Hello, this is ThisIsNot

[ThisIsNot]

I felt I would give people a little background about myself. I live in Southern New Mexico and work for the U.S. Government. I am a college graduate with a BS in Civil Engineering. I am currently working on my MS in Civil Engineering under a water resources specialty, I will be done with that this Fall. After that, I plan on getting an MBA so that I can increase my managerial skills.

I was a civil engineer until the branch manager, where I worked, discovered that I knew more about computers than the guys in the IT department. I still work on some CE projects but I mainly advise the branch manager on technology purchases. Needless to say, I have a bunch of netbooks at my disposal. We use netbooks as most of the employees simply want a computer that they can easily pack, edit some Word documents on, edit some Excel files on, surf the internet, and display PowerPoint presentations. Netbooks are a lot more budget friendly that purchasing $1000+ ultra portable notebooks especially since no one over here needs dedicated graphics, dual-core processors, or anything of that nature.

My inventory currently consists of netbooks ranging from the Eee PC 1000HE, Eee PC 1005HA, Eee PC 1008HA, Dell Inspiron Mini 10, Inspiron Mini 10v, HP Mini 1000XP, HP Mini 110XP, a HP Mini 110XP with a Broadcom HD chip is coming, we have a few Lenovo units on the way, a couple older MSI wind models, and I personally use Gateway's AMD Athlon 64 netbook. We are constantly ordering netbooks. On average, we can order 5 netbooks for the same price as a decent ultra portable notebook. The administration looks at our numbers, then looks at our spending, and realizes that we are getting more units for the same amount of money. This also means that our budget has been increasing every financial quarter due to our efficiency.

It is both a blessing and a curse to have access to so many netbooks. It is a blessing as I can share my opinions with everyone here, it is a curse as people at work bug me all the time as they either want a different netbook model/brand or don't understand why their netbook is only getting 5 hours on a charge instead of 7-8. It is also strange that someone who is educated in the background of civil engineering ended up at this job position. I can't really complain as it pays more than being just a civil engineer.

I stumbled across netbookreviews.com by accident. One of my favorite notebook reviewing websites has an address very similar to netbookreviews.com. One day, I decided to see if anyone offered up a netbook centric website (aside from all the Eee PC devoted sites) and, sure enough, I came across here. I enjoy websites that are further aided by the opinions of its users. I also think that websites/forums are much better when the creators/administrators remain in constant contact with people as they ask for opinions about both hardware and the website.

[Chris]

Hey I must have missed this thread when you first posted it as I know I've been involved in conversations with you on several other threads

Anyway it's nice to see some more background about you. As a side note, you should let me know if you're ever interested in doing an in depth review of a netbook for the blog that hasn't been done yet.

[ThisIsNot]

I would be interested in doing at least one in-depth review. I saw another post where you asked if I could take a picture of all the stacked netbooks. Unfortunately, since I work in a government building, I cannot bring in a digital camera or else I would take a picture. I tried taking a picture with my Gateway netbook but it packs a 0.3 MP camera so everything came out blurry. I might as well have smear Vaseline over the lens. People get in trouble when they try to sneak in actual digital cameras or camcorders. They didn't used to be like this but, ever since 9/11, they have been really picky about this. The funny thing is when we try to order any digital cameras. We have to get them shipped to the guard's building in the parking lot instead any office inside of the building. When looking at pictures, we can only bring in the storage cards. It sucks not being able to bring in a camera.

Anyway, I would like to do an in-depth review. I need to do it at home when I actually have the time. I didn't get to take my weekend off as they were looking for people to work overtime (get paid time and a half) so I went in for 10 hours during Saturday and another 10 hours on Sunday. Hell, that was an easy $900. Still, it sucked going in and I am dragging today. I am working on one for my Gateway netbook but I don't think there is really anything that I haven't stated in the forums.

I would actually like to do an in-depth review for HP's Mini 110XP unit with the Broadcom Crystal HD chip in it. I should be getting it in pretty soon. HP has yet to build it though. They said that it would have a build date of July 14 but I doubt that is going to happen (HP likes to push things back by a few days). That means it is going to take them at least a week to build it, another few weeks to get it shipped over to the U.S., and then 5-7 business days (1.5 weeks) to get it over here. All-in-all, I am not expecting it until mid-August. Then I can spend at least a week with it, take the netbook home, and write an in-depth review. I would also like to make a short video review (about 2-5 minutes long).

[wafin]

Keep us posted on the Mini 110xp with the broadcom chip in it. I spec'd one out and it's build date is 7/22 and delivery would be right when I'm gone on vacation. So must decide if I can express ship it or not in order to avoid it sitting on my front porch all day long while on vacation.

[ThisIsNot]

I won't be getting the Mini 110XP until either early August or mid-August. I will keep you all posted though.

Oh, before I forget, I want to give some people a little insight about my online name. One of my favorite bands is Static-X and I have always liked their song "This Is Not." I used to use the name This Is Not back in high school but started using my real name (Paul). However, when I started working, I went back to the name This Is Not but I take out the spaces. People at work (and my friends) ask me why I use that phrase as most of them (mainly the people I work with) have no idea who Static-X is. I tell them I use it because "this is not their name, it is my name." My dull attempt at word play. I was able to confuse someone at work though. They were trying to log into my computer to access some files while I was on vacation. I told them what my password was. It was back when we didn't have software encryption so we had to rely on using lowercase and capitalized letters along with a string of numbers. My password was ThisIsNot58494, or something like that. Anyway, the guy kept making me repeat the password. I would tell him "ThisIsNot58494" over the phone and he would reply "I know your password isn't 58494, it has to be longer!"