Yep, Looks Like I'm Sticking with ChromeOS

With some travel coming up, I've been looking around for a better laptop.

My circa 2013 Samsung Chromebook is showing its age. With an ARM CPU and only 2Gb of RAM, it slows to a crawl with only a few tabs open or apps running. Also, it's an 11.6" screen and my eyes just aren't what they were even five years ago. Don't get me wrong. It's been a fine machine. But time to move on and up.

On the other hand, I do not want a Windoze machine, after my most recent Mac experience that's not where I want to go either, and just about any new laptop I'd want to put Linux on (other than a Chromebook, which I might use Crouton to turn into a dual boot machine) doesn't compare well on price for specs (versus my needs) to the Lenovo IdeaPad 14" Chromebook.

4Gb of RAM and a dual core Intel processor slightly faster than the one in my Asus Chromebox, which is still working just fine for me. A 16Gb solid state drive, and likewise that has proven plenty of on-board storage for me over the years across Chromebooks, Chromeboxes, an old "netbook" that was my first machine with an SSD rather than an old fashioned hard drive. If the reviews I've read are correct, it is part of the new generation of Chromebooks that will run Android apps, too.

Yes, it is ChromeOS. Yes, ChromeOS is Google. I know that many people decline to trade as much personal information and personal privacy as Google demands in return for its "free" browser, OS, email client, word processor, etc. Can't say I blame them. But the deal works for me. So I've arranged with a client who buys me a new machine every few years to make the IdeaPad the next one.

Five ChromeOS Extensions I Wouldn't Want to Live Without

Yes, I am going to become a "listicle" terror. Blame Thane.

As a user of (almost exclusively) Chromebooks and Chromeboxes since 2012, I've used quite a few extensions. Some I've discarded or at least disabled. Others make my life better and/or easier and I'd hate not to have them. Here (in no particular order) are five of the latter kind.

The Great Suspender -- This extension "suspends" tabs that haven't been visited for a certain (user-set) amount of time to cut back on memory usage. You can whitelist sites that you never want suspended, and when you go back to a suspended tab, you can click on a link and reload the web site that was running in that tab. The Great Suspender was my first solution to the slowdown phenomenon that comes with running lots of browser tabs on a machine with only 2Gb of RAM (my Asus M004U Chromebox, which I upgraded to 4Gb last week), and it helped. A lot.

uBlock Origin -- Yes, I finally went over to the dark side and started using an ad blocker, for the same reason I use The Great Suspender. That is, to not have my RAM eaten up by a bunch of extraneous crap. Yes, I still feel guilty sometimes. No, not really. uBlock Origin was the extension I settled on after trying several, and I'm quite satisfied with it.

Keep Awake -- The Chromebox doesn't come with user-adjustable power management settings. You can get around that by going to command line in Chrome Shell ("crosh") and directly editing crap. But then you'd have to remember what you edited and how if you wanted to change or undo it. Keep Awake gives you three convenient settings to switch between with a click. Normal (after a certain amount of time, the machine goes into sleep mode and the displays go dark), a setting that keeps the system awake (and doing stuff if you have something running) even when the displays shut down, and a setting that doesn't even let the displays shut down. When I have the Chromebox web mining cryptocurrency overnight while I sleep, I use that middle setting.

Screen Shader --  A Chrome extension take on f.lux, a program that adjusts the color tone of your computer screen to "to decrease eye-strain, eye fatigue and to appease your brain's day/night cycle." I've only recently started using it, but it feels easier on the eyes. I suppose I might come back later and deprecate it. But I doubt it.

File System for Dropbox -- On most operating systems, if you want to use Dropbox you install some software that creates a Dropbox folder where you save the stuff you want synchronized/backed up to cloud storage. ChromeOS isn't most operating systems. Until this extension came along, if I wanted to store a file in Dropbox I had to go to the web site, log in, and upload the file. File System for Dropbox appears in my file manager as an additional drive, and acts like one. I can save to it, load from it, copy files to and from it, etc.

Asus Chromebox -- 1-Week Update

The new Asus Chromebox arrived a week ago, so I've had a chance to break it in and see what it can do.

So far, I haven't really noticed that it has half as much RAM as the older Samsung it replaced. In one week I've had exactly one page crash with an error message along the lines of "Chrome may have run out of memory or there may be a problem with the page." Given that I only had a few tabs open at the time, that I frequently work with 20 or more tabs open and that on refresh the page came right up, I doubt it was lack of memory.

What can I say? It's a Chromebox. As soon as I started it up and pointed it at my home network, it updated to the latest version of ChromeOS. As soon as I logged in for the first time, it began importing all my synced bookmarks, installing all my synced extensions, etc. Within a few minutes after first boot, bada-bing-bada-boom, I was completely back in the saddle.

Over the course of my computing life, I've noticed that all non-Mac machines seem to have their own small quirks. The Samsung would sometimes have trouble coming back from sleep/suspension to two monitors. The Asus sometimes comes out of sleep/suspension with the keyboard not wanting to work right (some letters work, some don't). In both cases a restart (a matter of a few seconds with a Chromebox) fixes it. Right now I'm using a (pretty worn out -- about half the keys no longer have visible markings; fortunately I'm a touch typist) USB keyboard and a wireless USB mouse. I'm planning Real Soon Now to buy one of those wireless mouse/keyboard sets that work through a single USB dongle for both devices and see if that gets rid of the keyboard weirdness.

My recommendation, as usual: If your computing life takes place pretty much entirely on the web / in the cloud (or if it could), your next machine should be one of these.

It's So Tiny!

[That's what she said ... rim shot]

No, no, no ... I'm talking about the new Asus Chromebox. It's less than 5 inches square and less than 2 inches tall. Feast your eyes on a blurry photo of it next to the old Samsung model, which is a little bigger than my old Mac Mini square, though not quite as tall (for visual reference, that's a fairly standard size mouse sitting on top of the larger machine).

Power usage? From an early Computer World review:

With the system simultaneously playing an HD video, displaying a presentation on Google Slides and running a science simulation on the University of Colorado's PhET site, it used just 11.2 watts. That's roughly one-tenth the level of a standard desktop system and less than the typical notebook.

Per the specs, it's less powerful than the Samsung (2 gigs of RAM instead of 4, slower CPU), but I haven't noticed any performance differential. Maybe I don't push my machines hard enough to reveal one. Only four USB ports instead of six, but it has a card reader built in. Nice little machine (I'm writing this post on it).

In a previous post, I blegged for worshipful readers to defray its cost (ballpark, $175 for the machine and the monitor adaptor I had to order to have it work with my old display -- which fortunately arrived by USPS about five minutes after the Chromebox arrived by UPS). Thanks to AJ who ponied up $20. Not gonna bang the drum on this TOO hard, but $155 to go ...

[cross-posted at Browser News Digest]

The Dark Side of Chrome

Yes, I am a Chrome and ChromeOS cheerleader. Maybe even a bit of an evangelist. You hardly ever see me complaining about any aspect of the browser or the OS framework. But all is not well in Chromeland. Here are two complaints -- one minor in immediate effect, but both major in long-term implication:

1. In the beginning, when you opened a new tab in Chrome, it was beautiful -- you could do anything you wanted in the new tab, but by way of assistance you saw some tiles representing frequently opened sites, and at the bottom drop-down lists of "recently closed tabs" and other things. Marvelous. Worked like a charm. Absolutely, positively nothing whatsoever to complain about. Then Google yanked that format and made the new tab much less useful ... but with just a tiny bit of work, you could revert to the better setup. And apparently lots of people did. So last week, Google made it impossible to do that, forcing all users to move to the much uglier, much less useful new setup. You can partially undo the damage by adding some extensions, but it's just not the same.
2. Now I'm hearing that the new Chrome beta (which I haven't seen yet -- I'm on the stable build channel, and apparently this is Windows-only at the moment anyway) restricts users to apps available from the Chrome store.

The first item is an annoyance, but points to Google having a penchant for exerting undue control over the user experience.

The second item puts Google in the same league as Apple with its "walled garden" approach of trying to tell users, in very fine-grained detail, what they can and can't do with their machines.

I was kind of amped up for the new Asus Chromebox coming out this month. Now I think I'm going to wait on that, because if things keep going in the direction they appear to be going, I'll be abandoning Chrome. And while I can certainly root my Chromebox and Chromebook and turn them into (fairly light) Linux boxes, my next piece of hardware won't be one of those kinds of units.

More on Where Windows Needs to Go

Last month, I opined that if Microsoft wants to remain competitive it's going to need to give up on the idea of selling operating systems. That era is over. Well, they seem to be getting with the program in a minor sort of way:

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) is cutting the price of Windows 8.1 by 70 percent for makers of low-cost computers and tablets as they try to fend off cheaper rivals like Google Inc. (GOOG)'s Chromebooks, people familiar with the program said.

Manufacturers will be charged $15 to license Windows 8.1 and preinstall it on devices that retail for less than $250, instead of the usual fee of $50, said the people, who asked not to be named because the details aren’t public.

It's definitely too little. Whether or not it's too late, only time will tell.

At first blush, this looks like a considerable discount. But at $15,  the price of Windows would still represent 6% or more of retail price on its face ... and in fact, considerably more.

Why?

Because Windows is a fat, bloated, slug of an operating system that requires a more expensive hardware build to run on than does ChromeOS or a reasonably light Linux distribution.

Windows needs more RAM. Windows requires a more robust CPU. Windows has to have more local storage for its OS files.

So if I'm building a laptop for the average user -- who browses the web, sends and receives email, streams some media and not much else -- Microsoft is asking me to spend $15 more on the OS than I need to and spend more building the device itself in order to offer that user stuff he or she will seldom if ever use and almost certainly won't consider a high priority when choosing a laptop.

Microsoft needs to rethink its OS. If they're smart, "Windows 9" will be called ExploreOS. It will consist of a re-modeled, de-crufted Internet Explorer browser, the files necessary to boot that browser and initiate an Internet connection ... and that's about it.

Yes, that means the revenue model will have to change. The OS itself is no longer going to be a profit center. The profit centers will be "enterprise-level" web apps, cloud storage and tech support, increased monetization of the Bing search engine (and possibly of the browser itself a la Firefox), etc.

The era of selling operating systems is over. Period. The sooner Microsoft realizes this, the less likely it is to go down as the next FW Woolworth.

(Chrome)Boxing Day!

I've had my Samsung Chromebox for about a year-and-a-half, and I'm still pleased as punch with it. For those who use a computer primarily as a "web appliance," ChromeOS just can't be beat. But I may replace it later this year -- with another Chromebox.

ASUS announced its Chromebox offering this morning. Available in March, starting at $179.

The specs look fairly similar to my Samsung, except that instead of an Intel Celeron, the ASUS box will use the new Intel "Haswell" CPUs. What that means for performance, I don't know. The raw GHz speed looks lower on the newer chips, but maybe there's some caching stuff or whatever that weighs in in ASUS's favor.

Other differences:

• My Samsung Chromebox is about 7.5 inches square (OK, rounded corners, but you get the idea). The ASUS model will come in at just under 5 inches square and it will have one of those rigs for mounting it on the back of a monitor if that's your space-saving desire.
• My box has a DVI port, while the ASUS model sports only HDMI and DisplayPort for monitor output. So I'll have to adapt there.
• The ASUS box has a built in card reader.

Anyway, it's not a done deal. I may just stick with the Samsung until it keels over and dies (if it does -- I have a Samsung Chromebox, a Samsung Chromebook, a Samsung TV ... and I've never had a piece of Samsung gear die yet).

My main reason for considering the ... "upgrade" ... is my younger son, Liam.

He loves Windows.

He insists that Mac and Linux and ChromeOS suck.

But every time I vacate the chair in front of my Chromebox for more than 30 seconds or so, he's on it. The only justification he can come up with is that he's looking at sites which might have Windows malware on them. You know, sites like Amazon.com and Wikipedia.

So, he secretly loves the Chromebox. If I get a new one, I can retire/wipe the old one and stick it in his room. Then he can indulge his secret love in secret instead of hogging MY machine.

Brief Addendum: In the original post, when I mentioned that the new ASUS Chromebook will roll out at $179, I meant to add something along the lines of "wow ... my Samsung was $329!" I thought the machine was a good deal at almost twice the price; at less than $200, it's just a no-brainer - TLK]

Another Addendum: It's just come to my attention that there's someone out there who really needs a new computer, who certainly deserves a new computer, and whose having of a new computer would measurably benefit the libertarian movement to the extent that it increased his blog output. And a Chromebook sounds like it would fit the bill just about perfectly. If this sounds like something you'd like to help with, here's the link. I'm throwing $5 at it myself, so if it pleases you to think of this as a "match me challenge," please do so.

The Big Question is "Will it be Free?"

The tech media are abuzz with rumors of Windows 9. Most of the coverage relates to a perceived need on Microsoft's part to undo the infinite suckage of Windows 8. But in my opinion, Microsoft's real challenge is competing with the free operating systems: ChromeOS, Android, increasingly user-friendly versions of Linux and now even MacOS.

As I wrote in a recent piece at the Center for a Stateless Society:

Microsoft finds itself at a critical juncture and is reacting -- not just with the "Scroogled" propaganda, but with consideration of making some versions of the Windows operating system free to device manufacturers to combat Google's other free OS, Android.

The era of paying cash for operating systems (and most applications) is over. The era of free operating systems -- and networked/cloud-based computing -- is here.

Microsoft is going to have to find new ways of making money. Selling operating systems isn't going to be their bread and butter any more. The more quickly they realize this, the better their chances of remaining a big player in the PC market.

If I was designing an OS marketing future for Microsoft, I think I'd go with something along these lines:

• Make bare-bones Windows 9 free for both OEM use and end user download;
• Make after-market money by selling applications, support packages and maybe even making the free version OS into "adware" -- run Bing-powered ads on the desktop or whatever;
• Offer an "enterprise edition" of the OS that comes bundled with some key apps (e.g. Office) and extended support for businesses; and
• Get serious about competing in the hardware market, especially the business sector. Microsoft has proven it can do hardware with Xbox (and with the Surface tablet -- even if it didn't fly, they got it into production, didn't they?). A line of Microsoft-branded desktops and laptops, loaded with the "enterprise edition" of Windows 9, key apps, a support/warranty package ... these could be moneymakers on their own, and through extensions of the warranty/support stuff as time goes on. Lots of businesses would rather just pay up front to Microsoft for the perceived "stand behind our stuff" factor than go the cheap route and get nickeled and dimed after.

The "free" and "enterprise" editions would reinforce each other. The guy who uses Windows 9 "enterprise" all day at work will be comfortable with it and want it at home. The guy who uses Windows 9 "free/adware" at home will look favorably on the "enterprise" edition when making purchasing decisions for the office he runs.

What isn't going to work is expecting the average user to keep paying two- and three-figure prices for an OS. The only thing that's saved that approach so far is gaming, and  now that market is going to go soft as Steam's boxes and OS establish a beachhead.

Finally, an Intractable Problem in Chrome

The Chromebox/Chromebook are kind of like Macs in the sense that most stuff just ... works. If you use Windoze, you're used to weird error messages and inexplicable system crashes. That stuff just doesn't happen much on Mac, nor in ChromeOS.

But, finally, more than a year in the ChromeOS world, I've run into a problem that doesn't seem to want to fix:

For quite some time, I've used a text editor called Sourcekit (in conjunction with Writebox -- that way I can have two editors open at once, which I need for certain things). One important feature of Sourcekit is that I can load/save files directly from and to Dropbox. But starting the other day, I get re-authorization requests to connect Sourcekit/Dropbox, and when I approve, nothing happens. I just get a blank tab, and the next time I open Sourcekit, I get the request again.

Writebox also integrates with Dropbox and is working just fine. But I tried out another app, Writekit, and got the same error (yes, I've noticed the kit/box/write ubiquity). So I'm thinking the problem is probably at Dropbox, not with Chrome/ChromeOS per se. Or maybe it's with my Chromebox in particular (haven't used the Chromebook recently); I think that may be the case because I haven't seen any recent panicked "why can't I ..." threads on the web about the problem.

Fortunately, there's an easy work-around -- I installed yet another text editor, Caret. It isn't integrated with Dropbox, which means there's some extra futzing around, but it gets the job done.

Chromebox, Nearly Six Months Later

So, the Chromebox arrived at the beginning of November, and I began the process of moving my work (and other computer-based activities) almost entirely into the cloud. Probably time for a think about how that's gone.

In my opinion, it's gone great. Really. The only issue I've run into is the one that loomed large in the first place. But I'm going to make you read a bunch of other crap before I get to that issue. After the jump.

Got Frisky with the Chromebox

As I mentioned in my initial review of the new Chromebox, it arrived ... used. There was a user account for someone else on the box.

I'm told by the client who purchased the box for me that Amazon issued an apology and a store credit for selling an "open box" product as "new," so that's all good.

I was initially hesitant to mess with that existing user account. Its existence didn't mess with the stuff I do for the most part, and I found some scary stuff online about needing to "re-enroll" the box if I wiped it back to its factory settings.

But, there turned out to be some things I couldn't do as long as that user account was on the box. I was not the root/superuser, so I couldn't manage other users, control updates, and so forth. And a little more research helped me figure out that the "enrollment" stuff only applied if the box was for a business that used multiple Google Apps accounts.

So ... turn off the machine, use a pin to flip the switch on the back to "developer mode," turn it back on, follow some (scary!) prompts to get it to wipe the machine, let it roll, flip the developer switch back, restart the machine.

Done. Worked like a charm. Now I'm the godlike superuser on the machine and that previous owner's account is gone. And all of my stuff made it through the changeover just fine via Google Sync.

Feeling newly empowered, I went in and changed the OS updates setting to the "beta channel." So now I am running new hotness Chrome OS 23.0.1271.84 beta instead of old and busted Chrome OS 21.x. So far so good.

I also redeemed the offer for 100Gb of free storage for two years on Google Drive. Don't know that I'll use anything like that much space, but might as well have it available as not.