As I’ve said many times, Splashtop is perfect for Netbooks. I can recall the very first time I saw the very first netbook, the EeePC. I wondered if it would ever take off. I think it is safe to say that it has taken off and inspired a huge market. Recently I’ve been using the Lenovo S10 a lot because Splashtop is available on it and because it is definitely one of the very best netbooks out there. I travel around a lot. I spend a lot of time in coffee shops and between a couple offices so I’m a great target for a netbook. Also, I have embraced web apps which makes a netbook even easier to use. I’ve been working on how to really configure my netbook to suit my needs. Here’s what I’ve done:

Made sure that when I get into Splashtop it has all my “stuff”

1. Setup wifi in my favorite coffee shops (and work) and saved the location
2. Put all my Music and Photos (mostly music) on a 16GB SD Card
3. Under Tools/When Splashtop Browser Starts - set it to “show my windows and tabs from last time”
4. Went to the Configuration Panel and had the bottom dock auto hide
5. Setup my chat accounts in pigeon and my Skype to remember me.

Web applications I use - because I auto-populate my tabs these generally all open up upon starting the Splashtop Browser.

1. Gmail - Gmail is my favorite webmail application, so easy!
2. Peoplebrowsr - this is my web-based Twitter Client - a must for anyone who uses Twitter
3. 12seconds.tv - I utilize this video community a lot - the integrated webcam makes it awesome
4. Zoho for documents - Sometimes I also use Google Docs.
5. Blip.fm - I’ve really been enjoying this site for music and I also regularly utilize Pandora. Of course I use our built in music player to listen to music off of my SD Card.

These 5 generally cover what I’m doing when I first start my machine.

From there, I’m all over the place using Google Reader to check my news feeds, I read Engadget religiously, I’m all over Hulu whenever my boss isn’t looking when I have time and I’m not working hard and I check Woot at least once a day.

Several people have wondered about the real utility of netbooks. For many people it is their 2nd (or 3rd) machine. It’s interesting that people tend to create a bond with their machine. Your mobile phone, for instance, becomes an important part of your life. Will netbooks also serve that role? For me, spending the time to configure my netbook and think about how I use it has made all the difference. Next up I have to figure out which stickers I want to put on it.

CES allowed us to continue to demonstrate the power of our fast booting, web-centric operating environment. There were a couple videos that we wanted to share with you. The first is Sergei’s incredible appearance on “Into Tomorrow” with Dave Graveline. Check it out…

Next, we have a “Death Match” between a bunch of Splashtop enabled machines hosted by GottaBeMobile, who stopped by our booth. As you’ll see every Splashtop device runs very quickly. The difference is often the components used in the machines. You might expect a less expensive netbook to run a bit slower than a super high end, more expensive device. In my opinion, the real “death match” occurs between Splashtop and a traditional OS (check out the video on this NY Times article to see what I’m talking about). Here’s a link to the full GottaBeMobile article.

You should consider unplugging that new plasma TV, at least when you are not watching it. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, a plasma TV sucks down $165 of electricity a year in standby mode.

“Stop Your Electronics’ Vampire Power Waste,” an article by JR Raphael at PC World, goes on to list other top culprits in your home. A desktop PC is near the top of the list at $6.20 wasted while in standby. This number hides a bigger problem - many desktop PCs are ‘on’ 247. Frustrated with slow boot times, people simply never turn off their computers. It is one of the problems we are addressing with Splashtop. And a big problem it is. Lets do a quick calculation.

A well designed desktop that is ‘off’ or in standby consumes less than 1 Watt of energy. An idling ‘on’ desktop can easily consume 50 Watts of energy. Which means that it will contribute some $300 to your annual electricity bill.

If your desktop has a Splashtop-powered motherboard, like one of many excellent motherboards from ASUS (who calls the feature “Express Gate”), you can turn it on or off nearly instantly. You no longer need to keep your PC running all the time. The annual savings should be enough for you to buy a sweet new Lenovo S10 netbook with Splashtop - or whatever is the hottest gizmo a year from now.

image credit: Engadget

CES has been a lot of fun (more videos coming soon). While we didn’t have a lot to announce this year, we did enjoy showing off our instant on software on many a cool device. People seemed to be drawn to the Lenovo S10 quite a bit at the booth as netbooks are really all the rage at CES. There were some cool surprises this year. Generally when we announce something it takes weeks of discussion and planning. Press releases are written and approved and positioning debated. I’m always amazed at how long it takes to announce something! So it was surprising when LG debuted their sweet new LG X120 on the CES show floor featuring…you guessed it…Splashtop.

On LG machines Splashtop is called LG Smart On. This is the second Netbook for Splashtop. The first is, of course, the Lenovo IdeaPad S10 which we launched in late October. At ShowStoppers (which is this rad press event at CES) press were constantly impressed with our netbook product. The LG Smart On implementation of Splashtop is beautiful and the team that worked diligently to make it happen should be congratulated.

Engadget covered it here with a sweet video so make sure to check it out!

We’ll do some more CES roundup in the coming days…

So, we’re here at CES getting things all ready for an awesome show. We’ve got a whole crew of people including myself, Kevin T, Sergei, Kevin H, Cleo and Speiser. We’ll get a few fun days with Mark and Alex too. CES is all about finding out about what’s new, what’s exciting and long nights of partying whose got the coolest booths. Here’s a few highlights from our setup day.

CES Splashtop Setup Day from Sol Lipman on Vimeo.

Don’t forget to come visit us as IP200 (we’re in the innovation pods).