A lot of people asked me about buying the Pico ITX-sized VIA Artigo system I brought for the gadget show&tell at the meeting, so I thought I'd post the info here.

You can still find a few online, or I can also still get them from my suppliers (I run a computer reseller business) brand new for $130+tax. I don't stock them so I need several weeks notice, but you may find it convenient to pick up at a meeting.

It's a kit so you need to assemble some of the parts yourself, but it's super easy with paper instructions with lots of pics. For a few bucks more I can assemble it (I also stock compatible SSDs and can get RAM).

It comes as a near-complete system, all you need to add is a DDR2 SO-DIMM RAM stick (any leftovers from an old laptop will work), and a notebook hard drive (SATA or IDE) or any modern 2.5" SSD.

Why would someone want this box? It's a full x86-compatible system so it runs any normal i386 distro (not ARM, so you can run Windows if you need to). It also has SATA and IDE ports, which was why I wanted one originally (Pi-like things don't have this).

It turns out it has a VIA C7 1GHz processor; 1GB RAM max capacity; onboard 100 ethernet, audio, usb, vga, dvi. All in about 6x4x1.5". I doubt these will be around much longer.

If you want one, email me privately and make sure "muug" is in the subject. Thanks!