I got my wife one of the HP mini's for her birthday and she loves it. It's large enough to do all the normal PC type stuff, but small enough it fits into a large purse.

Not entirely - people still need to do CAD and GIS where there is no internet support. That doesn't require a large screen but it is preferred. Not to mention that at remote sites the laptop is also the DVD player.

I too have started looking at this possibility.

However, I do have some word processing work that I require. If I can do my word processing off of my Memory Sticks, with a netbook, then I will do it shortly.

If you want to do that then plug a nice big monitor into the little laptop. I to grew tired of having no decent small laptops, thats why I held on to my old one for so long.

Don't even waste time with those silly memory sticks,so few devices have readers for them. Use SD or USB flash memory they are far more standardized.

I just though,your probably talking about usb. There already is a type of flash storage called memory stick, its a propritary interface designed by sony and needs a reader. I've seen many people call usb flash usb sticks but be careful because memory stick is a completely different animal.
You don't need to store your documents on flash anyway, as netbooks got popular and people started stick hard drives in them the manufacturers took notice and started selling them that way. Mine has a 160G drive, though thats a little small so I ordered a 500G to replace it next week.

Yes, you are correct,,I'm actually speaking about the USB flash storage "sticks".

That's what I do at home, but when I'm working I get bounced from camp to camp so I have to live out of a duffle bag and a backpack for an indefinite period of time. Unless there's a large LCD monitor wherever I happen to be, I use the laptop as is. And when we're putting a camp together for air cargo, large fragile electronics aren't high on the priority list. But flats of soda for the drillers are...but I digress.

You're right though, that is a solution. But we all still carry "bulky" laptops.

Look at portableapps.com. I have an acer aspire one, which is a netbook. Portable apps provide a complete open office, browser, e-mail client and much more that can be run from any external device (thumb drive, SDHC etc.).

I use an 8 gig SDHC chip which I move from netbook to notebook as the situation requires. This provides me with a sort of movable software module that contains all my personal work, most of my application needs and a lot of storage as well.

I even have an truecrypt encrypted section for those things which require secure storage.

I have been doing this for several years with no problems.

Nomad

have to be careful with that, my MIL went in to a computer store looking for a memory stick because one of her friends said she needed one and then called me when it wouldn't fit in her USB port.
No matter what you use, netbooks can be bought with normal hard drives so you can carry anything you want/need on them. I just replaced the 160G in mine for a 500G so I could have all my data in one place.