As for scrivener — I love that program. When you are sad about your work, you can upload photos or rearrange your bulletin board or otherwise fiddle around with stuff, thus continuing to work rather than drinking heavily. And the panic and depression seems to pass more quickly with scrivener than with gin.

For portability, netbooks are great; I primarily use mine for taking notes in class or reading when I have a long wait. The battery life is quite nice, too.

For writing, though, I would only recommend them as a secondary computer, and definitely not for editing. If you’re just producing text, they’re great. The screen size isn’t a huge impediment unless you edit as you write; if you’re churning out words, then a 10 inch screen is fine.

However, the small screen size makes getting a ‘big picture’ both literally and metaphorically difficult. When it gets back around to slugging through and editing, I find that a real impediment. In my experience, you can usually fit about half a page on the screen, and at least when I edit, I like to have more then that.

So it really depends on what you want to use the netbook -for-; if you only envision yourself using it to take notes or produce text, then I’d recommend it. If you want to use it to edit anything longer then a page, seriously consider getting a midrange laptop with a 15 inch screen.

Best of all? No net connection so no distracting games and no distracting porn. I get much more done, typing with two hands and all… The only distractions I have now are the hotties who approach me at the coffeeshop going, “Ooooh, What’s that gizmo?”

http://www.neo-direct.com/default.aspx

Mac users do not beat me up! That will not change the fact that there are conversion problems! I like Macs, I use an iPhone, we’re buying a Mac for my in-laws for Christmas! But for writing biz stuff, I use a PC.