I'm leaving Windows further and further behind. First I went to the Macbook Pro. Then I moved my wife to a Macbook in March. Then when that crashed this week, I went Linux -- in the small form of an Asus Eee PC. It's an amazing computer. Windows what? Who needs that?

A bad inverter cable (or so the Mac "geniuses" said) is to blame for the Macbook's LCD going out. Naturally, this happened a day after I shipped like six or seven old Windows PCs and laptops with our stuff to California, any of which would have sufficed as a temporary replacement until the repair was done.

Lorna couldn't be without a computer for days, so I had to figure out something. A cheap desktop? Not so cheap. A cheap laptop? Same thing -- and I really didn't want yet another Windows machine around the house. Then I saw it -- an Asus Eee at our local PC World for about $400.

Hmm. But the screen and keyboard seemed so small? Could it drive an external monitor and keyboard? Indeed, it could! The thing is loaded -- USB ports, built in WiFi, VGA out (1024x768 max) -- even a card reader:

OK, this made sense. Cheaper than getting a new laptop, plus I could file the expense away under the necessary new gadget category! So we got one, hooked up the monitor and an old keyboard I had, and life was rocking:

The computer found the wireless easily. It recognized the USB keyboard no problem. It has Firefox preinstalled. Everything Lorna uses is online (Yahoo Mail, Google Docs, etc). I plugged it in, walked away and she was off.

Later, I wanted to know what else it could do. Open Office is installed. It even has some cool games on it. That's handy as I've been promising my oldest son his own laptop. I was going to give him one of the old Windows machines. But this thing fits his fingers just fine. Plus, I think it's cool that his first computer won't be Windows, won't be a Mac but instead Linux.

It might as well be one of the others, of course. That's because the desktop feels like them. A taskbar for open programs. A status bar with running programs. Super easy to use and transition to.

Of course, I might steal it away if I want a really light computer for a day trip. It's tiny. Here's it compared to the MacBook:

The screen is tiny, though. There are nine inch ones are coming out in the same form factor, which is cool. But it's doing exactly what we need now!

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