March monthly thread - Raffy and other things
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Sweet memories 
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elusive
Just catching up on your week & really enjoying all the photos & videos, always love to see Raffy out and about free roaming & he really made me laugh when he didn’t want to cooperate coming out of the tube!
Lovely to see Charlie again too
Those tulips you got on Mothers day are beautiful & it’s nice to see your garden.
Lovely to see Charlie again too
Those tulips you got on Mothers day are beautiful & it’s nice to see your garden.
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Thank you Elusive! Yes he was funny with that tube 
He doesn't often do that and he had been out for 2 hours already! He sometimes does it when he's getting out of the cage as well. Like last night when I pointed the tube to the floor he turned round to come out of the end I was holding! I think he's just contrary sometimes! But even now he is still suspicious of hands so if a hand is at one end of the tube, he'll go to the other end. And even now he is still cautious about coming out of the tube. Once he's out, he's fine!
He doesn't often do that and he had been out for 2 hours already! He sometimes does it when he's getting out of the cage as well. Like last night when I pointed the tube to the floor he turned round to come out of the end I was holding! I think he's just contrary sometimes! But even now he is still suspicious of hands so if a hand is at one end of the tube, he'll go to the other end. And even now he is still cautious about coming out of the tube. Once he's out, he's fine!
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Day 4
Today is a bit about technology and computers and my journey with it - and my little 7" Eee PC netbook (and a 10" one). Technology has changed so much in the past 15 years and raced along. So it's also a bit of history.
I bought my first "computer" - ie netbook/mini laptop - in about 2008 (might have been 2009 I can't remember). Back then laptops often came with just 512mb ram (which wasn't enough even then!). Which is about half a gb of ram. Today the average laptop has 8gb of ram and Windows 11 needs a minimum of 4gb.
I didn't really want a bulky laptop but did want something small and portable. The Apple macbook air had just been released (2008), and was the smallest and lightest, but very expensive. And still bigger than I wanted. And I preferred Windows. The Asus Eee PC 701 was released around the same time. And I believe was the first netbook. I'm sure people remember netbooks - they were hugely popular until tablets came along! The first ipad was released in 2010. There were no smart phones - everyone had nokia candy bar or flip phones (or other similar makes). Some of the better ones had 3g and you could check your email but it was slow and tedious. Some had low quality cameras.
Basically netbooks were mini laptops and a bit of a revolution. The little Asus Eee PC 701 was hugely popular. It's a 7" laptop! 7" is the diagnonal of the screen and the actual size is about 9" wide and 6.5" deep. It came with either a light version of Windows XP (anyone remember that?! It was the one before Windows 7) or a version of Linux (an open source operating system). I got the Windows version, which, in my opinion, was slightly better but also more familiar.
It only had 4gb of storage. ie hardly any storage! To put it in comparison, about the smallest storage drive in a laptop now is about 128gb and the average is 250gb to 500gb. I have a 2 TB (2 x 500gb) in my laptop. Even then 4gb was seen as tiny but considered to be enough to run a light version of Windows XP - plus the netbook had an sd card slot so you could save things onto that.
This is one of the original videos of it - I think this was a demo video
I absolutely loved my little Eee PC 701. It was unusual for a laptop in those days in that it had a small ssd drive. Most computers had standard hard drives, with spinning discs, that were easily damaged. SSD's (which are now pretty standard) were usually very expensive. But this one had a 4gb ssd (ie the storage) soldered in. Presumably fairly cheap to produce. SSD's are also much faster than standard hard drives, so what looked tiny was actually quite nippy as well. But the biggest advantage of it having an ssd was - you could throw it around! They are not damaged by knocks or drops like standard hard drives. If you dropped it, it didn't damage the hard drive (although it might break!) but they were fairly sturdy, tough plastic.
It literally was about the size of a standard hardback book. Hence netbook. I could throw it in my bag and take it anywhere. Most people also had a mobile internet dongle as well because public wifi wasn't as prevalent then.
But to get to the point. I fell in love with my little netbook. Despite the tiny keyboard I found it very easy to type on, on my knee. Watch videos on and so on. The downside was - issues with Windows updates and other such things, and lack of storage. But you could keep all your photos and documents on an sd card inserted into it.
I knew nothing about computer software, so every time something glitched (which tended to happen a lot with XP!) I had to go on a forum and find out what to do, so learned more about it.
My one gripe was that it was a bit slow to load things sometimes. I learned that you could upgrade the ram from 512mb to 2gb of ram. A ram stick wasn't expensive, so I got one. They have a back panel that comes off and you just swapped it over. Most laptops were easily upgradeable in that way then.
That was amazing. Suddenly it was lightning fast! My little netbook went everywhere with me. They came in either black or white. Mine was white. It weighs less than 1kg (about 2lbs). The first macbook air was bigger and weighed a bit more at 2.75lbs. I thought yah boo sucks macbook air - who needs an expensive laptop and was happy with my netbook. It wasn't that cheap though. It cost £250 new and is the only time I've ever bought a brand new laptop for myself. That was quite a lot of money really.
I had it for two or three years. Windows XP got bigger and bigger, with all the updates and service packs, and only just fitted on the 4gb ssd. There were work arounds to save space so it fitted.
Then it got broken - I can't even remember how. Dropped from a height I think. By then the netbook revolution had progressed to 9" laptops (some people thought the 7" ones were too small) and then later, 10" netbooks - which seemed to be the point they all settled on. I'm sure many people remember the number of 10" netbooks available, from all computer manufacturers. All netbooks were limited by the low atom processor, but an ssd and enough ram still made them quite nippy. The 10" ones started being made with standard full sized hard drives so were slower. However, the original 701's and 701sd's came with celeron processors which many considered were slightly better. Although both were low powered.
Anyway. My netbook got broken. I was bereft. They didn't make the 7" ones any more. I couldn't afford another new one. So I looked on ebay to try and find another second hand one, and was amazed to find there were loads of them and they were selling for about £20. Yes £20. They had become pretty worthless because 1) Windows XP didn't fit on them any more (unless you got technical and knew the work arounds) and the original Linux wasn't supported any more.
People just chucked them in cupboards and forgot about them and eventually just sold them for peanuts. This was good for me
I bought another one cheap and was happy again. And bought another one again for £20 for spare parts. And I carried on like that for a few years, buying cheap ones for spare parts and two have two or three of them.
A faulty one would sell for £10 or £15 and for that you'd get a good battery, a spare keyboard, a screen and various other parts. They were quite easy to swap parts. Most of them, I discovered, weren't faulty at all. People had just borked them trying to fit Windows XP on and all they needed was the software reinstalling. Or the mousepad buttons had stopped working and all that needed doing was flipping the buttons out, removing the crumbs underneath and pushing the buttons back on again. Some had keyboards with some keys not working - but the keyboards were easy to swap out.
That was quite easy as they came with their own little cd with windows on. But I needed to buy a portable dvd drive to plug in. I still have that and still use it sometimes. So I just needed to reinstall windows or grab some parts off it.
I still have a couple of the boxes as well as the original installation cd's (for both Windows XP and Xandros Linus) and the instruction manuals.
What I discovered also was that there was another model - the 701sd - that was released after mine - and that one had an 8gb removable ssd drive. That meant Windows easily fitted on and you could replace the ssd if it failed. So I got a couple of used ones of those.
By then the 4gb ones wouldn't fit windows at all and I really wanted to keep mine, so I read up about Linux and there were various different types of linux that fitted on a 4gb drive. I found one I liked (Bodhi Linux) and installed that. Sadly that no longer fits on a 4gb drive. So how people used those was to run Linux from a usb stick instead. Which you can do on any computer even now. Instead of installing it, it just runs from a connected usb stick.
Continued below .........................
Today is a bit about technology and computers and my journey with it - and my little 7" Eee PC netbook (and a 10" one). Technology has changed so much in the past 15 years and raced along. So it's also a bit of history.
I bought my first "computer" - ie netbook/mini laptop - in about 2008 (might have been 2009 I can't remember). Back then laptops often came with just 512mb ram (which wasn't enough even then!). Which is about half a gb of ram. Today the average laptop has 8gb of ram and Windows 11 needs a minimum of 4gb.
I didn't really want a bulky laptop but did want something small and portable. The Apple macbook air had just been released (2008), and was the smallest and lightest, but very expensive. And still bigger than I wanted. And I preferred Windows. The Asus Eee PC 701 was released around the same time. And I believe was the first netbook. I'm sure people remember netbooks - they were hugely popular until tablets came along! The first ipad was released in 2010. There were no smart phones - everyone had nokia candy bar or flip phones (or other similar makes). Some of the better ones had 3g and you could check your email but it was slow and tedious. Some had low quality cameras.
Basically netbooks were mini laptops and a bit of a revolution. The little Asus Eee PC 701 was hugely popular. It's a 7" laptop! 7" is the diagnonal of the screen and the actual size is about 9" wide and 6.5" deep. It came with either a light version of Windows XP (anyone remember that?! It was the one before Windows 7) or a version of Linux (an open source operating system). I got the Windows version, which, in my opinion, was slightly better but also more familiar.
It only had 4gb of storage. ie hardly any storage! To put it in comparison, about the smallest storage drive in a laptop now is about 128gb and the average is 250gb to 500gb. I have a 2 TB (2 x 500gb) in my laptop. Even then 4gb was seen as tiny but considered to be enough to run a light version of Windows XP - plus the netbook had an sd card slot so you could save things onto that.
This is one of the original videos of it - I think this was a demo video
I absolutely loved my little Eee PC 701. It was unusual for a laptop in those days in that it had a small ssd drive. Most computers had standard hard drives, with spinning discs, that were easily damaged. SSD's (which are now pretty standard) were usually very expensive. But this one had a 4gb ssd (ie the storage) soldered in. Presumably fairly cheap to produce. SSD's are also much faster than standard hard drives, so what looked tiny was actually quite nippy as well. But the biggest advantage of it having an ssd was - you could throw it around! They are not damaged by knocks or drops like standard hard drives. If you dropped it, it didn't damage the hard drive (although it might break!) but they were fairly sturdy, tough plastic.
It literally was about the size of a standard hardback book. Hence netbook. I could throw it in my bag and take it anywhere. Most people also had a mobile internet dongle as well because public wifi wasn't as prevalent then.
But to get to the point. I fell in love with my little netbook. Despite the tiny keyboard I found it very easy to type on, on my knee. Watch videos on and so on. The downside was - issues with Windows updates and other such things, and lack of storage. But you could keep all your photos and documents on an sd card inserted into it.
I knew nothing about computer software, so every time something glitched (which tended to happen a lot with XP!) I had to go on a forum and find out what to do, so learned more about it.
My one gripe was that it was a bit slow to load things sometimes. I learned that you could upgrade the ram from 512mb to 2gb of ram. A ram stick wasn't expensive, so I got one. They have a back panel that comes off and you just swapped it over. Most laptops were easily upgradeable in that way then.
That was amazing. Suddenly it was lightning fast! My little netbook went everywhere with me. They came in either black or white. Mine was white. It weighs less than 1kg (about 2lbs). The first macbook air was bigger and weighed a bit more at 2.75lbs. I thought yah boo sucks macbook air - who needs an expensive laptop and was happy with my netbook. It wasn't that cheap though. It cost £250 new and is the only time I've ever bought a brand new laptop for myself. That was quite a lot of money really.
I had it for two or three years. Windows XP got bigger and bigger, with all the updates and service packs, and only just fitted on the 4gb ssd. There were work arounds to save space so it fitted.
Then it got broken - I can't even remember how. Dropped from a height I think. By then the netbook revolution had progressed to 9" laptops (some people thought the 7" ones were too small) and then later, 10" netbooks - which seemed to be the point they all settled on. I'm sure many people remember the number of 10" netbooks available, from all computer manufacturers. All netbooks were limited by the low atom processor, but an ssd and enough ram still made them quite nippy. The 10" ones started being made with standard full sized hard drives so were slower. However, the original 701's and 701sd's came with celeron processors which many considered were slightly better. Although both were low powered.
Anyway. My netbook got broken. I was bereft. They didn't make the 7" ones any more. I couldn't afford another new one. So I looked on ebay to try and find another second hand one, and was amazed to find there were loads of them and they were selling for about £20. Yes £20. They had become pretty worthless because 1) Windows XP didn't fit on them any more (unless you got technical and knew the work arounds) and the original Linux wasn't supported any more.
People just chucked them in cupboards and forgot about them and eventually just sold them for peanuts. This was good for me
I bought another one cheap and was happy again. And bought another one again for £20 for spare parts. And I carried on like that for a few years, buying cheap ones for spare parts and two have two or three of them.A faulty one would sell for £10 or £15 and for that you'd get a good battery, a spare keyboard, a screen and various other parts. They were quite easy to swap parts. Most of them, I discovered, weren't faulty at all. People had just borked them trying to fit Windows XP on and all they needed was the software reinstalling. Or the mousepad buttons had stopped working and all that needed doing was flipping the buttons out, removing the crumbs underneath and pushing the buttons back on again. Some had keyboards with some keys not working - but the keyboards were easy to swap out.
That was quite easy as they came with their own little cd with windows on. But I needed to buy a portable dvd drive to plug in. I still have that and still use it sometimes. So I just needed to reinstall windows or grab some parts off it.
I still have a couple of the boxes as well as the original installation cd's (for both Windows XP and Xandros Linus) and the instruction manuals.
What I discovered also was that there was another model - the 701sd - that was released after mine - and that one had an 8gb removable ssd drive. That meant Windows easily fitted on and you could replace the ssd if it failed. So I got a couple of used ones of those.
By then the 4gb ones wouldn't fit windows at all and I really wanted to keep mine, so I read up about Linux and there were various different types of linux that fitted on a 4gb drive. I found one I liked (Bodhi Linux) and installed that. Sadly that no longer fits on a 4gb drive. So how people used those was to run Linux from a usb stick instead. Which you can do on any computer even now. Instead of installing it, it just runs from a connected usb stick.
Continued below .........................
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I started getting the 701SD's with the bigger replaceable ssd drive. Getting a "faulty" one for £10 would give you - a spare battery, sometimes a spare stick of 2gb ram, and another spare sd drive plus a spare keyboard. So I was able to keep mine going a long time without spending much at all. I had a box full of spare chargers, batteries and 8gb ssd drives.
I ended up with three or four good 701SD's with the 8gb removable sss drive. In both black and white. The white ones were harder to get hold of. One was stepson's, a couple were mine (a black and a white). You'd see people selling a black one with a white battery pack and vice versa!
I had one set up as a child's educational netbook with various educational software and games from Linux. My stepson had one and learned to type on it. They were a great size for children, and I'd set them up to be internet safe, with Kiddle instead of Google and various addons to filter internet searches and do the settings for safety. And robust and shockproof.
By then Windows XP had been retired in favour of Windows 7, so wasn't safe to use any more, so there were even more being sold on ebay very cheap because they wouldn't run Windows 7. An 8gb ssd wasn't big enough for Windows 7. So they had linux installed instead.
Some had only ever been used once or twice and were still boxed up with all the manuals and cd's. For my best condition one, I actually bought a 64gb mini ssd (not easy to find) and installed Windows 7 on it. I used it like that right up until Windows 7 was retired in 2020. We also had a "family laptop" which was shared, for more intensive jobs.
Once Windows 7 was retired, the only thing that would run on these little 7" netbooks, was linux. And still does. I didn't like tablets and didn't want one. I like having a proper keyboard. Which was a bit sad. Although it was free to upgrade to Windows 10, Windows 10 wouldn't run on them because there was no graphics driver available (ie nothing on the screen!).
So I bought one of the later 10" Eee Pc's which came with Windows 7 starter on it, put a faster hard drive in it, upgraded the ram and installed Windows 10 on it. I used that as my travel netbook for quite a few years. And kept Linux on the smaller one and would use it just for web browsing sometimes. It was a bit slow with Windows 10 on though. Operating systems have got heavier and heavier.
Just for fun, I upgraded the 10" one to Windows 11 when it came out. It doesn't have the hardware to support Windows 11 officially (and many people have older laptops that won't run Windows 11), but there is a work around during installation - which is legal! Although not advised by Microsoft.
With the latest updates of Windows 11 though, there is no graphics driver that will work with it again. So I've put linux on that now as well.
So here are my two netbooks. The 7" 701sd with an 8gb drive (the mini 64gb drive failed unfortunately and they're no longer available - but I have plenty of spare 8gb ones). It's running Bodhi Linux - which only just fits. It's about the only one that runs on a 32 bit computer now. Nearly all operating systems, both Linux and Windows, are only for 64 bit (more modern hardware) computers now.
And my 10" one with Linux Mint Xfce on. Both are easy to use. The programs and way of working are different from windows but a web browser is a web browser and once on the internet you can access all the usual sites.
This is the 7" white 701SD - I have three. You can see how easy it is to take the back off and swap the drive and ram and replace the battery. Not so these days - where virtually everything is soldered and not replaceable!
These also came with a lovely little mock suede case in the box which was handy for putting them in a bag etc.
I ended up with three or four good 701SD's with the 8gb removable sss drive. In both black and white. The white ones were harder to get hold of. One was stepson's, a couple were mine (a black and a white). You'd see people selling a black one with a white battery pack and vice versa!
I had one set up as a child's educational netbook with various educational software and games from Linux. My stepson had one and learned to type on it. They were a great size for children, and I'd set them up to be internet safe, with Kiddle instead of Google and various addons to filter internet searches and do the settings for safety. And robust and shockproof.
By then Windows XP had been retired in favour of Windows 7, so wasn't safe to use any more, so there were even more being sold on ebay very cheap because they wouldn't run Windows 7. An 8gb ssd wasn't big enough for Windows 7. So they had linux installed instead.
Some had only ever been used once or twice and were still boxed up with all the manuals and cd's. For my best condition one, I actually bought a 64gb mini ssd (not easy to find) and installed Windows 7 on it. I used it like that right up until Windows 7 was retired in 2020. We also had a "family laptop" which was shared, for more intensive jobs.
Once Windows 7 was retired, the only thing that would run on these little 7" netbooks, was linux. And still does. I didn't like tablets and didn't want one. I like having a proper keyboard. Which was a bit sad. Although it was free to upgrade to Windows 10, Windows 10 wouldn't run on them because there was no graphics driver available (ie nothing on the screen!).
So I bought one of the later 10" Eee Pc's which came with Windows 7 starter on it, put a faster hard drive in it, upgraded the ram and installed Windows 10 on it. I used that as my travel netbook for quite a few years. And kept Linux on the smaller one and would use it just for web browsing sometimes. It was a bit slow with Windows 10 on though. Operating systems have got heavier and heavier.
Just for fun, I upgraded the 10" one to Windows 11 when it came out. It doesn't have the hardware to support Windows 11 officially (and many people have older laptops that won't run Windows 11), but there is a work around during installation - which is legal! Although not advised by Microsoft.
With the latest updates of Windows 11 though, there is no graphics driver that will work with it again. So I've put linux on that now as well.
So here are my two netbooks. The 7" 701sd with an 8gb drive (the mini 64gb drive failed unfortunately and they're no longer available - but I have plenty of spare 8gb ones). It's running Bodhi Linux - which only just fits. It's about the only one that runs on a 32 bit computer now. Nearly all operating systems, both Linux and Windows, are only for 64 bit (more modern hardware) computers now.
And my 10" one with Linux Mint Xfce on. Both are easy to use. The programs and way of working are different from windows but a web browser is a web browser and once on the internet you can access all the usual sites.
This is the 7" white 701SD - I have three. You can see how easy it is to take the back off and swap the drive and ram and replace the battery. Not so these days - where virtually everything is soldered and not replaceable!
These also came with a lovely little mock suede case in the box which was handy for putting them in a bag etc.
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And this is the 10" Asus Eee PC 1015px with the atom processor (there were various incarnations - this was one of the faster ones, as atom processors go). With Linux Mint XFCE on - now it won't run Windows any more. Both in full working order with good batteries. And as you can see, as a netbook it works well for accessing websites. Although the screen is a bit small! Strangely the 7" one is easier to use than the 10" one, because you have it closer.
I love the little 7" netbooks - they were small, chunky, reliable mechanically, easy to use and take anywhere. I wish they would make some up to date ones! But then we all have smartphones now so don't really need them.
I think the 7" ones still have a bit of a cult following and people use them for all sorts of purposes.
I love the little 7" netbooks - they were small, chunky, reliable mechanically, easy to use and take anywhere. I wish they would make some up to date ones! But then we all have smartphones now so don't really need them.
I think the 7" ones still have a bit of a cult following and people use them for all sorts of purposes.
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E
elusive
It’s been quite a journey hasn’t it! I’m not familiar with any of those but I fell in love with my first computer too, very different the big boxy imac that looked a bit like an old fashioned TV, back in around 2000 I think, things have come a long way but I still miss the early computing days!
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You can still get those little 7" ones on ebay even now With out of date software on them. I get mine out and play with it occasionally. It was just such a fun little tiny computer. It does everything a larger laptop will do.
I'm kind of doing the same thing with laptops now. We've never bought new ones - just good used ones, and I upgrade them. If I find one going cheap that's the same model, I buy it for spare parts. The main laptop I have now is still fairly upgradeable, which most new ones aren't.
With out of date software on them. I get mine out and play with it occasionally. It was just such a fun little tiny computer. It does everything a larger laptop will do.I'm kind of doing the same thing with laptops now. We've never bought new ones - just good used ones, and I upgrade them. If I find one going cheap that's the same model, I buy it for spare parts. The main laptop I have now is still fairly upgradeable, which most new ones aren't.
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It raises an issue about waste as well. There are loads of old computers out there, in good condition and working order, that will no longer run Windows 10 in just over a year's time, and won't run Windows 11. Although there is still an unoffical (legal) way to run Windows 11 on older laptops, that won't work any more after next year, when new hardware requirements come in. Anything older than about 15 years old won't run Windows 11. And some not so old ones without the correct hardware specs. That leaves an awful lot of working computers for the scrap heap. Not very environmentally friendly!
Unfortunately the light has shown up a lot of dust on the dark coloured things on that photo - they don't look dusty to me ha ha. Must be just the way the light has caught them.
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Anyone remember the BBC micro computer? That was our first family computer. I remember being so excited about bat and ball You had to load games using a cassette in a tape recorder…it took absolutely ages, and usually failed to load 
I was pretty good at Pac-Man back then!
You had to load games using a cassette in a tape recorder…it took absolutely ages, and usually failed to load I was pretty good at Pac-Man back then!
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I think I remember those And also the Commodore 64 with a cassette. Technically that was probably my first computer too - except it wasn't mine ha ha. That was also a family computer.
However I've become a bit of a netbook hoarder. I think they are quite collectible still - the original 7" ones. But such fun to use.
When the TV packed up (which it did regularly at one time), OH and I used to go out in the car to find a wifi spot and watch iplayer on that 7" netbook. Because not everyone had wifi then either.
And also the Commodore 64 with a cassette. Technically that was probably my first computer too - except it wasn't mine ha ha. That was also a family computer.However I've become a bit of a netbook hoarder. I think they are quite collectible still - the original 7" ones. But such fun to use.
When the TV packed up (which it did regularly at one time), OH and I used to go out in the car to find a wifi spot and watch iplayer on that 7" netbook. Because not everyone had wifi then either.
F
Frida
Beautiful photos of Raffy 
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In case anyone is thinking that today's post wasn't really about hamsters - the point of the "week in the life of" thread, is it can be about anything - other hobbies and interests as well and other pets etc. Although something hamster related along the way is nice
E
elusive
Hello Raffy, looks like you’re having fun!
All the PC & Windows stuff is more or less doble dutch to me!
All the PC & Windows stuff is more or less doble dutch to me!