The problem had been growing for some time, to the point that a loud, very noticeable buzzing would commence whenever my Eee PC’s fan kicked in. A Google search revealed a possible cause: a piece of plastic tape dipping into the fan blades as it spun. After cracking the case, disassembling, and reassembling the netbook, I can confirm that this was in fact what was happening.

Taking apart a netbook isn’t exactly easy. Just for starters, it voids your warranty (though this wasn’t a problem for me, as my Eee PC was already over 12 months old). You’ll need one or two sizes of small, precision Philips head screwdrivers. My favorites are by Wiha, but I’ve bought acceptable tools from Ace Hardware. Just make sure you get ones with magnetized heads to help you lift out the tiny screws. You’ll also want some kind of stiff plastic object to help you pry open the case, such as a guitar pick or a credit card (though don’t use a card that you can’t risk chewing up).

Exactly how to get the case open wasn’t immediately obvious. I relied on advice from here and here to get the job done. There were a couple of moments when I was afraid I might crack the plastic — make sure you don’t overlook the one screw dead center of the metal plate that’s covered by a yellow piece of tape.

The hardest part, after loosening all the tabs around the sides of the case, was reinserting the flat, ribbon-like cables for the keyboard and trackpad. You might want to try booting the machine with the case still open, to make sure your input devices are working before you screw in all the screws on the bottom of the case.

The whole process probably took me about 45 minutes. But now that it’s done, I can confirm that the buzzing noise is gone and my Eee PC has new life as a device to take to the library, coffee shops, or anywhere else where people might have shot me dirty looks when my laptop started up its fan.

My conclusions? For starters, they might not even look like mini-laptops for much longer.

Hardware vendors are naturally concerned that these low-margin devices could cut into the sales of their higher-end products, so they’re looking for ways to spin them as secondary systems and “companion devices.” Look for new chips under the hood, new form factors, and even new pricing models that could send the cost of netbooks down to nothing. Click over to InfoWorld to see what I mean, and be sure to leave feedback in the comments and forums.

Do you disagree? By all means, dive into the discussion by posting comments or striking up a conversation on InfoWorld’s new forums.

The new version of the site brings more than just a sleek, modern new look. Beneath the hood it’s a complete rebuild. Out went the earlier, proprietary content-management system, replaced by Drupal, an open source CMS platform. The Online Publishing Group at IDG, in tandem with an outside Web development firm, created a fully customized Drupal installation that — for once — means InfoWorld has a technology platform that matches its content. Better yet, while the competition is still nervously worrying about the future of the publishing industry, InfoWorld is moving forward, better than ever.

I encourage everybody to check out the new site — and, especially, to jump in and participate. There are dozens of online discussion forums just waiting for your input, questions, feedback, and casual chat. This is a great opportunity to build an unprecedented online community focused on enterprise IT. Do me a favor, register on the site, and kick off new discussion topics of your own. I and the other InfoWorld editors and contributors will be checking in and joining the discussion as often as we’re able.

Congratulations to everyone at InfoWorld on a successful relaunch, and I’m looking forward to all our collaborations in the new era.

I hope everybody has a happy and safe holiday season, and a prosperous New Year. I’ll give updates on what’s going on with me after the jump.

The first thing I noticed when I was doing some routine maintenance on this site are that the traffic numbers are up — way up. December was the biggest month ever for this site in terms of the number of unique visitors, gaining more than 50 percent since the previous month. (And that’s even with no new blog posts for December!)

A lot of that traffic is going to the artwork pages, as always (links from MySpace are popular), but I’m also seeing promising gains on the RSS feeds. Not to mention that overall traffic has been gaining steadily throughout the year. December’s traffic is almost double what it was in June, and more than five times what it was in January. So thanks to everybody who has enjoyed my work and who keeps dropping in to check up on me.

Speaking of RSS feeds, you’ll notice that one has gone missing from the righthand sidebar of the site. As it happens, PC World Business Center has rethought its blogs, and it’s no longer doing the three separate blogs that I announced earlier in the year. Instead, from now on all of the Business Center blog authors will be contributing to one new, amalgamated blog called BizFeed – and that includes me.

I’ve gotten off to a little bit of a slow start because of the season, but I expect to ramp up the pace of posts as the New Year breaks. Unfortunately, however, at present there’s no way to filter the blog or its RSS feed to get just my content, if that’s what you want. That also means I won’t be publishing the RSS feed for that content on this site, either. But keep tuning in at PC World’s site — you may like what you find.

As long as we’re promising things for the New Year, I also plan to get back on track with the book reviews on this site, because some of those have proven popular through links and Google searches (and I plan to keep on reading).

Expect, also, the usual mix of features, opinion, how-to’s, and review of all things technology — and I’m planning to broaden my markets in those areas and beyond, if I can. Without the burden of a full load of classes, I’ll be able to get right back into the swing of regular writing. You’ll hear about it here as it happens.

If you’re out there reading this, what would you like to see from me on this site or elsewhere in the New Year? And what are your own plans? Post a comment and share.

Naturally I’m pleased as punch with the attention. The so-called Slashdot effect is well known, and while visitors from Slashdot have yet to bring InfoWorld’s servers to their knees, the mention is always a surefire way to bring in a lot more traffic. It’s especially great in this case, because the Slashdot audience is pretty much exactly who I had in mind when I launched the blog. I’m a longtime Slashdot junkie myself — and in fact, long before you saw any of my editorials linked on the site, you’ve probably seen my posts in the comments.

Just how long have I been hanging around Slashdot? I can’t count the years. But to give you an idea, my logon is PCM2 and my user ID is 4486. (These days, new user IDs are up to seven digits in length.)

Now you’ll all go searching through the comments to find all the dumb things I’ve said over the years. That’s fine. Hey, what can I say? It’s not like I have some kind of agenda to push, or want to use it to set myself up as some kind of “expert.” I see Slashdot as a gang of folks with whom I check in regularly, who share my passion for all things geeky. As much as people like to knock it, I think it’s been a source of great conversations over the years. (So who cares if I might have posted just a little ol’ troll once in a while? Sue me.)

BTW, don’t go looking for me in the discussion threads related to my own articles. I do read them, but I seldom post. Something just doesn’t seem right about chiming in to bicker about my own work. Maybe I’m wrong, but I feel like that crosses the line between trying to be an interesting and engaging commentator and just being a blowhard.

Anyhoo, as I said before, I’m glad that some of my recent ramblings seem to have captured the attention of the Slashdot audience and I look forward to all you have to say about them. I’d just like to point out that this, my own site, is a good place to find out about all of the other writing I’m doing, for InfoWorld and elsewhere. As always, I’ve got a couple of new features on the burners that might appeal to you in the coming months.

And next time you see me on Slashdot, don’t hesitate to post and say hi.

Astute observers will recall that I’ve owned fatalexception.org for some time, so the choice of titles isn’t entirely a coincidence. But it also means something, which I’ve tried to explain in the first post.

In programming parlance, an exception is some kind of unforeseen condition that raises a red flag in the system. And since the story of computing and the Internet reads like a history of unforeseen developments and unlikely outcomes, I thought the title was a pretty decent choice. Plus it sounds cool.

At any rate, over the coming weeks you can expect me to cover stories relevant to Web and software developers and the people who love them. Sometimes I’ll be on a “big think” level, other times it will be nitty-gritty technical stuff. But the idea here is to help to chronicle the ever-changing world of software and computing and how developers keep on changing it. That will inevitably involve a lot of “Web 2.0″ type stuff, but more traditional software development also.

I should have a new column up each Thursday morning, with maybe some shorter posts interspersed here and there throughout the week, when interesting things pop up. As with my PC World blog, I’ll pull in the RSS feed and list the most recent posts in the righthand column, so this site remains a good place to keep up with everything I’m doing, including any upcoming in-depth articles or features (more of those to come soon).

At any rate, I hope you like the new blog and I can develop it into something that suits you. Please don’t hesitate to send feedback, either here or at InfoWorld.com.