A Googley Way of Handling Photos - Google+ New Photo App for Chromebooks

Google has released its much anticipated Photo App for Chromebook, and no matter what the reports say, its available on all models now. The App imports photo's from your SD card, backs them up on Google Drive picks the "Best Ones" organises them accordingly and then lets you put them on your Google+. 

 Sundar Pichai, head of Chrome, Google Apps, and now Android was Quoted back in February talking about the App saying: 

"You plug in an SD card or connect the camera. It opens your photos in in full resolution and starts backing them up against your 1 terabyte Google Drive quota. There's nothing to mess with. We immediately choose, de-dupe [get rid of duplicates], and take out the blurry pictures. If there are six pictures of kids smiling, we choose the best one or two. It shows the best ones that have been selected in the gallery. It packages them up as album immediately for you to share in Google+." 

the Software contains very smart programming, cloud computing and social networking, a very Googley combination of affairs, but for Photo Enthusiasts with high end camera's it can't handle raw photos yet. 

So what do you think? Let you know your thoughts below. 

    

Annoucement: Battle of The ChromeBooks, Head to Head

Today we have a very special Announcement, over the coming weeks we will be doing a Battle of the Chromebooks series. We will be reviewing all the different models, and comparing and contrasting there specs, we will also do benchmark testes and find out once and for all, which chromebook is the best. There will be different categories such as price, features, specs and benchmarks and each of them will be scored out of 5 to get a final over all score. So let us know which two Chromebooks do you want to go head to head first?

How to Install Linux on Your Chromebook and Get More Bang for Your Buck. Part 1 (Crouton Method)

This is part one of a two parter on different methods to run Linux on your Chromebook. Part two will be coming soon using ChrBuntu and the dual book method so make sure you subscribe for updates.

Do you think your Chromebook is fantastic but sometimes you wish you could get access to a few more offline desktop features without switching laptops or computers. Well fear not because there is a solution to use  Ubuntu (Linux) on top of you Chrome OS without the need for a dual boot setup.

Step One: Developer Mode
This may sound scary but its actually extremely simple to do. Make sure you back up anything you have stored locally on your hard drive in the cloud though as it will wipe all local data.

1. Press and hold the Esc and Refresh Keys together, then press the Power button (while still holding down the ESC and Refresh Keys.) This will force you Chromebook to reboot into Recovery Mode. 
2. As Soon as you see Recovery Mode pop up (a screen with a yellow exclamation point then press Ctrl+D. This will bring up a prompt asking if you want to switch on Developer Mode - Press Enter to continue.
3. After some time a new a screen will pop up for only a few moments, the Chromebook will then re-boot itself and go through the process of enabling Developer Mode, this may take up to 15 minutes so be patient.
4. Once this is done it will return to a screen with a red exclamation point leave it alone until it reboots into Chrome OS.

Note: some older models have a physical switch on the underside of the Chromebook to Enable Developer Mode, if this is the case, Google instructions for you particular device it should be very similar.

Step Two: Install Crouton

1. Dowload Crouton from https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton and save it in your downloads folder.
2. Press Ctrl+Alt+T to bring up a terminal on your Chromebook.
3. at the terminal type "shell" and press enter
4. next run the following command by typing "sudo sh -e ~/Downloads/crouton -" and press Enter
5. Then let your computer install Crouton, This can take a while so crack open a drink. Once its done it will ask you for a username and password for your new Ubuntu install.
6. once its all done type the following into you terminal to run your new install "sudo startxfce4" and click enter.

Now that its installed so can switch back and forward between Chrome and Ubuntu using
Crtl+Alt+Shift+Back and Crtl+Alt+Shift+Forward on an ARM based Chromebook or
Ctrl+Alt+Back and Ctrl+Alt+Forward in an Intel Chrombook. For Intel you will also need to press Ctrl+Alt+Refresh to bring up the desktop.

Chromebook Stocked Stores Triple to 6,600

Google announced earlier this week world wide 6,600 stores now stock chromebooks. Chromebooks are now stocked in store in over 11 markets world wide. In the US Walmart has the Acer chromebook available in over 2,800 stores while Staple has Acer, HP and Samsung chromebooks in there over 1,500 stores nation wide.

In the UK Dixon's has had Chromebooks for some time now but with the recent addition of 116 Tesco stores as well as All Media Markt and Saturn Stores in the Netherlands, FNAC in France and elgiganten in Sweden, the UK market is now burst wide open.

 In Australia Harvey Norman and JB Hi-Fi Carry the Acer the HP and the Samsung models of chromebook although no-one stock either the series 5 or the Pixel on Australia shores yet.

David Shapiro, Director of Chromebook Marketing has been quoted saying "We-re working hard to bring Chromebooks to even more countries later this year."

Walmart and Staples to stock Chromebooks

Walmart and Staples have announced they will both be stocking Chromebooks, which is excellent news for Google as exposure for the devices spreads. Walmart is only  a $200 Acer model with 16 GB of solid state storage. Staples will sell a variety of Chromebooks from manufacture’s such as Acer, HP and Samsung.

Meanwhile Samsung have confirmed that there mid-range series 5 550 Chromebook is being fazed out with no plans for a replacement anytime soon, this means you either have the cheaper entry level chromebooks, or the top of the like Pixel for $1,300 leaving the market wide open for a mid-range device.

New Zealand schools to get Chromebooks

Techday.com has reported that Norrcom ICT will be distributing Google Chromebooks to schools across New Zealand. According to the Norrcom website "Norrcom in association with Google are now taking advance orders for Google Samsung and Acer Chromebooks pre loaded with management console. The Google Chromebook is the ideal solution for in classroom and BYOD solutions. Please email Google@norrcom.com for more details or call our Wellington office on 04 905 6940"

Paul Morris, the Managing Director of Norrcom “Google recognizes our strong reputation for honest dealing with schools contending with slashed budgets, financial pressures, an ever changing ICT roadmap, we dislike spending excesses when we know many workable, cost-effective options are available. This agreement merely strengthens our position.”

Norrcom is unable to provide dates, or individual unit cost at this time but they are taking pre-orders.

Should I Buy a Chromebook? A Quiz

A short quiz i have made to see if a chromebook might fit into your lifestyle, note this is my opinion only from my experiences and should be taken as advice, not as a definative answer

Will a Chromebook Suite Me? » Quiz Maker

Chrome OS News: AMD to Design chips to work with Chrome and Android

AMD throughout history has been a largely windows centric company, and who can blame them, untill recently windows had the market share. But this month AMD anounced that the would be expanding their line up to include processors that will handel android and chrome devices (both laptops and tablets). read more here... http://www.chromestory.com/2013/06/amd-says-they-will-design-chips-for-chrome-os-too/

First Impressions of the HP Pavilion 14-c001tu Chromebook

So its done, I have handed over my hard earned cash and purchased the  HP Pavilion 14-c001tu Chromebook. While I was in the store I had a quick once over of the Samsung and Acer offerings. The big difference is the obvious screen size. both the samsung and the acer chromebooks have 11 inch screens while The HP has 14 inch screen, but the samsung one is just soooooo pretty. It looks almost identical to a Macbook air and is slim and compact, I was almost going to purchase it instead but in the back of my mind I kept replaying the reports of the cracking screen issues the samsung is having. I decided to pick it up just to have a feel of the weight and build quality and as I lifted it from the bottom right corner of the body I felt the plastic flex under its own weight and that was the finisher for me, sorry samsung!

When I got home I opened up my new HP Pavilion 14-c001tu Chromebook from its pretty HP branded box to find a beautiful slim full size laptop sitting in front of me. I popped in the surprisingly small battery sat down on the couch with it on my lap and opened the screen to my surprise the battery already had a quarter charge and it booted up quickly, very quickly under ten second! I had read that this was one of the main advantages of the Chrome OS and I didn't think i would notice to much of a difference, but it blew me away. I don't know if I will be able to look at my windows laptop without laughing every time I wait for it to boot now.

After selecting languages and agreeing to the terms and conditions (which of course I read in full.... don't we all?) I was presented with a log in screen. I pumped in my existing gmail account and instantly I was on the desktop, I felt like a hacker and literally said "yes, I'm in!" out loud. But now what? well I suppose its time to start sorting out syncing my accounts to this device, I jumped on the Doc's app, and it was already sync'ed with my google drive....... ok that was easy. so I clicked on the Gmail app, again no login required... its already done. Surely it cant be this easy? I thought to myself. then i said to myself ok...... music! lets test these speakers out. I jumped on the app store to get a music player, as I have an android phone and tablet as my current devices at the moment I opted for the "Play Music" App (review to come). I opened the app, and there it is, all my music from my other devices good to go. And i was done, no copying existing files from another computer over the network or on a external hard drive, no saving account passwords, everything just worked! Honestly I was a little disappointed, half the fun of a new devices is setting it up to your likings and rediscovering old files while you transfer them, but google has removed the need for this.

Ok, so its time to have a look at this Web Store everyone has been talking about. I loaded it up a little blind, I had no idea were to start, so I downloaded sky drive (so I could access Microsoft Office's online app's) a few games (angry birds and need for speed reviews to come) and Pixl (a web app alternative to photoshop, review to come.)

Physically the computer is great! its only 2.1cm think it has a nice 14 inch screen the keyboard is good. The track pad it the only let down so far the texture isn't as smooth as I'm used to but I'm sure ill adjust.

I haven't had a chance to push it to its Intel Celeron 847 with Intel HD Graphics (1.1 GHz, 2 MB cache, 2 cores)  to the limits yet, but with 4gb of RAM I'm sure it will handle anything the chrome OS throws at it. I will keep you up to date throughout the next week as often as possible as well as some reviews of apps and options the OS.

An Introduction - Who am I and why am I writing this.

Hi All,

I started this blog as I have been doing research into chromebooks and Google Chrome OS recently whilst trying to decided if I should splash out and buy a new device to add to my ever growing collection. While doing this research I noticed a lack of peoples personal experiences with the OS and integrating it into there existing home and work life posted online. I could find a huge number of reviews of the devices and comparisons to Windows and Mac OS, but no-one saying "hey, this is what its actually like to use one of these devices and this is how it changed my tech life."

By no means am I a technology expert, but I'm not a noob either, I'm a 23 year old living in Australia, currently studying marketing. I have always had a fondness for technology, in high school I played around with Flash making short animations and I got bit by the techno bug. I started engrossing myself in anything tech I could find, 3d cad design, coding, and web design were my favourites, but I decided not to pursue any of these options after school as a career path, instead going down the I'm going to be a rock star" path, but i was still playing with new technology ever chance I could.

I can still remember pestering my parents to buy me this new fandangled device called an "mp3 player" before the iPod came out, and having to explain to them how this $120, 512 Mb with just a play /pause, forwards, backwards and volume button would replace my Walkman. All they could say was "but were does the music go in?" as soon as the iPod came out here in Australia I saved and saved and got one. the same with the iPhone. After a while i started expanding my collection of devices, multiple laptops, a few desktops, more phones than you can poke a stick at and a tablet.

Than recently, Google announced chromebooks for Australia, and I was intrigued. a laptop that runs a web browser and web based app's with a quick boot up time and a low price.... sounds good to me. so I did my research and decided that while it wouldn't be suitable to replace my desktop, it would certainly be fantastic as a secondary device.

In Australia, we only have three chromebooks available at this time, the samsung series 3, the hp and the acer. at first I was going to get myself the samsung, it seemed to be everything i wanted in a chromebook and the best looking one at that... but i started reading horror stories of defect that samsung wont acknowledge that caused the screen to crack extremely easily, and I ruled this one out. i decided the HP was the way to go for me you can read a review of it here.

I will be picking up my new chromebook tonight from JB Hifi (an Australia retailer, the closest thing in the US is Best Buy I suppose) for AUD$ 357.

My aim with this blog is to give you accounts of what I use my chromebook for, how it works in conjunction with (or maybe replaces) my other pc's and tablet. the things I discover, like and dislike about it, just to give you an unbiased idea of what it is like living with Chrome OS. I will also be posting reviews of app's in the Web store that I use and test out. make sur eyou subscribe so you dont miss a thing and keep up to to date on Life With Chrome OS.