So Google Musicfinally built a linux-compatible music manager, so I finally got started playing with Google Music. Amazon MP3 has a similar gripe with linux, but they at least allow uploads via the Amazon Cloud Drive.
Side By Side
So far the breakdown goes as follows:
- Google Music does not have a web-based way to upload my music
+ Amazon MP3 (though through Amazon Cloud Drive) can do web-based uploads
- Google Music does not have a way for me to download my music (really?! but, they're my files!)
+ Amazon MP3 has a download ability (a little buggy for linux users it seems, but it's there)
- Google Music capped my music library (is this just for beta?)
+ Amazon MP3 [so far] has given me unlimited storage for music. (this is basically paid for though, since I have purchased Amazon MP3 music)
I still can't eliminate carrying around local mp3 files on my phone since NYC subways don't have internet access [yet]. But, having the ability to stream through my albums is super helpful whether at work, home, at a friend's house, etc.
So I had to log in to facebook for some fun app debugging today (code rolled out today btw, yay!) and decided to poke around and see what's going on there and...not missing much at all! I've heard some chatter about Google+ being too noisy, but I seriously think facebook is noisier. Yes, the "main" stream on Google+ is definitely noisy, but you gotta remember that's all of your circles! To be honest, I pretty much only check my circle streams to filter out cruft. "What are my friends up to?": friends circle; simple. Doing the equivalent in facebook... I technically can do that, but that's only in those fb groups; otherwise, I need to go to each of my friends' pages and stalk see their recent activity, etc. but even in doing that, I'm already seeing too much. I could really care less if my friend likes "Nose-picking" or "I leveled up in Farmville". I can probably go on, but i won't. Just my $0.02. 8-)
P.S. I do, however, miss one thing: band/musician updates. I started following bands on facebook to get updates on new shows, albums, etc. here, it's all technology (for now).
Google introduced five new blogger designs this morning. If you are browsing a blogger site, simply append "/view" to see the available ones.
I personally think I like the "slider" view. The other views probably won't work as well for news-like sites that user experience is based off of chronological posts.
So, if you happen to be on the dev channel, the nightly build two nights ago has a serious issue. There's word that a fix will be out soon, but if you wanted to get back up online sooner, try jumping back on the beta channel.
Just the usual struggles with being on the dev channel...
I just got these and thought they were pretty rad. But are they bookmarks? If they are, isn't it a bit counterintuitive if we're supposed to be supporting ebooks in lieu of traditional books? ;)
I thought I would share anyway. I think I'll end up hanging these up. Now where to put them? In the office? In the home office? In the man cave? Decisions decisions...
I noticed recently that Google Chrome, even when not started is already in my status panel. Interesting. Is this to speed something up? No complaints as of now, but hey what's it for?
Anyhow, I'll find out later. Off to fill myself up with caffeine!
Well, word is finally out about Google Voice's SIP availability. I for one am happy, sad, and scared all at the same time...
Well, I love it! I've been using Google Voice ever since I got the invite (early adopter). But as you can see as the details get out, the more attention this gets and that's when the cellular companies start thinking about ways to disable this feature since they'll be losing money on their precious minutes!
All You Really Need Is Data Service
Cellular plans are convoluted with plans that really benefit the cellular companies themselves. All companies do that for their services, and that is so irritating! You are forced to purchase minutes because the old (but current) model revolved around minutes. In the future, I'm hoping that you can purchase data-only plans since that is really what any person needs.
I really hope things all pan out for the best. I don't want to spend any more money than I need to.
How We Save Money On Our Phone Bills
All of our phone calls ("home phone" and cellular) go through Google Voice on a data line. At home, we typically just send/receive phone calls via our computers (that's why I said "home phone"). The same thing goes for our cellular phones except instead of Google Voice (GMail) we have a SIP client (csipsimple) installed on both of our phones and that handles the incoming/outgoing calls. The important piece is the routing via pbxes to have calls go through Google Voice. The tough part was that Google initially didn't have a SIP protocol, instead they used XMPP. This change should make things easier now. The formula generally goes like this: Google Voice + http://pbxes.org
Post Script
No wonder I got an email about Google discontinuing Gizmo5!
Annoying that the page broke, but this made me smile. Cheers!
Is this just a Chromium OS thing? Or do we get the same message in the Chrome browser? The wording is definitely different than the usual crash page I've seen.
Hi all. We wanted to apologize for the emails that were sent to this group tonight.
A bug in our script to invite users to a Chrome notebook discussion group accidentally signed everyone up to receive email by default. We have turned off all posting to the group for now while we try to see what happened.
I, like the rest of the CR48 testers, was added to the CR-48 Google Group and got emailed a good ~68 or so emails. It's Saturday morning and I usually just catch up with sleep on the weekends so I slept through all ~68 or so CR-48 Google Groups spam. So though my G1 battery is in need of charging (I'm used to it since the G1 battery is horrible), I now know that there's an official Google Groups for the CR-48 users!
Next time, one email and a heads up would suffice. ;)
This may be fixed now that I've updated to the latest Chromium build, but if anyone else has this issue, please do chime in.
So occasionally when I have a video up or even streaming music, the sound will just be static and fuzz. The quick fix (yet annoying) is to close the laptop and re-open it, then the sound will work just fine.
I'll post an update if this happens again with this latest build.
I logged in to Google Docs yesterday and a nice little pop-up had notified me that I can now upload and watch videos in the cloud!
Now this is all good and fine, but with such a limited amount of space on Google Docs, is Google going to give me an increase of space? How does copyright permissions affect this? I wouldn't mind putting up some DVR videos so I could watch it wherever I would like instead of wherever the file is.
This is definitely a helpful thing on my CR-48. It is also something that can possibly support my [lack of] DLNA issue. Maybe I'll try and upload a movie or tv show that I have to see if Google Docs supports it (and/or if I'll get in trouble for doing so).
Update: If you check out the comment thread below, you can see how to get rid of this "Scanning Device..." message.
Content Browser Bug
I plugged in a digital video recorder device the other day to upload some files. The Content Browser acknowledged the device immediately and all went well. However, I now get this "Scanning Device.." message with an opened Content Browser every time I wake up the notebook or log in. It just sits there and all I do is close it. It keeps popping up now though. No, the device is not connected any longer.
Weird eh? Anyone else having this issue? --yes, I sent in a bug report to Google.
Multitouch w00t!
I just played with AudioTool (pretty cool so far!) and while playing around noticed the multi-touch support for the trackpad! Apparently, you can zoom in and out [in that app] just as you would in Android or an iphone.
So technically, I was trying to scroll in that app with two fingers on the trackpad like it said to do in the "Get Started" walkthrough. But hey, nice find for me!
Holidays are done and gone; it's time to start beta-testing this CR-48 again. This post's rants and raves are brought to you by the Cloud...
In The Cloud
Is everyone ready for everything to be Cloud-based? Do people really store that much data on servers that they do not own that they would be okay with a basic OS? I suppose, if you look passed the privacy and security issues anyone would surely be okay with this idea right?
Well, as my wife told me yesterday that she "loves" this netbook, I asked her to explain a little bit on why. It basically came down to this, it's great for just sitting down and surfing the net; and that's it right there! She really just loved the ability to be on anything web-based. There was no work-related things being done, no photo uploading, just reading the news on the web and assisting with recipes in the kitchen.
You really need to be committed to using Cloud-based apps if you want to appreciate the Chromium OS.
Okay, as a technologist (and an ex-helpdesk support technician), I know that majority of people still store precious data on their hard drives; and with that model comes the "hard drive died, how can I get my data back?" scenario. Okay, so in the Cloud I can save documents and such but what about my media files? (I still haven't found an easy way to upload images to Picassa via CR-48!)
Okay, I know we all want to be like that guy in the Google CR-48 commercial, but some of us want more than just writing documents. My rants from this CR-48 have mainly stemmed off of not being able to access local files whether it is me trying to upload photos or play videos that I have locally.
Updates
I recently wrote about the CR-48 being a nice little HTPC. Well, since I had my friend from out-of-town staying with us during the holidays and we needed some entertainment, Clicker.TV came in handy as we searched each other's names and saw what came up, but ultimately watching dog-related videos to see if it could please my dog. Perhaps we should've searched "Kevin Bacon".
As an update to my finding of Aviary's Audio Editor, well, I decided to give it try and lay down some tracks. There seems to be a short recording time (2 minutes) per recording, so you either need to have a short song or record at 2-minute or less intervals. My friends and I set up an impromptu jam session and recorded a song, but was irritated that the end was cut off!
Also, there isn't a way to listen to your tracks while recording. Ouch!
Yes, I can watch a bunch of "Dog Whisperer" episodes!
Connect Your CR-48 To Your TV
There's a VGA port, a USB slot, and sound output; all that you need to enjoy some videos on a bigger screen! Okay, so you technically only just need a VGA port to get the output onto the TV, but a wireless keyboard and speakers could help enhance this experience.
The one issue I was first worried about when I first connected the VGA I took a look at the keyboard of the CR-48 and said, "ok...now how do I change the display?". Luckily Google put that keyboard shortcut map (ctrl + alt + /) so I can find out about the display toggle key combination: ctrl + fullscreen
What Apps Are There?
Check out Clicker.TV! Honestly, I knew about this app once the Chrome App Store opened up and have been using it ever since. So, just think about all the videos available on the internet. Now think of [a lot of] that content being aggregated into one repository that you can browse/search. Pretty rad eh?
Now, I'm not saying all videos are free, but there is a large collection of older TV shows available for free (just found Macgyver last night
!), independent shows/movies, and of course web-only videos. You'll also find videos listed via iTunes, Amazon, Comcast, et cetera, those obviously are the ones that you'll either need to pay for or have an account.
We do not have cable television at home, so another medium to play videos is very appealing. --Yes, you have read that correctly, NO CABLE; only those basic channels that you get over-the-air for free.
Another nice one is Crackle. It's got "Final Fantasy" the movie! And of course a bunch of other things in it's repository. I haven't had time to play with Crackle too much, but they seem to have a nice selection!
Wish List
VLC Media Player please! I can't seem to find an app out there that has the ability to play local video files yet. This would be awesome!
DLNA Support We have a PS3, a NAS that supports DLNA, and even my desktop running PS3 Media Server. If the CR-48 had DLNA support, I would be able to access all of my media files on my network too!
Post Scripts & Cruft
Plugging in my USB keyboard/mouse made my navigation much easier! I have a wireless keyboard & mouse (trackpad) combo (usually connected to the PS3 or my laptop when we connect it to the TV). Being able to sit down on my couch and just navigate is always a great thing to have. But the best part was being able to have physical left & right mouse clicks!
I've mentioned this before, but the battery life on the CR-48 is simply amazing! I currently have my Dell Latitude D430 on as well and I only had maybe one hour of battery life (fully charged). Yes, I've had the D430 for a while now, but I don't ever recall having such as good a battery life as the CR-48.
I'm still trying to figure out how to upload images into Picassa. I technically cheated; I copied images from my phone to the Downloads directory (/home/chronos/user/Downloads) and then and only then was I able to upload using Picassa. That's rather annoying!
The infamous box that we've all seen around the internet many a times.
The screen you see after flipping the "developer" switch.
Okay, so another day using Chromium; my frustrations really had me worried about the success of this OS. I'm still technically not completely sold on this browser-based OS, but hey, I think it's beginning to grow on me a little.
Who Is the Intended Audience?
I sat back thinking, "wow this is frustrating! I'm an engineer, I know how things work, but this just isn't working for me." But this is new technology; there's always that learning period that you need to get passed and alas, I think I've got it now.
I believe Chromium is advertised as a netbook OS right? Well, I guess that's it then; an OS where you can have the ability to do some internet browsing, watch some videos, and et cetera lightweight processing.
Apps Galore!
"Apps" you ask? Yes, that's right install Chrome Apps and play around with things; that's exactly what I did. I found a lot of useful things (and a lot of non-useful things). But being that this OS is basically a giant Chrome browser, what else am I to do?
But, what's the difference between some of these apps and just browsing to these sites? That, well I'm not exactly sure to be honest. I just found it awfully helpful to be able to click on an icon in my menu, rather than navigating my bookmarks. --also, keep in mind that some apps do have the ability to break out of the chrome browser window (google talk, eBuddy).
Now, why go with this apps approach? Well, if you own a smartphone, you obviously know that this approach has been awfully successful in marketing different software to a wide range of people. So why not?
Stupeflix has a pretty neat app that you can create different videos using their templates.
Heck, I even found a digital recording studio app by the folks at Aviary. I made a short test last night inspired by StrongBad's "techno song" and well, I was awfully surprised to find how detailed it was (for Pro Tools users, check it out, you'll be surprised). As for a guy who still records on a Tascam 4-track (yes, with the cassette tapes), this is a very useful app for me.
Updates and Ramblings
I'm slowly adapting to this mouse. I still can't get the hang of right-clicking, but at least now I am navigating well.
I did a little bit of work using the CR-48. Nothing too difficult since all I need is a shell to do work.
Since I found a couple of web-based video apps, I'm gonna try hooking the notebook up to my TV see how that experience is. Is the CR-48 really a HTPC in disguise?
Yea, that is how I feel right about now. I didn't think it would matter, but the lack of physical mouse buttons is rather annoying; and I'm not the only one! While browsing sites, I like to do the "right-click and open in new tab" thing. The way you right click here is rather annoying! I honestly don't know how the Macheads live without mouse buttons! --right-click is it still a ctrl+click?
Gone With The Flash
Wow, so I know Linux + Flash hasn't been the greatest of combinations for quite some time, but a lot has changed in the later years. So, the libflashplayer.so crashed and chrome didn't like it; okay that's fine and all if I could only do anything about it! I had mouse and keyboard functionality, but if I clicked anything in Chrome, nothing would work. Luckily, I had a shell open and I could run commands. I tried to kill some chrome instances, but then nothing was happening. I ended up rebooting from the shell and now I can work.
What caused the Flash-Crash?
I'm not sure, it happened twice now and the first time I thought it was caused by a website, but I also noticed that I installed the eBuddy Messenger app and that seemed to have been the issue. So, perhaps not really a Google bug, but nonetheless if bad code can bring the whole system to a hault, then Google needs to do a better job at jailing its processes. --I thought Chrome did jail its flash processes?
Circling back to my mouse complaints, I've noticed that when I type I like to rest my wrists down on the laptop. The mouse sometimes catches that and then my cursor moves somewhere else and I start making typos all over.
All Is Not In the Negative
On a much happier note, the boot time and sleep/awake time is amazing! I've read that it was fast, but wow, I am impressed. Kudos Team Chrome!
Also, I am more than impressed with the battery life of this machine. I'm curious what the "official" battery time is...
