Chrome OS, The Cr-48 (ChromeBook) drop test

My little girl loves the Chromebook (my new name for this). She loves to type on it and put sticky finger prints on it. The notebook gives the illusion of sturdiness and ruggedness. I know it probably isn't ruggedized especially compared to some of the Panasonic laptops I have seen, but the black cover feels a little sturdier than most. So this morning I was typing away when my daughter decides she has had enough Blue's Clues and wants to help me with my typing. I quickly it close it and put it on the corner of my desk. Somehow it wasn't far enough over and it falls just over two and a half feet. When I can get my daughter away from it I open it back up and it works fine (so far). Now granted, if it had a hard drive and didn't have a way to stop the heads before it crashed to the ground (like ThinkPads do with their accelerometer), then I would probably have picked up a nearly dead laptop.

Chrome OS, what price privacy?

My Cr-48 has gotten slow. Why? It is my own fault. Too many extensions. Seriously, I have too many extensions. It slows the really fast Chrome browser to a crawl. If I go incognito, this puppy is fast and furious (the first one, not the second one, you know Vin Diesel). I don't like selling my soul one small piece at a time on the Internet. I know it is a strange world trying to live an online life and hide my identity. But I don't want a web site tracking me and I don't want Facebook snooping on every site I visit. My friends know me and if I have something worth sharing, I will, but otherwise, they don't care and I don't share.

I run the following extensions:

(see screen shot)


Actually the picture is just a sampling of the extensions I run.

I fun AdBlock to block ads (including Google Text ads, though it has an option to allow them). It was written by a former Google Engineer. I have run nearly the same plug-in when I was a Mozilla fan. I never knew Facebook had ads until one day I was using my wife's computer. What is with all these ads?

This same author wrote Disconnect and Facebook Disconnect. Facebook Disconnect makes sure you don't share any information with FAcebook. Disconnect makes sure you don't share information with pretty much anyone. In fact it works so well, I can't log onto Yahoo at all with that extension running so I have disabled it.

I use Ghostery, which shows who is trying to track me.

WOT is a web site reputation utility. It is based on votes and requires an account to use (something I hate). Sharing what does not need to be shared. When I do a Google search, if a site doesn't have a Green circle by it, then I usually don't visit it.

Last but not least I use Flashblock. Flashblock prevents Flash ads as well as pretty much any Flash unless I decide I want it. It doesn't work as easily as it did in Mozilla, but I do like it all the same.

If I had an extension wish list it would be for NoScript to have an extension for Chrome. I run this on Firefox and it blocks all JavaScript and Java. My Mac has never had spyware on it thanks to using all of these extensions. Sure, some sites aren't presented in their full glory, but my safety is more important than my web experience.

But...

All of these extensions slow down Chrome. It doesn't seem that bad on my Mac when I run these, but on Chrome OS, it drags it down. So I have to make a value judgement. Is my privacy worth more than speed? And I fairly evaluating Chrome OS if I run all these extensions? Or does running these extensions really test Chrome OS?

Chrome OS. "Will it blend?"

I just love the guys over at Blendtech. They blend some cool things. And now they have blended a Cr-48

How to drive a technician insane...

So today I have an engineer from a far away country helping me resolve an issue. He was copying a really large file (800+ meg) over to my hard drive via Webex. He seems to mention the file is done copying, but I realize he has uploaded the file to the wrong location. So here we are almost done downloading the file and I "move" it to the correct folder. I thought it was done. Needless to say, the guy goes ape. He quickly returns to his professional self, but it was funny to see him freak out. I felt bad about it as now we had to download the file all over again. But it was funny... His expression was basically like "For the humanity of the world..." I know he wanted to tell me I was a idiot. But it really was an accident.

Christmas gifts: Snow Leopard and iLife 11

So Santa was better to me than I deserved. I have an older MacBook so I did not rush out to upgrade to Snow Leopard, but I decided I wanted to upgrade to iLife 11. I do some video editing, photo editing (though I usually use Adobe Photoshop for that), and some music editing. I do like iPhoto's facial recognition. I know Picasa does the samething and I am not 100% sold on iPhoto's event approach,but Picasa has been changing and I am not has thrilled with it as I once was. With iMovie 11 they have added more transitions and it is more like other video editing apps I have used, so it is easier for me to use. GarageBand is such a fun app for creating music on the fly to use for DVD productions and for iMovie sequences. So I am really excited about the new updates. I didn't even run a new back up with Timemachine before starting the upgrade. I inserted the DVD and the install screen came up. I had expected it to say something about upgrade but it did not. I went ahead anyway as my backup before Thanksgiving was good enough for me. I usually have Timemachine running all the time but my son borrowed my desk and my stuff was scattered everywhere. It took about 56 minutes and involved two reboots. Before the upgrade I had only 12 gig of free space on my hard drive. After the install I had 21 gig free. I had read Snow Leopard was more efficient and that showed it. My MacBook came with a 120 gig hard drive so I was worried about my disk utilization. On of the downsides of a MacBook is even though Snow Leopard is 64 bit, the kernel that works on this Mac is 32 bit. As lots of things do not have 64 bit drivers, this isn't a huge drawback but it gets in my craw to know I am less than optimal.

Next I installed iLife 11. I will tell you about that in my next post.

Chrome OS, What it can and can't do so far

So this has become my beside the bed machine. I have always had a dream of having a laptop or tablet that made it easy to get on quickly to check weather or news or look something up on Google. This netbook fits the bill nicely for that. Plus it isn't a huge machine so it isn't hard to pick up. The fast resume time makes it idea for quick searches and information. So for these tasks I am loving this.

But I love visiting Amazon and digital downloads of  music and books for Kindle (though I do not have a Kindle device, I simply read on screen). The music situation seems to me to be the biggest show stopper, though I admit I had not being able to do Netflix on this device.  But I love music and while I do have an iPod, I actually prefer listening to music on my laptop or PC at work. But it is all duplication of effort. I have to carry my current music on an USB device and copy my current likes to work. If my music was in the cloud and I could use any MP3 player with it, then that would be awesome. Even Microsoft's Skydrive will let me upload music so if Google could hurry up and fix this missing spot or partner with someone to allow me to upload my music library and play it anywhere, that would be awesome. There are rumors of a Google Music store in the works coming first of the year. It seems Google has taken it upon itself to compete against every product Apple or Microsoft come out with.

I used to responsible for anything that ran on a Microsoft platform. My boss would come to me and say, Roy, this runs on Windows so I need you to take care of it. So I was responsible for Exchange, SQL, IIS, System Management Server, and anything that ran on Microsoft platforms, but in the end I had to juggle so much that I could only hit the high water marks and never ever did I have time to ensure things were the best they could be on any one system. I see the same problem for Google. If you try to do everything, you can't necessarily do everything well. Jack of all trades and master of some. That was me and that is the direction Google has been headed for some time.

Chrome OS, about:flags

Okay. so if you haven't come across this feature, try typing about:flags in your Chrome browser on your Cr-48. This gives you additional options like turning on the media player, allow more access to the file system, etc. As it warns these are experimental features. But take a look. I will let you know my results.

about:flags

Chrome OS, lag day

So again I am having strange touch pad troubles. If I click on something, I have to wait a few seconds before any action happens. In fact, it is so laggy at times that I have stop clicking to be sure it doesn't finally "click" and click on a link I don't want to click on. This was after a shutdown and restart.

Chrome OS, The trouble with Mice

So today the mouse has been acting up. The mouse became a highlight bar and wouldn't let me click anything. I kept clicking and eventually it became a pointer again. Also I am still having issues with the pointer not exactly clicking on what I am clicking on. These are minor things. I wish this had a light up keyboard as in the dark it is hard to keep my fingers on the right keys.

I have had some Flash issues like others have reported. But nothing major.

Chrome OS, slow day

The Cr-48 has been slow today. In fact the Chrome browser blew up. I don't know if it is extensions messing it up or what, but it kept locking up and I finally shut it down. Even thought I told it to shut down it didn't feel on start up I had shut it down properly. Wireless performance has been flaky today as well with it. But after the restart it seems to be behaving much better. So today anytime I needed wanted to be on the 'Net, I have used this netbook. It got me to thinking. A friend of mine wants to write a book. What if he had a netbook like this and wrote everything in Google Docs? Then it would save everything he did on the web in the cloud. As I use this device I keep trying to figure out its niche. Where does it make sense? As one blogger said, college students could benefit from a machine like this by putting all their school work in the cloud. But what about a music player? How do I load all my music to the cloud so I can play it anywhere?

I found a way around checking email on my other Gmail accounts on the Cr-48. I crank up an Incognito session and it shells out to a new window which allows me to check my other accounts.

Interesting Chrome links of the day, 12/17/2010

Want to dig into the guts of your Chrome OS Cr-48..
https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/dev/poking-around-your-chrome-os-device

Booting to Ubuntu on the Cr-48 (Dual booting between Chrome OS and Ubuntu intrigues me)
https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/dev/chromium-os/developer-information-for-chrome-os-devices/cr-48-chrome-notebook-developer-information/how-to-boot-ubuntu-on-a-cr-48

I like the chrome://service to see the underpinnings a little bit. I am trying to find other switches besides that.

Cr-48: What I have found or discovered so far...

So yesterday I took the Cr-48 to work. I was able to added to the company's guest network but if the device went to sleep, I had to authenticate all over again with the wireless network. I don't have this issue on Windows or Mac based laptops as I stay authenticated all day long. One thought was perhaps it was all the extensions I have added to Chrome to protect my privacy such as it is in this Internet age.  So I disabled all of my extensions, but it made no difference. I noticed on one of the forums and issue with access points that issue certificates and I suspect this is my issue.

In another experiment I wanted to post my pictures to my Blog so I connected my Android based Motorola Droid 2 to the USB port on the netbook. Nothing popped up and recognized it or acknowledged it. Nothing. I had thought while I couldn't put data directly on the laptop perhaps I could upload pictures to a web site by browsing to external storage. Finally I had to connect my  phone to my Mac and upload to Picasawebs so I could add the images of my unveiling to my blog. I will keep working on this. I am hearing rumors of a work around for this, but I haven't seen any write ups yet. I really thought perhaps connecting my Droid to Chrome OS something might work, but no such luck.

I found out today the device has a Bluetooth chip in it, but so far the chip does nothing. Kind of like the bluetooth chip in the early iPod touches, there but with no currently programmed functionality.

I am trying to learn not to hit the trackpad while typing. I keep hitting it while I am typing and moving my cursor around. Speaking of trackpad, this thing has varing degrees of sensitivity. One minute you have to really push to have it click, the next you just barely touch it and it clicks something. Sometimes the right mouse click doesn't work and sometimes it does. Sometimes pointing at something is like trying to play darts, you get close to the target but you miss the bullseye.

I read an interesting article about the usefulness of Chrome OS. It has me thinking, what niche does this device fill? It is along the lines of an iPad. One of the things that appeals to me about the iPad is having a device by the bed I can turn on and instantly see weather and news. I don't have an iPad but I do a cost/benefit analysis in my head trying to figure out how to justify one.  With the Chrome OS netbook, I could do similar. I could have it by the bed, open it up for near instant on, and then go check my weather and news. This is how I start my day every day, with the local news and weather. Then I could quickly check my mail. One issue is I have so many email accounts and many of them are Gmail accounts (I use different accounts for different purposes). But with cookies an issue, I can not easily be logged into multiple accounts at once. I accomplish this on my Droid 2 phone with no issues since it has a Gmail app. But with the netbook, I have only the browser. If had a way to silo each window with separate cookies, then perhaps that would work.

So maybe Chrome OS should drive a table computer instead. Though admittedly Android OS would give it similar abilities. I want to give this device a far shake. I really like the keyboard and the touch pad is livable. I want a device I can watch Netflix on, which currently is a limitation to this device. It plays Pandora okay. The speakers in the device are passable. I want to be able to do Skype on the device too.  I want to be able to upload images from an external device up to the cloud so I can use the images in blogs or for sharing on Facebook. And I want the web cam to have some functionality besides taking my initial picture to put in my logon. I know some of these things will come in time. I can wait.

Remember, this is a beta product. And I am happy to have a chance to pay around with it and help test.

Google Chrome Links

This is a great link about a tear down of the Google Cr-48.

http://www.zdnet.com/photos/google-cr-48-chrome-notebook-teardown/491340

The highlights I was interested in were how big the Flash drive is, 16 Gig.
How much RAM is in the device: 2 Gb.

More to follow.

Chrome OS Netbook: The required by Law Box opening pictures

Okay, so as I visit sites around the web and read different blogs about the Cf-48 netbook (which is what it should be called in my book), I see everyone posts pictures about their unveiling of the netbook from its box. So I guess this is a requirement for me as well.

So here is the outside box. I really like the mouse trap idea.


Here are the warnings about the battery.


The starting instructions...


Screen and keyboard layout info


The netbook in its wrapper inside the box...


The Cr-48 without its battery.


The battery...


The power cord and box


Same thing, different angle


The battery out of the wrapper


Yes, the battery says Mario


Unwrapped...


And now with the battery installed...


The latch


Turn it on and it pops up fast...


Then it asks for language and your network settings...


Terms and Conditions


After that it begins updating...


The screen


Battery came with a partial charge


It's alive, it's alive, it's alive... (check your pop culture references at the door if you don't get that one)


Showing screen size


Let's get it started...


Going through the tutorial


Somehow I missed capturing the login screen. It required me to login with my Gmail account. Note: This system does not want to work with the Enterprise version of Google Apps. It told me my login of that type could not be used with this device for now.

New Adventures in Google: Chrome OS Netbook

Okay. Full disclosure here: I am a Google fanboy. I have been a fan of Google for a long time. I use many Google products and I have tried to utilize as many of Google's products as I could to see if I could indeed live "on the net". At work I have a Google Mini search appliance to search the company's Intranet. I was an early adopter of Gmail back when it was invite only. And I tried my best to find a good use for Google Wave. I am a Google Voice user as well. All this to say, I am a Googler. It is now a proven fact. Today unexpectedly I received a Google Chrome OS Netbook for beta testing. I saw the links to try to apply for one. I really didn't think I would get it but then again, I did. I had this gut feeling I would get one. Why? I don't know.
So I am checking my email and I receive an email from one of my former students of my Linux scripting class. He says that through the Twitterverse someone in my town named Roy was getting one. So he assumed it was me. Well, as I hadn't heard from anyone from Google about this, I didn't figure the announcements had happened yet. Even stranger I had taken a vacation day to work on finishing up the grading in my Fall classes as they are due on Friday. So when the UPS truck arrives with a package with my name on it, I am shocked.
Having seen the screen shots and read the articles that have been coming out of the various tech blogs and magazines, I knew what the box looked like and I have seen the screenshots. So in keeping with that, I took a lot of pictures on the opening of the package.

I will document my adventures with this netbook in this blog so stay tuned..

Impatient much?

Okay. I couldn't wait. I had to have it now. So I read through many of the hack sites about the Droid and downloaded the update to my SD card and booted it using the x key and the power button. Then it came up in recovery mode and I told it to update using the update.zip file. And off to the races we went. This took about 10 minutes total.

So early impressions...

I like. First thing I noticed is it takes longer to boot, but once it is running, it is hesitant yet faster. It is as if the screen is thinking for a moment and then poof, here is what you wanted. It seems responsive.

Text Messaging: Now it pulls pictures from Facebook and the Google Talk to place pictures beside names in text messages. Also a slight color bar difference makes it easier to follow text messaging threads.

Screens: Now it has five screens instead of three. While it has taken me some time to get used to using screens and being willing to clutter up my screens with app icons, they work very well. Plus, now there are small little screen buttons that allow you to swap back and forth through the screens though you can also swap screens using a finger swipe. I have yet to use widgets as they eat memory and annoy me more than they should. Widgets and animated wall paper use up the battery and I prefer the battery to last longer.

Camera: While I haven't taken any pictures I did visit the camera feature to find it has a lot more options for flash and focus. Plus it has settings for auto, incandescent, daylight, florescent, and cloudy. In video mode you can finally use flash while recording plus the day settings are available there as well.

New home button and launch pad. Now there is a launch pad for phone, apps, and browsing that is available on every screen. This is very handy. And as you go to different programs, the home button is available a lot more often. This is handy.

Gmail is a bit more streamlined.

That is it for today. More on the phone tomorrow.

I ain't got no FroYo

So supposedly FroYo, version 2.2 of the Android operating system, was released last week for Motorola Droid phones (original edition). However, it is into week two and I have yet to get my FroYo. Others online have gotten their updates but I have not. I heard rumors an error had cropped up and they were delaying it by one week on any other phones, but the rumor was last week and I am in week two with FroYo envy. Verizon, while I am well aware you do not love your customers, only our money, I was so excited when the Droid phone came out and it "seemed" as if you were going to allow an open platform where we could do anything with our phone it was capable of doing. I enjoyed having the coolest phone this side of Apple's iPhone. I have used many apps that I have downloaded and the GPS functionality has taken me many a mile down the road including 2,000 plus miles on a family road trip. I even bought the body glove hard body for my Droid and the GPS car mount. And now you delay my lust. And you take from my grasp new features such as tethering and mobile hotspot. These features you offer for free on the Palm Pre and for an additional fee of $20.00 on top of the $30 I pay for a data plan for my phone. My DLS doesn't cost that much and it is a hell of a lot faster. I never reach the unlimited number of 5 gigabytes of data. Which is strange as Merriam-Webster defines "unlimited" as:

Main Entry: un·lim·it·ed 

Pronunciation: \-ˈli-mə-təd\

Function: adjective

Date: 15th century

1 : lacking any controls : unrestricted 

2 : boundless, infinite 

3 : not bounded by exceptions : undefined 

— un·lim·it·ed·ly adverb

taken from Merriam-Webster.com http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/unlimited

I am so confused. And yet, now, even with the limitations you are placing upon me, I will settle for you just giving me the update. I will wallow in the self pity of "no tethering" and at least be happy you love me enough to give me decent coverage even in my small town that is so far away from Silicon Valley. 

Please Verizon, love me like the Droid fanboy I am.

The trouble with Norton

So I have my Norton Antivirus set up for automatic renewal only because they make it near impossible not to. I am actually a McAfee fan as McAfee has pulled my butt out of several fires over the years so it is hard not to have some love for them. Norton made the world's best disk utilities and I didn't really love the idea of them becoming a security company. Symantec has bought a lot of good companies only to cast them aside after sucking what good marrow there was and then corrupted it beyond use or recognition. But hey, that is a post for another day. Back to the original story already in progress...

So my automatic renewal took place in June. I had installed Windows 7 (180 day trial) on to the PC over on top of Vista so the machine was actually useful for something. Norton continued to work okay. However the trial version of Win7 began to flake out in June as directed by Microsoft. So being a college student I took advantage of the Ultimate Steal and bought Windows 7 Professional for the computer. However, you can't just upgrade Windows 7 over the trial, you have to reinstall. So I moved everything from the C partition to the D partition and installed Windows 7 fresh on the C partition. This worked and I got to keep my files. However, Norton was gone and I could not find my install disk. So I tried to log on to the Norton site and it told me my password was wrong. So I told it to reset my password and send me an email. However, the email never arrives. I try this a couple of times and I give up a bit as I don't have time to keep beating my head against the wall. So today I call Norton and ask for assistance. The gentleman on the phone wanted me to allow them to do Expert installation. I told him, no, I just want to download Norton as I have renewed my subscription and I can tell him all my info to prove it including my renewal number. He tells me no, the only way I can get Norton is to get expert installation as he wants to ensure all my software works correctly on my computer. Then he tells me this service costs money that I will have to pay. This set me off. I am usually a patient person, but this set me off. Look, my subscription renewal says I have 60 days to cancel and I think I will. I happen to have a copy of McAfee that will work just fine and he can just refund me my money. Finally, he says he will transfer me to another group and they will allow me to just download Norton. So I am put on hold to hold music for twenty minutes then I hear a phone ringing then I get a busy signal and a disconnect. Grrrrrrrr!

aroyrichardson is theroyrichardson

I have been a Twitter user for a couple of years. It has taken a while for it to really jive with me. What really is all the fuss about saying things in 140 characters or less? Try having a conversation in that few characters and see if anything makes a lot of sense. Hemmingway wrote using lots of small words. He would probably think Twitter is the coolest thing. Then again, he didn't really like electric typewriters.

So I created a Twitter account to coincide with the Blog and as fate would have it, Twitter will not let me use my entire name. I can use theroyrichardso, but I hate that. Or I could do droyrichardson? So I decided to do aroyrichardson. I will post daily tidbits there if I am so inclined. Or so reclined... 

Why?

I decided to call my blog, Technology, Food, and Life... I decided to list myself as The Roy Richardson. I used to see the comedian A. Whitney Brown on Saturday Night Live. He used to say, "Hi, I am A. Whitney Brown. I hope to some day be 'The Whitney Brown'." I kind of feel that way. There are several Roy Richardson's out there. Some day I hope to be "The Roy Richardson".