In the Mac/PC wars, I’ve occasionally commented that my primary computer is a Mac because it’s simply more useful to me right out of the box, and it takes less work to add the rest of what I need. Well, a few weeks ago the Lenovo outlet store had a few refurbished (~30% off retail price) S12 netbooks with the nVidia ION chipset that replaces the pathetic Intel shared graphics that the Atom comes with, and while I waited for it to ship, I started assembling things to install.

[Update: in the essential column, add GetGnuWin32, the wrapper for the GnuWin32 packages. Better than CygWin, less conceptually disgusting than Portable Ubuntu]

Bare minimum to make a computer more than a toy (supplied with every Mac):

• Perl (I used Strawberry, not ActivePerl)
• GNU Emacs
• Putty (SSH)
• Sqlite
• Quicktime
• Update: Virtual CloneDrive (mount ISO images)

Equivalent to extremely useful supplied Mac software:

• Safari/Firefox/Chrome
• iTunes
• TrueCrypt
• PasswordSafe
• Sharpkeys (the CapsLock-killer; sadly doesn't install under Win7)
• SecureW2 TTLS (sadly no longer free, despite all earlier versions being GPL'd)

Other stuff that helps make a laptop useful:

• 3G drivers (AT&T USBConnect Mercury)
• Adobe Flash 10.1 (beta, with hw-accelerated video)
• CCCP codec pack (like Perian on the Mac)
• DisplayLink
• GPG4Win
• Mercurial
• Microsoft Office
• Python
• RealVNC
• TeamSpeak
• VLC
• Windows Security Essentials

Fun:

• Steam
• Good Old Games: Fallout, Fallout 2, Might & Magic 6
• World of Warcraft
• Champions Online

I still need to find something that will mount ISO images as file systems, buy a cheap bare drive to use for backups, and bump the RAM from 2GB to 3GB, but I’m set for now. I wish that the ION version of the S12 didn’t replace the ExpressCard slot with an HDMI port, and I’d love to find a Bluetooth mouse that holds up under regular use, but this is a nice little cool-running carry-around machine, with reasonable performance and battery life.

Oh, and I installed the Nanami OS-tan theme that shipped with Japanese pre-orders of Windows 7. :-)

Good: Sony’s SPUDownloadManager. Lost the install CD for a Sony product, or is it old enough that Microsoft has released two new operating systems since you bought it? Plug the device into your computer, run this tool, and it installs the latest versions of all the relevant software and drivers.

Bad: Lenovo’s VeriFace. This is a biometric authentication system that uses your laptop’s built-in camera to scan your face as your password, and record the faces of people who fail to login. It includes an optional check to make sure that it isn’t being fooled by a photo, but it’s still useless, because it only works under excellent lighting conditions. You can spend upwards of a minute finding good light and staring at the screen until it recognizes you, or you can just type your password.

My condolences to US Senator Scott Brown and his family. After last night’s stunning victory, millions will be spent over the next three years in efforts to destroy him, both personally and professionally.

…and then there’s Chris Van Hollen. Here’s the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, on why he expects the voters to agree that Martha Coakley should take Teddy Kennedy’s place in the Senate:

"Why would you hand the keys to the car back to the same guys whose policies drove the economy into the ditch and then walked away from the scene of the accident?"

No, seriously.

After their retirement from blogging, I did not expect to find Kim and Connie du Toit doing Internet talk radio. They started back in September, and I didn’t notice until tonight.

“Welcome back; the Internet was getting too gruntled without you.”

My spam folder just got its first “my boss died in the Haiti earthquake and I need a partner to help me get his money out of the country” scam letter. In an odd bit of honesty, the fractured English includes the following among the list of items you must include in your reply:

A valid copy of your identity or passport so that this ransaction can begin immediately.

Emphasis mine. :-)

Official One Piece Oppai Mousepads.

Found at a gas station in Morgan Hill on the way to work this morning:

Update for great justice: “LolNozzle iz inside ur gas tank, breakin pumps”