Camera Labs

That's great Gordon. Just what I wanted to hear. I plan on using the EEE PC on trips instead of a laptop to transfer photos from an SD card to my iPod as backup.

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Nikon D80, Nikkor lenses: 35mm f1.8 G AF-S DX, 50mm f/1.8 AF D, 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G ED-IF AF-S DX, 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED AF-S VR, SB800 flash
My photos on SmugMug

My EEE PC arrived this morning. I've posted some unboxing photos on my Flickr photostream here.



It really is a small device. To give you some idea of scale, here it is next to the lens cap from my 50mm lens.



I'm currently installing Windows XP on it to see how that runs. My first impressions of the default Xandros were good but I want to see how XP runs before I commit myself to an OS.

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Nikon D80, Nikkor lenses: 35mm f1.8 G AF-S DX, 50mm f/1.8 AF D, 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G ED-IF AF-S DX, 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED AF-S VR, SB800 flash
My photos on SmugMug

Lovely! Am quite jealous. How much did it cost you? I understand that while in the US, you can pick these up for 300 bucks, over here in the UK they're not far off 300 quid.

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Nikon D700 | 20mm f2.8 | 28mm f2.8 | 50mm f1.8 | 70-300 f4-5.6 | SB800 | flickr | serial photography

It cost £230. If I'd bought it a few weeks ago it would have been cheaper. They are in short supply and selling for a premium at the moment.

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Nikon D80, Nikkor lenses: 35mm f1.8 G AF-S DX, 50mm f/1.8 AF D, 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G ED-IF AF-S DX, 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED AF-S VR, SB800 flash
My photos on SmugMug

Hi Phil, I'd be interested what you think of XP on it - I'll be doing that on mine very soon. I think it will just illustrate how good the default Xandros installation is though...

I'm really impressed with XP so far. Startup time is about 30 seconds to having a live wifi connection. I have installed Skype, Firefox, Opera and OpeOffice so far and have 1.99Gb of free space on the C: drive. Performance is excellent, it is really snappy for web browsing. I haven't installed the Windows Updates yet but have activated XP. I was going to wait to do that but have been so impressed by the performance that I'm 99.9% sure I'm going to stick with it. I just feel so much more at home and in control in XP than I did in Xandros.

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Nikon D80, Nikkor lenses: 35mm f1.8 G AF-S DX, 50mm f/1.8 AF D, 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G ED-IF AF-S DX, 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED AF-S VR, SB800 flash
My photos on SmugMug

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As this is a networked machine used for browsing the Net what Internet Security Suite are you using? My own experience with modest hardware suggests that this is the class of application most likely to bring the machine to its knees.

Bob.

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OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

I'm currently using the free version of AVG Antivirus together with the Windows firewall. I did try the full version of AVG including the firewall but that did slow things down quite a bit. I'm not planning on downloading any more programs or mail attachments so will stick with this configuration for the next few days. I can always save my XP activation files and go back to Xandros if I want.

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Nikon D80, Nikkor lenses: 35mm f1.8 G AF-S DX, 50mm f/1.8 AF D, 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G ED-IF AF-S DX, 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED AF-S VR, SB800 flash
My photos on SmugMug

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Interesting. You have exactly the solution I chose for my ancient (366MHz) Thinkpad. It's running XP Pro SP2 so as it's only the OS and AVG that access the Net that's good enough for me, especially as my home network sits behind a Cisco firewall. I would be a lot more concerned if I did any browsing with it, though I guess trusted sites have to be, well, trusted!

Given, as far as I know, that XP can't do the same trick will it stress the Eee PC's solid state storage unduly?

I continue to follow your progress (and Gordon's) with interest. Do you see the primary use of an Eee PC as providing a conduit to one or more USB HDD for backup or as a way of more easily reviewing and deleting images on the camera's card in order to release more space?

Bob.

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OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

I definitely see the EEE PC as being a conduit for storing photos whilst away from home. It is so much smaller than my laptop. I bought a Lacie 80Gb Rugged hard disk to go with it which, together with the built in SD card reader, is perfect for for backing up photos.

I also see it as an excellent web access device. Having just gone over to hosted Exchange for my personal email, I can access it easily using Outlook Web Access on my EEE without the need for installing Outlook. The EEE's built-in web cam works well with Skype so it's good for communications.

Another advantage of using XP is that the software is more up to date than under Xandros. For example Skype has a lot more features such as sending SMS. Also I can connect my Windows Mobile phone to the EEE and use it to access the net via 3G.

As for minimising the wear and tear on the SSD, Asus give details of how best to install XP. This includes using a fixed sized pagefile which helps a lot.

I love this little device. I'm using it to post this message from my living room. It is silent, much better than my Vaio. So far the only thing i don't like about it is the location of the right hand shift key. I keep on pressing the up arrow instead.

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Nikon D80, Nikkor lenses: 35mm f1.8 G AF-S DX, 50mm f/1.8 AF D, 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G ED-IF AF-S DX, 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED AF-S VR, SB800 flash
My photos on SmugMug

Thanks Phil,

Gordon, a quick question for you, if I may. I note that the Canon WFT-E3A Wireless File Transmitter for the EOS 40D has an "USB port (which) allows an external hard drive to be directly connected to the camera". When this device is attached is there a 40D menu option which allows the camera's CF card contents to be copied across the the USB HDD unit? The manual has nothing to say on this and this might be a more cost effective option than the Eee PC for some of us.

Bob.

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OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

I've completed running the Windows updates and am now sitting with a Windows folder of 1.59Gb, Program Files at 624Mb and Documents and Settings at 160Mb leaving 1.07Gb free. Start up times have gone up significantly to around 60 seconds (I need to time it properly). This is getting too high and starts to defeat the object of the device. I need to do some more research in getting a Windows Mobile device running as a modem in Xandros. If it can be done I think I'm going to go back to get back the speed since I can do everything in Xandros that I want to do with the EEE PC.

Edit: I just got out my stopwatch and timed the bootup. It now takes over 2 minutes to get to a PC with a live wifi connection. This is not fast enough compared with Xandros so back I go.

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Nikon D80, Nikkor lenses: 35mm f1.8 G AF-S DX, 50mm f/1.8 AF D, 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G ED-IF AF-S DX, 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED AF-S VR, SB800 flash
My photos on SmugMug

Ha! I thought your XPerience was sounding too good to be true!

I'm yet to try XP on it, but suspected it wouldn't be as quick as Xandros, and the whole swap file thing on an SSD - even if it was fixed in size - still concerned me.

I've read people saying their Eee PCs can boot in 14 seconds. Mine takes more like 30 seconds from cold, but that includes connecting to a secured wireless network, and it feels very quick in practice.

I agree a lot of aspects are behind that of Windows, but I think the mobility aspects outweigh the potential 'sophistication' of Windows. As for Skype, download the Linux beta and you'll be able to use the webcam. You do however need to fire-up the camera first using a bit of code, but once Skype goes final, it'll appear in the Asus update control panel. See http://forum.eeeuser.com for some more advice on this - a great resource!

Hi Bob, yep, with a USB storage device connected to the USB port on the WFT-E3(A) a menu will appear on your 40D allowing you to backup a card onto it. BUT the device needs to be formatted as FAT, not NTFS, which is a pain. And unlike the Eee PC, it doesn't support bus-powered drives without a power supply.

One neat thing it can do though is record duplicate images to the card and external storage, or JPEGs to one and RAWs to the other...

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Thanks Gordon. I had managed to forget how horribly expensive the WFT-E3A is. The Eee PC plus an USB HDD is less than half the price of the Wireless File Transmitter plus the same USB HDD so I am gradually being won over to the Eee.

Bob.

_________________
OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.