On the recent trip to California, we brought total of 3 laptops with us, and two things I've learned: the airplane's tray was not designed for a laptop and none of our laptop batteries can last the whole trip of 5hrs. My laptop is only 15.6" screen size, and definitely not the biggest one out there, but still the drop down tray on the airplane is just too small for it, drinks and foods should be on the other tray, if it's available. Very fortunate that Hương had booked the ticket early enough & arranged the seats together so that we can negotiate the sharing. When we stopped in Chicago, we all scrambled to find an outlet to charge up, preparing for the up coming long stretch of flight. I quick realize that we should have a netbook instead, and that's the true mobility computing power!

We have been monitoring the Craig's List for a netbook for Thuỵ, since he can use one to type up school papers for couple hours a week, and perhaps play games for the rest of the time. A netbook is a smaller version of the laptop, everything is smaller: keyboard, screen, storage space; however that also allows the netbook to stay unplugged longer. On Saturday morning, we bought an Acer Aspire One AO-A110L netbook from a seller on local Craig's List for $125 (Thuỵ helped with $25). It runs Ubuntu Remix 10.4, and the screen is pretty sharp. We tried with Skype video and the Atom processor keeps up with the video flawlessly. The only flaw of this used netbook is that it does not have the wifi chip. Whether something wrong with the chip, or it was not there, I did not want to open it up, so we're using the USB wifi dongle for the network connection. That solution is not that bad. I tried it with the online Monopoly, and won several times!

Then on Sunday, when we browsed the Target Ads, we notice that it was selling the Acer netbook for only $199! It's a newer version, bigger storage space (160GB vs. 8GB), and only $75 more. We jumped at the opportunity, bought that one for Thuỵ and will try to sell the used one. I now take possession of the used netbook, and enjoy it every minute, until we able to sell it, but I doubt it; for I've enjoyed it too much.