First Week with the Cr-48
We came back from a pre Christmas vacation to find this nifty netbook had been delivered in our absence.
It is a very simple and elegant black netbook with a large touchpad; a little hefty, but it has a sturdy feel to it.Plugged in to charge, it started very quickly and with an existing Google ID it was ready to go in just a few steps.
I have been using the Chrome browser since it came out. I have always appreciated its simplicity and its speed; the little netbook, with its solid state drive, is just as simple, just as snappy. The keyboard is easy to adjust to; I thought the touch pad was an issue with my thick skinned fingers but it works well when set to max sensitivity.
The Cr-48 experience is more about the cloud operating system than the hardware; it's nice that the hardware works well enough to show off the concept.
The Chrome Experience:
The newest feature of Chrome is the web store and accompanying new tab sheet that displays the array of apps that have been installed. While I really like this feature, I am anxious to see an update that allows the apps to be categorized and organized more easily. Right now the only way I could rearrange them was by uninstalling and reinstalling the apps in the order I wanted them. Reminds me of a first generation iPhone.
Some apps are just links to websites but some like the New York Times and Huffington Post are designed for a more fluid media experience- very nice. Feedly is an attractive way to organize and view RSS feeds and it is a great way to display news in categories as is Google Reader.
Safari was our primary browser for a long time, Firefox has just been way to clunky; but in the last year Chrome has become a much more frequent browser. With its most most recent update, Chrome is the winner. While Safari does have the same compatibility with extensions, Chrome has the Apps.
While bookmark management is still better on Safari, Chrome is improving in that regard and the Xmarks extension can keep your bookmarks in sync between browsers and machines.
There are too many apps to review in one post, but ones that I liked immediately were: Write Space for uncluttered journaling and Weebly for website creation
Head In the Cloud:
Many things just plain work better in the cloud: e-mail, calendars, notes, to do lists, etc.
On line file storage is a great for additional back-up and it can also allow sharing. Drop Box, Box.net
Online photo storage and sharing are great also but I always keep files and photos backed up locally as well.
Apples MobileMe is great, it has a very polished interface for mail, calendar, photos, iDisk data storage and the Find My iPhone app. There are extensions for Chrome that provide instant access to all of these features; it seems kind of ironic that Apple webware runs so well on Google hardware with the Chrome OS. If Apple would only provide online document editing almost all of my work could take place in the cloud.
Feet Planted Firmly On the Ground
I can't see myself being totally cloud operating system reliant until some key software makes the leap.
CAD- I've used Vectorworks for Architectural design for 17 years; I'm not ready to invest the money or time to switch. Vectorworks does everything that SketchUp does plus a whole lot more.
Docs- I like the concept of Google Docs but they lack polish and ease of use. They might be easier to switch to if I used MS Office but a year ago I finally switched to Apple iWork and there is no way am going backwards now. iWork is not as powerful as Office, but it is much easier to set up documents and spreadsheets and to present them to clients. Google docs are much harder to work with.
