This will show you how to increase the resolution of your netbook or any other X window system screen beyond the maximum capability of its screen.

I have an hp mini 210 netbook.
it has 1024×600 resolution.

i found a nice hack that allows me to get scaled 1600×1200 and 1440×900 running on it using xrandr

fire up a terminal.
[any will do, but Eterm is nice]

if your native resolution is 1024×600 and you type in

xrandr --fb 1433x840 --output LVDS --scale 1.40x1.40

you will get 1433×840 =)

there is a tool, called newrez
that will calculate the scale and the best res depending on the horizontal size you specify.
you can also get it to make an icon in your panel so that you can switch resolution as needed.

I have it run the command from the gnome startup applications.
that way I get a better resolution on my netbook =)