Asus dropped hard disk from Eee PC at eleventh hour
Manual reveals all
Exclusive Did Asus originally plan to release its elfin Eee PC mini laptop with a magnetic hard disk drive? A snippet from the computer's manual suggests that the company did.
"To prepare the Eee PC for transport, you should turn it off... The solid-state disk's head retracts when the power is turned off to prevent scratching of the solid-state disk drive surface during transport."
Here it is in situ:
There are two possible explanations for this. First, Asus' engineers don't understand that a solid-state disk doesn't actually possess any moving parts, and is therefore entirely safe from the dangers HDDs face when they're powered them down incorrectly.
This we can't really credit, leaving us with the second explanation: that Asus originally planned to equip the Eee PC with a hard drive and changed its mind after the computer's manual had been completed.
Asus Eee PC and friend: prefers a harder disk?
At which point, an Asus operative, making use of a universal search and replace facility exchanged "hard disk drive" for "solid-state disk drive" but didn't check to see whether the new text made sense in the context of the old.
Does this matter? Not a great deal, of course, but it gives us another opportunity - which, for the benefit of our readers, we feel unable to ignore - of printing that picture again...
Thanks to Register Hardware reader Andrew for the tip. And kudos for RTFM way more closely than anyone else has.
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COMMENTS
I concurr
she is a hottie alright - and the ad worked on me! I got one and am really happy with it (SNES emu mainly as the small screen is perfect for making the graphics look wonderful again).
Defo change the Paris angle to where is the eee-beachbird angle?!!
@Adrian Esdaile
Does your partner really expect marketroids to entertain anything as dangerous as (gasp!) "a new thought"?
(Or any thought, for that manner.)
They've all seen War Games (or Hackers if they're too young) and that's it - All computer users are 15yo wankers -err - "Solo Sex Aficionados". Plus, all the other marketroids advertise IT with mammaries, and who are they to buck the trend?
Now slap a campaign together ASAP, so we can get back to sniffing the Bolivian Marching Powder out of the navels of the models.
OK, I apologise for offending any real marketroids who might be reading this - my comment is obviously a grossly distorted and sweeping generalisation. It's just that my objectivity goes out the window when sex is used to sell *anything*, but especially in the IT arena.
Asus Marketing Dept will love you
...as you continue to keep "plugging" their product....
How much of a kick-back are you getting, BTW ??
Or did they set you up for a date with Ms Fat Leggy Blonde ??
And they will want their review sample back soon...so you can't "accidentally "lose" it !!
"Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"
"Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"
Robert Pirsig’s excellent novel "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" is in part about alienation of people from modern technology, and had a very funny account of how instruction manuals are written, from a character (based on the writer himself), who used to be a technical writer. As he tells it, the company needs to write a manual for a new product. They go down to the production line and ask the manager there to relapse someone to help them with writing it. The manager gives them the biggest goof-off on the shop floor, as during the time they are absent, the rest of them might actually get some work done. Goof-off knows little about the product, and the manual is a mess. Public gets even more alienated from technology…
Not just the camera....
... but the EEE PC looks like it's also photoshopped into the pic - look at her hand and the lighting around the edges of the laptop.
