So, the long awaited Google Drive is finally here. I won't talk about that cause everybody else has, except to say that mine is up and running on my laptop and Android devices, and it's looking pretty cool. Anyway, as I was setting up Google Drive, I noticed a setting to enable offline docs. So far I don't know if it works on my laptop or not, because my first move was to pull out my Cr-48 to see if Google had finally made this a useful device rather than just a curiosity. It doesn't have to do everything, it just has to be useful when there is no WiFi available. Turns out, unless I'm missing something, that yes, offline docs are enabled, but they are read only. So, when I'm without Internet I can read some of my docs (some because I have yet to see all of them synced). The end result is that my Acer Iconia A-500 with a keyboard case is a far more useful device, even when I limit the usage to the activities that the Cr-48 should be able to do. Online, my tablet browses just as well, streams video much better, plays music better, and can edit documents. Offline my tablet can still play music with offline caching of Google Music, and can edit documents with Google Drive. I never really expected the Cr-48 to be a full use laptop, and I understand that it's supposed to be an Internet device, but I think that it does need to have some functionality offline, even if it's only allowing the ability to work with my Google docs offline.

Bridging the gap

My employer is moving my family and me to be based out of our company's Seattle office. We'll be leaving Utah at the end of June, probably right in time for the first Chromebooks to hit the market. My daughter is the first grand child, and for a little while now, my dad has been considering ways to stay in touch. Sure, there's the good old fashioned telephone, but with the available technologies, he wants to try to find a way to make use of a video phone so he can talk to his only granddaughter face to face. Problem is, I don't think there is an out of the box solution that's going to work.

Issue #1, they don't have a computer with a web cam or microphone enabled. Issue easily resolved with a Chromebook. Built in mic and cam, and it couldn't be easier to launch Google talk to get this thing going.

Issue #2, no WiFi. I really have to do some research here, but I think I'm looking at a minor issue with living in the cloud. My parents do not have any internet connectivity in their home. It's not because of the inability to get connectivity. The fact is that they can easily get cable, my dad just isn't willing to allow the cable carrier to dig a trench and lay the cable in spite of the fact that these days, the machines used to lay the cable, leave little to no trace of the trench. I won't get in to the whys of his issues, it simply is what it is. Satellite is not an option in my mind. I've used that type of service myself, and it's unreliable, and overages are expensive. As far as I know, they're not in range for DSL, and they currently live outside of a 4g area.

I do plan to try to get him to pick up a Chromebook when it's available, along with a cheap data plan, but I don't know if that's going to solve the issue. I just don't know how we'll go about getting his Chromebook online. Maybe this will be the thing that pushes him past his fear of digging a trench for cable in his back yard.

I don't think I agree

Since the GoogleIO announcement of the Chromebooks (no, I wasn't there, and yes, I am beyond jealous of all the killer goodies and learning that took place there, count me in next year if I can get tickets) I've been seeing a surprising amount of negative press. Surprising to me, anyway, and since I have a little time to kill, I thought I'd share my thoughts.
Basically there are a few recurring themes, and I'll list out and address a couple of my favorites, and offer my side as a member of the ChromeOS pilot program.

• The Chromebook is useless because it's little more than a web browser. A dumbed down version of a computer, and at the prices being stated, you can get a much more useful machine.

This is essentially true, but completely discounts the target audience and intended purpose of this machine. It is little more than a web browser. There are currently some limited storage options, and rumors are that we'll soon see offline Google docs, but really not much more than that, and that's the point. All your stuff is stored to the cloud. Don't like that? Fine. Don't buy one, but as for me, I've been amazed at the convenience of using Google docs, not only on my Cr-48, but also the rest of my computers. I don't need a thumb drive, don't need to remote desktop in to any of my machines, I can access any of my documents anywhere, no matter what computer I'm using, or where I happen to be using it. That now includes my Android phone. It means that my working environment is literally anywhere. I'm not crippled by the lack of Office licenses on my personal machine, or trying to figure out how to download something to my phone, all my documents are everywhere, all the time. Through the use of my Cr-48, the lack of offline documents is the one thing that has made it unusable as a work computer. Get me offline documents, and the only thing I can't do is code.
I cannot speak to the pricing, I buy computers as rarely as possible, but I can tell you that these Chromebooks are priced lower than my Nexus S phone.
Finally, sure, you can get a Windows netbook, but have you ever tried really doing much more that writing documents? Netbooks are not powerful machines, they are intended for web consumption, not heavy content creation, and if you take a Windows netbook set side by side with a Chromebook, what you'll find is the only thing you can't do on a Chromebook that you can do with a netbook is function where there's no internet connectivity. For some, this is a deal breaker. For me, it's not. The Chromebook is much easier to maintain. Why? You don't have to maintain it. It goes to the web, gets the latest version of the OS, and updates itself. For me, this is important. I am a programmer, I love technology, but I don't want to maintain my computers. I want to work with them, I want to play with them, but if I can avoid it, I'd prefer not to be bothered with maintenance tasks like backups, virus scans, disk scans, and if my disk does crash, I'd love to not have to be bothered with restoring backed up data. In spite of the geek who wants to impress people may tell you, computer maintenance sucks, it is not fun, and it detracts from getting the job done. I'd argue that with Windows on a netbook you're not getting a more useful machine. You're getting a machine that you can, and do, have to do more stuff with. To clarify, the Chromebook is nowhere near replacing my laptop or desktop where I write code, or my portable hard drives where I store audio/video/pictures/other stuff, but that is not the Chromebook's intended purpose.

• IT will never go for it because they don't like the loss of control of someone else managing their computers in a corporate environment.

I can't argue against this in alot of cases. Often IT people want to control every aspect of their environment whether that control serves a useful purpose or not. If I sound like I'm slamming IT people a little, it's because I am. I've had the (mis)pleasure of working with too many admins who control things simply because they can. On the other hand, if the admins are the type who can see the big picture, they're likely going to love the idea that they don't have to worry about security policies on machines, making sure the users aren't trying to block those policies, making sure the users aren't installing crap on their machines that they shouldn't be, making sure workstation backups are running, making sure patches are pushed out organization wide, burning up valuable hours pre-validating patches in a sandbox before pushing them out to the organization, well, those admins might realize that they're free of alot of tedious crap, and they can concentrate on getting some real work done.

• It'll never fly because people don't trust the cloud.

In fact, most of us do trust the cloud. Smart phones, Internet, email, nearly everything we do when a wire is plugged in to our device, or the device is talking over a wireless connection, is in the cloud. The real issue is Google bias. In this context, you say you don't trust the cloud, you're most likely really saying you don't trust the Google. 

1. Your data is safer with Google because they have far more redundancy than you could ever dream about.
2. Your data is safer with Google because their backups are far better than yours (if for no other reason than if they became unreliable their empire would likely collapse).
3. They are not the ones you should be afraid of for misusing your data, because they are very open with how they use your data. You want to be afraid? Worry about the organizations who skirt the issue of what they do with your data, and don't think for a second Google is the only one collecting your data. Everybody is collecting your data to some extent. 

I dunno, just some rambling thoughts while I burn off a little time. I don't believe the Chromebook is going to take over the world any time soon, but after using a Cr-48 since December, I can tell you that this thing is not a fad. It is a useful, capable machine that will fill the needs of many of the users out there. It's not for everyone, but neither is Windows, Mac, or various flavors of Linux. It will appeal to users who simply want a way to interact with the wired world, and it will appeal to users whose needs are limited to wired communication and standard desktop content creation. It will appeal to people who need a secondary portable machine. Try it. You'll probably like it.

The perfect kitchen computer?

One of the first things I thought of when I saw the iPad was "Kitchen Computer." When I heard about the Android tablets, I knew I had to get one, and the kitchen would be the first application for it.
Why? Well, it's pretty simple. When I'm at home, especially weekends, I spend quite a bit of time in the kitchen doing various things. Polishing the stainless steel, cooking stuff, making beer, drinking coffee, what ever. While I'm doing that I like to have a computer near by. I use my laptop as a cook book, mainly using Evernote, when I'm not looking at recipes I'm watching video or listening to music, occasionally chatting online, researching something or another, or just browsing the web over coffee. Why it really took me this long to put the Cr-48 through the kitchen paces, I don't know, but it did. This last weekend I made just about full use of my kitchen needs, and for the most part, I was very impressed. My setup was simple. A cheap pair of PC speakers, and the Cr-48.
Of course, looking up recipes is easy. That hasn't changed from my regular laptop. I open Evernote, and do a little searching. I'm covered. I want some music, open up Audiogalaxy, and I'm good to go. In the past, video hasn't been great, but I tried something a little different this time around...Now stay with me, this is relevant...I've recently gotten a Logitech Revue and in conjunction with that, I've learned that TVersity is an extremely cool application. Back to my Cr-48, I decided to load the TVersity flash library on my Cr-48, and to my surprise, I got much better streaming than I do with Hulu. Pop my browser in to full screen mode, and I've got a small, lightweight TV in my kitchen serving up my own movies and tv shows. The only issue I had was when the video froze up while the audio kept going, and I was unable to get out of the full screen browser mode until I actually shut down my computer. Sounds pretty bad, but I attribute this to someone trying to start a Facebook chat session with me on another tab. I can't prove it, but that's when it happened, and I could not reproduce the issue. My kitchen experience could potentially be enhanced by a touch screen, but until I have one to compare against, the Cr-48 performs extremely well.

What's up with that shift lock key???

During the day I live the life of a mild mannered programmer. Most of my work is c#, a little bit is java on an evil, mobile, non-tree-born-food-item platform that I shall not name just now, and currently all my work is in Windows. I can't use this cr-48 as much as I'd like, but I use it almost exclusively (aside from pumping video to my TV) when at home.
What was that ramble about? Well, I use shift lock quite a bit. Google, for what I have determined must be a joke...and really, a pretty funny one at that, has decided to place their search key in the exact location that the rest of the world expects the shift lock key. Once in a while I like to yell on twitter or facebook, or I'm actually doing something productive that requires all caps, and I just start typing. I'm on my cr-48, and I hit the shift lock, and my cr-48 spazzes out and opens a new tab. I say, "woah, what the hell was that?" I close the tab, go back to typing, hit the shift lock, and my cr-48 spazzes out, etc. I usually do this maybe 3 to 5 times before I look at the keyboard and remember which computer I'm on. Why I can't remember this, I don't know, but to remove the shift key and replace it with something that opens new tabs has got to be a joke.

A few complaints

So I’ve been using this thing for a little while now, and I’m getting to like it. I haven’t touched my personal laptop for any reason other than to use it as a media center, and I’ve done all my personal web stuff on this. I’ve tried to use the Cr48 at work with little success. Due to some rather interesting network policies, and even more interesting ways of enforcing them, the only resource I can actually reach with this thing is my personal TVersity site...cool service, but I don’t go to work to watch streaming video. There are some changes coming down the pike that are supposed to separate us from our host company in that regard, so I’ll keep trying. I may get use out of this thing in meetings yet.
With that out of the way, I’d like to complain a little about some of the little issues that will hopefully get covered when the Chrome OS finally goes prime time. Yes, I’ve complained through the requested Google channels (I hope they’ll act on them), but now I’m bored, so I’ll complain here, tweet about the complaints, and if you’ve read this far, you’re probably interested. If not, please stop reading now. I’ll not be held responsible for forcing you to read something that doesn’t interest you.
1) I’ve set up three profiles on my Cr48. I thought it was cool, I’m a geek, what ever. One for my personal gmail account, one for my Google apps account, and finally one for my employer’s Google apps account. All Google, all the time. If they had a position for a c# developer, there’s a damn good chance I’d take it. I go back and forth between these three accounts a little bit. Well, quite a bit, because switching from one user to the next really isn’t all that painful. I’ve noticed that from time to time, if I log out of one profile, in to another, out of the other, and back to the first, the first profile loads with an error stating that the browser failed to shut down property, would I like to restore it. That really ought to be fixed.
2) Logon profile names - This annoys me. As it turns out, each of my profiles are based on my name. As such, they are each very similar. The multiple profiles are a nice touch, but it would be even better if you could provide an alias for the login. Something like “My Personal Profile,” and “My Work Profile” to differentiate between profiles with very similar user names.
3) Useless without network access - I’ve mentioned this before, and yeah, I know it’s supposed to be a Web portal, and nothing more, but I was quite surprised to find that I can download and save files to the local drive. Google has been kind enough to provide offline access in the browser, and that feature would increase the usefulness of the Cr48 by many times. I’ll refer to the rather interesting network policies I mentioned earlier. With offline access, I can make use of my Cr48 in the office, in conference rooms with no network access (it seems to happen quite a bit), and other situations where Internet access is limited or not available. Yes, it has 3g, but that’s another issue. Let’s call it 3a)
3a) Wifi and 3g only. Yes, I can buy a 3g plan from Verizon, but there are a couple of problems with that. First, I’m not going to buy yet another data plan. I already have one with my Internet at home, another to power my Android, and yet a third to power my wife’s Android. I am not going to buy another data plan for my Cr48. Second, if I was going to buy a data plan, I certainly wouldn’t buy it from Verizon. I’ve been with t-mobile since they were VoiceStream, a good 10 or so years, and I’m not about to jump ship now. I’ve got my eye on a Nexus S. When I get my hands on that I’ll give it a shot and see if I can use that to get me online.
4) It seems slow since the recent update. I admit I haven’t paid much attention to speeds, and when it started to seem to slow down, but I think all of that happened around the same time. I hope that one gets cleared up next time they push out an update.

Facebook is doing weird things to my Cr48

Wanna see a dead body!?
Ok, not really, but it’s really kinda weird. My wife was setting up a facebook profile page for me on my Cr48. She wanted to know how to get pictures from one location to another, so I thought I’d show off my knowledge of my little Cr48, and show her how to download pictures locally, then upload them somewhere else. Right-click the image you want to save, give it a name, and save. Open the page you want to upload to, choose browse, and...Hey! What the hell are you doing to my computer?...She didn’t get the little file list that I was expecting to show her, she’d managed to open a file system browser. It took us a little time to find the location of the images we wanted to upload cause neither one of us is a Linux user, but when we finally did, there were the files, all ready to be uploaded. I haven’t figured out an easy way to get to this file system browser, but it is easy to reproduce. The following is the only way I’ve managed to do it.
Open your facebook profile, click on your Photos link. Click on the “Upload Photos” button. Click “Select Photos.”
What you get is a file system browser that appears to give you full access, well, as far as I, a Windows guy can tell, to your file system.
This is particularly odd because it’s my understanding that one of the major features of the Cr48 is that it doesn’t allow the normal user access to the file system, but Facebook wanders in, shoves a java file system browser in there, and bypasses all that.
The file type filter is limiting the view to image files, but it’s probably very easy to bypass that yourself, especially if you decide to write your own page to do this. I guess the major issue is that it seems to be so easy to do it in an environment where the average user isn’t supposed to be going there.