Just having a lunch in a local Rutherford Cafe.

There doesn’t seem to be a free WiFi Service anywhere around so I’ve turned on my HTC Desires Hotspot capability and am now on the web writing this.

I’m using a HP Mini 110 which came with Windows 7 and Splashtop pre-installed.

For those that don’t know Splashtop is a Linux BIOS based quick boot setup. My first response to Splashtop was how cool then I ran into the restriction of not really being able to run anything I like locally. If it supported a PPTP client and Libre Office I wouldn’t have a problem using it exclusively. Ahh well.

Plan B. Using the Wubi (Windows Ubuntu Installer) I’ve installed Ubuntu 11.04 Netbook Edition Beta. The install is easy. It’s (U11.04NB Beta) still got some strange window modality problems (i.e. Windows that don’t shut when asked – for example the privilege elevation password dialog). But I’m way happier with it than with W7 Starter Edition. It feels snappier than W7 and the new Unity desktop seems not to get in my way too much.

While I’ve been typing this I’ve had a call from my boss and have successfully VPN’d to work using the network-manager-pptp functionality and tsclient to hook up to some remote Windows Servers so it all seems quite useable.

Anyway Ubuntu 11.04 Netbook Edition and Android Hotspot FTW.