Cr-48, Day Three - Cloud Printing, Part II, and a 3G update.

Cloud printing is a bust for me.  At least from my home PC, its shot.  I know, I know, I shouldn't expect the old beigeness (HP Laserjet 5MP) to work with the new shiny......well, the new matte, if we're being literal.  I did manage to get the testing build of the Chrome browser to stop dying a horrible death every time I fired it up, but cloud printing is still a bust.  I will be sure to test with a more modern printer in the near future and report back - or as Google continues to bring more print drivers under its cloud umbrella, perhaps my humble HP will return to usability.

I did want to address the cloud print concept - and I'll address this to Google, in a sense.  This machine is for those who are ultra mobile, and need stuff on the go.  Imagine, if you will, cloud print services that operate within your local print shop - like the spots where you could have a fax sent back when people still used fax machines.  Wait.....people still use fax machines?  What is wrong with the world.  Anyway, imagine printing your document to a subscribed cloud service of some kind, and then being able to pick it up from your local printing shop.  Many big box business stores already cater to similar services, and Google should get in on this.

Now speaking of cool services that Google has provided - 3G is awesome.  No doubt about it, this laptop shows its strength.  Back when I had 3G service for my Thinkpad, via a Sprint adapter, I used about 150-180mb in an average 2 hour session.  I kind of expected to blow through the Google provided 100mb fairly quickly.  In the interest of testing, I've used it for the past two days as I would under normal circumstances - running an instant messenger (IMO - Available via the Chrome App Store) and my standard websites.  I'm avoiding running any YouTube videos or anything of the sort, but I have not turned off flash ads or image loading.  As of this writing, in 2 days and roughly 5 hours on 3G, I've still got 66mb.  Its not great, mind you, considering this is day three, but for casual hops between WiFi, it should be more than enough.  Power users can opt to turn off more services to save bandwidth or use a web based filter like Skweezer (www.skweezer.com) to decrease bandwidth usage.  I do think that the Chrome laptop has an edge over standard netbooks and laptops when it comes to this 3g dilemma.  Forgetting to disable a service or program such as a bittorrent client, or having a Windows Update kick off could gobble up 100mb in no time, but with ChromeOS only running what's in the browser, bandwidth usage is vastly decreased

If anyone has any suggestions or requests on things for me to test, please, feel free to drop me a line.  I'm always up for trying out a good suggestion - but save anything that has to do with rooting the unit for a bit down the road.  Once I sort out my real laptop situation and acquire a fully functional replacement for my aging X41, I'll jailbreak this little box and see what real potential I can unlock.  I'll be using it for a month as a normal laptop - and even doing the first two weeks worth of my Psychology homework via the unit when classes restart in the new year.  I'll keep reporting regularly during this process - I'll try to keep up daily updates, at least until school gets in the way, so please keep visiting!

Cr-48 Day Two - Playing with printing, Part 1.

Day 2 - Cloud Printing

For day two's test project, I decided to set up cloud printing.  I didn't have time to play with settings before I left the house, so I started a bit blind.

Pressing Ctrl+P on the Cr-48 brings up a popup that explains Cloud printing, and provides you with www.google.com/cloudprint as a link to get started.  Needing to configure this on the PC that has a connection to the printer was going to be an issue, or so I thought.  Knowing that I don't have my VPN available on this unit, I decided to try my old fallback method, Logmein.  The interface works splendidly on the Chrome notebook, and I was connected to my print server at home (an ancient Windows XP box) within moments.  I fired up the link from the popup, only to be prompted to download chrome to my print server.  The version of Chrome provided by the link is a early testing build, and the installer warns of this.  Once I fired it up, I navigated to the options page, and at the bottom of the "Under the hood" page, found the Cloud Print options I was looking for.

After enabling this option, Chrome promptly crashed.  Subsequent attempts to reenable it were met with the same result.  As I was running out of waking time, I shuttered it for the time being,but I'll pick up on it over the next few hours and see how far along I can get.

ChromeOS Notebook - Do I need more than just a browser?

I came downstairs this morning, headed out the door to work, only to find a box waiting downstairs with my name on it.  I knew for a fact that I hadn't ordered anything recently, with the exception of a power cable for my mother's Dell laptop - and that had arrived already.  Running late, I hurredly sliced open the packing box to reveal schematics for a rodent powered rocket scrawled hastily on the side of a box.  Wanting to play with my new rocket propelled rodent toy, I tucked the box under my arm as I dashed out to catch the bus.  Imagine my shock and disappointment when I opened the box on the bus, only to find some kind of silly laptop device....OH WAIT!  SWEET

I never get picked for anything, so this came as a complete shock.  The Cr-48, Google's unstable isotope, in my hands.  And after all the unkind things I've said about Google in the past.....

Being that I was on a septa bus, when the laptop's glowing screen asked me for a wireless access point to associate with, I was unable to do so.  Once I arrived at King Of Prussia mall, my midpoint 1 hour layover in my nightly commute, I fired up the little unit and after a few quick steps, was logged in and browsing.

This little unit really shines in this kind of a mobile environment.  Unlike with my trusty Thinkpad, which has to wake from hibernation, resume my virtual machines, and finally chug to life, the Cr-48 powers on seemingly by thought.  No, really, I still haven't used the power button on the unit.  The attractive interface immediately loads a browser, which I felt would limit the experience greatly.  In the few hours I've had with the unit, I have "Installed" a half dozen apps from the ChromeOS App Store which, aside from a few very specific power user type functions, have made this quite a functional unit.  I am resisting the urge to play with the device in developer mode yet, but the shell may yet draw me to flip that Dev mode switch.

As of right now, I do have a few gripes.  The touchpad is horrible.  I think that all mobile mousing devices aside from the venerable Thinkpad Trackpoint are horrible, though, so this is hardly a valid concern.  I have also seen some instability when dealing with Pandora, my workplace lifeline.  I need my music, and occasionally, due to flash's nature within Linux, Pandora will freeze, become choppy, etc.  This has happened twice in the 2 hours I've been using the unit, and a refresh takes care of it and gets the tunes flowing again so I'm not too bent out of shape on this point either.  Finally, just for the sake of convenience, the lack of a network jack bugs me a little bit.  A very, very little bit.  Less now that I've found sufficient wifi.

The form factor of the unit is perfect.  Unlike with the HP Mini and the original eeePC, the system does not feel cramped or compromised.  The screen is similar in size to my X41's 12 inch 4x3 screen, and matte, which improves usability greatly.  The resolution is far better than my aging IBM, with a 1280x800 resolution.  Text is crisp and readable, far moreso than on most larger screened laptops sporting a similar resolution, in my opinion.  Pages respond quickly, and without the overhead of running apps on the local machine, the responsiveness is never dulled by a memory hogging application running in the background.  The keyboard takes some adjusting to, coming from the best mobile keyboard in the business on my Thinkpads, but still outclasses the keyboards on most consumer grade systems.  There are no F keys at the top of the board, Google has instead opted for a slew of function keys.  (These keys can be made to operate as F keys if the user so wishes when in Developer mode, from what I understand.)  The "Caps Lock" key, hated by your reviewer, has been replaced with a search function key, which I found odd at first.  I've found more function in this key as time goes on, so I do approve of this switch in the end.  Caps lock functionality can be turned back on.......but why?  There's a perfectly good shift key just south.  But I digress.

There are still many functions that this system will not be able to accomplish.  A netbook, regardless of how limited it is, always leaves me with the temptation to try to perform such tasks, with dismal results.   ChromeOS leaves no question about what it is there to do - it provides functionality, without unnecessary overhead.  Google's push for innovation behind this unit has resulted in some very slick offerings in the app store - which isn't really a store in my mind, seeing as all of the useful applications I've come across thus far have been free.  The fact that Google is throwing in 100mb of free 3g web access per month with the unit for the first two years of ownership (A function I have not activated yet, but expect to make great use of during my commute) is a very, very nice perk.  None of these functions will deter me from purchasing an actual laptop computer, as I do have needs that can only be met by that type of hardware.  However, its a 90/10% split in usefulness.  I am not in power user mode 100% of the time.  90% of the time, I guarantee, the ChromeOS notebook will fit my needs without question.

When I return home, my X41 will go into its docking station.  It will remain there until I find some sufficiently compelling reason to return it to my bag.  I'm willing to bet that the need will arise later, rather than sooner.

Living an internet-less life.

Well, not really.  I've never been completely unable to find internet in my entire life.  However, for the next two weeks, at best, I'm looking at no home connection.  Sprint 3G service is off too - all part of a money crunch savings plan til my big paycheck for the month comes around.  I'm 3 days in - and its not so bad.  It helps to have a decent backlog of projects, MS cert books, home network reconfig, and tinkering piled up for times like this.

One gripe I do have, StarCraft2 won't authenticate on my home network.  Guess Blizzard didn't sort the offline singleplayer campaign issues yet.  Meh.

Backups - more important than you think

Users do not back up their data.  Users will tell you that they have backed up their data.  Users will then blame you when you reinstall their system, at their request, and they find that they do not have their data.

I don't care what the story is - I hold to a personal policy of backing up before a re-image.  Even when the user has declined.  Better safe than sorry.

Back to the future.

Its the early 90's again.  Between the "Here you have" email earlier this week, and the EFax one I'm seeing today, I think I might trade in my Pontiac for a DeLorean.  Viruses with email attachment/web link payloads went out of style almost a decade ago, didn't they?

I wonder if the new DeLorean company provides their cars with Flux Capacitors as a standard option.

OWA Weirdness

MS software doesn't necessarily work with MS software.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=5bc06e8a-08eb-4976-bc68-a03ebe3a2552&displaylang=en

So, my options are, for a small subset of Windows Vista users checking email from home, convince corporate IT to install a hotfix for Exchange, or rob IE of a little bit of browser share and introduce a user to Firefox.

Which path do you think I chose?