Category: Observations Page 82 of 90

Falling in love with Google’s CR-48 (again)

On July 5, 2011

I’ve recently fallen back in love with my CR-48 Chromebook. I received it last February and have used it intermittently since then. It’s free Verizon 3G connection has saved me a time or two. Clocking in at just 3.8 pounds and with a better pushing 8 hours it becomes an incredible travel companion.

I’ve been using it to write most of all as I love the feel of the keyboard. It has the short, flat keyboard the first Apple MacBooks made popular and I love the feel of it. It is the first laptop keyboard I’ve ever fallen in love with. The trackpad still leaves much to be desired but it gets better with each new stable release of the Chrome OS.

I do not even use a vast collection of apps for it. It is my sleek, little black book where I share my thoughts and best of all, it stays cool to the touch even after hours of use. Something no other laptop I’ve ever used can boast.

I love the Chromebook but it is not without its shortcomings. I’ve been asked if I would purchase one now that they’re for sale. The answer is still no, but it’s not due to the lack of quality of the Chrome OS. ((Chrome browser with a rudimentary file system attached.)) My reluctance is based on the price they’ve set for the devices.

Now, I am sure the finished machines will have a higher build quality than the small machine sitting neatly in my lap, hopping under the pressure of my key presses. I have not seen any of the Chromebooks in person so I cannot judge them for what they are.

I would love the CR-48 if it were not for a few nagging issues.

Back-lit keyboard. Perhaps this is asking too much but I tend to use the machine in bed or in the evenings when I’m not under a bright light and while I’m practically a touch typist, I am not perfect and seeing the keyboard would be nice. Again, nothing a well-placed lamp wouldn’t solve.

The trackpad. It’s luxurious size betrays its flawed function. If it were as solid as the Apple equivalents this machine would shoot to near perfect status.

Random slowdowns. I don’t know exactly what causes them. I am not viewing flash content at the time. It may be that the two dozen or so tabs overwhelms the machine. I have only had to reboot the machine twice when it became unresponsive but it does tend to slowdown at random.

Power port on the right side. This bothers me. Perhaps it’s because I have the left side of the bed, or the couch is not setup for power on the right, or it could just be MacBook ownership for 4 years prior has conditioned me to expect a left-side power port. It bothers me. Totally personal preference but I don’t care for it.

I have never used the VGA port, SD Card slot and rarely use the USB port. I have used the webcam to take a goofy picture of myself for the login screen and for nothing more. I do not video chat so I have no need for it.

I am very curious to see where Google takes this project and this browser/Operating System. I a devout Chrome user since it has stepped into the place Firefox used to hold. ((The sleek, speedy new kid on the block browser.))

I love my CR-48 and hope to get many more years out of it. There is no reason it should not support the newer versions of Chrome OS since it’s nothing more than software. In the age of most things being web-based it is not far-fetched to live solely inside a browser and even though I still miss running multiple applications, there is very little I find lacking. Sure, you’re not going to edit video or perform high-end graphics work on the Chromebook but that is outside their intended use. For the grandparent, parent, teen or employee with modest web-based needs, the Chromebook can serve their needs very easily.

I have fallen back in love with my Chromebook and see a bright future for the fledgling operating system.

Verizon 4G Mifis no longer work in tethered mode

By Carl

On June 22, 2011

In Observations

The Mifi 4510 L and the Samsung SCH-LC11 4G Mifis from Verizon do not work in tethered mode. This means you cannot open the VZAccess Manager software and connect to the Mifi while it is plugged into a laptop over the USB cable.

The USB cable does still charge the Mifi device while it is working. However, I was warned by Carrie, the Verizon Wireless Level 2 Technician I spoke to on the phone, it will draw much more power than the 3G Mifis do and you may notice shorter battery life for the laptop.

Verizon’s 3G Mifis are able to run in tethered mode. This is not the case with the 4G models. It took me two hours of research and phone calls to find this out. Hopefully, this post will save you some time.

Software shouldn’t require instruction

By Carl

On June 21, 2011

In Observations

Over at Practical Opacity, J. Eddie Smith writes,

If iOS proves anything itâ€™s that software doesnâ€™t necessarily require instruction.

I could not agree more with him about the ease of iOS devices. I work in a large media company and everyday more of our journalists and writers are moving from Blackberries to iPhones and Android devices. This is in addition to the piles of iPads being purchased and used by everyone from the top down.

There is one major difference between those who buy iPhones/iPads and those who opt for Android devices. After adding company email to the device, I never see the iOS users again.

For the Android users, I am consistently stopped in the hallway or emailed about some minor problem or question. It does not matter if the user is young or old, male or female, savvy or not. The questions always begin with, “How do I…?”

The iOS users do not need helping learning how to use the device. Even adding an exchange-hosted email address to the device is a simple PDF I wrote that is emailed to them.

The Android users inevitably need help adding their company email to the phone. They always have questions about how to do something or how to use the device.

This is frustrating because each Android device is just different enough to be utterly confusing to use. Whether it be the MotoBlur or the HTC Sense or some other abomination, it is a confusing mess.

When I had an Android phone, I used the original Motorola Droid. I chose this phone primarily because it was a “Google Experience” phone which meant it was a standard Android OS without any third-party OS tacked atop it.

If every Android phone looked the same or at least similar, they would be far easier to support and explain to their respective owners.

I would address Android tablets but I’ve yet to come across one. The IT department even ordered a Blackberry Playbook for evaluation. The company recently purchased about a dozen Google TVs for conferences rooms and other offices. However, I’ve yet to see a single Android tablet come through the front door.

This is pretty damning for Android. As a company that lives and breathes on the web and has iOS apps for its flagship publications, Android doesn’t even warrant a single mention or presence.

Real

By Carl

On June 20, 2011

In Observations

Over at the Bridging the Nerd Gap, Brett Kelly wrote about being real. and it made me think. He writes about never feeling like a “real” programmer,

He writes,

“I bought books, annoyed smart people with questions and generally fumbled my way into a passable set of programming skills. Truth be told, Iâ€™ve never felt much like a â€œrealâ€ programmer.”

Additionally, he recently wrote Evernote Essentials which I own a copy of and can attest to its thoroughness and quality. Even through he doesn’t feel like a real author. I’d say 20,000 words about a software program in convenient book form makes you as real an author as anyone.

This resonated with me because that’s how I’ve lived all my life. I am a huge believe in self-teaching and if you want to learn something, go learn it. Don’t wait to be taught it or find a teacher. The knowledge is out there, go find it.

From an early age I taught myself most of what I wanted to know. I wanted to make magazines so I learned PageMaker and Photoshop.
I wanted to learn more about computers so I tinkered. I dismantled and I repaired. I learned how they tick and what made them work.
I wanted to learn the web so I taught myself HTML and CSS.

I’ve done a great many things and have random and varying passions. I’ve never really been a real anything. I was always the self-taught hack. I didn’t go to school to learn about computers. I played and experimented until I learned.

I was speaking to one of the Human Resources people at work as I helped them with a computer issue and was asked what my degree is school was. He assumed it was Computer Science or something technical.

Much to his surprise, I responded with, Creative Advertising. ((My running joke is I have a B.S. in Communications. Which is an asset to handling the politics of technical work.))

I believe I got my sense of hard work, experimentation and self-teaching from my parents. I had the privilege growing up to learn about the printing world from my parents.

Both parents at one time owned and ran their own businesses. I learned a lot about hard work from them. When you are the company there is no letting up. If you don’t do it, it doesn’t get done.

Learning is a life-long pursuit. There is no end to it when we leave the doors of the schoolhouse. I’ve been in the working world long enough to know many of the people doing jobs are not doing anything they have formal training to do.

Of Desktops and Writing Environments

By Carl

On June 2, 2011

In Observations

I can’t use a desktop anymore. Growing up and all through college I used a desktop. It’s all I had and all I used. When I wanted to compute, I sat at my computer and I computed. Sitting in a chair, at my desk, in my room.

Now, I can’t bring myself to be tethered to the desk. I have a couple of desktop computers around my apartment. They mostly sit and do repetitive tasks which need always-on and always-connected status. They download files and backup data. They keep my information safe. They sit and serve. They are not what I used everyday. They are not the device I reach for when I get home.

At work I have a desktop still, primarily because there’s no “business reason” for me to have a laptop ((If you ignore the netbook the company bought me as a test group to see whether it was worth getting for other employees. It’s not.)) and that works out.

When I get home, the last thing I want to do is sit down at another desk. I rather grab my iPad or a laptop and sit on the couch or out on the balcony, or even lounge in bed with comfy pillows. Sitting at a desk is constricting. I can’t sit next to my wife and be with her. I can’t interact with her because I’m stuck in a single place.

I prefer the mobility of laptops and the iPad. It fits my lifestyle. It fits who I am and what I want to do.

What I reach for when I arrive home all depends on what I want to do. The iPad is mainly for reading. When I want to read, 90% ((Not counting Instapaper reading time)) of the time I pop open the Kindle app and dive into the latest book I’ve borrowed from Lendle.

In that remaining 10% I turn to iBooks and read one of the PDFs or free eBooks I’ve downloaded. I will fill my water bottle and settle into a comfortable place and watch the pages fly by.

When I am in the mood to write I reach for a laptop. Even then, there is some question about what I grab. If I want to write ((as I am now)) and not be distracted or have to lug a heavy weight with me, the Google CR-48 Chromebook it is. It is super light and has great battery life. ((Currently 7 hours remaining at 92%))

I will open a new window and start making the clackity noise in either Simplenote or my new love, Pillarbox.

When I want to do more serious writing which requires research, referencing and piles of tabs and notes I reach for my main laptop, a Lenovo T61 ((I yearn for the day when I can afford a MacBook again)). It is a serviceable machine. WIndows 7 works well enough though it is no Mac OS.

I turn to Windows only when I need to get serious work done. Usually this means I will open Simplenote in half the screen and WriteMonkey on the other half. It is not the “distraction-free” nature of the writing environments that draws me to them, it is their simplicity and stark design. I like having a color palette other than black text on white background. I like the ability to see the word count and little else.

I can stay on task well enough, flipping between my Simplenote notes and Writemonkey’s clean, dark backdrop to my words. I write in Markdown so I prefer plain text to any fancy WYSIWYG editors. I am a big fan of simplicity and portability since I am a very nomadic writer and often use my iPhone to write on my commute. ((I write far more on the iPhone than I do the iPad, even with the external keyboard))