Turn Your Netbook Into A Desktop

Russel CPatalinghog — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 15:04:11 +0000

I have always believed in downsizing my gear: not just my photo gear but also my electronic gear. As a techie, I tend to collect a lot of electronics, from mobile phones to computers. There was a point in my life that I collected so much gadgets, I couldn’t decide which one to use. Those days are over, and now I try to limit my gadgets to those that I actually need.

Six months ago, I made the hard decision of letting go of my Asus laptop because:

I was using my netbook more.
I wasn’t doing any heavy computing at home anymore.
It’s more practical to bring my netbook with me( in terms of weight and battery life : netbook=9hours vs laptop 2hours).
The Asus laptop is getting old, and cheap and I’ll just lose more money if I sell it at a later time.

It may sound counter-productive, trading a full size laptop to a netbook, but it’s not. For my needs, the netbook was more than enough. The fact that I don’t have a big powerful laptop also made one “habit” of mine disappear: the habit of taking my work everywhere, including my home. Ever since I removed the option of doing work at home, I got back a lot of quality time.

Three months ago, I decided to give my netbook a new home. Previously, it just stayed on top of my table with my other gadgets, when not is use. My computer table was looking empty without my old laptop, when I had this idea to turn my netbook into my desktop workstation. You may ask,”Why don’t you just buy a desktop?” Well, honestly, I will, but the need for it isn’t that great because my MSI Wind U100 can handle my web, office, and writing tasks pretty well. Perhaps when I’ve already succeeded in setting up a home-based business, that’s the time I’ll buy a desktop.

So back to my netbook /desktop conversion. The process of making my MSI Wind U100 into a desktop workstation is pretty straight-forward: just buy the accessories.

Here’s the list of accessories I bought:

Additional LCD (SGD278)

This is the biggest “accessory” of my netbook: a 23” Dell Full HD LCD Monitor. I use this when I work at home. I mainly work on documents and graphics, both work benefits greatly with a 23″ monitor. I can view 2 A4 size documents side by side at 100% zoom level. I can do split screen browsing when doing web-related work. Example: I’m researching on a topic: I have half of the screen occupied by my text editor or one instance of my browser showing Google Docs, and the other half occupied by my web browser. So as I research on my browser, I can easily copy and paste links and text to the article I’m writing on the other side of the screen.

For those asking if using a bigger monitor slows down my netbook, the answer is NO. I don’t have a problem with refresh rates and I can even play a 720p movie fullscreen, and it doesn’t lag. But when it comes to graphic intensive games, don’t expect them to play well, or at all, in netbooks, that’s just asking too much. Remember that netbooks weren’t designed to handle those kinds of tasks: It’s called a “net”book for a good reason.

Extra Keyboard (SGD15)

For those with big hands, a full keyboard works wonders. Let’s face it, the keyboards on netbooks are good to use for around a couple of hours at most. After that, your wrists begin to hurt.

Extra Mouse (came with my netbook)

Using the touchpad on your netbook is okay for at most an hour, but after that it becomes a pain. Get a mouse. I suggest you get the wireless mouse kind so that you’re not hassled by all those wires.

External Harddrive (SGD +/- 185)

You need this to create backups regularly. You don’t want to lose all your data when you’re netbook meets an accident while your using it outside, like in a park, coffee shop, or on a bus. Now that the price of storage is going down, cost of the Gigabytes is no long a big issue.

External DVD Reader/Writer (came with our other PC)

For those rare instances that you would need to access CDs and DVDs, you need an external DVD drive. I also find it useful for creating backups of your files especially photos.

Travel Charger (SGD +/-30)

Even if you have a 6 or 9 cell battery that can last 4-10 hours, you would still need to charge your netbook. An MSI Wind Wall/Travel Charger comes in pretty handy because of it’s size. The normal power adapters for netbook will come with a power block and a power cord. The travel charger is just one piece with the power block on one end and the connector for the netbook on the other end.

I have two power adapters now: one for home, and one for traveling.

External Speakers (SGD 19.95)

If you enjoy listening to music or watching movies on your netbook, I really recommend you buy a pair of good portable speakers. I bought Sonic Gear Lab’s 2GoNow Mobile Speakers. It’s small, can be powered by AAA batteries and connects to any device that has a 3.5″ jack. I even used it once during our 10Km Dragon Boat Race; imagine paddling to the beat of Black Eyed Peas’ Boom Boom Pow and I got Feelin’.

A good USB Hub (I got it as a giveaway)

If you plan to connect a lot of devices to your netbook, you NEED to get a USB hub so that you don’t run out of USB ports. I have a 4-port USB hub that allows me to connect 4 USB devices to just one USB port (pretty useful).

To wrap things up, I’m simply sharing my experience of using a netbook as a desktop. I know to some it’s not practical, but again, your needs may not be the same as mine. Hopefully if you do decide to go down the same path, you find the things I shared above useful.

—Russel

PS.

I wrote this post on my netbook desktop, on a 23″ screen while watching a movie, downloading files, and facebook browsing; thank goodness for all this screen space.

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The module apologizes in a climate.

The Digital Light Scribe » netbook accessories

Turn Your Netbook Into A Desktop