CR-48 Links to iMac with Chrome Remote Desktop

05/30/2012-
On  Flipboard this morning, a Giga Om article on ChromeBooks and a ChromeBox caught my attention.
http://goo.gl/C8M1C
Om mentions a new Google program/extension, Chrome Remote Desktop; it sounded intriguing.
With the extension downloaded to the CR-48 and the program downloaded to an iMac running the lates Lion OSX; I was ready to give it a test.
It works quite well. I am able to view and control the Mac with the ChromeBook, open, edit and close documents; slightly ironic that they are stored in dropbox. I even could open and edit a fairly complex, fully rendered 3D house plan in Vectorworks. The home or office computer is doing all of the heavy lifting, after all the Chromebook is only acting as an input device and remote monitor.

The biggest difficulty is having to use the CR-48 touchpad which is a little clunky.
I think using chrome remote desktop on a newer chrome book would be a much better experience.
It also seems like a chrome tablet would work well for this.
I have not checked it out using a cellular data connection but will do so soon.

Cr-48 Chrome Netbook

01/10/2011
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 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.

The Chrome Experience:

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.

I have used Safari primarily for a long time, Firefox has been way to clunky, but in the last year Chrome has become my most frequent browser. With the most most recent update Chrome is my favorite. I do have a full string of extensions set up on Safari but Chrome feels a little cleaner except for the bookmark management which leaves a lot to be desired. I end up using Safari to organize and X-marks to synchronize.

In the Cloud:

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 would be easier to integrate if I used MS Office but I finally switched to Apple iWork and there is no way am going backwards now. It is so easy