Michael Harper’s Tech & Art Blog

My latest gadget is the HP Mini 1000 - a very stylish netbook that has completely changed the way I see netbooks. I purchased this netbook for my wife to replace her older HP dv1000 laptop. We purchased this item from Best Buy for $350.

The main feature we were searching for in a good netbook was a keyboard that wouldn’t cramp our hands too much. It seems that any netbook under the 10″ mark totes incredibly toddler-sized keys. This was originally why I strayed away from them completely (that and the extreme price markup online and off). I reviewed many netbooks and it seems that even online vendors were backing down on their prices. The cheapest I found this netbook anywhere else at the time was from TigerDirect.com (I believe) for $300.

I have written a few posts recently that have reviewed the latest version of Ubuntu. At first, it seemed, I wouldn’t be able to use Ubuntu 9.04 because of extreme graphical issues. My main issued was caused by Ubuntu Studio. Now, I have finally found the method of installation that proves to be the stablest and hassle-free.

I tried a clean install of Ubuntu Studio 9.04 only to have major issues. Nothing worked. Then I tried upgrading from Ubuntu 8.10 to Ubuntu Studio 9.04. Same problems. After much dismay and trying other distros, I made the decision to do a clean install of Ubuntu 9.04 and what do you know - amazing results. The latest Ubuntu is amazing. Very stable and I’ve had several issues fixed permanetly including working wifi and certain graphical issues.