Acer Aspire One plus K800i Sony Ericsson = Anywhere Internet

Hi guys! This will be my first article in this blog. I’m writing this article using my trusty Acer Aspire One A110 netbook. It was initially running on Linux but I installed Windows XP on it. Don’t get me wrong, Linux was great and fast but then it lacked some of the usual programs I needed that only ran in Windows. So after installing Windows XP with service pack 3 and some serious tweaking, here I am at last writing.

For those who aren’t familiar with netbooks, think of a laptop but only smaller with no optical drive. Before I purchased my netbook I did a lot of research and window shopping on the different prices and features of the different models and brands out there. I ended up with purchasing my Acer Aspire One with an 8 gig SSD. I was only planning to use my netbook for writing articles but then I soon bought an external optical drive and started watching DVD’s on it. Finally, I also interfaced my netbook with my k800i cellphone and soon got Internet connection inside my room where Wifi signals are not available.

The quality of the connection using 3G is not as stable as that of a Wifi connection though. I’m using SMART as my service provider. I get a speed of around 115kbps whenever I connect to the network. With this speed, I could do video calls using Skype and Yahoo messenger. What I notice though is that I usually lose signals often and get disconnected. This usually happens after around 15-20 minutes of being online. To get back online I have to reconnect back to the network. So far, I only use this type of connection for checking mails, communicating via Skype and Yahoo messenger and browsing websites. For downloading though, I would rather use WiFi since it is more stable and offers a higher bandwidth.

I am presently located here in Cebu City, at Jones Avenue to be exact. This is where I usually connect to the Internet using 3G since my rented room doesn’t seem to have any wireless signals. I suggest to all those with laptops out there to try using your 3G cellphones for on the spot Internet access. You may not be able to do online games with this type of connection, but for emails and browsing it sure does the job.