It was May of 2009 and I had a decision to make.  Laptop or netbook.  I saw the benefits that both devices offered and made a choice.  I purchased a MSI Wind U100 Netbook because I wanted something ultra-portable that would also allow me to stream movies and due some basic web design and photo editing.  It has been almost two years and the U100 is still going strong.  I’ve hauled this sucker up and down and across the country and it has never failed to support my needs.  It has been used as both my primary computer and backup and even now it is being used daily for research and Netflix.  I must say, this has ended up being one of my wisest purchases in a long while.

Yup, I done fucked up my new PC so here I am doing a full restore.

I know I should list the specs but I’m retired from the tech world so I’ll just say that it meets my needs.

And Google replied, no.

And there you have it, keywords are not the magic beans that some “experts” would have you believe.  Content is king.  Plain and simple there is no way for you to avoid the fact that in order for your website to perform well in any search engine you must provide good, relevant page content.

SEO is not an exact science but there are plenty of search engine optimization experts that will sell you on all sorts of tricks that they claim will put you on page one of Google, Yahoo and Bing.  Do your research.  There is no easy fix when it comes to SEO but the web is filled with tons of good sites that will educate and enlighten.

Designers think about visual forms and how they are put together to convey meaning. These forms are a kind of visual language. Points, lines, planes, volumes, spaces, areas, textures and colors, as well as how they are used to create symmetry, proportion and rhythm, are basic aspects of the designer’s visual vocabulary.

Designers create solutions to design problems. A part of every solution includes communicating how to get the job done technically: how to get the poster printed or how to create the mechanicals for the package design. The designer must learn to clearly express and transmit ideas and instructions as well as to receive and evaluate feedback. To this end, the student learns to specify technical instructions; to write objectives, briefs and reports; to present ideas verbally, graphically and with audiovisual support; and to listen carefully.

(The previous information was courtesy of AIGA, the professional association for design)

On May 15, 2009 I walked into my local Best Buy store and purchased a MSI Wind U100 netbook. This was still early on in the netbook craze but I had done a lot of research online and although MSI is not a well known computer maker like Dell, HP and Sony I knew the MSI Wind would be the best of the bunch. Granted, just about every netbook on the market has the same specs:

An Intel® Atom™ 1.6GHz processor, 10 inch screen at 1024 x 600 resolution, 1GB of RAM and a 160-250GB hard drive

One thing that I liked about the MSI Wind U100 was the fact that the processor comes overclocked right out of the box.  Once you enable the overclocking from the BIOS screen then all you need to do is toggle it on and off with a simple keyboard shortcut.

A netbook is basically a small laptop that is designed to be ultra-portable. It is very lightweight and allows you to check email, surf the web and stream music and movies. They are not as powerful as most current laptops so they don’t work too well for gaming or video editing but so far the MSI Wind U100 has been able to handle every task I have given it. I check email, update my blog and watch movies from my Netflix account. If you are looking for a small, easy to take along computer then a netbook is the way to go.  I have owned my MSI Wind U100 for almost a year now and it has been trouble free and I have even upgraded the RAM to 2GB.  I’m not here to sell you on the idea of getting a netbook, I am simply giving you a first hand review of what I consider to be an awesome little computer.