Oh, well, couldn't resist... Before posting, a quick question: over in the US does 3G aka "UMTS" play role at all? I doubt it since the first iPhone didn't come with it... Some high end netbooks over here in Europe are equipped with a UMTS modem which at 3.6MB/s is more then fast enough for putty/ssh connections to servers. On 06/01/2010 04:02 AM, Kellyn Pedersen wrote: > I think I might be the only one who does this and it works well for me, > but other techies are kind of surprised when they hear me describe my > mobile work solution- > > I like to have access via a laptop at a moments notice, but I don't want > to even carry my Sony laptop at 5lbs. My solution is a netbook. I > currently have two- One stays in my travel trailer for weekends where I > need to get away, but am still on call, (Wi-fil campgrounds, what a > world we live in...LOL) I carry the other one around with me just about > everywhere and they are only two pounds with a 10 inch screen, so it's > easy to have in a small padded sleeve in any bag. Very similar here, but I am using a Toshiba R600. It's a 12.1 screen laptop with a proper (i.e. non Atom) processor. Weights less than 1 kg for us Europeans out there and has 2 cores powerful enough to do all work I ask it to. Screen is great even in sunlight on a train, but the keyboard is a bit flimsy. Also looked at a MacBook Air and IBMs ThinkPad X200S but both were too expensive. If money hadn't mattered I would have gone for the X200S-beautiful! The MacBook Air lacks connectivity IMO but is the most beautiful portable I have seen. As with the 10" netbooks your hands get tired after an hour or so of concentrated typing. > I log in via wireless > connection, (surprising how much wi-fi is available or if in a crunch, I > can login in using my blackberry as a modem.) I remote desktop into > either my pc at work or a server so the work machines takes the brunt of > the resource requirements. Netbooks are cheap enough that if anything > happened to one of them- not a big issue. My Acer has a 1yr warranty > and as harsh as I am on keyboards- I sent it in a month back and had it > back in one week with a brand new keyboard. It had to be the easiest > warranty support transaction I've been through. The R600 came at GBP 700 so not exactly cheap, but still cheaper than many of the 12.1 subnoteboooks on the market. > I did wipe the machine and load my own OS installs, doubled the memory > on both of them, (so I'm on Windows 7 with the bizarre limit on memory > for XP, which I do prefer...) and I have quite small hands, so the > smaller keyboard isn't an issue for me at all. When I had to send it > in, I just backed up my OS load, etc. re-installed the factory > installation, (it fits on a 16GB jump drive!) and then there was no > concern of vulnerability... My laptop dual boots OpenSuSE 11.2 and Windows Vista (came pre-installed), but I use openSSH with profiles in ~/.ssh/config a lot, port forwarding etc. The only issue being when having to use propitiatory VPN clients such as Cisco-then I have to boot Windows :( > > I work well this way and I find I'm one of the few professionals that [avoiding overquoting] Martin -- Martin Bach OCM 10g http://martincarstenbach.wordpress.com http://www.linkedin.com/in/martincarstenbach -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l