Acer Aspire 101

[Bluebird]

My EEE PC* has Star Office 8 as standard and I'm veryy happy with it.

You can read and save files in the M$ .doc format or the standard open office format.

It works fine in either format (although a little functionality might be lost, I've never noticed...)

*Writing from my EEE at Bristol Parkway trainstation as we speak...

So there is no problem in opening an Excel Doc using Star Office [ is this the equivilent of Office for Linux ] then updating saving and then re-opening as Excel on a Windows PC?

[expat]

what I was saying was that if I save a file an MS Office File onto a USB Drive from my Windows desktop, then read and edit using my Linux Laptop, and then subsequently load back onto my Windows desktop - what are the compatibility issues?

It's bad enough at the moment using Office 2003 & Office 2007 and remebering to save in the correct formet - what other problems might I encounter [ loss of functionality / macros etc ] when moving between Office & Linux

I have found none but I only do simple stuff, and I don't (as it happens) use Open Office on docs created by other users at work and then pass them back.

I do know that OO programs will read docs saved by MS Office in default format (e.g. .doc for Word), but MS Office will not read docs saved in OO format (e.g. .odt for Writer), so you have to remember to "save as" Open Office docs in the MS format; but you can make this the default behaviour for Open Office.

[expat]

So there is no problem in opening an Excel Doc using Star Office [ is this the equivilent of Office for Linux ] then updating saving and then re-opening as Excel on a Windows PC?

no, provided that you "save as" Excel and not Star Office's native format.

In practice you may encounter formatting problems, since Star Office has to deduce how to interpret MS's proprietary format in order to convert it. Good thing MS wouldn't dream of changing it periodically to faze Start Office, eh?

[breezeblocker]

Try PC World's Price inc VAT £229.99 Acer One A150AB Blue Internet browsing on the move Product code: 488071. It's Linux but if you have XP you can load that on it. If worried about space on one of the smaller ones try nlite, it's free, it strips out a lot of stuff from windows and makes it faster.

My son has nlite'd windows XP and put it on an asus eee and it runs smoooth

You need an external drive to load stuff on. Or can use memory stick

[Bluebird]

BB - yep that looks quite cool.

I guess that one is better than the smaller cheaper ones because of the 120gb hard drive.

Would I need a 120gb HD for xp?

Of course for an extra £40 I could have xp installed on the macjine anyway, but then it's only an 8gig HD ??

Decisions, decisions....

Going to PC world this lunchtime!!

[cojak]

Also nip into Toys R Us - that's wher I got my EEE PC (Although I hear Aldi's are selling them cheaper at the 'mo...)

Waiting for my accountant to query me about the receipt!

[Bluebird]

I'll try that it's not far away..

Anyone use Crossover Office ?

[Bluebird]

The ASUS eee PC is £179 in both PCW & TrU - 4gb HD & 7 inch screen.
The Acer Aspire is the same price for the same spec, but with a 8.9 ince screen.

I can also get a 8gb for £198, or a 120gb for £229.

The Aspire is slightly wider, but depth, height & weight are similar.

The Aspire also seems to have a faster processer 1.6gz as opposed to 800mhz....

Think I'll be going for the Acer..

[NoddY]

Since I purchased my Aspire One 2 weeks ago, I've been very pleased. Nice community building up too:

http://www.aspireoneuser.com/forum/

Linux version full of hacks etc. and I believe Ubuntu can be installed; although I'm happy with my modified version of Linpus Lite. One negative: battery life quite poor (<2 hrs with WiFi).