Haven't posted in a while...

I realized I haven't posted anything in a while. The reason is simple...the Cr-48 has become such an integral part of my life, that I just don't think about it now.  I am looking forward to what the commercial offerings are going to look like later this year.  Could be quite interesting.  I just hope they keep the price point low.  I can't imagine too many people willing to pay more than $200 for a Chrome notebook.

I've also decided to get involved with the Chromium OS project.  I bought a Dell Latitude d420 on eBay to do Chromium OS development on.  The d420 was nice because I got it for less than $200, but it still has a 64-bit processor, sufficient RAM (compiling the OS is still a slow process), and ample hard disk space to accommodate Ubuntu 10.04LTS and the Chromium OS virtual machine.  Should be a fun project to work on.

Follow up on the sandbox

So...it turns out that flash apps don't currently run in the sandbox on the Cr-48, which would explain why the flash app I was running was able to break out of the sandbox - it wasn't in there!  Something that is being fixed (in fact, it should be fixed in the Windows release of Chrome), but I'm still not crazy about the notion that Google has been allowing apps to run outside of the sandbox, even though I can understand that the Chrome OS developers probably thought that cutting corners during the development process would be worth it in order to get more functionality out to the app developers and testers earlier.

This incident did motivate me to get involved with the open source Chromium OS project, so I can better understand the details of the OS.  Just bought a Dell Latitude D420 off of eBay that I'm going to make into a dedicated Chromium development and test machine.  (I wouldn't dare mess with the Cr-48 - it's become too essential to me and I want to keep testing the betas of the "official" Chrome OS releases.)  Can't wait to get that machine here and start digging in to the OS.  Chrome OS really is an innovative computing model!

Breach of the sandbox?

I was looking for a better screenshot extension than the Simple Screenshot extension I had been using, so I downloaded the Aviary Screen Capture extension from the Chrome Store. Nice, full featured image capture and editing tool.  Then I went to save a screenshot locally, and it brought up the Linux root directory!  I've been trying to use the Cr-48 in its "pure form" to see just how much can be done using only cloud computing (and I've been pleasantly surprised at how much I have been able to do), so I've never switched on the developer switch or tried to force a boot into the Linux (although I knew it was there). This is the first time I've seen the underlying OS directories listed on this machine and they were being displayed by a web app that was supposed to be operating inside the Chrome OS sandbox.  Looks like that extension has broken the Chrome security model. And, if it can do it, what's preventing another extension from doing the same, but not being so blatant about it?  If this extension really has broken the Chrome OS security model, that eliminates one of the primary strengths of the Chrome OS. Part of the reason for giving up the ability to run local apps in Chrome OS is to have a more secure machine. If a Chrome extension can gain root access, might as well dump Chrome OS for Android!

Follow up on video fix

Well, it looks like the video was much improved but there's been something of a regression on the audio side. I have to reboot daily to get the audio to stream again. Works great after the reboot, but I really shouldn't have to do that! (In fairness, I have had the same problem with UNR, so the issue may be in the Linux codecs and not in Chrome.)

Streaming video

I don't know if it's the last OS update pushed out the other day or opting in to the HTML5 video beta, but streaming video playback has been much improved. Audio streaming continues to be very good, but now the video is also smooth with very little chop or aliasing. The Cr-48 video playback is as good as my Windows desktop and my Linux netbook now. Very nice!

Update on audio issues

Well, it's been more than a week since the last Chrome OS update was pushed out to my Cr-48 and it looks like the audio issue is fixed. It has been rock solid!  (Pun only partly unintended.)

Audio issues since Chrome OS updates

Like many people around the world, I have been glued to the Al Jazeera coverage of the popular uprising in Egypt, which really highlighted a problem that started to occur after the Chrome OS update I posted about last month.  After the update, the audio in audio or video feeds would suddenly turn into a mix of static and squealing. The only way to fix it was to restart the Cr-48.  But, it looks like the last update that just loaded last week may have fixed it - here's hoping!

I just don't think about it anymore...

I realized I haven't posted anything for a while.  The reason is simple: the Cr-48 has become such an integral part of my life that I don't even think about it anymore. It's the first machine I reach for when I want to do anything on the web, it's constantly in my backpack - it's just part of my life now.  The only thing I really haven't been able to do with the Cr-48 is development. I've tried some of the Google Labs development tools and, of course, the Google developer tools; but it really is very limited. Not that I've given up!

The server encountered an error. Please try again later.

Not the kind of message you want to see when using a computer that will only work by connecting to the cloud, but it was the message I got from Google Docs this morning. Server outages and holes in WiFi/3G coverage are what is going to make it difficult for ChromeOS to get large scale adoption.  Even in a corporate environment, which I still view as the sweet spot for a machine like the Cr-48, at least with a regular PC if the server is down you can still do some work locally while waiting for the server to be brought up. With the Cr-48, you are pretty much in a work stoppage. You can continue working on a document you started (for a while, at least) and you can read a page you've already opened, but you can't start anything new. I'm sure that these are issues that will be worked out, eventually - especially as the offline capabilities of HTML become more widely implemented and  wireless coverage is improved to serve the increasing number of smart devices - but there are still some issues with the technology today.

WiFi locked up

Had the first real OS freeze on the Cr-48 tonight. I had disabled the WiFi because I had lost the Internet connection, but the router was still up - so I wanted to force the Cr-48 to connect to 3G.  When I got the Internet back up on my network, I couldn't get the WiFi enabled again without rebooting the notebook. Pretty frustrating, but it was the first time I've had an issue like that.

Celtic Punk

Went on an alcohol-fueled Celtic punk binge tonight (pathetic, I know - at least I wasn't drinking alone, my dog was with me!).  Came to the realization that the Cr-48's speakers REALLY suck.  At least it sounds good through headsets...

OS update

Got the first Chrome OS update since I've been using my Cr-48. Very simple. Very fast. Really no different than doing a browser update. (I guess I shouldn't be too surprised at that.) All I had to do was click the tool icon (the wrench) and agree to restarting the OS. A few seconds later, the OS was updated and I was back to the login page. Nice.

Off to school

The new semester started today and I wanted to see how well I could get by using only the Cr-48.  I'll admit that I did have a "backup" netbook with me, my eeePC 901, but I didn't need it!  Chrome OS and the Cr-48 got me through a full day of classes and research from 8:30 to 4:30.  The Cr-48 was in nearly continuous use, on battery.  I didn't have any problems connecting to the university network or to the various secure course websites I needed for classes.  I was able to view all of the course materials (PDFs and PowerPoint slides, mostly) with no problems and I took my class notes using Google Docs.  I feel much more confident now in taking only the Cr-48 with me to class.  The one remaining question is how much development I can do on the Cr-48. Stay tuned!

Video night

Testing out video streaming by trying a few different sources.  Tried to sign up for the Netflix free trial to stream some movies there, but - wouldn't you know it - they use the MS Silverlight plug in for their video-on-demand service.  I am not willing to use Silverlight even on a Windows machine, so I turned around and cancelled the Netflix membership.  Then, I went over to Hulu and watched some classic Star Trek episodes.  They were pretty low res with a lot of jerkiness in the feed, but I blame that on the conversion to digital because the commercials were perfect.  Finally, watched a little bit of some Google I/O 2010 session videos.  Worked just as well as my Linux or Windows laptops, basically limited by my WiFi bandwidth more than the machine.  All-in-all, the video experience with the Chrome OS was very good, with the already noted exception of not being able to view content in a platform-centric plug in, like Silverlight (which I blame Netflix, not Google, for)

Gettin' some work done

Using Google Docs on the bus yesterday and today to get my budget worked out, update my CV, and figure out my program of study at Utah State (especially which classes I need to retake).  I've used Docs on and off since they were first introduced.  At first, they were really unusable except for the most rudimentary of tasks.  (You could probably use the word processor to make a grocery list, but not much else.)  Now, however, they are really getting pretty good.  Granted, it's not Office, but I actually think Office has become so "feature" loaded and bloated that it's not really usable, either.  That, and the fact that it keeps trying to force you to make your document look the way that some programmer in Redmond thinks it should look, instead of how you want it to look, makes Google Docs a refreshing return to a "just enough functionality to get the job done and no more" philosophy that most office suites have strayed from.

Using Google Docs with the Cr-48's 3G has been a great experience.  Docs saves the work frequently enough that I never have to think about manually saving the file. When I'm getting ready to close the laptop to throw it in my backpack, the document has always just been saved - so I don't need to worry about it.  When I open the notebook back up, there's my document ready for me to work on it again.  Very nice!  The autosave is also very efficient, so I've been getting a lot of use out of the free 100MB per month that the Cr-48 comes with.  In fact, the Chrome OS seems to be very frugal with its bandwidth usage.  I know I wouldn't have been able to do as much on 3G with my Windows or Linux laptops.

Games! Games! Games!

"Installed" some games from the Chrome Apps Store. (An installation is really just creating an icon for the URL on the Chrome OS home page.)  Some fun games available there: some great old Atari classics (that I can sadly remember spending many a quarter on and playing on my Atari 800 and 2600), the World Golf Tour golf games, Lord of Ultima, and Shredder Chess (a great chess game).  I also tried the two pre-installed games: Entanglement and Poppit.  Both very addictive!

There were some issues. For example, on the Atari games, the control buttons block the game display when in full screen mode.  I suspect this is more an issue with Atari than Chrome.  Another problem was going to Pogo.com (the host site for Poppit) to play some of their other games. The site popped up an alert box that Java needed to be installed. How do you install Java for Chrome OS?  It shouldn't be possible (except perhaps as a temporary install) given the architecture of the Chrome sandbox.  Granted, I could force it by booting the notebook to Linux using the USB port, but for this evaluation period I am trying to keep the Chrome installation pure to get a feel for how the typical end user would make use of the machine.  It is certainly a limitation that you wouldn't have with any other notebook.  But it does support what I see as the biggest niche for a machine like the Cr-48: corporate notebooks for a company that has gone to an external or internal cloud architecture for their IT.  Having been a network admin and having provided tech support for internet appliances, I see the inability for users to make significant changes to their machines, especially installing executables, and the ability to update and backup applications and data in the cloud as the real strength of this computing model.

Speaking of games, I noticed the latest release of Chrome OS hasn't incorporated WebGL yet.  I hope that WebGL will be added to the stable Chrome release soon, because I'd really like to try out the new 3D content!