Well, I am happy to say that my recently acquired netbook is now sold to a friend.

After a few test drives and benchmarks, I decided that it's quite weak to do everything I will want it to do. So I am going to be going with either a custom box or a more powerful netbook. Need to think about this.

Plenty! Why carputer? Is it really necessary? After my first carputer, I got me an iPhone. After iPhone, I became discouraged in using cheap Lilliput Chinese touch screen. Because its quality was simply crap compared to iPhone. So somehow back then I had hopes that all my carputer needs could be realised by a smart phone. It is almost true still, but carputer is still better. So overlooking the fact that carputer is simply cool thing to have, what are the benefits from having a carputer.

The biggest thing that empowers a carputer need is nothing else but a mere fact of having a constant Internet connection and what it could bring. I have a pretty amazing unlimited mobile broadband internet provided by Sprint, which allows me to enjoy a numbers of things while in the moving car. The keyword there is moving. With my carputer in the past, I could park somewhere hopeful to hop on someone's WiFi to get done what I needed. Now it's a whole different story I have Internet wherever [pending mobile coverage], which gives me lots and lots of freedom:

1. Streaming music (pandora.com, imeem.com, blip.fm, last.fm).
2. Streaming radio (moskva.fm, molode.com.ua, etc.).
3. Streaming TV/news (hulu.com, joost.com, russiantvonline.com, etc.).
4. Download podcasts (podcastalley.com, rpod.ru).
5. Download [via torrent] TV shows and sport events that I missed.
6. See right on the moving Google Earth where I am driving at any given time, i.e. GPS navigator.
7. Local places finder (cheap gas, particular restaurant, specialized store, hotel, etc.)

It's quite obvious from the list above, that Internet connectivity is a key factor here, since I have that mobile broadband internet, it's a perfect opportunity to enjoy all these new innovative services, why not? There is no need to carry 200gb worth of media in your hard drive.

After visiting New England carputer meet, I became interested to build something again. Certainly, this time it would be nothing as ambitious as my previous undertaking, it was an amazing endeavor, but it was an expensive and time consuming one. Worst of all, it was not a mobile solution, that is attached to the car, which is not ideal for person like me, who doesn't keep cars for too long.

So, this time it's going to be a semi-mobile solution, which I will be able to take out of the car easily. This build has began with buying a new Asus EEE PC 900 on ebay.

Asus EEE PC 900 netbook.

Immediate plans for the general setup include some sort of mount, and stable power source. Thinking about second battery, but undecided yet. I already have Sprint mobile broadband card, which pretty much lets me listen to anything online — pandora.com, imeem.com, moskva.fm, etc.

Progress can be tracked at my carputer page.

I see in google analytics many queries to carputer diagram, something I've removed, but just now decided it may be useful to some people.

Here is carputer diagram version 1.1:

Carputer diagram version 1.1.