I'm feeling like "Buddy the Elf" hearing that Santa will visit Gimbels !!! Is there an Objectivism Group here? Really? Let me know. Rob<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Dec 23, 2010 at 11:01 PM, Todd Walton <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:tdwalton@gmail.com">tdwalton@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">OMG as in "Oh My Google!" I signed up to beta test Google's Chrome OS<br>
netbook a few weeks ago. I told them how cool I was, and apparently<br>
they bought it because 10 minutes after I got home last night the UPS<br>
man knocked on the door and gave me an unmarked brown box. Inside was<br>
a sweet little netbook from Google! I did the Little Miss Sunshine<br>
screech for about a minute, I was so excited.<br>
<br>
There were absolutely no markings on the box, the box inside the box,<br>
or even on the computer itself. But when I first opened it it turned<br>
on and went straight to a first-time set up screen. The set up and<br>
instructions have the usual Google funny/lighthearted-ness to them.<br>
It doesn't completely turn off, it goes to a standby mode. I don't<br>
know if it's suspend-to-disk or if it's in really really low power<br>
mode. You turn the thing on by opening the lid. Once you open the<br>
lid, it's on and sitting at the home screen in about a second and a<br>
half, two seconds. It normally leaves you signed in, but you can sign<br>
out, and there's a guest mode if you wanna lend it to someone else.<br>
Chrome OS is just like Chrome the web browser, except instead of<br>
bookmark type boxes on the new tab window, it has "apps". Otherwise,<br>
it's just like living your entire desktop experience inside a browser.<br>
There's no Applications menu. There's a clock, a network connection<br>
icon, and a battery indicator at the far right end of the tab bar.<br>
<br>
It has a built in wireless card and a built in cellular card. It<br>
comes with a Verizon Wireless plan of 100MB per month for two years,<br>
free. I don't have to return the laptop, it's mine. They don't even<br>
require you to submit feedback. In the setup process it said<br>
something like 'if you don't mind, kick the tires, kick all the tires,<br>
and if you find a bug hit the bug feedback button'. I've submitted<br>
one bug (very minor and temporary, what Ubuntu would call a "paper<br>
cut") and it basically just opens a new tab and has a simple form to<br>
fill out. Select category, fill in the text box, hit submit and move<br>
on.<br>
<br>
The touchpad is a little funny. It's one big rectangle touchpad in<br>
the usual place. You drag to move the pointer, tap to click,<br>
two-fingertip drag to scroll, two-fingertip tap to right click. I've<br>
mis-tapped several times now, but I think I'll get used to it. It's<br>
not as bad as some laptops I've seen. Also, no caps lock key. Where<br>
caps lock would be there's a "new tab" button. But you can configure<br>
that button to be a caps lock if you really want it to be.<br>
<br>
I've always been a bit old school in my computing preferences, for<br>
values of old school equal to late 80s, early 90s. But I think I want<br>
to start trying to keep stuff online "in the cloud" where I can. Too<br>
many times I've wanted to reference an email and I don't have IMAP<br>
setup on my personal email account. And I've been using Google Docs<br>
for a limited number of documents that I have to share with people,<br>
and I'm really liking it. I might put more there. Etc.<br>
<br>
That's what I told them when I signed up to beta test. And also that<br>
I run the Des Moines Objectivism Group. I was hoping that would count<br>
for "he'll tell others about it".<br>
<font color="#888888"><br>
--<br>
Todd<br>
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