical Nokia fashion, so that not only is it stylish but it also feels rock-solid, way more so than the plasticky Asus. You'd expect it to cost a fortune, but at the time of writing a Google product search finds a vendor offering the N810 for £201 exc VAT, which puts it on direct par with the Eee and makes it a sensible business purchase.
A solitary problem
Here's a tip I found on Jason Langridge's excellent blog. In case you don't know, Jason is Microsoft UK's "Mr Mobile", one of those rare people who combine techie, marketing and PR skills. Of course, he's a Windows Mobile evangelist, so don't expect him to say anything very nice about RIM or other competitors! The issue I spotted on Jason's blog is one that a friend had already mentioned to me, and which I have to admit that, in the five minutes I'd spent trying to help her, I wasn't able to solve.
What she'd been trying to do was stop users in her mobile fleet from spending hours on end playing games on their Windows Mobile devices. She'd managed to block Bubble Breaker by using Mobile Device Manager, but couldn't seem to do anything about Solitaire. She'd entered a rule blocking access to solitaire.exe, but it was being ignored.
When I spotted the solution on Jason's blog I nearly screamed. It's one of those cases where your eyes see one thing but your brain sees something else. Fire up your nearest Windows Mobile device, go into File Explorer and locate the Solitaire application. See how long it takes you to spot the problem. If you can't, the answer is at the bottom of this page.
