The Mobile Commuter

ULTRAPORTABLE LAPTOPS

As the new school year approaches and a fresh semester around the corner, I decided I needed something smaller and lighter for my commute. In the past, I lugged around my massive 15in Dell laptop, but that was when I was still driving my car to school. This summer, Ultraportable Laptops have been released left and right.

It all started with the 8.9in Asus EEE:



Asus was the first company to come out strong with an ultraportable laptop late in 2007. But I feel Asus has dug themselves in a hole as they seem to be far more expensive than their new competitors. As the only company in the market at the time, I can see why Asus would opt for higher prices, but as more and more companies join the battle of the best Ultraportable laptops, they'll need to lower their prices to match the competition and stay afloat. Price was the main reason I quickly passed up the EEE.

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Over the course of the summer, I've been following various ultraportable laptops and anticipating different models to come out.

Here are the few different laptops I've been reading up on and debating on:

Acer Aspire One:

Aspire One Website
Bit-Tech Acer Aspire One
LaptopMag: Acer Aspire One - An In Depth Look

I almost bought the Acer Aspire One. This was the one I was most interested with. It only cost about $375 and offered more bang for the buck. But with so many rumors of other ultraportables coming out, I held out and watched the competition.
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MSI Wind:

MSI Wind Website
LaptopMag: MSI Wind Review

The MSI Wind was another one I considered. But one of the main things that made me not want to go ahead with the Wind is that I did not trust MSI as much. I've never really heard of MSI laptops or anyone who owns one. The MSI Wind comes in 10in which seems to be the best size for ultraportables nowadays.

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Dell Inspiron 910:

This product is not released yet. The expected release date is this Friday, August 22nd.

One of the main reasons I did not want to purchase the previous ultraportables was because of this. Dell boasts their ultraportable at only $299. The cheapest price so far for an ultraportable. This Dell looks like it has the potential to sweep through the competition and come out on top. But having a Dell in the past, I wanted to try something new and I've always questioned Dell's lack of quality. Out of all the ultraportables so far, I expect this one to be amongst the top contenders in the field.

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After reading reviews after reviews and waiting for the Dell Inspirion 910 to come out, I finally pulled the trigger on the Lenovo IdeaPad S10.

Lenovo IdeaPad S10:

Lenovo IdeaPad S10 Website

I ended up getting a Lenovo. Having been IBM in the past, I've always heard nothing but great things about IBMs and Lenovo's. Before the MSI Wind and the Lenovo, you only had to choose from 13in laptops to 8.9in laptops. MSI and Lenovo really hit the sweet spot when they both came out with 10in models. I believe 10inches is just perfect. Small enough to be mobile and big enough to enjoy the screen.

It should take a few weeks to get my laptop, so I'll post up pictures when I can!

7 Reasons the 21st Century is Miserable

Came across this website at work today. Pretty interesting read I might add. The article is called 7 Reasons the 21st Century is Miserable. The author attempts to present an argument which shows why our current generation becomes more lonely and ultimately "Miserable."

You can find the article here: http://www.cracked.com/article_15231_7-reasons-21st-century-making-you-miserable.html

Check the link for a more in depth analysis of each of the 7 reasons, for my own enjoyment I've listed my own brief analysis. You might have to read the original article to understand what I'm saying.

#1 We don't have enough annoying strangers in our lives.
This is a pretty interesting concept by the author. Seems as though our current generation lacks tolerance for annoyance. With all the new and compelling technologies out there, we have found various ways to avoid annoyance, awkward situations and confrontations all together. We slap on our ear phones and listen to our ipod's and drown out reality with our music. Or we sit somewhere texting away to a friend that is miles and miles away. We do these things to keep ourselves from interacting with the world. More importantly, we do these things to keep ourselves from "having" to interact with the world. With the abundance of technology currently present, we no longer need to interact with the world so much. This has led to our low tolerance of annoyance. The tolerance which makes it possible to live together with others in our daily lives. The tolerance which makes it possible to interact with society in a peaceful manner despite our differences. This tolerance is getting lower and lower, and when forced to interact with society, we are unable to deal with the annoyances of the world.

#2 We don't have enough annoying friends either...
Another interesting concept by the author. We're all born into a world where no one is alike yet we still strive to find people through a commonality. I use to believe that if I'd surround myself with people with common interest and personalities, things would be great. I was only quick to find that we cannot hang out with ourselves, and the more we strive to find these common people, the closer we come to realizing that no two people are alike. It all comes back to our low tolerance of annoyance. Dealing with incompatible people is what makes up our society. We're all incompatible people living on the same planet.

#3 Texting is a shitty way to communicate
I don't know about everyone else but I think it's pretty annoying when you're hanging out with someone and they're constantly texting every 5 mins. It's like they're there with you yet they're not. Now that my pet peeve is out of the way, the author talks about how when 2 people are interacting in person, it is easy to read what the other person is feeling and understand what they're saying. But texting and e-mailing? There was a study that found that 40% of what you say in a text or email is misunderstood.
Many times, I'd sit at home on AIM and I'm pretty confused at what these people are saying to me. I can read what they're saying, but its hard to sense the sarcasm or the non-sarcasm.

I'd have to agree that texting and e-mailing is a poor poor form of communication. Many times we're stuck with the wrong impressions. If most of your social life is online via text, AIM, e-mail, facebook etc. Than chances are 40% of you is lost in translation.

#4 Online company only makes you lonelier
There was another study done which pointed out that when two people are face to face in person, only 7% of the communication is verbal and the rest of the 93% is nonverbal via body language, expression etc. Is it me or are people these days clueless in how others feel? It might be a lost art these days, or going to be in the near future. Human interaction, reading expressions, we're lost in the texting and cyber world where all that is unnecessary. We're at a lost of human interaction while 40% of what we say over the cyber world is misunderstood. We feed off of other people's energy, without it we're as lonely as ever.

#5 We don't get criticized enough
The author goes on and talks about how instead of being criticized we're being insulted most of the time.

"An insult is just someone who hates you making a noise to indicate their hatred. A barking dog. Criticism is someone trying to help you, by telling you something about yourself that you were a little too comfortable not knowing."

It all comes back to our lack of tolerance for annoyance. People these days don't like confrontations, they don't like to initiate things. They're scared of the intervention and brutal honesty. Instead they just let the person go on and on not knowing what's up. With that we turn to e-mail and texting. E-mails and texting are perfect tools to use to avoid these things. Speaking through e-mail and texting, we're in control of what we're trying to say and the person we want to portray. The person reading it, can't see your mood, emotions, or anything. You are in full control while you hide behind your armor that is e-mail and texting. This is true, as I am writing this post, i re-read over and over to make sure I don't sound stupid. I have the option of erasing and re-editing what I want to say before i publish the post.

If you browse around people's myspaces and aim profiles, you can see what type of person they want to portray themselves as. Do they want to show pictures of them sitting at the computer playing WoW all day? Or that wild night they had 3 years ago?

#6 We're victims of the outrage machine
Life is obviously better today than it was 50 years ago. And yet our current generation looks miserable and our fascination of "emo" is off the chart. Our parents had the Vietnam War which claimed tens of thousands of lives, while we had the Iraq war which has not come close to the darkness of the Vietnam War. But don't get me wrong, any war is dark, but the magnitude was just that much more great. The author argues that today's blogs, news sites, etc. are all fighting for views and hits and to do that, they consistently post the most outrageous news stories. So we're constantly surrounded by darkness.

#7 We feel worthless because we actually are worthless
The one good thing which comes from lack of friends or online friends are that they demand less of you.

"The problem is you are hard-wired by evolution to need to do things for people. Everybody for the last five thousand years seemed to realize this and then we suddenly forgot it in the last few decades."

I think this is true. These days it is exceptionally hard to find anyone who is willing to lend a helping hand. Or even more or less willing to be a friend. Everyone is tied up in their cyber lives, whether it is chatting on AIM or roaming forums, we'd much rather do that than go out of our ways to help someone. In the cyber world, we again have full control, and in the real world we have no control. We're social animals, and without that social interaction we're worthless. We're only as liked as the actions we do. So if you're sitting there starring at the computer screen all day, either facebooking, chatting, looking at porn, don't wonder why you feel the way that you do.
Once again, instead of sitting there listening to music with the sole intent to feel emo, get up and snap out of it.

It turns out, apparently, that after you get over that first irritation, after you shed your shell of "they listen to different music because they wouldn't understand mine" superiority, there's a sort of comfort in needing other people and being needed on a level beyond common interests. It turns out humans are social animals after all. And that ability to suffer fools, to tolerate annoyance, that's literally the one single thing that allows you to function in a world populated by other people who aren't you. Otherwise, you turn emo. Science has proven it.

We're all constantly trying to define ourselves and portray ourselves a certain way. In the end we're all worthless. We think gamers are pathetic when many of us do the same things. We're hypocrites and we're fickle. We want to be as large as life as we sway from one side of the spectrum to the other striving to find the perfect life.

Why do we feel worthless?
Deep down inside all of us, we know the truth of what we are and what we do daily.
We can lie to everyone, but to ourselves we can't escape the truth.
At the end of the day, its only you.