New Travel Laptop

See this cute new Dell Mini 10V netbook? It's teensy. See how small it is compared to my MacBook?



Now look what I did to it last night.



I used these instructions and got myself a brand-new Mac for $279 plus the cost of Snow Leopard. (The base cost of the Dell laptop was $249 on Black Friday, but I got some add-ons.)

Before you get all excited and think, "I can have a new Mac too," stop right there. I have a lot of Macs and wouldn't recommend a netbook as a primary computer. I'm going to use this for writing and travel Internet. I'll upload photos from it and blog from it. I'll carry it to the writing center and write (I hope). I'll throw it into my backpack and take it on long, dusty expeditions that I shouldn't take my MacBook on. Because if I destroy or lose a $279 Mac, it's not the same as destroying or losing a $1200 Mac.

I have yet to fully road-test this, of course. I'm going to give it a try over New Year's, when I head out of town to an obscure, non-wired destination.