The ULPC Scoop

Dell Offers 9% Off Mini 9s and 12% Off Mini 12s

Posted on December 4, 2008
Filed Under Dell Inspiron Mini 9, ULPC Market | Leave a Comment

For a limited time, Dell is offering special discounts on their netbooks:

If you go directly to Dell’s Inspiron Mini order entry pages, there is no mention of this special discount, If you look around long enough, you can find the deal page. Or you can just click here.

You can view our Buyers Guide pages (which contain specs, reviews and videos) for the Inspiron Mini 9 by clicking on the links below.

Asus Price Comparison Charts Updated

Posted on December 2, 2008
Filed Under ULPC Market | Leave a Comment

As I mentioned in my recent post, I am have redesigned our Price Comparison Charts. As a result, the chart for each product needed to be updated manually.

The Acer products were completed earlier. As of this morning, the Asus product price charts have also been updated. You can see them here.

Thank You For Your Loyalty

Posted on December 1, 2008
Filed Under Site-related, ULPC Market | Leave a Comment

Over two month passed where I did not add or maintain the content on this site.  Personal issues required that I devote my time elsewhere.

Once my personal crises had passed, I debated whether to resume posting to this site, or to start a new site, or to simply give up blogging.

When I checked the activity logs, I found that, even without fresh content, the site was still drawing about 50 unique visitor every day.  On average, each visitor viewed 2.2 pages per visit.  For the prior 30 day period, pageviews totaled over 3,500.

I was astounded.  I expected that the site to be completely dead.

What an encouragement that was to me.  That level of activity indicated that people saw value in the information that we are providing.

Once I learned this, the decision to resume blogging and to bring the information up-to-date was a simple one.

By the way, it’s about 10:45pm.  Today’s log shows 512 pageviews from 104 unique visitors.  We truly thank you for your support.

Price Comparison Charts Overhauled

Posted on November 30, 2008
Filed Under ULPC Market | Leave a Comment

In the time that I was away, my daily cron jobs which refresh the price information performed flawlessly.  During my brief hiatus, new models were introduced and older models were discontinued, so the charts were somewhat out-of-date.

In addition, I was not happy with the way the price charts worked.  We gather data from a number of different sources (Amazon, Shopzilla, direct merchants, etc.).  Each source was presented separately.

So I took some time to rewrite the interface to mash all the data together and present it in a single table sorted by lowest price to highest.

Of course, the change requires that I do individual maintenance on each and every product.  I’ve completed work on all of the Acer Aspire One models. Take a look at this example.

I’ll be updating the rest of the products over the upcoming days.

Aspire One Cheatsheet Updated

Posted on November 29, 2008
Filed Under Acer Aspire One, ULPC Market | Leave a Comment

I’ve updated my Aspire One cheatsheet that shows all of the different versions that are currently available.

When I am gathering data for our price comparison tables, I sometimes have a hard time knowing whether offering from one merchant are the same version as another merchant. This helps me keep things straight. Hopefully it will help you, too.

Read more

Should I Buy Linux-Based Netbook?

Posted on November 28, 2008
Filed Under ULPC Market | Leave a Comment

Linux-based netbooks are priced significantly lower than Windows-based netbooks.  Friends often ask “Should I buy a Linux-based netbook?”

The answer depends on you and how you plan to use the netbook.
Read more

Happy Thanksgiving!

Posted on November 27, 2008
Filed Under Site-related | Leave a Comment

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

After taking time off to address some personal issues, I am back to posting articles here.

My first order of duty is to so some basic site maintenance.  I’m several versions of Wordpress in arrears, and I’m getting a nag notice that a security upgrade is strongly recommended.  My administration panel tells me that there are 38 broken links - mostly due to Asus restructuring their site and moving pages around.  And so on…

I have also come to grips with the reality that I cannot invest the time to complete and maintain my new site.  So I am going to shut that down.

In addition, I won’t be able to maintain the Netbook Buyers Guide section of this site.  There is a lot of good and useful information there; but to do this properly, I need to add information up for all netbooks - and then stay current.  I simply will not be able to keep up.  So, I’m not sure how I’ll proceed in that area - I’ll figure that out over the next several days.

But what I enjoy the most is blogging about netbooks.  So that is what I plan to do.

Personal Update

Posted on October 27, 2008
Filed Under ULPC Market | Leave a Comment

It has been a long time since I posted anything on this website. I thought it would be a good idea to post a quick note.

My last post noted that my wife was hospitalized. Her surgery was successful and she on-schedule with her recovery. Thanks for asking.

I originally stopped posting here to focus my time on developing a new website. I originally started this site as an experiment. I wanted to learn how to create a successful website. When I started, I really had no clue how to setup a site. I didn’t even know how to blog.

Thanks to some excellent guidance on various websites and, most importantly, Wordpress, I was able to get up and running unbelievably fast.

But soon I wanted to do more than just post blog articles. When I started creating the Compare Prices feature, I started stretching the boundaries of what Wordpress could do. Once I began adding the Netbook Buyers Guide content, I realized that I was in trouble.

The problem was not that Wordpress could not handle what I wanted to do. I could make it do what I wanted. The problem came in maintaining the content. The administration of the site became an overwhelming nightmare.

Once I realized my situation, I began researching options. I finally decided to stay with Wordpress, but to store all of the Netbook Buyers Guide data in tables in the database. That meant a lot of PHP and MySQL custom development.

My work is mostly complete. You can view the new site here.

But now there have been other personal developments (mostly good things!) that have made it difficult to devote any time to completing my work. So for the time being, I am leaving both sites open. Any time I have will be devoted to bring the new site up to speed.

I believe that I may get assistance in completing the work and maintaining the new site. If so, we may be up soon.

Once we get the new site finished, we will redirect visitors from here to our new home.

Verizon 3G (EVDO) Working On My Linux Aspire One

Posted on September 19, 2008
Filed Under Acer Aspire One | 9 Comments

After a bit of a struggle, I am online with my Linux-based Aspire One via a Verizon UM175 USB Modem using EVDO.

My wife has been hospitalized for the past week. (She had surgery and is doing well.). I have only been home to shower and return to to the hospital. I had planned to stay online via the hospital’s WiFi network. But the visitor WiFi point that I had noted is only open to visiting doctors, not patients.

So I ran out to Verizon and bought a UM175 USB modem. I got a little worried when the sales clerk had no idea what a netbook was. When I asked whether it worked with Linux, she gave me that blank look again. Then the light came on “Windows or Mac only.” I bought it after she told me it could be returned for refund within 30 days.

It took three days of innovation before I figured it out. But I’m finally live.

I did so many things that I’m not sure I could document the steps. I took pieces from many different places.

If you are trying to do the same and are stuck, drop me a comment below and we’ll figure it out together.

Anyway, it is great to be back.

Update 9/24/08: After reviewing my command history, here is what I believe were the magic steps.

While over my three-day implementation, I tried lots of different things from many different websites, most of what I describe below is taken from this article on wosten.com.

Step 1. Download (or compile) the module cdc-acm.

Jungo.com provides an overview of this module:

The CDC ACM driver exposes the USB device as a virtual modem or a virtual COM port to the operating system. The driver enables sending both data and AT commands, either through ACM (separating data and AT commands over different channels) or through Serial Emulation (passing the AT commands as is and as part of the data stream).

While you could compile your own executable version of cdc-acm, it is much simpler to download a copy from here [box.net] or here [adrive.com].

Step 2. Install the cdc-adm module

Open a terminal session:
Press “Alt+F2″
Type “terminal” and press <ENTER>

Change to the directory where you saved the downloaded cdc-acm module.
$ cd /path/to/downloaded/module
$ sudo mkdir -p /lib/modules/2.6.23.9lw/usb/class
$ sudo cp cdc-acm /lib/modules/2.6.23.9lw/usb/class/

Create a device file for the modem
$ sudo mknod /dev/ttyACM0 c 166 0

Add the cdc-acm module to the kernel
$ sudo depmod -a
$ sudo modprobe cdc-acm

Step 3. Install gnome-ppp application.

$ sudo yum install gnome-ppp (answer Y to all questions)

Step 4. Configure gnome-ppp

Start gnome-ppp
Press “Alt+F2″
Type “sudo gnome-ppp” and press <ENTER>.  Configure by entering the information described below.

Step 5.  Connect via gnome-ppp.

Click on the <Connect> button.  Gnome-ppp will display a series of messages.  When a connection is made, the gnome-ppp screen disappears.  If a connection is not made, then the log file will contain detailed information.

I hope that this is all that is required.  If you try this, please provide comments below to let us know if this works or not.  If not, please post the messages from gnome-ppp’s log file, so we can troubleshoot together.

Good luck!

Aspire One Model Number Cheat Sheet

Posted on September 16, 2008
Filed Under Acer Aspire One, ULPC Market | 1 Comment

In developing the information for our Netbook Buyers Guide, I found myself consistently confused by the various model numbers and part numbers used by online merchants to describe the Acer Aspire One.

Some merchants simply describe the features. For example, at Amazon.com here is what they offer for $519.97:

Acer Aspire One 8.9″ Mini Laptop (1.6 GHz Intel Atom N270 Processor, 1.0 GB RAM, 120 GB Hard Drive, XP Home) White

Great.  Is that the 3-cell battery version or the 6-cell?

With a little digging, you find this on their product page:

Item model number: LU.S040B.110

Another example, J&R shows this Aspire One available for $379:

Acer Computer AOA150-1570 Aspire One 8.9” Notebook PC
Intel Atom N270 1.6 GHz / 1GB RAM / 120GB Hard Drive / Intel GMA 950 Graphics / Webcam / 802.11G Wireless / 2.19lbs / Windows XP Home

But is this the 3 or 6 cell battery version?  White or blue?

The text shows AOA150-1570.  That is the model number.  The AOA150 prefix means this is an XP model. (AOA110 prefix is used for Linux models.)  The balance of the model number appears to me to be random.  Each color has a separate model number.

So, after more research than it ought to have required, here is a cheat sheet to assist you:

Name Color Model Part Number
Aspire One 8G 3-Cell Linux Seashell White AOA110-1295 LU.S020A.012
Aspire One 8G 3-Cell Linux Sapphire Blue A0A110-1722 LU.S030A.014
Aspire One 16G 3-Cell Linux Onyx Black AOA110-1626 LU.S030A.025
Aspire One 120G 3-Cell XP Seashell White AOA150-1006 LU.S040B.110
Aspire One 120G 3-Cell XP Seashell White AOA150-1786
Aspire One 120G 3-Cell XP Pink AOA150-1178 LU.S410B.032
Aspire One 120G 3-Cell XP Pink AOA150-1949
Aspire One 120G 3-Cell XP Copper AOA150-1649
Aspire One 120G 3-Cell XP Sapphire Blue A0A150-1570 LU.S050B.111
Aspire One 120G 3-Cell XP Sapphire Blue AOA150-1577
Aspire One 120G 3-Cell XP Onyx Black AOA150-1029
Aspire One 120G 3-Cell XP Onyx Black AOA150-1572
Aspire One 160G 3-Cell XP Seashell White LU.S040B.214
Aspire One 160G 3-Cell XP Sapphire Blue AOA150-1405
Aspire One 160G 3-Cell XP Onyx Black AOA150-1435 LU.S040B.018
Aspire One 160G 6-Cell XP Sapphire Blue AOA150-1447 LU.S050B.133
Aspire One 160G 6-Cell XP Seashell White AOA150-1126 LU.S040B.162
Aspire One 160G 6-Cell XP Pink AOA150-1672 LU.S450B.108
Aspire One 160G 6-Cell XP Copper AOA150-1983 LU.S360B.062
Aspire One 160G 6-Cell XP Onyx Black AOA150-1049 LU.S410B.024

Your best best is to check our Price Comparison Charts where all of the information is organized in a straightforward way so that you can see who has which models, in which colors at the best price.

I believe we have this all correct, but if you find any errors, drop us a comment below.

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