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Date:      Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:40:35 +0100
From:      Roland Smith <rsmith@xs4all.nl>
To:        Gary Kline <kline@thought.org>
Cc:        FreeBSD Mailing List <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: hp 10-in mini?
Message-ID:  <20091124184035.GA87829@slackbox.xs4all.nl>
In-Reply-To: <20091124024315.GB51279@thought.org>
References:  <20091124004035.GA51168@thought.org> <3A85D7EF44E1C744BF6434691F5659E9015E48BB@www.fcimail.org> <20091124024315.GB51279@thought.org>

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On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 06:43:15PM -0800, Gary Kline wrote:
> > But as you mentioned  they do not come with optical drive bays,  but wi=
th
> > with 4/8/16 gig flash drives  no one really cares-
>=20
> 	do you mean what i know as "thumb drives"?  stick-like thing
> 	you just plug in?  i've never used these and am unfamiliar. =20

They're very handy. You can even get them op to 32 GiB these days, although
those are expensive. An 8 GiB model can be had for around $20 from newegg.
That is 2 DVDs worth of rewritable space in a package about the size of your
thumb.=20

> 	one reason i want an optical drive is for when i watch a
> 	movie/dvd/cd on my tiny notebook.=20

If you re-encode the movies you can make them much smaller than a DVD. Even=
 in
high quality you can fit a movie (without the annoying crap that you cannot
skip in a stand-alone DVD player) in 2 GiB.

> 	indication that i've gone completely 'round the bend.  another
> 	reason for using the optical drive might be to save things
> 	from the notebook if everything else is down...

If you cannot fit a backup on a thumbdrive, get a USB-connected portable
harddisk. They are superior to a DVD, IMO. You can even get thwm up to a
terabyte now!  But you could get a 500 GiB model for around $80.
E.g. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=3DN82E16822211029

Some models need an external power supply, but the one in the link above ge=
ts
all its power from USB. It's about the size of an iPhone. These portable
harddisks are my favorite backup devices these days. I do use geli(8) to
encrypt the contents in case of loss or theft.=20

> 	altho raison d'etre [dont laugh at my spelling, please] for
> 	wanting such a small computer is to use it as a speech device,

Recording or playback? Laptop speakers and microphones aren't very good
IMHO.

Roland
--=20
R.F.Smith                                   http://www.xs4all.nl/~rsmith/
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