The computer in question is an Asus Eee PC 1005HA that I picked up from Amazon. Already I’ve been asked why I got yet another computer. The reason is a simple one: it’s cheap and “disposable.”
On my trip to Labrador I’ll be on my motorcycle during the day and camping at night. The last thing I want to do is bring along a computer that I would be horribly upset if it broke. The MacBook Pro that I have is pretty durable, but I don’t think I would call it rugged. It’s certainly not as rugged as a Panasonic Toughbook or something. The problem with rugged is that you really have to pay for it.
The other issue is size. While the Mac isn’t big for a 15” laptop, I’m more worried about the 15’” part. The biggest issue on a motorcycle is space – or rather lack of it. Weight isn’t even the critical issue… not that I want something heavy.
So, I decided to pick up the EEE PC for both of those reasons. It’s cheap and small. It also has a long-lasting battery (they claim 10.5 hours, I see around 9 or so of actual usage, but I’m not complaining.) I just got done installing Windows 7 RC on it since I really hate the clutter of the garbage that any manufacturer crams onto a machine when it ships from the factory. (EEE wasn’t as bad as Dell, but it still had too much for my taste)
So now I have Windows 7 installed and almost all of the features of this thing are good to go. It’s not OS X, but it’s sufficient for what I need to do. As an added bonus this thing has enough horsepower to give me the Aero interface with the eye candy that comes with it. 
The purpose of this guy is so I can check email, write blog entries (I’m doing that now), backup pictures from my camera, and maybe do a bit of writing with Open Office for bigger things. Once I got out of the mindset that I need to keep buying computers for doing development work and heavy image-processing the options opened up.
I’ll keep using it a bit before the the trip, but I think this might be the ideal tool for the task as hand!