[Cialug] OMG CR-48 Netbook

[Rob Miller]

I'm feeling like "Buddy the Elf" hearing that Santa will visit Gimbels !!!
 Is there an Objectivism Group here?  Really?  Let me know.  Rob

On Thu, Dec 23, 2010 at 11:01 PM, Todd Walton <tdwalton at gmail.com> wrote:

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