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.