I actually figured something out that's pretty cool. I am posting this from an EeePC running ubuntu linux. Now nothing is terribly special about that but it's how I am getting my net connection that took some work. I have it tethered to my blackberry, using it as the modem. You can teach an old dog new tricks.

It's showing a max transfer rate of 571/99 kb/s down/up. Not bad for a cell phone.

Careful there! Some cell plans still don't like data transfer over their lines like that, and there may be some significant hidden charges, or at least data caps.

Still ... well done! I've used my cell on occasion as a modem, and have even gone the other way ... used a wireless feed from my laptop to feed network access to my PDA (that was years ago, though).

-J

and dont fall for the unlimited data plans..

they have a cap from 3 to 5 gig (read the small print)

and then they charge by the mb.. i have heard horror stories from 10c to 25c per a mb!!!!

Believe me I looked into the data plan that I have, it says it's unlimited. Though I have found they have an invisible 5gig per month cap on an unlimited plan. (sounds like some cable providers) Sprint customer service has no clue what they are talking about and wasn't aware you could even do this. Even the second level tech support guy wasn't aware you could use the phone this way. It was sad, but he insisted that if my plan didn't include it then it wouldn't work.(sounded like a challenge to me)

I tethered my Blackberry to my home pc last month and transferred a couple of meg to see if there would be any kind of change/ charges to my account. I waited a billing cycle be be sure and there was nothing extra before trying it on the netbook. I will certainly take it easy the first few months to be sure I don't get a $5,000 bill though. I was on long enough last night just to make the post.

On a side note, I use hardwire gigabit networking in my house but this netbook has built in Wi-Fi. There are 2 unsecured wireless modems in my neighborhood out of 8 signals that I can connect to. Crazy how lax people are.

I wish people were MORE lax... I can't seem to find a good free wifi anywhere these days.

J