Papa was a rolling stone...

Where ever he laid his eeepc was his home. That's how the song would go today. Hmmm, maybe I should re-write the song and update it a little. Then again, nah. That'd be sacrilege on some level. Probably on many levels.

Image by alainnblog via Flickr

However, while I'm not exactly a rolling stone (or a Rolling Stone), I do find myself using my eeePC (and many notebooks before it) all over the place. I used a notebook computer throughout college, and at work. I was one of the very first (if not THE first) Marines to use a Palm Pilot 1000 back in the early 90's when they first came out (got it the day they were released), and I have used some sort of PDA or notebook/netbook ever since.

Why?

Every job I've had since 1989 required me to take information from meetings or information gathering and place it into an electronic format utilizing computers. Cool stuff. The Luddite way of doing things would be to write everything down (notes, diagrams, etc) onto a pad of paper or into a notbook and then to transcribe them into the computer (that the Luddte would surely be forced to use, thinking that there's really nothing wrong with the venerable Smith-Corona). I never was one to do things the Luddite way, however.

Image via Wikipedia

I used to sync my USRobotics Pilot (back before they were caled "Palms" or even PDA's) with the computer in my office and copy notes into Ami-Pro (the US Government was trying to throw Lotus a bone back in the early 90's) and then have them printed out with all the answers the Major was asking for. I'd typically be the first person finished with the information gathering of all the Staff NCO's at the time, and I received many accollades from the Major because of it. He called me his Star Trek Staff Sergeant, and he called my Pilot a Tricorder (God love him, he didn't know the difference between a PADD and a Tricorder).

I also was one of the very first (if not THE first) traffic accident investigators to have a laptop computer on-scene to aid in investigative notes and data collectionon-site. While the Marines had used a program (DOS-based) called Formtool to fill out forms in the past, I was the first person to take the forms and put them into the computer so that the entire form would print from a laser or inkjet printer without the need to purchase or stock physical forms. This saved us time and money, and garndered us a lot of cool points among the other Military Police offices throughout the West Coast. I created a stencil set for use in Visio, and a similar set was adopted by CID for their crime scenes. With our computerized Visio accident diagrams, we were able to scale our diagrams to within 1/2". Of course, DoD policy is to have diagrams "not to scale," but they were, in fact, to scale. We took measurements on everything, and all our diagrams were as accurate as possible. I heard that the templates I made were still in use, having been passed around from generation to generation of traffic accident investigators who still use Visio to diagram their accidents.

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After leaving the Corps, I went to work at Compaq and immediately put my Palm Pilot 5000 to use (yeah, I upgraded). I went through the Palm V before getting an early iPaq. It was a nice device, but honestly, not nearly as intuitive or useful as the Palm. Regardless, I used it (Company loyalty and all) and continued to lead the way among my peers as someone who embraced technology and was more productive because of it. Once I was issued a laptop, depending on the meeting, I would have either my iPaq or my laptop.

After leaving Compaq (well, they asked me to leave because of this thing called "massive layoffs"), I went to college and used my notebook computer throughout. My GPA was a 3.79, and due in large part to the great notes I was able to take on my notebook. I even made a nice bit of money selling my notes. My notes in American History were so good, that Dr. Cecil Harper actually changed the curriculum so that students wouldn't have the advantage of my notes. What a compliment!

After school, I went into tech writing. I purchased a Palm T|X and used it quite a bit until I got a Motorola Q. The Q took the place of the T|X and was quite useful not only as a phone, but as a PDA. At about the same time, I purchased an ASUS eeePC as soon as they became available. It was a spectacular small machine, and completely replaced my larger 14" Gateway. The diminutive size of the eeePC with its 7" screen allowed me to carry it in one had to meetings, coffee shops, and to client sites. It was unobtrusive and 100% capable of word processing, creating spreadsheets, and even light Photoshop work not to mention browsing and email. I took some flak from a client who was also a computer manufacturer (I told them I would gladly use their netbook if they were to provide me with one), but they admired the small size of my machine. The only thing I wasn't fond of with the original eeePC was the small size of its SSD, so a few weeks ago, I got a new one with a 9" monitor, N270 Atom processor and a 160GB HDD. I know; the SSD was faster, but I use lots of programs and I wanted the larger space since I also use the eeePC as my primary computer. The nice and fast computer that sits at my desk at home is no-longer "home base" as far as computers go; the eeePC is.

That is why where ever I lay my eeepc is my virtual home. With tethering, the Internet is always available, and I can get my email, Engadget, or web anytime I want. When I am inspired to continue to write on the novel I'm working on, I can just get to it. If I need to take notes at work in a meeting, I have the eeePC to do it on. Writing these blog entries; all done on the eeePC. It literally is my virtual home.

How many of you live out of a computer on the road? What tools do you use on yours that help you in your daily lives?