My most used Chrome Extensions

Google Chrome allows for extensions to be added for it, just like other popular browsers. Extensions add functions to the browser through buttons or behind the scenes. Since most of us spend much of our time on computers in the browser, these extra functions can be incredibly useful. Here is a small list of my most-used extensions that I use in Chrome OS and Chrome on my iMac, I hope you find them useful!

Chrome To Paper

I am a massive Instapaper fan, and it was one of my first purchases when I got an iPhone in 2008. It is an app that strips out the extraneous things on a webpage and saves only those relevant to the actual article on the page, allowing you to read it later when you have time. This extension adds a new function to Chrome by adding a button which when pressed sends the article to Instapaper and deletes the tab. This means I can quickly go back to what I was doing before without extra tabs hanging around in the browser taking up the resources on my computer or my attention.

Read with Instapaper

This extension is for when I have had more time and I actually intend to read the article when I have the tab open. It uses Marco Arment’s parsing algorithm to show the article as Instapaper saves it. It makes it far easier to read without the distractions of the rest of the website. It isn’t perfect, often missing some pictures, or keeping some things that aren’t pertinent to the article, but it is far better than reading it on the site. It even comes with options to change the font, line spacing, and other things that make the reading easier on the eyes. I recommend it!

Google Dictionary

This extension has been in any version of Chrome I have had for a long time. The ability to just double click on a word and find out what it means and its etymology, has been a great help, when reading papers and articles, and often saves jumping away from the text to search for it in dictionary.com or Wikipedia. Invisible unless required and invaluable to me!

Evernote Clearly

This extension performs a similar function to 'Read with Instapaper' with one important difference- it sends the article to Evernote. I have begun to use this and Instapaper concurrently, but for slightly different uses. Instapaper used to be where I held all important articles and web pages. I am now giving this job to Evernote, especially with its new ability to appear next to Google searches, as described brilliantly at The Verge. I have been copying hundreds of articles to Evernote, and Clearly has been the best way to do it. Once these have all been copied out of Instapaper, it will where I read things later, and then send to Evernote for saving and archiving.

I hope these can be useful to you for your web needs. Any recommendations are greatly appreciated!

My most used Apps

Here are several apps I use day to day on my Cr-48 Chromebook, more than any others. I haven't included the Chrome browser here as it is the basis for most of these apps anyway, and since it works the same as on Mac or PC and most people are using it anyway, it won’t be anything new to anyone.

Google Docs

Docs is Google's word processor app and is the best place for on and offline writing built into the Chrome OS platform and also available to anyone else on the web. It allows for a wide array of functions and control over your text and the embedding of many kinds of media in the documents. It also allows simultaneous collaboration on the document which makes it great for academia - I used it on my IT course for late night online brainstorming revision sessions.

Google Docs uses its own file type which means that to edit documents away from the Chromebook I have to use the Google Docs online website in the browser, or in the Drive app on mobile devices. I would much prefer if these Drive apps were taken over to OS X or Windows as well, but that would probably be quite an undertaking, although I have seen a few possible workarounds, at least on OS X. I find it simpler to just open a text editor on that platform and save it to Dropbox or in the Drive folder and work on it later instead.

Docs is nowhere near as feature-filled as Microsoft's Word, but it works great for me as I can just concentrate on the words I'm typing. There are some minor annoyances I have with it, like being unable to insert pictures from the downloads folder on the Chromebook, instead requiring them to be uploaded to Drive, or the lack of spell-check when offline, but I find it more than sufficient for my uses.

Blogger

This is really just a link to the Blogger website and has no offline capabilities whatsoever, but I only use the site when I’m on the Chromebook, so I felt it worth mentioning. This and Docs work fairly well together, and it even appears that the Blogger site is based off Google Docs itself.

I currently create posts in Docs and then copy the text over to Blogger to post on this blog. I find it work pretty well bar a few annoyances, for example, copying a post with photos already embedded in the document doesn’t always work, nor does it copy over some formatting. This has just taught me to do all of the final work to the posts in Blogger and just concentrate solely on the text while in Docs. I find it works pretty well!

Type Fu

As someone who never formally learned to type, my method has been idiosyncratic at best, and slow at worst. I have spent the last few months trying to relearn how to type properly. While there are some very good interactive websites on the subject, this is an app that also has a full-featured offline mode, that makes it king for me!

Achshar Player

While Google have their Play music app where you can store and buy music to listen back to whenever you are online, or a very basic media player built into the Chrome OS, the first only works when online, and the second only plays single songs at a time.

This is the best of the offline music players I have found so far. It allows the user to add albums and create playlists from music in their file hierarchy. It isn’t as pretty or as feature-rich as iTunes, Winamp, Windows Media Player or Zune but when I don't have my iPhone or iPod with me, it's a great little stop-gap!

Sourcekit

This app has access to my Dropbox files and can open all of the .txt files I have stored there. This makes it easy to see and edit my To Do Lists and other files I have there. The app is fairly basic and far simpler than GDocs, with no auto-save or offline usage, but it does allow for tabbed files open at once, which I find very convenient.

I have found that I use it less and less now I have swapped back to using an iPhone rather than a Windows Phone, as there are some great apps for Dropbox text editing available there. That is probably a post in itself!

TweetDeck

This is a Chrome Twitter app that is actually awesome, especially for free! I love that I can have several different columns which I can fill with whatever content I want and order how I like. It lets me see a great deal of information all at once, and I often have it open when I’m not working to just get the updates to my feed.

Chrome Remote Desktop

This app made it very easy to access my iMac while I was away from my flat. It allowed me to control the computer from the Chromebook, and allowed me to use my Mac apps to do things that I simply couldn’t do on my Chromebook. It also meant I could copy things into my Dropbox folder and access them on the web in a matter of seconds or minutes. Not bad at all!

Overall I have found these apps to be the ones I use the most. While I have everything in a Dropbox-orientated environment, the Chromebook is not really able to truly “shine” as a 100% integrated part of my workflow. At the same time I find the separation of my Chrome stuff and my Dropbox stuff usually works quite well, so perhaps I shouldn’t complain too much!

Offline Mode

After a gap for a busy week or so, this is another section of my Chrome OS and Chromebook series, this time detailing the how my usage of the Cr-48 works away from internet connectivity.

“Chromebooks are only good online”. This is something that I hear whenever anyone talk about the Chromebook and Chrome OS in general. Although WIFI is becoming increasingly available whether at school, work or anywhere else, there are still times when any computer user is going to be away from the internet. All devices should be able to work offline by default. From my usage, by and large, the Chromebook was a good device, but there are a few things I think need improving.

No File Hierarchy

Although Google Drive has a hierarchy of files and folders when online, just like any other computer while, offline, there is no hierarchy, simply a long list of different files, rather than in their correct folders as they would appear online.

While I can understand that this is a simpler system, it becomes a little unwieldy as you have more and more documents. It is especially strang as the hierarchy is shown on the left of the webpage, as you can see below. As a Dropbox user, I am used to having every single file saved for offline use. This is a trade-off I would prefer not to make, but with only a 16GB SSD compared to other machines’ huge HDDs, I can understand why this decision has been made.

My Drive Offline Docs, in a list by "last modified"

Few apps with a decent offline mode

This is a small problem that require a certain amount of understanding. Windows, OS X and Linux programs generally all work online or offline. except perhaps internet browsers. Yet since Chrome OS is based on the browser, the vast majority of apps expect to have an internet connection, unless they have specific settings. Of the apps I have installed on the computer, about half work offline, while the others don’t run at all. Although this is initially jarring, once you understand which apps have an offline mode, you will be able to get by.

My biggest annoyance is the gap in functionality between their online and offline modes. This can be seen most obviously in the Gmail offline app when it is compared to the Gmail app. The offline app is much more like a smartphone or tablet app, whereas the the standard Gmail app is far more fully-featured and is exactly what a user would expected from a desktop operating system. This is especially disappointing as it is one of Google’s tent-pole services, something a user would expect to use day to day.

Offline Gmail and its tablet-like appearance and reduced features

It seems like the Chrome OS developers could do a bit more work to improve the app’s offline usability, rather than just give an excuse that perpetuates the idea that “Chromebooks are only good online”.

The same can be said about the lack of an offline spell-check in Google Docs. I have been used to corrections or suggestions on whatever platform I am on, including iOS devices whether online or offline. Google does not provide the spell-check offline. Strangely enough, I have found the Blogger website actually has a better spell-check than Google Docs, very odd!I imagine this is to reduce bloat on the tiny SSD, but the option to save at least one language of data would be nice. It is not a deal-breaker for me, as I am usually just writing notes on the Chromebook anyway prior to a final read through on my iMac, or at least in my flat when I will have access to the internet, but it still something different to the norm, that I need to remember. It does also mean that I am now forced to reread what I have typed, and it has actually made me edit what I have written previously. Perhaps that increase in self-editing is a good thing?

Usage

Having said all of this, in my usage, the Chromebook still did everything I needed it to do, even if it did not do everything I perhaps would have wanted it to do, making it a very good travel companion.

It was ready to go in seconds, due to its quick boot time and would play the small amount of music I had saved for offline use, or I could listen to the music on my phone. It also played a couple of episodes of a TV series I had on an SD Card, absolutely fine. I was easily able to transcribe handwritten notes in Google Docs and didn’t really need anything fancy. The Cr-48 is still a little too large for an aircraft’s tray table, but until I get my dream machine - an 11” MacBook Air, that would be the case with any other laptop I have.

Cr-48 Hardware

This is the third post in a series about Google's Chromebook and the Chrome OS, in this case the hardware and externals. I talk about the box, the appearance and the difference between the Cr-48 and other laptops, including Apple's original black MacBook which appears to have given many different design cues to the Google designers

Box

This device was produced by Google themselves for release in late 2010, and it has no branding on it at all, from Google or anyone else. About 60,000 were made and were sent to users around the world who signed up to Google’s Chrome OS pilot programme. They arrived in boxes with clever blueprint-like artwork on them with a mouse test pilot. Sadly I got second hand in a plain cardboard box.

Externals

There are no fancy colours anywhere on the device either, it is simply a matte black colour on all sides, which I like. It feels very much like a smaller, slimmer Black MacBook from the now-discontinued 2006 range with a slightly smaller screen, footprint, and thinner body.

Specs

It has a 1.66GHz Intel Atom processor and 2GB of RAM giving it netbook specs that would wow nobody. It also has a 16GB ssd for storage, which again, is far less than anyone would normally expect to see in a machine this size. This computer relies on Chrome OS to be thin and light and to require as few resources as possible from the machine to run well. The lack of storage is a clear indicator that Google expected users to be running as much as possible over an internet connection, and storing as little as possible in the machine itself. It has a single USB 2.0 port, a full-size SD Card slot, a headphone jack and a VGA port by way of connectivity and doesn’t have a CD/DVD drive. It does not even have an ethernet port, suggesting that internet connections should be made over the air. However it does come with a sim card slot for 3G access, something few laptops come equipped with, even today. As a pilot device, the Cr-48 gives very bold indication of the direction Google expected the Chromebooks to take.

Usage

When you open the laptop it automatically boots. This is a nice touch that I didn’t expect when I opened it for the first time. I had always wondered why laptops often turn back on when asleep or in hibernate mode when the lid is opened, but not from an off state. I like Google’s attempt here to save the user a bit more time before they have a computer ready to go.

The keyboard layout is almost exactly the same as the black MacBook with several exceptions. The directional arrow keys are different sizes, as are the shift, ctrl and alt keys, finally the function keys are completely different. Rather than having the F1-F12 keys, Google has different functions on those keys alone, including forward, back, refresh, brightness and volume up and down. I prefer this, as I found that having to hold the Fn button down to access brightness or volume was overly complicated, especially after having Macintosh computers which had those functions on the keys without having to use modifier keys like Fn.

The trackpad is a button-less yet clickable pad like those on Apple’s MacBook range. It allows the user to use a single finger click for the traditional left-click and a two finger click for the right-click. It also allows for two-finger scrolling like many laptops today. I find I prefer to use it with tapping rather than clicking, something that has hung around from my white MacBook days, and it works just fine for that, However I do find there are problems when scrolling with the page scrolling right down to the bottom of the page or back to the top with very little motion on my part. However, I do find that on the whole the trackpad is a decent approximation of a MacBook’s trackpad, but is unlikely to ever eclipse it as what I think of as the best trackpad on a laptop today.

I think it is one of the most beautifully understated laptops ever, and would definitely put it on par with the MacBook Air in my top two most beautiful laptop designs ever and it is something to behold with its blank, matte black sides. The Alienware M11X I have also has a similar colouring, but is much thicker, heavier, and has a completely different keyboard layout. So far I am a big fan of this machine.

First two images from: http://www.mydigitallife.info/google-cr-48-notebook-with-chrome-operating-system/
Third:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31021_3-20025349-260.html

The OS and the Desktop

Here is my second post in a series about using ChromeOS and the Cr-48 Chromebook and to see whether they can replace a Windows or OS X laptop.

Chrome OS

Chrome OS is Google's attempt at a fast, lightweight, desktop operating system based around their own Chrome browser. It was started by an engineer in Google who wanted to created an OS that was run entirely from the computer’s RAM. It is meant to boot fast, turn off quickly, and require less processing and battery power than a traditional desktop operating system. It allows for "apps" and "extensions" to be installed into the browser and to be used just like an app on any other operating system. However these applications are "web apps" which often appear to the user to be links to a website which provides the app's content or service.

An example of content would be the Google Drive, similar to the Dropbox and Skydrive services, it allows access to the user’s files and folders from Google’s own cloud storage from anywhere with internet access. To the Chrome OS user, it looks just like logging onto the website and going through its online file hierarchy just as it would a user logging in on their own browser, however it also allows for both ‘local’ access - where the files are downloaded to the device and ‘offline’ access, where files are saved locally and can be edited without an internet connection. Changes can then be synced back to the cloud the next time the Chromebook is connected to the internet. As someone who has used Dropbox for years, and use it as “My Documents” folder, this is something I have been doing for a long time, but it will be interesting to try to integrate this new OS into my computing work flow, after using Windows 7 and the different betas of Windows 8 on a laptop for the past year or so.

Desktop

From first impressions the OS is very pretty. Google has included a good number of beautiful wallpapers and of course you can use your own. I've stuck with one of the picturesque landscape ones, but your mileage may vary! For the version I am using, the desktop appears to be a pared down version of the Windows desktop, with the dock/ tool bar at the bottom and a small list of settings in the bottom corner including a clock, WIFI connection indicator and battery capacity indicator.

Also, just like Windows, you can get rid of the dock if you don’t want it to display unless you need it or to gain extra screen real estate for everything else. You just move your cursor down to the bottom of the screen and it will pop up.

Just like other OS with a window interface Chrome OS has the icons, this time with the icons on the right-hand side like Windows. It has the typical close window cross as well as a square icon which when you hover over it gives you several different options, to maximise, minimise and pin to the left and right. These icons can be clicked or the cursor dragged and clicked to them. I like these options being available, and it does give a good differentiation between Chrome OS, Windows and OS X.

Apps are accessible from a small icon that when pressed reveals a popup that shows a list of apps that are installed on the Chromebook. Each can then be right-clicked to give options as to how it opens and dragged to the dock just like on a Mac or PC.

Sadly these app icons appear in the order they have been installed on the device. There is no way to drag them to the pages you want like the functionality of OS X’s Launchpad app or the folders on iOS and Android. This disappoints me slightly, but I have just put my most-used apps in the dock and access them from there. I can also use the keyboard and press the “Search” button which has replaced the Caps lock key and type in the name of the app I want to open. The desktop works well enough for me, and other than that minor problem with the apps drawer, I like it.

Google’s Chromebook: A perfect secondary computer?

Cr-48 image from Engadget (http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/07/google-unveils-cr-48-the-first-chrome-os-laptop/)

I bought a Cr-48 on eBay a couple weeks ago. For anyone who doesn't know what that is, and I imagine that is most of you, it is a particular model of laptop running Google's Chrome OS, something Google calls a "Chromebook". There has been an increase in the number of these devices in the past few months with the third generation machines hitting shops this side of Christmas and adverts everywhere for them. I believe they can actually serve some people as decent primary computers and most people as a very good secondary computer. However they definitely can't be expected to perform all of the functions of a fully-fledged operating system like OS X, Windows or a decent distribution of Linux. They are especially attractive in the US with their $199 price tag. They start a bit more expensive over here at £199. I was lucky enough to pick up this Cr-48 for £120 posted in good condition. It isn't as powerful as these new Chromebooks, by Samsung or Acer, but it is already turning into a great little computer for the money.

This will be a series of short posts on the device, its OS and seeing how it fairs as a secondary device to my main iMac computer. I’ll give a small background on each area of the laptop: its OS, specs and how it handles the different things I expect my laptop to be able to perform like word processing, video watching, and general usage over the days and weeks. I'll be able to compare it to the different computers I've used including my MacBook, M11X and iMac, although they are obviously vastly different machines.

Stay tuned for more updates!

Windows 8. Bored already.

I find myself typing this post in Notepad++. Great app by the way. I use it for a great deal of my drafting and correspondence, and even a bit of HTML code. I highly recommend it! However, I also find myself writing this on my laptop in Windows 7, rather than the much-publicised Windows 8 and I don't feel bad using it either, which is weird.

Let me explain.

I am a keen new tech adopter. I got an iPhone 3G as soon as it was released, and iPad as soon as I could snap up a good second-hand deal. The same with an Alienware M11X R3 and Windows Phone device. I like the new and the different, and am very happy with all of these devices. The same is also usually true with app and operating system updates. As soon as an update is available I will jump to it. I did it with OS X Leopard, Snow Leopard, Lion and Mountain Lion, with the longest time I have waited being 3 weeks, so I could complete my final dissertation for my degree. So I did exactly the same with Windows 8.

I had a spare 2.5" drive, so I took out the M11X's standard Western Digital Black and installed each of the different preview versions of the OS. The Developer, Consumer and Release Previews, and finally the Enterprise RTM, their final version they were shipping to their OEMs. I was excited for each version and their new features and bug fixes, and the new apps for the "Metro" or "Modern" *sigh* interface. It has so much potential, but hasn't reached it for me, yet, which became jarringly obvious when I put my Windows 7 drive back in the M11X for a bit of housekeeping, (OS updates, security updates, etc). There

Windows 8 - things that don't work for me

Poor "Modern" apps. Don't get me wrong, the "Modern" interface and the Live Tiles are beautiful. I have them on my phone as well and I could write a short essay on how they make my life so useful. However those on Windows 8 just feel a little weak and half-baked to me and made me feel like the Microsoft developers were downright lazy. No integrated inbox for email and poor messaging integration with Facebook chat were ones that got me immediately. However, to have no native "Modern" notepad app and no calculator? This meant I couldn't perform the most obvious task a student would want to do on their computer - read a pdf in their app and take notes on in in another app. That was massively disappointing for me. Sure, you could use the desktop ones, but that gives you the jarring experience of leaving the new and shiny "Modern" world, and drops you back in the desktop environment with a bump, and I'm trying my hardest to learn to love Microsoft's new way of doing things! The same appears true for users of the Surface RT tablets, who are finding the same thing especially true since they would be expecting a far better touch experience than that provided by these apps on the desktop.

While the "slack" created by poor native apps has already begun to be taken up by third-party developers, it smacks of laziness on the part of Microsoft or perhaps an unwillingness to part with the past. Some have questioned why Microsoft has even included the desktop environment as part of the Windows RT OS, and I agree with them. The new Office apps are really the only point to having it, and prove that had Microsoft just made true "Modern" interface apps, they wouldn't need it at all. Or perhaps Microsoft are trying to provide another differentiator between themselves and Apple's definite OS X vs iOS platforms.

Windows 8 - benefit

Speed - Microsoft has done a really impressive job at reducing the boot-up and shut-down times and operating system actions. As a real-life example, Windows 8 on my slower 5400 rpm drive boots over twice as fast as the Windows 7 partition on my better, faster 7,200 rpm WD drive. It also uses far fewer system resources and allows my laptop to stay cooler and quieter throughout normal usage along with a longer battery life.

Finally, let me say that I don't find myself using the "Modern" apps much at all. So far everything on the desktop does everything quicker than I would otherwise be able to from the Start Screen. On top of that, a bug that prevents me from docking two apps side by side is preventing me from actually multitasking and using two at once. It started as soon as I plugged the laptop into an external display and then unplugged it. It has been "tainted" ever since and removes much of the actual use from the new apps. This should have been fixed by the RTM build that is being shipped to OEMs and now users. Hopefully it will be fixed soon.

I am not saying Windows 8 doesn't have potential, but it doesn't seem to realise much of that potential to me on release, but perhaps it is better to pay the £25 or $40 and hope it realises that potential sooner rather than later. I hope I change my mind, but using Windows 7 on my non-touch device, I really am in no particular rush. But I'll see how it goes after a week!