Chrome Extensions

I don't have a ton of time tonight, but I wanted to post about Chrome Extensions.  Let me just say that I don't know how we browsed the internet before we had extensions.  Seriously!  I love the agility, speed, and convenience extensions offer.  Anyway, on to some screenshots:

So this is a screenshot of my new tab (when you push ctr+t or open a new tab); now, I'm not going to speak specifically to the webapps which are the pretty icons taking up the bulk of this page, but rather divert your attention up to the top right-hand corner of the page where all the little icons are just to the left of the tiny wrench (your chrome 'options' menu).  Those icons each represent a different extension I've installed.  Another screenshot:

This is a list of extensions I have installed (well, partial list).  You access this menu by right clicking any of your extensions and choosing "Manage Extensions".  In this tab, you can disable, uninstall, check out settings, or update your extensions.  On to my favorite extensions:

-Google voice.  Oh beautiful thing you are GV.  So if you'll notice in the screenshot above, I have one of my extensions, Google Voice, opened.  When I click on the little phone within the speech bubble, it brings up my google voice inbox, so I can quickly see recent texts as well as any missed calls to my phone.  I can also (as shown above) send a quick text to whoever I want (all synced with my google contacts info!).  Let me tell you how much I love this feature while in class!  The perfect solution to texting in class and......letting others know you're in class and can't talk of course! (*smirk)  Anyway, I love it and use it all the time.

-Another icon above is a little vice grip with a green box it's clamping down on.  This is my goog.le URL shortener extension which instantly transforms any URL of a page I'm on into a mini version that looks better on twitter/facebook/etc.  Love it.

-On the very far right is a blue icon with a 'd' in the middle.  This is actually my newest favorite extension as it allows me to put sticky notes on webpages (and they reload when you come back to the webpage!) as well as save notes from a webapp, and even entire webpages to 'Read Later'.  I'll post more on this in a later post when I discuss webapps.

-A few other extensions don't have icons up in the toolbar, but rather live in the background.  Ones that I have installed include: Google Dictionary (lives in my omnibox for easy defining of words), Google Translate (automatically detects websites not in English and offers to translate them for me), Highlight to Search (when you highlight something on a webpage, a little magnifying glass pops up and you can search the term in a new tab), PriceBlink (automatically recognizes when you're buying something on a page and checks a bunch of other sites to see if there are cheaper prices), Read Later Fast (by Diigo, save webpages to see later), RescueTime Productivity Meter (ha! this one is funny, it tracks your browsing data and gives you stats on how distracted you are), and RSS Subscription Extension (any page that has RSS, you can click this little guy and it adds it to your Google Reader RSS feed, nifty!).

Anyway, I love extensions, they rock.  More on the netbook coming soon......

-quinnj

Life in the Cloud(s)

And we're back!

So I thought I would just take a few minutes to talk a little more conceptual before I do some more hardware/practical blogging on the Cr-48.  But first a Dilbert cartoon:

Love it.  So anyway, what's the big deal about the cloud?  Well, the Cr-48 makes the cloud a pretty big deal.........I mean, seriously, it's like, almost all there is.  Yes I'm sure you've read an article or two about the hardware specs, so yes, it only has a 16 gig SS hard drive.  But even stuff you store locally is hard to access.

Anyway, the point is, this is a shift in mindset for chromebook users.  No longer do we deal with "Windows Explorer" and C:/drives, and F:/ drives, and D:/ drives, organizing folders within folders within folders within.........nope, you do all that in Google docs!  (Or some other web-based storage site, I like dropbox) (btw, did you notice the redesign to Google docs made in the last day or two?  Looks pretty slick!  Check out my screenshot below:

Looks like they redid the icons for the file structure on the left, redid how the file tags look on the documents and added a handy thumbnail view of the document to the right.  They also added a handy toolbar at the top to search for certain types of files, pics, video, docs, etc.  Anyway, sorry for the longest parentheses break ever!)

Again, this is a shift in mindset, but so far for me, a welcome one!  So I've been using the Cr-48 as my primary computer for school this semester and I'll have to say I love it.  I'll be posting soon about some of the specific webapps I'm using as well as how I use Google docs/Dropbox, but I've enjoyed knowing that all my school docs are in the cloud.  This comes in handy when I need to use a heavy-duty stats program on the school computer and with no thumb drives or having to email myself the needed documents, it's already there and ready to access.

It also means that I haven't lost work on a single document yet this semester.  No word crashes, powerpoint crashes, nada, ning, zilch.  Google docs saves pretty much every character, so I think it would actually require some maneuvering to lose your work on there.

I'll also comment later about moving other things to the cloud such as music, photos, and video, so stay tuned to hear how I'm trying to defy gravity.

But to conclude, if the number of spammy tweeters tells us anything about what a bunch of so called SEO experts think is the future, it's the cloud.  Having the ability to access your information non-hardware specific; whether that be a desktop, laptop, netbook, tablet, or phone.  Bring it on.

Let me know if you have requests of things you want to hear about the Cr-48.  I'll be trying to post as often as possible and I have an idea list of a dozen or so posts, but I'm definitely open to requests.  Ok, more tomorrow.

-quinnj