Babbage is the Economist's technology/science blog. Yesterday's column was about tablet computers.
I totally agree with this:
"Last year, your correspondent was one of the millions who hoped an iPad would meet all his online needs. He was thrilled with everything about the device except its size. After a month of ownership, he went back to taking a laptop on his travels. The iPad has since been relegated to doing casual duty in the living room."
Exactly the same here, except that (1) I started on April 3, 2010, the day the iPad first came out, and (2) I didn't really think it would meet all my online needs, but I did think it would handle at least browsing, email, and light editing, and I thought apps would be much more stable--not crash so frequently.
And, oh yeah, my Chromebook fills in for what the iPad is lousy at (typing and viewing web sites that the iPad can't handle) on the main level of the house, and at less than half the price. (On the lower level, where I work, nothing less than an iMac with a Windows machine next to it will do.)
The most amazing sentence is this one; while true, if you step back and think, it's shocking that we think this way:
"In an era when tablet designs are refreshed at least every six months, users today should expect nothing less than a quad-core processor, one gigabyte of RAM, and a screen resolution offering a good deal more than a paltry 163 pixels per inch (ppi)."
Here's another part I totally agree with:
"... one cannot help but think that the late Steve Jobs—had he ever been persuaded (doubtful) to bless a four-fifths-sized iPad—would not have allowed the Mini out of the door in its present state. Nor, for that matter, would he have permitted a half-baked product like Apple Maps to see the light of day. Perhaps there is some truth in the claim that, in the absence of Jobs, Apple is now more interested in litigation than innovation. If so, it is a sad day for all who have championed the company for its creativity and pursuit of excellence."
Marc Rochkind's Blog
02 January 2013
I agree with Babbage's take on the iPad
24 December 2012
New free, online book “Generating PDFs with FPDF and TCPDF”
26 November 2012
Now an Acer Chromebook for $199
Just learned about this one:
https://play.google.com/store/devices/details?id=chromebook_acer_c710
Not quite as light as the Samsung I have, somewhat less battery life, maybe a bit more cheaply made (according to a review I read). Seems to be in-stock.
Review is here:
http://www.engadget.com/2012/11/26/acer-c7-chromebook-review/
https://play.google.com/store/devices/details?id=chromebook_acer_c710
Not quite as light as the Samsung I have, somewhat less battery life, maybe a bit more cheaply made (according to a review I read). Seems to be in-stock.
Review is here:
http://www.engadget.com/2012/11/26/acer-c7-chromebook-review/
24 November 2012
Update on the Chromebook
Now that I've had it for most of a month, I can say that it completely replaces my MacBook Air for what I mostly used the Air for: Casual use at the breakfast table or in my reading chair. The two are usually next to each other, and I generally reach for the Chromebook. Can't use it for photo post-processing, software development, or writing a novel (because I use the Mac app Scrivener), but it's perfectly suited for most everything else.
The Chromebook is fast, the screen, keyboard, and touchpad are excellent, and it's never crashed. It's Claire's preferred computer, and Gillian likes it, too.
The Chromebook is fast, the screen, keyboard, and touchpad are excellent, and it's never crashed. It's Claire's preferred computer, and Gillian likes it, too.
30 October 2012
Advantages of a Chromebook over an iPad
I'll add to this as I think of things.
[Updated 31-Oct-2012]
1. Less than half the price.
2. Real keyboard.
3. Uses a mouse/touchpad.
4. Can upload files to a website (disabled on an iPad).
5. Flash.
6. Can access USB drives.
7. Runs Chrome browser instead of Safari.
8. Screen at comfortable viewing angle.
9. SD-card socket builtin.
10. Better speakers and much louder sound.
11. Large pages load (boston.com/bigpicture won't load on my iPad)
(Of course, an iPad has numerous advantages of its own.)
[Updated 31-Oct-2012]
1. Less than half the price.
2. Real keyboard.
3. Uses a mouse/touchpad.
4. Can upload files to a website (disabled on an iPad).
5. Flash.
6. Can access USB drives.
7. Runs Chrome browser instead of Safari.
8. Screen at comfortable viewing angle.
9. SD-card socket builtin.
10. Better speakers and much louder sound.
11. Large pages load (boston.com/bigpicture won't load on my iPad)
(Of course, an iPad has numerous advantages of its own.)
29 October 2012
Details on Chromebook's non-browser OS features
[This was originally written as a review on Amazon, where it's now posted. I just got my Chomebook today, two days earlier than Amazon estimated. It's now sold out everywhere. A big hit, at least initially.]
Others have commented about the new Chromebook hardware, and the browser is well-known already (it operates identically on the Chromebook), so I'll comment about the OS features outside of the browser, about which very little information is available. Bear in mind that Google updates the OS frequently, so anything I say is subject to change at any time.
There's a new app called Files that's a file manager, analogous to Windows Explorer or the Finder. It always shows two drives: Downloads, on the local file system, and Google Drive. You can copy between them, make folders, rename files, etc.
If you mount an SD card or USB drive, you can perform the same operations with those drives, too. I was able to mount a Mac-formatted (HFS) drive, but not write to it. When I tried, I got an error message AND the OS got into a state where it would refuse to copy anything, even if the HFS drive wasn't involved. Rebooting cleared this up.
You can't access networked drives (shares) at all.
If you have a Google Docs file on a local drive, including the built-in drive, you can open it with Google Docs to work on it, but it seems that there's no way to create such a file from the app. You have to get it there by copying it from Google Drive. This use of a local file is completely different from the new offline capability that the Google Docs apps have. That gives them access to a local cache of the online files, unrelated to the files you see with the Files app. My advice is that if you want to work with those apps offline, do it the official way.
Other notes:
My bluetooth mouse, which I prefer to the touchpad, worked perfectly.
The Chromebook looks very much like my Macbook Air. Same size, same weight, similar appearance. The Air is more refined, and it also costs more than four time as much.
I got the Chromebook because when I'm not on my main computers (an iMac or a Windows box) I spend all my time in Chrome. The Chromebook is perfect for this, as others have noted. I was using an Air for this purpose, which it's great at, of course, but so is the Chromebook.
When I take photos, I shoot raw. You can copy raw files from a card to another device with the Chromebook, for in-the-field backup, but you can't view the raw files (that is, you can't view the JPEG preview that's inside them). You can on Windows, MacOS, or an iPad. In this respect, an iPad is a more complete field computer for a photographer who wants backup and a little viewing, but, unlike the Chromebook, you can't attach an external drive, and an iPad only has so much internal memory. It works for me while I'm on vacation, but it wouldn't work for a pro. Not enough space.
You can certainly upload a raw to Picasa Web and view it there, but this is impractical for the bulk of the images you'll shoot in the field.
The above viewing issue applies only to raws. JPEGs work fine. If I do take my Chromebook on vacation as my only computer, I'll probably deal with the viewing limitation by shooting JPEG+raw.
As an experiment, I wrote a text editor as a packaged app, which means it loads locally in Chrome and has full access to local files. It worked fine on the Chromebook, as I would expect. However, it seems that it is tossed out on a reboot, so you have to load it from an external disk each time you boot. As packaged apps are very new and still experimental, this is obviously a temporary issue. I noticed that there's a way to pin the app icon to the launchbar, which is nice. Pinning doesn't keep it from being tossed out.
The Chromebook needs work, but I give it five stars anyway. The Google people are smart and hard-working, so I expect things will get better rapidly, especially as the new Chromebook seems to be a smash hit.
18 October 2012
New Chromebook is only $249
Just introduced today:
http://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/devices/
Seems to be about as small and light as my MacBook Air, at 1/4 the price (1/2 of the price of an iPad). Since the only app I run on the Air when I'm traveling, reading the news at breakfast, or relaxing in my favorite chair in the evening is a browser (Chrome), will this new Chromebook work as well?
We shall see. I ordered one, and it should arrive in early November.
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