Getting started with net books

Getting StartED with Netbooks broadly targets consumers at a pivotal moment in the explosive growth of the MID/Netbook/UMPC market. We intend to create value for this group by providing an indispensable, "Consumer Reports Meets Whole Earth Catalog" sort of information aggregation. For this project, timing and tone matters. Here’s why: Even given a weak global economy and a lengthening economic recession, analyst forecasts call for the MID/Netbook/SCC device market reach $29 billion and 200 million shipped units by 2010. Netbook manufacturer Acer shipped over two million of its popular Aspire Netbooks in Q3 of 2008, and is forecasting sales of 15 million units in 2009. eeePC is another major player with continued news of speculation around Apple creating its own Mac Netbook or tablet. This friends of ED book by Nancy Nicolaisen and Karen Offerman will be one of the very first if not the first guide and catalog for consumers to choose the best Netbook to use; how to use; and integrate with the Web community via Webware, social networking and more. Timing makes this book unique. Mobile-connected culture has been a relatively exclusive club up to this point. Because it has almost entirely been based on smartphones — expensive, quirky, n- standard, walled garden gadgets — its growth has been stulified by fragmentation on every level. In contrast, netbooks offer a populist solution: inexpensive, dependable, and benefiting from a huge head start in software applications, peripheral devices, and web-based services that were built for desktop or laptop computers, but can be easily reused by netbook owners. Even in a weak economy, netbooks have taken off in Asia and India, and show every indication of following suit in North America. In this book, I set out to make you a better, savvier consumer of a technology that can transform your day-to-day life in some pretty important ways. But I don’t assume that you already know a lot about this kind of computing or, for that matter, any kind of computing. I was guided by the idea that if you want to get started, I want to help you do it. So here are all of the steps, with nothing left out. You've found your perfect communications partner. Tiny, light, and inexpensive, netbooks are an ideal match if you need to keep in touch with work, family, and friends wherever you go. Tech mag guru Nancy Nicolaisen helps you to make the right choices about your netbook, from empowering you as a savvy shopper to showing you how netbooks and other mobile Internet devices can make your life easier, perhaps even better! Share the visions and aspirations of major market innovators in exclusive interviews about the global mobile future and see where netbooks could take you tomorrow. What you'll lea Chapter 1: Getting the best fit and value Chapter 2: Getting connected Chapter 3: Hands-on power shopping: best of breed tools for today's netbooks and the cloud lifestyle Chapter 4: A beginner's guide to cloud lifestyles Chapter 5: Hot tickets for netbook software, media, and content experiences Chapter 6: Best of the web part 1: business and reference Chapter 7: Best of the web part 2: entertainment and lifestyle Chapter 8: Maintaining privacy and security in a pervasively connected world Appendix A: Notebook specification sheets. A guide to notebook computers covers such topics as selecting a netbook, accessories, streaming music and video, using cloud computing, accessing the Web, and security