100 Portable Applications for your USB

From the MakeUseOf site, here's a list of portable applications you use on your Eee PC (Windows version).

Note: Per the site, a portable app is one you can carry around with you on a portable device (e.g. USB flash drive) and use on any other computer. It can be your email program, your browser, system recovery tools or even an operating system. The coolest part about it, is that all of your data and settings are always stored on, say your USB drive, so when you unplug it, none of your personal data is left behind.

Among the apps listed (with their respective download links) are:

1. Portable Office Software
2. Portable Email/Calendar/ToDo Programs
3. Portable Text and Voice Messengers
4. Portable Media Tools (Audio / Video)
5. Portable Graphics Viewers and Image Editors
6. Portable Browsers and Web Tools (FTP, Feedreaders, Torrent clients…)
7. Portable Security Software
8. Portable Games
9. Other Portable Utilities
10. Portable Developer Tools (Techies Only)
11. All-In-One Packages
12. Portable Operating Systems (’HowTo’ Articles)
13. USB ThumDrive Tips

There are also download links for how-to articles as well as tutorial on various operating systems.

Check out the site - it definitely is worth your while.

Installing unsupported applications

This is actually the second part of Brad Linder's tutorial as posted in Download Squad. It is also the second tutorial on installing program in this blog. The first, Installing Programs on the Asus Eee PC, was posted earlier.

There are three ways to install applications on the Eee PC.

1. You can use the apt-get command in a terminal window.
   
2. You can download, uncompress, and install applications manually using a terminal. But it's not user friendly at all.
3. You can use the Synaptic package manager which is a graphical interface for apt-get.
   

Brad's tutorial covers the last one, which is actually the recommended method. But before you use the Synaptic package manager you need to enable Full Desktop Mode. (See previous post, Enabling Full Desktop Mode in Asus Eee PC.)

With theSynaptic package manager will see a list of installed applications and a few uninstalled but available ones. You can also add repositories to gain access to other applications, though not all will be be compatible or may require more powerful configurations.

At any rate, just knowing and having access to more software will always come in handy, so check out the complete tutorial here.

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Additional information regarding Xandros (and Debian) repositories is available at the Eeeuser forum. It is highly recommended that readers read the entire Eeeuser article to familiarize themselves with what is compatible and what is not.

Installing Audacity on the Eee PC

Fellow blogger Brad Linder has followed through with his plan to install some audio editing software as reported earlier in this blog (see Asus Eee PC for Digital Audio Editing?)

As reported in his blog, Brad Linder's Digital Home, he managed to install Audacity, an audio editor. Here is part of his report -

The Asus Eee PC has a sound recorder, but that won't get you very far if you're editing podcasts or radio stories. Ardour might be pushing it a bit, so I figured I would try to install Audacity. There's a simple add/remove programs dialog included, but right now there are only a handful of programs that you can download and most of them are actually just updated versions of the applications that ship with the Eee PC.

While working to connect the Eee PC to my home network so I could play some music off of a shared drive (it comes with Amarok), I noticed that there was an option to "Open Console Window" in the File Manager. For some reason this option is grayed out when you're in some directories. But when you're browsing attached storage devices or shared network drives, it shows up.

So I fired up the console and typed "apt-get install audacity." Nothing happened. Actually I got some error messages. I figured I'd have to add some repositories. To make a long story short, here is how to install Audacity, and presumably a bunch of other programs on an Eee PC:

1. Open that console window by going to File Manager and clicking Tools/Open Console Window
2. Navigate to //etc/apt
1. You do this by first typing "cd //"
2. Then type "cd etc"
3. And finally "cd apt"
3. Now it's time to edit your source list using the vi text editor
   
1. Type "sudo vi sources.list"
2. User the arrow keys to put your cursor just below "deb http://update.eeepc.asus.com/p701/en p701 main
3. Hit the "i" key to enter insert mode
4. Type "deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian/ stable main"
5. Hit the "esc" key to exit insert mode
6. Press "ZZ" in order to exit and save
4. Now you should be back at the console
5. Type "sudo apt-get update" to get an updated list of available packages
6. Type "sudo apt-get install audacity" to install audacity.
   
7. Select yes when it asks if you want to continue
8. When Audacity is done installing, type "audacity" to launch the program.

And you're all set. Don't expect Audacity to be a speed demon on a 900MHz processor. And by default, sound files are larger than your screen so you'll need to do some resizing of your windows to make everything fit. This is a common problem on the Eee PC, but it's not insurmountable. Usually.

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Go and read the complete review on his site, especially if you are into digital audio. It is worth it. Definitely.

Unicap and UCView on the Asus EeePC

Again, submitted by reader kyle zetts, an article on the webcam application of the Asus Eee PC from the Unicap site -

UCView is a pre-installed app on the Asus Eee that allows users to make snapshots and video sequence with the integrated webcam. UCView uses the unicap toolkit for image capturing and display.

Size comparsion between Apple Macbook and Asus EeePC

Basic Configuration

The Xandros operating system which comes with the EeePC is customized to accommodate the specific constrains of the machine - most notably the small size of the permanent storage. The EeePC comes with disk size as low as 2 GB and this size has to contain the whole OS, its apps and user data as well.

One of the strengths of the OS is the fast boot time of 26 seconds.

As said, disk space is limited, so it is of special interest how much space the OS leaves to the user in the default installation. On the 4GB model I have, there are about 1.3 GB available to the user.

The device CPU is an Intel Celeron M @900Mhz. There is a cooling fan that activates after a while. When the desktop is idle or under low load, the fan is rather quiet and only noticeable in a quiet working environment. It does not seem to get much louder when the CPU is under load.

Hardware Peripherals

The EeePC can be extended via 3 USB ports. Network connectivity is made either via a wired 100 Mbit ethernet port or via 56 Mbit WiFi both of which are powered by Atheros chips. The WiFi antenna can be disabled via a switch.

Stereo speakers are mounted to the left and right of the display and take up a great portion of the lid / The 7" display has a resolution of 800x480 pixels and is controlled by an Intel GMA 915 on-board controller. Also accelerated video is available via Xv.

The touchpad is controlled via the Synaptics driver. It has a scroll area on the right side but does not seem to be multitouch capable. It is rather small but, after getting used to the small size, it is quite precise. The keyboard is smaller than standard size.

The device is equipped with a single 512 MB standard memory module. It can be replaced by a 1GB module. There is no swap space configured with the default installation. It also has an SDHC reader.

The battery has 5200 mAh capacity which is enough to power the device for about 3-4 hours. The power adaptor is small and light compared to some other notebook chargers. It has a quite long cable of about 2 meters.

Memory and Expansion Slot of the EeePC

Integrated Camera

The EeePC comes with an integrated webcam which produces images and videos in VGA resolution with up to 30 frames per second. As with most laptops, the camera is mounted in the center above the display to make it best suited for VoIP applications (even though Skype is still not able to utilize the webcam under Linux ).

unicap and UCView

UCView is installed on the EeePC as the default webcam application. The pre-release version still has a limited version of UCView installed which does not offer all desired features. By the time of the release of the EeePC, a new version will be available specially for the EeePC on the unicap website. New versions will also be available in a Service Pack from Xandros/Asus.

The complete report can be viewed at the Unicap site.

Asus Eee PC Bundled Applications

From CitrusMicro, yet another online Asus Eee PC reseller, here is a list of applications that are bundled with the sub-note:

Included Applications:

* AbiWord - word processor
* CodeWeavers CrossOver Linux - allows running Windows programs (may be removed or offered as trial software)
* Gnumeric - spreadsheet program
* KPresenter - presentation program
* Kopete - instant messaging client
* Mozilla Firefox - graphical web browser
* Mozilla Thunderbird - email client
* MPlayer - media player
* OpenOffice - office suite
* PDF Reader (unknown)
* Penguin Racer - game
* Project Management (unknown)
* Skype - VoIP program
* Solitaire - game
* Tux Paint - bitmap graphics editor for children
* Xandros Antivirus (powered by ClamAV)
* Xandros Control Center (customized version of KDE Control Center)
* Xandros File Manager (replaces Konqueror in KDE)
* Xandros Photo Manager (powered by digiKam)

Asus Eee Applications

From the EEE-PC.de website -

Ein paar Punkte zum Xandros Linux (Aufbau, Programme etc.)

* Internet

- Web
- Web Mail
- Information
- Web Storage
- Messenger
- Skype
- Network
- 3G
- eMagazine
- Wikipedia

* Work

- Documents
- Spreadsheets
- Presentations
- Google Docs
- PDF Reader
- Mail
- Calculator
- File Manager
- PIM
- World Clock
- Palm Pilot Tool
- Anti-Virus
- Screen Capture
- Project
- Dictionary

* Learn

- Typing
- Tux Paint

* Settings

- Volume
- Full Desktop
- Restart
- Wallpaper
- Console
- Printers

Menu:

* All Applications

____________________

* Applications

- Accessories
- CrossOver
- Education
. Language
. Mathematics
. Miscellaneous
. Science
- Games
- Graphics
- Internet
- Multimedia
- Office
. AbiWord Word Processor
. Gnumeric Spreadsheet
. KPresenter
. OpenOffice.org Base
. OpenOffice.org Calc
. OpenOffice.org Draw
. OpenOffice.org Impress
. OpenOffice.org Math
. OpenOffice.org Writer
. Project Management
- System
- Utilities

* Find
* Control Center
* File Manager
* Help

* Actions

____________________

* Recent Documents
* Run Command…
* Logout Administrator