When I saw an article on the Internet about someone who had used matte black car tape to cover their EEE. The tape is meant to cover cars as an alternative to painting them and you might have seen similar tape used for large ads on buses and so on. The tape is cheap as it cost me about $30 for a roll shipped to Norway, which in my book is not bad. You should be able to get it much much cheaper if you live in a country like the US and can track somewhere that carries it. Applying it takes some getting used to and air bubbles are much more of a problem with this than with vinyl skins and the likes, but once you get it on the end result is also much better looking. It’s also possible to stretch the tape, which means you can get it to fit around curved edges perfectly without getting any wrinkles. The guy who did this in the article I read said you need to disassemble the netbook to cover it completely, but that isn’t really true. I put sheets of paper over the screen and keyboard and then cut out the screen/keyboard with an exacto knife leaving only the casing with tape on it, easily removing the excess tape as it only stuck to the paper not the screen/keyboard itself (which may have destroyed the LCD or ripped off keys). The end result is awesome, and paired with a matte screen protector you’re left with a netbook that looks a hell of a lot more professional than the glossy, fingerprint magnet nightmares that are actually sold.

Skin is from eBay, the cutouts around the screen didn’t fit 100% but otherwise nice (hadn’t expected 100% perfect from eBay). Matte screen is done with the help of a ViewGuard screen protector.

Tiny DIY USB connector I made for my Sansa Clip+. Instructions here.

DIY angle adapter I made to get rid of those giant USB dongles sticking out.

Moded FiiO E3 USB powered clip-on headphone amp, paired with my Beyerdynamic DT770.

VX Nano mouse and Wacom Bamboo tablet with custom DIY low-profile mini-USB cable.

Sometimes I’m amazed at some of the products that doesn’t exist. Yesterday I was looking around for a anti-dust kit (port covers) for my EEE 1101HA’s unused ports, but only found some for wholesale in China. Other items I’ve needed for my EEE is a better angle adapter, and while you can buy something along the lines of that one it’s nowhere near as small or usable. I also needed a smaller mini-USB cable as I use a Wacom tablet at school to take notes and when it’s placed beside my EEE the USB plug sticks out from the EEE and covers part of the tablet. Apparently, no-one has though of making a low profile USB plug before, at least not as I could find.

Pics really tell the whole story… the angle adapter is covered with Fiio model clay which is a material that you cook in an oven for 30 minutes and it turns hard as plastic. I’ve used it for other projects before and it’s really nice. If anyone require an angle adapter or a small cable, email me using the info here.

(One of the angle adapter pics shows how far the USB drive sticks out without the adapter, faded)

The concept here is two-fold: Add an analog volume knob, and make it USB powered. The volume control part is easy, just wire a stereo potentiometer to the line-in and you have an instant volume control that is much more accessible than the built in digital volume control of any computer. For the second part, you need more parts. USB plug, two 10uF capacitors and a 1.5V voltage regulator. Caps go on both in and out pins (between in and ground, between out and ground) and the USB plug carries the 5V to the input of the voltage regulator where it will magically turn into the 1.5V that the E3 natively runs off of (1x AAA battery).

Lastly I glued both the 3.5mm input jack and the USB plug to the Fiio in a way that makes it plug straight into the side of my EEE 1101HA, no lose cables, and act as a natural extension to my netbook. That way it’s not flimsy or clumsy in any way and I plug my headphones into the E3. The volume control works great and the bass boost is awesome. Best of all, it’s a very cheap project.

Using the 1101HA at school and out and about I often find myself with annoying reflections blocking my view, making it hard to impossible to see anything. I started searching around and found a company called ViewGuard that sold matte screen protectors. The price was decent albeit the shipping rate was a bit much, but I ended up buying two 11.6″ protectors which totalled $60 with shipping. Today they arrived and I managed to put one on at the first try with no air bubbles or trapped dust.

The result is pretty good, and while it does degrade the screen quality slightly it helps immensely with the reflection problem. It spreads out the light making clear reflections a thing of the past, and you’re left with some light blobs instead. Since the eye won’t try to focus on these, it’s very effective at making the screen easier to see.

Below are some pictures showing the result- note that the camera doesn’t provide an accurate representation of the result since it focuses on the screen not the picture behind it. Either way, it works and it works well.

Before:

After:

Outside, screen pointing towards the (cloudy) sky:

Reflection in the frame vs reflection in the screen:

When I first got the new netbook and bag a few weeks ago I immediately put on a new strap and my water bottle hook. Today I bought the school’s new “eco friendly” thermos cup which gives you cheaper hot beverages (hot chokolate in my case) which I need now that the temperature is dropping. As with the water bottle however I’m not a big fan of lugging stuff around in my hands, so I immediately started drawing some skecthes and ideas for how to make a holder for it on my bag.

A few skecthes and some hours later the holder is done, mounted and working perfectly. I also made an addition to the water bottle “device” to make it more stable (not swivel around like crazy). I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

In my wallet I keep fours flat USb drives the thickness of SD cards – or rather 2 USB drives and 2 microSDHC readers with cards in them. These four drives can solve a LOT of problems one might run across when out and about and someone snags you fro some on the spot tech help, and they’ve done so several times.

My most used drive is a bootable version of Ubuntu. I used to have a 8.04 USB drive, but finally got around to making one with the latest version 9.04 on a microSD card (one of the white readers in the pic). This lets me boot any computer into Linux, either to troubleshoot hardware issues (like “my wireless card doesn’t work” “…in windows or at all?”), extract files before re-installing an OS after the current OS won’t boot, or use tools like gparted to non-destructively partition the HDD.

Secondly, a bootable USB drive (again a microSDHC with a reader) with Windows 7 install files. Since I use a netbook all the time, it’s nice to have everything I need to repair or even reinstall the OS if I have to right on the spot (of course I have a dedicated partition for files containing both documents/pictures etc and install files for all apps I use AND backups of FireFox and Thunderbird, so I don’t even need an Internet connection to restore the system 100% on the go – if I have to).

My old taped up 4GB USB drive is currently serving as a portableapps drive, containing my own version of FireFox and Thunderbird as well as 7zip, Open Office etc etc – If I need to move files using the drive for pure storage, or if I’m using someone else’s computer and want my own applications (run straight from the drive without installing), that’s all on the drive.

Lastly, I have a 1GB drive with a bootable version of Spinrite using FreeDOS. Spinrite is an app to do serious bottom level data recovery from hard drives on a much deeper level than those wannabe-tools that run from inside the OS. This little pendrive helped save files from an HDD that the IT guy at work had just a couple of weeks ago.

That’s it, four powerful computer tools that put together take up about 1/3 as much space as a credit card. If you’re a serious geek and used to being ambushed by people who learn by doing stupid things on a computer (like not backing up files) tools like this can make your life a lot easier.

When I first thought about this my ideas were in the realm of a stick-on dock, a “shelf” on the side to hold it and other less practical solutions to keep the phone nearby without falling down places. Finally I got an idea that frankly should have been the first idea I had, but sometimes the easiest solutions come to you last.

Basically I just made a hook by bending some acrylic glass under heat, glued it to an iPhone data cable and that’s it. Now I can just hang the phone on the back of the screen and it will stay in place and most likely also get a better connection since it’s higher up towards the windows. I also shorted the cable a bit by tucking it inside some big pieces of heatshrink so it’s not so long.

It’s a simple project but it works great. The connector is more than strong enough to hold the phone up when you’re sitting still, but I wouldn’t run around with this hanging on as the phone would probably fall off.

Hardware

I haven’t done any internal hardware modifications, but loving accessories I have made my AAO a but more useful with external add-ons.

Battery

The first thing I bought for it was a 6 cell battery, which gives me about 5 hours use. Combine that with the 2 hours from the 3 cell battery that came with it and I can go all day without having to worry about finding a wall socket (I don’t even carry the charger anywhere). It’s a must-have for any netbook and the single most important thing you can get for yours.

Decal

For decorative purposes I ordered a vinyl decal with the Stargate Atlantis logo off ebay which gives the AAO a look, like the gear they use on the show. Not really that useful, but still nice, and there are a LOT of skins out there both like the one I have and full body skins. My favorite decal store, decalgirl, also sells skins for the AAO (however I haven’t tried any as I like my Stargate logo).

Bag

For a long time I used a laptop backpack I bought for my 15″ Dell Inspiron 1501 to carry my AAO as I couldn’t find a good perfect fit netbook bag that was also reasonably priced. Then mymemory.co.uk started selling bags and cases from Aha, including netbook bags. I got the Aha 8.9″ – 10.2″ Netbook Bag – Digital for £12 (free shipping anywhere) which is an awesome deal for an awesome case. It didn’t have a shoulder strap however, so I grabbed one from my old Dell laptop shoulder bag and put it on. It fits the AAo perfectly, has room for a mouse and some accessories (including the extra battery) and most importantly it’s not excessively big.

Mouse

I hate wires and large wireless adapters for laptop use so when it was time to get a mouse for the AAO I went with a Logitech VX Nano. Besides being an awesome mouse (I even use one at home) it has the smallest receiver on the market, so I don’t have to take it out when I move and it just stays in there 24/7. That’s an awesome feature on a netbook! Nowadays there are cheaper Logitech mice with this receiver and you can also get tiny Bluetooth adapters and use a Bluetooth mouse, but I still like the VX Nano simply because it’s awesome.

External memory

Even though I have the A150 model AAO with 120GB HDD, I like to use external memory with it both for backup and in case I need to transfer files. In the left side SD card reader I use a 2GB SanDisk Ultra II SD card which with it’s awesome speed (15MB/s write) is an excellent way of quickly moving files between the AAO and my home PC. I also use a Kawau tiny microSD reader which is even smaller than the VX Nano receiver. I have a 2GB card in it at the moment, but I grabbed a Lexar Class 4 8GB microSDHC cardfor £10 on sale from mymemory a few days ago which will sit it in. The reader/card combo will be my new “always with me” pendrive in case I need to transfer large files to anyone, or send something with people home etc (which happens a lot since people around me appear to be too dumb to get shit themselves). If the AAO was a starship, the 2GB SD card would be the escape pod while the 8GB reader/card flashdrive would be the shuttlecraft (yei for Star Trek metaphors).

Software

Desktop

For the desktop I wanted a bit more clean of a look with my low resolution AAO than I have with the dual screen home PC. I installed Rocketdock, an application that gives you a highly customizable MacOS-style application dock on a Windows machine. I then removed all icons from the desktop (to remove the Recycle Bin in Windows XP Home you need the Microsoft program TweakUI) and put on a new wallpaper. I configured the whole setup to do the following:

• Start menu bar in Windows auto-hides
• Rocketdock auto-starts on bootup
• Rocketdock auto-hides
• Minimized apps show in Rocketdock, noticable in the screenshot if you look at the right side of the dock after the second seperator).
• Running apps are marked in Rocketdock by a small arrow, noticable in the screenshot with the mIRC, Gtalk, Pidgin and Photoshop icons. Clicking a running app will bring up the open window, NOT launch another copy of the application.
• Recycle bin, clock and a battery life docklet (widget) is located behind their own seperators in Rocketdock.
• Icons zoom bubble-style when you hover over them (second screenshot).

It works very well and gives the AAO that nice Mac-feel to it, as well as it freeing up screen real estate by not needing the start meny bar. Looks awesome and works very well.

FireFox

The 1024×600 resolution on the AAO is really annoying for webbrowsing because the various toolbars take up so much vertical space. You can use full screen mode, but that’s annoying too because you lose the bookmarks toolbar which is what I use most of the time.

The solution to this is a plugin called AutoHide. It allows you to decide what shows and what hides or doesn’t display at all in fullscreen mode, including the various toolbars. i have mine set to always display bookmarks and tabs (meaning they don’t even hide like normal fullscreen mode) with the address bar being hidden, meaning it pops up only when I hover over the top of the window. I also have it to always display the status bar, the thin little bar at the bottom which a lot of plugins like Firebug, Xmarks and Download Statusbar uses for shortcuts (you can only see Xmarks in the screenshot as I had just installed the two others and not restarted the browser).

This works perfectly as it frees up a lot of vertical space and gives you way more screen real estate than ruinning FireFox normally. The two screenshots below show the difference.

(this is an old article transferred from my old site)

Parts were harvested from some random USB equipment I had lying around – A USB portable battery from DX (which turned out to suck) gave the female end and an old SDHC reader donated the male end. Some soldering and glue gunning later followed by some black electrical tape for the look and I had a working adapter. It’s easy to do, works great and will prob end up saving both you USB port, USB drive and your sanity.