Comments on: Google Chrome on the webbook

By: Kevin Sweeney

Kevin Sweeney — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 22:26:17 +0000

I’m also one of the handful of people who openly acknowledge that Chrome is awful. It contains some really obvious errors, has dreadful usability and convenience issues, and, given that it’s largely based on existing engines, it’s surprisingly lacking in substance. Google really didn’t do much to cobble their browser together; it often surprises me how shoddy some of Google’s output is.

By: Lee

Lee — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 17:46:50 +0000

thanks to: Alan Bell for the info.

demonangel2uk2007

By: Alan Bell

Alan Bell — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 21:40:00 +0000

@Lee, well I know nothing about how one might put XP on a USB pen drive, but I have booted Linux on a USB drive, in the bios you have to change the order of the hard drives, not change the order of the boot devices. After booting from it you have to go back into the hard drive section of the bios to turn back on the SATA drive. I don’t think the grub bootloader works on USB devices for some reason, so I am not sure if the Microsoft bootloader will work. Give it a go and let me know how you get on.

By: Lee

Lee — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 17:15:53 +0000

i have a webbook it ha linux unbutu on it. Is there a way to boot windows xp on it from a 2gb usb pen drive????????????

Thanks in advance.

demonangel2uk2007

By: Alan Bell

Alan Bell — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 17:31:36 +0000

apparently there is something called amsn which might help http://www.amsn-project.net/index.php you can install what looks like the latest version by going to System-Administration-Synaptic Package manager.

By: Alan Bell

Alan Bell — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 17:25:31 +0000

Well I have never seen Windows live messenger, but as I understand it Pidgin (it is spelt as in pidgin English rather than the bird, the icon is a joke) does connect to MSN. I am guessing MSN messenger got renamed to Windows Live Messenger? So what does Windows Live Messenger do that Pidgin doesn’t?

By: DaveA

DaveA — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:07:51 +0000

Hi, sorry, probably not in the right place and my answer has probably already been posted somewhere but i’m at the end of my tether. I have tried, without success, to install Windows live messenger on my sons webbook. He doesn’t mind the linux st-up and the firefox browser, but wants ‘his old messenger back’. Any suggestions please before it bocomes yet more clutter on his bedroom floor. Yes, I know Pidgeon is there, but he doesn’t like it.

Many thanks

Dave

By: aitch

aitch — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 08:44:24 +0000

I too have been using the closed version of VB for over a year now (alas I have to have XP for one work program, the seamless mode is just perfect for that).
@ Adam: no, you’re not alone, I didn’t like Chrome either. It wasn’t at all intuitive to me. But horses for courses, choice is always good.
@Nearly Legal, I agree with the “less than beautiful” remark. However, the webbook’s practicality makes it shine for me. The ease of upping the RAM in particular, compared to one of the other, definitely more pleasing to the eye, netbooks on the market gives it an edge for me (albeit to only 1GB). And the apparent ease of HD upgrade too – not done that yet but love the way the cassette just slides out (I hate machines that look as though you’re not meant to want to ‘play’ with them as well as use them!).

By: Nearly Legal

Nearly Legal — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 22:24:57 +0000

The networking is still a pain if you want to run the VM as effectively a freestanding machine on the network, at least over wifi. The Closed version is not much better than the Open Source version in that regard, as far as I can tell in my limited messing about.

The set up via Ethernet is apparently much easier, using bridging, but I don’t want to tether the webbook. I’ve just found that my current set up intermittently knocks the host machine off the local network, but not off the internet, when the VM and tap0 is running. It just doesn’t happen consistently enough to figure out.

By: Alan Bell

Alan Bell — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 20:13:19 +0000

@Nearly Legal,
interesting comments about the closed source version of Virtualbox. I use the Free one all the time, the networking setup is indeed a pain if you want your VM to be running a server of some kind. I didn’t realise networking was better in the closed version.