A few months ago, I joined the "UMPC" (Ultramobile Portable Computer) revolution.
What's a UMPC? It's an ultra small portable notebook computer.
In the case of the "Asus EeePC" UMPC it weighs just under a kilo which means you can easily carry it anywhere. It fits very easily into a small handbag.
That opens up some incredible opportunities for labour and social activists. Labourstart's Eric Lee posted an article entitled "Ultra-portable laptops and the unions: A revolution in the making".
The Asus EeePC comes with three USB ports, an SD/MMC port (for camera cards), audio in and audio out jacks, a VGA out port for connecting the machine to a computer projector or external monitor, ethernet port (for wired network connections) and a built-in Wi-fi card for wireless networking.
The "onboard" storage is not that much (a four gigabyte flash drive), but honestly you don't really need any more then that for mobile use. If you do, CDN$10 buys you a one gigabyte USB thumb drive.
The model I have cost me CDN$350. But for an extra $50 there is a model that comes with a built-in web cam.
You will not find Microsoft's bloated "Windows" computer operating system on the Asus EeePC. Instead, you'll find a customized version of the "free as in freedom" GNU/Linux operating system.
GNU/Linux combined with the use of a flash drive, makes the Asus EeePC the fastest booting notebook computer I have ever seen in my life!
As for user software, you'll find just about everything you'll need for mobile computing, most of it free software as well.
Need to do write a quick report, do a spreadsheet or a presentation? You'll find "Open Office" pre-installed on the machine. An office suite is something that you typically don't find pre-installed on most Microsoft Windows machines. That costs extra.
If you're wanting to surf the net, the world's best web browser is already there...Mozilla Firefox.
For e-mail, you'll find Mozilla Thunderbird...which also by the way handles RSS feeds. If you use webmail services like Gmail and Yahoo mail, you'll find shortcuts to get you there very quickly!
Are you a user of instant messaging services? You'll find "Pidgin" at your disposal. The difference is that Pidgin handles about half a dozen instant messaging services in a single software programme! It's not necessary to have a different instant messaging programme for each service that you use.
For viewing photographs you'll find "Gwenview", for listening to music and streaming audio you'll find "AmaroK"...which blows "iTunes" out of the water! If you need to do a quick interview, just plug in a cheap computer microphone and use the onboard audio recording software.
Configuring wired or wireless networking connections is a couple of mouse clicks away with the built-in software.
While most of the installed user software comes from the "free software" world, a few programmes don't. "Skype", the best known "voice over IP" software comes pre-installed. So where ever you are, you can always keep in touch as long as you've got an internet connection.
We unfortunately also live in a world where most of the streaming audio and video formats used on the web are proprietary. Support for these formats is pre-installed on the Asus EeePC. You'll also find support for proprietary plug-ins like "flash" and "java".
Other computer manufacturer's like HP are in the process of releasing similar types of UMPC's.
How does this help labour and social activists?
Let's say you're at a union rally and you want to send some photos off to other activists. You just pop the memory card out of your digital camera, insert it into your Asus EeePC's card slot, and providing you've got some kind of internet connection you can attach the photo to an e-mail message and send it on it's merry way anywhere in the world!
The beauty of it is that you can send full-sized photos...not the little wee photos you typically see on "camera phones".
Our struggles are increasingly global in nature. Imagine being at a rally and being able to view photos from a similar event in another city within minutes!
Voice-over-IP services like Skype can also handle video conferencing. Someone from another part of the world can speak to your event from another continent!
Unions that have enough money to equip their staff with notebook computers often "ration" them. For the price of a "standard" Windows-powered notebook, a union can equip several staff with EeePC's. And that does not include the cost of user software like Microsoft Office, security software or IT staff to maintain the machines.
Instead of having IT staff constantly "fixing" things that are broken, they can be more creative and do things that help strengthen the union's technological capabilities.
The EeePC has attracted so much attention that a global online community has developed around it. Just go to eeeuser.com
The GNU/Linux computer operating system (which makes UMPC's possible) along with the many community built user programmes are a product of the social activism of free software pioneer Richard Stallman. In 1991 Stallman authored the "GNU General Public License" which created the environment where free software could flourish.
While Stallman's original concern back in the 1980's was about creating social solidarity amongst computer users, most of us are concerned about building solidarity between workers and the community at large over a wide range of issues.
So Stallman's "free software activism" can help fuel everyone else's activism. And we've now got the little machines to help us do it!
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