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Asus Express Gate

Asus Express Gate is nothing less than a mini-Linux distribution on a small SSD drive. You can boot into it very quickly, and do basic tasks such as web browsing, skype, instant messaging and now photo viewing - all without booting a full OS.

You can even do this without a hard drive attached!

Frankly, I expect Express Gate to add more applications over time; I would not be surprised at all if eventually office applications and some games were added.

If you decide to enter it, you will be treated to a SplashTop boot screen while the kernel is loading. SplashTop is the company who licensed Express Gate to Asus.

You will then choose the language, agree to the license, and set the time/date.

The desktop is nice and simple, with a launcher bar for starting a web browser, photo app, instant messaging, skype or file browser; and you can also configure various desktop parameters here.

Here's the Asus web site and a shot of the file manager

The photo browser and the instant messenger.

Here's Skype

And the control panel