thechangelab.com

In Search of Small

Why is small beautiful? It’s a parallel of the whole “bigger is better” concept. In general, size impresses us. That’s just how it is…

My first time in an Apple store, the Mac mini appeared like a dream. Having heard how small it was, paled compared to seeing it in real life. A simple, elegant box, it seemed meant for messy, overrun desk people like me. To make our lives a whole lot easier.

As pointed out elsewhere, it’s akin to a laptop with neither a display nor a keyboard. It’s form factor being something to give the people behind VIA‘s ITX motherboards something to worry about.

Now what makes it so appealing to us at thechangelab is that, there’s a supportive community behind it. As well, others have delved inside – using a putty knife – or built small clusters from them. These people have helped it make its mark, just as the iPod has made a mark, while not quite so vast. So, the mini alone is just another box. An isolated technological fact. Another splash in a wave of change. What makes it fascinating though are the people who use it, and thereby give life to it.

Yet as wide-eyed as I was, it wasn’t enough to make me breakdown and buy it. Before that could even happen, my gaze fell on their range of laptops. Something to replace my 100 pound beast (model:Dell Inspiron 7500).

The Beast has had a difficult history with me. It could be a real PAIN. Not for the specs though (450 MHz PIII, 128 MB SDRAM, 4.5 GB harddrive, and a combo DVD and floppy drive bay) upon its purchase. While “designed” for NT4 and Win98, it refused anything above IE 5.0 The explorer process or IE would crash and/or there’d be some other error within a matter of minutes. Naturally, I uncovered this after the expiration of the warranty and when IE 5.5 had been released. Similarly, it refused any type of upgrade to or install of Win2k. The installer would just hang in my face – much like a mocking laugh. Just unbelievable. At the time, no amount of free emails to Dell Support nor Google searches could resolve my problem. Turning to Linux became part of the solution. What no OS could ever resolve though was, the fact that it was BIG and HEAVY. Not as cumbersome as some of the “mobile” desktops of today though.

Later, I thought of how it might be taken apart and reassembled as a desktop. Part of this was motivated by the fact that its purchase was a rather expensive error in judgement. In the end, I resorted to making it a platform for experimenting with various distros and BSD’s. Anyway, I swore never to make the same mistake again. I was going to try and get my money’s worth. However, any weak interest in a make over simply wasn’t strong enough to prevent me from buying and building my own desktop a few years ago.

In the meantime, my spouse did need something though. Sharing time on the desktop just wasn’t going to cut it. So last year, we got a budget laptop. Yes, another Inspiron (model: 2200). This time though, I did my research before putting up any money. The end result: much leaner, but not ultra compact. This one was small and light enough to be easily carried around the home. However, not so small that you’d strain your eyes staring at a small screen, working with an even smaller keyboard. What we got does its job and does it well. Finally, its purchase didn’t blow the budget, as we managed to get it on one of Dell’s promotional specials. Anyway, my spouse now lives with the wireless joys of email, browsing, and freecell.

This laptop, like the mini, represented a balance in the aesthetics of size and function unlike its predecessor. Yet unlike the mini, I yield no desire to see the inner workings nor the re-assembly of it. For me, any visible beauty, is limited solely to its function. An original G5 with a PowerPC would be nice though…

So, how is small beautiful? Sometimes, something more than just size can impresses us.

– toshiya