Cloud Powered Near Instant PC, Mobile Upgrades Are the New Reality

Buying a new computer or getting a new phone used to be a huge pain. Even if everything was up and running right away, you had to plan for hours, or even days, of moving all your data from the old device to the new one. And if you didn’t successfully complete the data migration, or had sufficient paranoia, you could end up with old devices cluttering your home - just in case you might need to get that old content. But with so much of our data moving from local disks to the cloud, and new operating systems improving their sync and account setup, the day of hot swapping devices is here.

As you know, for the past few years, our home has been a ChromeOS and Android family. This started well before I joined Google, and as each OS gets smarter, that move looks to have been the right one - especially when it comes to this issue.

Samsung's 2012 Chromebook Got Bumped for the 2014 HP.

Last week, thanks to a sale on Woot.com, I purchased a new HP 14 inch Chromebook for my wife. One evening, as she was using the 2012-era 11 inch Samsung Chromebook, I told her to close her eyes. I took her old laptop and put the new one in her lap, and when she signed in, she didn’t miss a beat. All her bookmarks were there, even down to the tabs she had open in her browser. With one move, and for the same $200 or so I spent two years ago, she got a faster device, double the RAM, and a larger, more vibrant screen, with no headaches around data.

There was no question of whether she had to back up photos, or copy her songs. No dragging and dropping off folders and documents. It just worked, exactly as I had expected it to. And the next morning, when she had to print to our networked printer, she just told the browser to print, and the printer was listening. No printer drivers, and not even a memory of a CD-Rom or DVD. It just worked.

A discussion on Twitter with +Josh Elman and +Edwin Khodabakchian

Meanwhile, on mobile, the story is much the same. Whether it’s due to an accidental drop (which has happened in our home more than once), or a required factory reset thanks to trying new software before it’s ready (that’s also happened), starting over with a new phone or starting the phone over from scratch is no big deal any more either. Signing into my account brings my account information, access to my data, my apps, and my preferences.

In the storage industry, we used to talk about hot swappable units - which would enable upgrades without reboots or interruption of access to data. The dream of upgrading servers, disks, arrays or network equipment without downtime was rarely achieved, but often talked about. On the consumer side, many of us have grown accustomed to the inevitable pains that come with getting new devices or even upgrading those devices from one system version to the next, and it doesn’t have to be this way any more.

Standard Disclosures: I work at Google, the company behind ChromeOS, Android, and great tools that help you sync your content between devices. You can assume I prefer cloud-based data.

First Friday Feature: MightyText: Web and Gmail Texting App

For nearly three years now, the overwhelming majority of text messages I've exchanged with friends, family and colleagues haven't started with my phone, but instead, with my computer, thanks to the ever-improving application MightyText. MightyText links my browser (Chrome, obviously) to my Android phone, and lets me send and receive text messages, including photos and emoji from the Web, and even from Gmail. Considering how much time so many of us spend in our email, adding text messaging is a no-brainer.

If you're a long-time louisgray.com reader (and thanks, by the way), you might remember MightyText initially launched as a Chrome add-on, called Texty, in March of 2011. (See: Texty: Texts From Google Chrome Via My Android Phone) In later months, they rebranded to MightyText, gained visibility from the larger tech blogs about a year later and can now sport hundreds of thousands of users, measuring by their Chrome web store stats. Meanwhile, as their user base has swelled, so to has their feature set.

MightyText's Web UI.

From the very simple interface you can see in my original coverage, MightyText now is best experienced through their fullscreen Web UI, or integrated in Gmail. As I have the MightyText Chrome extension installed, my Chromebook alerts me, often before my phone does, that I have an incoming text or call. I can respond from that notification, from the website or from Gmail, and don't even have to pick up my phone to interrupt my workflow.

Seeing Recent Texts on MightyText in my Gmail.

From the MightyText site, I am greeted with a history of texts, synced with my phone, and the option to keep the conversation going. I can add images from local files on my computer, send emoji (in those rare times I'm feeling silly), and even walk through photos I've sent or received by MMS. And MightyText even has a Pro option for just over $2 a month which brings advanced settings, such as themes, deeper photo backup, group texting and a lot more.

Sending a MightyText with emoji to Maneesh Arora.

But one unsung hero (until now, I guess), is MightyText's companion extension Gtext (find it here). Gtext adds a "Compose SMS" button in my GMail next to where I'd start an email, and brings the same photo and text history from the MightyText site to the place where I already spark most my communication. So from Gmail, I can chat (with Hangouts of course), send SMS or email, all in one spot.

Browsing Recent Photos sent in Text in my Gmail

MightyText even has a tablet client. So I often find myself reading a book or browsing the Web on my Nexus 7, and even if my phone is in the other room, I can browse or send texts, just as easily, even without a 3G connection. So texting isn't something I have to do on one device. It's something I can do from every single device, all synced automatically, with real flexibility.

Awwww... Viewing A Photo I'm Adding to MightyText.

You might call it a New Year's resolution, but in 2014, I've decided to use the first Friday of each month to feature something I use every day - even if it's not brand new. MightyText gets the January 2014 honor. I'm happy to say they were first covered here, before anywhere else, and are a real and growing success story. If you're on Android, and you should be... definitely check it out.

Disclosures: Given I work at Google, I have a bias in favor of great products that include Android, Gmail and Chrome in their ecosystem. You might think about Hangouts possibly competing with MightyText, but I didn't let that get in my way now, did I?

Enthusiasts & Evangelists: Pushing Product, Begging for Features

There's a fine line separating an enthusiastic user from that of an evangelist, even if the two terms are often thrown out there as equals. For as excited as a user may be about consuming your product or your ideas, it takes an extra level of effort - working as a partner, testing early versions of products, and seeing where a product is headed to be truly considered an evangelist. An enthusiast is typically on the receiving end, a consumer of the benefits, while the evangelist not only takes in the benefit of your work, but can help accelerate it.

Evangelists are often early adopters of your product, who have been converted to your story and ideas, and are willing to advocate on your behalf. Some of the top consumer-facing companies have turned to evangelists in house, and their fingerprints are all over the successful growth of their customer base, and regularity by which their products are seen in the press, while others rely on end-user evanglists to bring the story to new communities.

Enthusiasts, while excited about your product, are likely to be found breathlessly awaiting morsels of information, be they rumor or news. They may have their fingers on the buy button and refresh your product pages as they get ready to buy, and make cash available. They debate your benefits and beg for feature enhancements, but if their demands aren't met, they'll just as soon as wait for the next one, debate amongst their peers where you went wrong, and suggest why it just might be high time to switch to a competitor. Enthusiasts are never employees of the company, though they may be close to the teams, be courted in user groups and given early access to items to provide beta stage feedback.

Some of the Best Evangelists I Know

The most well known evangelist in Silicon Valley lore is very likely +Guy Kawasaki, who while at Apple in the early Mac days, fought to bring the Macintosh story to developers, schools and customers everywhere. Guy's moved on to promote other products, including +Motorola Mobility, but his Apple legacy remains intact. More recently, the work done by Shak Khan for Spotify and +Thomas Meyer of Sonos put both those products on the map for me. In both cases, Shak and Thomas delivered a 1:1 relationship with me as an early adopter, providing access to products, trading feedback on improvements, and finding ways to get their services in the hands of new users.

The ideal scenario is one telling many who tell more.

The best evangelists can help to convert enthusiasts into evangelists. As discussed in depth as the first stage of early adopter behavior, the enthusiast can graduate from being a consumer of your work, and instead works as an unpaid advocate for your story and your ideas - accelerating the network effect. As the 1:1 relationship at the initial touchpoint cannot scale past several dozen or even hundreds of top-tier influencers, one must hope that they evangelize on your behalf why your product is better, why you can be trusted to keep coming up with exciting new innovations, or, if you're behind in a certain area, why you can be counted on to bridge those gaps.

Seeing Potential Instead of Problems

An evangelist can believe strongly in a direction for a product and buy in early - in the same way as an investor can see potential a company and buy its stock. In 2010, my move to Android from iPhone was done at a time when the case could pretty easily be made that iOS' user experience was better and the list of applications available was longer. The debate as to which installed base was larger was also up for question. But I could see the trajectory, and, as I was later proven correct, the applications caught up, the user growth accelerated, and in the minds of many, the user experience is equal, or at least arguable. Even from a point of perceived weakness, I believed strongly that their choices as a platform were right.

The same could be said for Spotify's early trial back in 2009. While iTunes was the big fish in the pond, Spotify changed the game for me almost overnight - and every online music service has followed their model, even if the product hadn't yet officially shipped in the US, and there were occ

Crossing the chasm from enthusiast to evangelist is a lot like moving from a hobby to a religion. It's one thing to dabble, and quite another to commit. It's no surprise then, that evangelists are most commonly associated with religious institutions and converting people to the one true way.

Like a good religious person, one publicly glosses over the challenging parts, promising only purity and bliss. For example, in a 2007 post I wrote for +GigaOM, I highlighted "five lesser-known tips for being an Apple fanboy". The number one rule? "Never admit fault with Apple around non-Mac people." Giving the perceived opposition a weapon to use against you was never a good idea. It was better to suffer in silence, or quietly find a peer to help you with your issue than to growse publicly. The same goes for the converted evangelist. It is better to report product issues back to the company or their rep, or a fellow user than to complain publicly. Obviously enthusiasts have no such shackles - as they're all too eager to break apart your product and tell the world where you've done wrong.

My father raised me to believe that bad news travels much more quickly than good news. A person with a bad experience will tell seven people, and a person with a good experience will tell three. That requires a higher percentage of positive interactions, and to make this success repeatable. But while an enthusiast will share the good news and the bad news at equal volume, an evangelist will simply amplify the good news, and constantly work in the background to solve the bad stories. It's not blindness, but discretion.

Especially in the fickle world of consumer marketing and outreach, you need to find evangelists, who will find you enthusiasts. If your product can't convert people to share your story, your story probably isn't that good. Your service has to be that much better that an early adopter or evangelist will take that bet and invest their time and effort to tell your story - like I did with FriendFeed and Google Reader years ago, later Spotify and Sonos, and now with great stories like ChromeOS - which I strongly believe presents the platform of the future. People like Shak and Guy and Thomas are rarities, but they can be the accelerant that moves your flame to an inferno.

Usual Disclosures: I work at Google. Google is the proud owner of Android and ChromeOS, of course. We also make Google Play Music All Access, an assumed competitor to Spotify. Any bias is my own and I'm not speaking on behalf of Google at the moment.

Developing for the Web or for Classic Mode

Apple's transition away from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X is more than a decade old at this point, which means an entire generation of computer users may never have been exposed to the "Classic" Mac OS, which launched in 1984 and evolved for the next few decades before being put out to pasture.

I remember, as if it were yesterday, my own delight at hearing the deliveryman knock on the door and leaving behind a package which contained a retail box with Mac OS X 1.0 on compact disc, which promised to completely change the way I interacted with my computer, bringing with it a new and modern look, a new kernel and more.

It Looks Great, But What About Printing?

Living on the bleeding edge by installing this first version of Mac OS X meant it had some obvious holes. For one, I couldn't print. For another, I couldn't play any DVDs. So while some of the features were exciting, it was clearly limited. These limitations, and general skittishness over new technology, led many people not to dive into Mac OS X right away - and some software developers, most notably Quark and Adobe, dragged their feet on committing to the new OS, waiting for the market to demand it. In the meantime, we users had to live in a "one foot in, one foot out" experience, with "Classic" applications launching inside of Mac OS X, displaying the traditional Apple menu bar, the traditional Finder and all other bits one would expect from an older Mac.

This awkward time had developers forced to make a choice. Would they create applications solely for OS X, continue on a path of developing for OS 9, or ship both and risk a gap in features? It's, pardon the pun, a classic dilemma of developing for a known and existing market, or preparing something for a future market. In time, Classic faded away, with Steve Jobs famously holding a burial for it at the WorldWide Developers Conference in 2002. All the big vendors, from Adobe to Microsoft, shipped for Mac OS X. Printer drivers eventually came along, as did the ability to run DVDs and do everything Mac OS 9 could.

The Desktop is the New Classic. The Web is the New OS X.

I feel we're at a similar crossroads now in development, at least on the desktop. As a fulltime ChromeOS user, I don't ever install proprietary software outside of my browser - but I also don't feel limited in what it is I can do. I can print, using Google Cloud Print to my Canon printer at home. I can play all my videos on Netflix or Google Play and my music through Spotify or Google Music. I can run all my productivity apps on Google Drive, edit photos in Pixlr and so on. Even at a time when traditional operating systems are the significant market share leader, I think we've reached a point where developers looking to reach the widest numbers of potential users are better off making a product for the Web than they are by picking a desktop platform - and in those very rare cases where I find out an application needs to be downloaded to even run, I'm surprised.

When you fight against the momentum of the Web, you lose. And while this doesn't mean every part of the Earth has ubiquitous high speed broadband - far from it - I do believe we are at an inflection point, like all those Mac developers were 10+ years ago, where one would need to choose between building for the platform that's known or to the platform that's unknown. And just like in the Mac OS X scenario, the Web as a platform may have a few holes, but the Web's modern browsers are becoming stronger and more robust at a pace I'd argue is outstripping improvements in our traditional desktops.

The Pixel is My Machine of Choice and It's All Web.

My Data Follows Me On Every Device.

In 2011, just after I joined Google, I talked about how I used Chrome all day long, and used multiple browsers to separate my business profile and my consumer ID. Since then, I've moved completely to ChromeOS and Chrome has debuted on both Android and iOS, so you can sync your data to practically any smartphone and never miss a step. Working closely with the Chrome Developer Relations team here at Google, I get to see the browser get faster, and become an even more robust platform for creating rich applications, with exceptional video and sound.

By living completely on the Web, as I mentioned last year in my post on the future of storage being none at all, any computer that has Web access is my computer. Hardware is simply a conduit for my access to my data and my preferences. Once I log in to my accounts through the browser, I should be able to pick up right where I left off, and I shouldn't be limited based on whatever client software or plugins may or may not be installed on this machine.

Pick the Platform for the Future.

Hindsight is 20/20, of course, and we have the benefit of history to fall back on, which clearly shows developers were right to present a fast track for migration away from the creaky OS 9 and start coding for OS X. While Apple's incredible success over the last six-plus years especially has been due to the company's work on iPhones and iPads, had Mac OS X never delivered on its promise, the company would certainly be a shadow of itself. The direction to a more modern OS proved to be the right one.

Now, again, we have a choice - to a more modern platform with more opportunity for a rapidly-evolving set of users for whom the Web and anytime access are a given, and for whom nearly all their time is spent in the browser. Making the leap as a developer to a lesser-known path may involve some risk, but unlike that time at the beginning of the last decade, you don't need the overwhelming majority of a small market base to upgrade and get to your product. Most of those online are already there - and they want your app.

Usual Disclosures: Yes, I work for Google. I work in Developer Relations and think about this stuff a lot. It doesn't mean I have any bias for or against any of our real or assumed competitors.

Slashdot Readers Suggest Chromebook Over Tablet

The geek forum +Slashdot has an "Ask Slashdot" feature, where you can ask the community recommendations on tech. I ran into a question from yesterday where the author asks for help in replacing his mother's dead desktop, 2,500 miles away. The nut question - is a tablet good enough?
http://ask.slashdot.org/story/13/01/05/1938232/ask-slashdot-using-a-tablet-as-a-sole-computing-device

The answers throughout the post may surprise most, but not me...
Chromebook: http://www.google.com/chromebook

/via My Google+ Profile.

Chrome Is Fast. That's Why You Need Chromercise.

If you're a +Google Chrome user like me, you've probably gotten used to incredible speed. As with any other dramatic change to one's lifestyle, one must be adequately prepared. Thank goodness there's Chromercise (http://chromercise.com/). These finger sweatbands mean that I can browse more webpages, read all your posts, and simply get the web faster, without risking nasty finger sweat.

And don't think I'm the only one who has Chromercise fever. See this YouTube video: Everybody Chromercise and the original blog post from April 1, 2011: http://goo.gl/2ICeV

/via My Google+ Profile.

I Sold 5 Chromebooks in 10 minutes at Best Buy

Pro tip: Can't find one of the cool Samsung or Acer Chromebooks for sale in time for the holidays? Here's one solution... head to BestBuy.com, and search for Chromebooks in your area. If a store near you has them on display, go forth and get one (or more), even if you have to drive a bit. Here's a shortcut: http://goo.gl/oRGFi

I went in to get a few for Christmas, and ran into people who were amazed at what the Chromebook could do for such a low price. Fun to see what a quick demo of +Gmail, Google+ Hangouts (thanks +Erica Joy!) and +Google Drive could do. Needless to say, there are going to be some under the trees of my family this year.

/via My Google+ Profile.

The Future of Local Storage Is Practically None At All

Stand Back or Your Hard Drive Is Going to Get It

First they came for our floppy drives. Then, they came for our CDs and our DVD drives. It won't be too long until the concept of a hard drive, or any local storage, beyond that needed for temporary offline use, is itself antiquated. After decades of dramatically increasing PC hard disks, from megabytes to terabytes, saving local data is more likely to put you at risk of loss, relative to remote backup, than it is to keep your data safe, helped along by many trends pushing toward cloud storage and applications.

In April of last year, I talked about how I planned to forego the purchase of physical media, disavowing books, CDs, DVDs and other printed materials, when digital would do, and I haven't looked back - getting to my media from any device that recognized my signed-in identity. Meanwhile, as chronicled, starting in early 2010, when I first got a MacBook Air, and accelerated as I've turned toward ChromeOS as my primary device, I have almost entirely stopped the use of desktop applications. If it can't be reached via web browser, it's probably not worth having.

Goodbye Desktop Applications. Your Time Is Past

May's introduction of the latest Samsung Chromebooks (see my review) left me using my Mac only once per day, for a specific task - synchronizing my FitBit. Until recently, FitBit didn't have a completely cloud-capable service, so each night around midnight, after a full day's neglect, I open the Mac, sync the FitBit in the cradle, confirm the data's gone through, and close the Mac again, until the next day. With the recently announced FitBit One series promising wireless syncing to iOS or Android, I'm just one device away from being done.

For the rest of the day, without exception, I am on my Chromebook, or my Android devices. All my music, emails, photos, documents and other web services can be accessed and managed on the cloud through the browser.

Knocking Down Lagging Apps One By One

The evolution of software and its intersection with platforms is an intriguing one. We Mac users in the 1990s and early 2000s occasionally had to make sacrifices, not having access to apps available only on Windows. Similarly, as iOS and Android increased in market presence, there was the occasional app missing from one platform or the other. But over time, practically all applications, or their equivalents, make their way to the top platforms, and while my move to Android more than two years ago came with some apps missing, all the ones I needed quickly followed me there.

No Seriously, Have You Seen Pixlr on the Web? It's Great.

Now the web itself has proven capable enough for almost any task, and reasons why not to go all Web are dramatically reduced, especially the improved capabilities of documents, spreadsheets and presentations in Google Drive, the release of high quality image editing software like Pixlr, and promises that popular desktop applications like Spotify are set to reach the cloud very soon now, to stream music in addition that which you can purchase from Google Play.

Time to Move on From the Desktop and File Mentality

With solid reasons to not go all Web rapidly eliminated, this evolution also brings up the opportunity to revisit old paradigms we've always taken for granted, as how we use our computers and mobile devices has changed.

Consider, for example, the desktop and files metaphor. Decades ago, we adapted our PCs to be similar to those environments we knew offline. The desktop, folders and files all hearken back to this original model. Even the hyperlinks of today's Web follow similar structures with directories and files owned by top level domains, and today's leading cloud storage vendors, including Dropbox and Google Drive, mimic a traditional desktop environment to bring ease of adoption to users migrating from local storage. But this shouldn't always be the case.

While clean directory structures once were enough for me to almost quit a job over a decade-plus ago, machine-generated links to content are good enough, and it's possible we just need to know how content relates to one another, or what you're searching - for example, email, and tags that generate metadata, providing you with what you need even if you don't know exactly where to look.

All Your Computers Are Mine. Seriously.

The notion of this being "my laptop" or "your PC" doesn't even make sense any more if you think about it. All I need is access to my "stuff", and that stuff is tagged to my identity, be it one that is affiliated with Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook or any other provider. While Chromebooks have made it most clear that you can sign out of one account and sign in as another and retain access to all your things, the truth is that so long as you are using a leading provider of identity, you should be able to get to all your files, bookmarks, and media from any device with a modern browser. Go ahead, steal my laptop. I'll just get another one that will do the same things and be up and running in minutes.

Kids These Days... They Don't Need Hard Drives

Consider also that my children should never need to use or know about local storage. At ages 4 and 2, my children will enter elementary school in 1 to 3 years. They have been raised with web-connected TVs, tablets and smartphones, have an expectation of anytime access to data, and shouldn't be trained to store data that is tied to any single device. To them, every device has Netflix. To them, every device can get to Google, and anything they want to see, hear or watch can be found by asking Google for the right image or video, instantly - no buffering allowed.

Just two to three years is enough for us to see how rapidly USB thumb drives went from being the hot tradeshow giveaway to now seeming almost completely useless, with online sharing being the norm. Just two to three years was all I needed as a student attending Berkeley in the late 1990s to move from carting a floppy disk across campus to the computer lab for printing my freshman year, to instead email the document to myself as an attachment my junior year.

Oh. So You Don't Have Pervasive High Speed Wireless?

It's easy to sit in Silicon Valley's ivory tower and say that with pervasive high speed Internet, eliminating any dependency on local storage is a brilliant idea. It's easy to overlook potential power outages, cloud disruptions, dependence on third party services, and spotty web. Nobody likes being out of range for phone calls, let alone all your data, and nobody truly wants to be helpless if their account is compromised. Those are not minor and trivial concerns. But neither is ensuring data compatibility as the data is stored on multiple local machines, and backed up to temporary local storage which may or may not be less reliable than a service provider that serves millions or more.

Years ago, it may have seemed silly to move to web-based email instead of desktop applications, and the same could be said for other apps that have now become default on the web - including calendaring, address books, event planning and more. Digital media for entertainment, once the province of physical media delivered to your home or picked up at a retailer, is now accessible anywhere on any device. So too will be your photos, music, documents, and more. I even moved all my family's photos off spinning disk on an array of Macs from the last 4 years and put them on Drive.

The key to staying prepared for the next evolution of computing is to be willing to take a leap of faith - knowledge that you don't need desktop devices when a laptop will do, knowledge that you don't need to have DVDs in your living room when Netflix or iTunes have all you need, and that what you've been used to and taught over decades just might not be entirely the same any more.

Disclosures: I work for Google and yes, Google makes many services that provide for cloud storage and computing, as well as those nice Chromebooks, one of which I gained for free earlier this year and am using right now to make this post (as well as all the screenshots and images in the post, edited in Pixlr).

Fast, Sleek New Chromebooks Bring OS Worthy Hardware

The new Chromebook and a Chromebox to boot.

At the end of 2010, I got my first exposure to a fully cloud-based operating system, when I was an early recipient of Google's CR-48 pilot program. Those of us getting the early gear were guided to be kind to the admittedly clunky hardware, and instead focus on the operating system, which changed the way we thought about local storage. But in addition to the unique OS, which started and ended with the web browser, the machine was intriguing for its long battery life and pervasive wireless capabilities, including 3G connectivity. The second generation hardware, which I obtained from attending Google IO last summer, started where the first gen left off, syncing quickly from my Google account, and bumping up its speed, while maintaining great battery life and wireless.

But in both cases, the devices were my backup devices, secondary to my primary machine, a MacBook Air. Be it specific software, inertia or simple speed and aesthetics, I still found myself using the Apple laptop the majority of the time - except when I was away from home or the office, as the Chromebook has from day one been best for mobile computing. The newest devices, being introduced today, have flipped that argument on its head. I've been using the new Chromebook for the last few days, and the only time I ever got my Macbook out was to sync my Fitbit tracker with its desktop cradle.

  Google introduces the new Chromebooks

The new Chromebooks are incredibly sleek, light and fast to boot. That may be hard to substantiate, especially if you assume my pro-Google filter is in effect, so I tested on the WebGL fishtank demo, getting 60 fps at 1,000 fish, lowering to the high 40s if I made that its separate window and kept working on something else, be it Gmail, playing a YouTube video, accessing my docs on Google Drive, or browsing the web.

I've been thinking about and working toward a cloud-centric lifestyle for years now, and since joining Google last August, I spend practically all my waking connected hours in Chrome. I have Chrome on my Android phone, on my TVs with the Google TV, on my Mac laptops and, obviously, at the heart of the Chromebook.    The benefits of having access to all my bookmarks, user profiles and content from device to device cannot be overstated, and the newest laptop no longer makes me feel like I am compromising anything in exchange. The hardware is thin, the keyboard and trackpad are top quality, and its weight is light enough that if it were held next to the latest model Macbook Air, any difference is scarcely noticeable. This is no longer just a evolutionary OS story, but one that has hardware worthy of it.

Disclosures (Per Usual): Yes, I work for Google. I have been testing this new unit free of charge. I also previously received the CR-48 and second generation Chromebooks free of charge prior to joining Google, so life is pretty good. :)

Living In the Browser Is No Myth. It's Possible.

Wrapping up my second full week at Google, I'm still very new here - walking a delicate balance of learning from those already here, while also delivering value on my own. There have been few surprises, given how closely I've worked with the company before joining in an official role, but on a technical level, it's interesting to see how truly cloud-centric the company is. Obviously, being a company who believes strongly that you should never bet against the Internet, and whose many Web services help users migrate away from desktop applications, this makes complete sense. But I honestly live in Chrome, all day.

Back in 2009, I wrote a post on how you can clearly separate your work and personal social media personalities, through smart separation of Web browsers and TweetDeck (now part of Twitter). At the time, I told you how I used Safari for personal activity, primarily due to my bookmarks, which also synched with my iPhone, and how I used Firefox for work stuff. Flash forward two years later, and the story is much the same, but I'm using two separate builds of Chrome to do both, and rarely exiting the Web.

For all google.com activity, I use the standard Chrome Web browser, and securely login to my account and those places on the internal network I should have access. In parallel, I run the Canary build of Chrome for Mac OS X, and maintain my personal account there. This means I don't have to get confused about running multiple accounts simultaneously in a single browser, and still see everything I need to. After all, it'd be a mistake to post content intended for a work audience on a publicly facing destination like Google+, and I want to remove the opportunity for such an error.

Aside from separating the two personalities, work and personal, practically everything I need to do is on the Web. Gmail is my launching point for communication with colleagues, including Google Talk for instant chats. Google Calendar tracks others schedules and my own. Google Docs is where all of us collaborate on projects. Think this is a big company secret I'm leaking? Well, it's not. Google uses its own products, and it makes sense.

Early in 2010, I talked about how I could see living in a cloud-centric world when I got my first MacBook Air, dramatically reducing the hard drive space available from my prior model. When I got the option to choose a laptop upon joining here, I again opted for the device with the smaller disk size, instead of a bigger, bulkier, MacBook Pro or its equivalent, as I knew I wouldn't need the bits.

While living in the cloud may not be for everyone yet, the trend toward Web-based applications, faster broadband and expanding WiFi availability, coupled with ever more capable smartphones, makes the opportunity to live in the browser real for more and more folks. It's come to the point where having Microsoft Office applications and Adobe Photoshop available feels like a crutch, or a stopgap as we migrate into the Web. It's the realization, for the most part, of the vision shared by Larry Ellison and Scott McNealy years ago, where the network is the computer, and your profile is portable. Just prove you're you, and get to your data from anywhere.

Now Playing On Chrome OS Notebooks: Netflix

As the Web becomes more capable, running full-fledged services historically requiring dedicated apps, the option of a cloud-centric operating system like Chrome OS makes an increasing amount of sense. The old model of storing all one's data locally on a single hardware device and putting it at risk from damage, theft, or simply corruption or loss as one upgrades from machine to machine seems antiquated when alternatives exist. But there is still, for some, a gap in functionality, as Chrome OS doesn't yet do everything the typical Windows or Mac box does. Until today, one of those gaps was Netflix, the popular movie streaming site that democratically has made its way to practically every screen, from traditional PCs to set top boxes and even game players, like the Nintendo Wii.

Netflix Loading on My Chromebook for the First Time

Today, Melissa Daniels, community manager for Chrome OS, announced on Google+ that Chrome OS devices from Samsung and Acer now play streaming Netflix films, assuming you are running the latest system update from Google. Without any additional software, you just need your Netflix account and the browser. While this isn't dramatically different from standard browsers on Macs and PCs, it helps fill a perceived gap.

Meet The Parents, streaming from Netflix, on my Chromebook

Without Netflix, I've been renting movies and watching them on YouTube, or from the Android Market, but film studios being what they are, not all titles are in every service at the same time, of course, and Netflix is far and away the leader in the world of Web-based feature film streaming, while Apple holds down its own space with Apple TV and iTunes.

The near-term arrival of Netflix on Chrome has been anticipated for some time, and could be seen with the latest release notes for those of us living on the Dev-Unstable builds of Chrome OS on our Chromebooks. But it's here. The wait is now over. It should be a great complement for the 8+ hours of battery life I've been seeing on my Samsung from Google IO.

Bring Chromebook to Events, Ditch Power Cords

Sitting here at the Teens In Tech Conference as the lunch break winds down, I see white power cords everywhere, as the vast majority of attendees brought their Macs and the signature white power cords are snaking down to the ground go grab much-needed electricity for the full day event, which wraps at 5 pm. There are a handful of Ubuntu laptops and the random Windows machine here and there, but it's mostly Macs.

That said, I didn't bring power cords. The reason is because I brought the Chromebook, and if you've gotten used to a world where you have to constantly feel the anxiety of watching your battery to see how many hours/minutes you have left and what percentage you are charged, the elimination of that anxiety is serious relief.

+Matt Cutts is taking a 30-day challenge to only use his Chromebook, to the exclusion of all other laptops. I've already talked a lot about how I made the Samsung Chromebook my primary computer, and it's true. I still get my MacBook Air out every once in a while for Photoshop work, but that's happening less and less these days, as more of our content moves to the Web.

All I really need from my computer now is amazing battery life and always-on connectivity, and ChromeOS does exactly that. We're very new in this process, of course, so while there may be some shortcomings, think about the trajectory of both Android and iOS, and how those platforms are a lot more feature-rich and full of apps versus just a few years ago.

You know that feeling you get when you switch to an unfamiliar platform, and aren't comfortable knowing where things are or how shortcuts work? Do you know how you feel more comfortable in your space on your main machine in your favorite OS? It's like speaking English (or your native tongue) after the stress of being in a foreign language. Ditching the power cords and being fully on the Web gives me that same relief and it's energizing to know I'm not tethered, but instead, fully mobile. So if you have access to Chrome, bring it to your next event and feel the difference.


/via My Google+ Profile.

Lion's Big Bite Took the Air Out of My Sails

Like a good number of fast-moving Apple fans yesterday, one of the first things I did with my day was install Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion). The update, weighing in at just over three gigabytes, downloadable from the Mac app store, delivered a crisp new UI, some nice new features including Mission Control and an iOS-like approach to finding all available apps and files, a new take on scrolling, and unfortunately for me, at least in my case, a ton of slowness. From what it looks like, my poor refurbished 2009-era MacBook Air simply wasn't macho enough to run Lion - even after I weighed my options and ran Disk Utility for the better part of two hours to ensure nothing nefarious was keeping the poor laptop down.

While my MacBook Air has become increasingly slow of late, and had already been sending me increasingly to my Chromebook as an alternative, Lion pushed it over the top. Warnings about Lion probably needing at least 4 gigabytes of RAM, while my Air has a pesky 2, look to have been founded, as the system often became unresponsive and bugs appeared in a number of the apps I tried, including the venerable Microsoft Office suite.




Needing to prepare a presentation for a new client this afternoon, I was working late last evening on the MacBook Air, with only PowerPoint running. All other applications were closed (to conserve memory) and even that wasn't enough. Seeing I was getting nowhere, I bit the bullet, and uploaded the PowerPoint to Google Docs. I closed the Air and then opened up the Chromebook to work from there. Despite my high use of Google's products, I've never used Docs for presentations, and the move wasn't taken lightly. You know I'm not a heavy Docs user, or I'd probably have already told you that some time. After years and years of PowerPoint training, I'm surely much more creative with Redmond's software, even if it's not my favorite.

I haven't opened the Air since. No doubt I will, once I man up and stop being frustrated with the machine, but it's a little maddening to be obsoleted in just under two years, feeling like what I really ought to do is give Apple just over $1,500 and upgrade again to the latest and greatest Air, with an even faster CPU, more RAM, and a greater capacity Solid State Disk (SSD).

I initially got the Air in January of last year, knowing that it would be a bridge to a more cloud-centric device, especially as the hard disk came with about 100 gigabytes less capacity than my previous model. Initially, I made all sorts of attempts to avoid putting native applications on the Air, but a Microsoft Office here, an Adobe Creative Suite there, and that plan was done for in due time. At last count, the device was about two-thirds full yesterday afternoon - not in bad shape, mind you, but a dozen or two gigs beyond what I had hoped.

When I got the CR-48 from Google as part of their field trial last December, the device seemed initially handcuffing, as I felt trapped in the browser. As the hardware improved with Google supplying new drivers, and Chrome got faster, I started taking the device everywhere outside the house, and have probably been using it the majority of the time inside the house of late, especially as the Air has slowed. Almost too conveniently, on the same day as my Air was being deflated with Lion, the Samsung Chromebook from Google I/O arrived on my doorstep, giving me a sleek alternative to the air with real hardware polish. Within minutes, I'd moved my Google profile onto the new Chromebook and passed the CR-48 to my wife.

It was this new Chromebook on which I gave today's presentation - the same one that I haven't had to plug in since I first turned on the device this morning, and promises more than two hours' battery life remaining with about 33% capacity. I honestly couldn't tell you how much RAM it has, and I know internal storage is dinky, but the near-immediate bringup, followed by a successful preso this afternoon, has me seeing that as beautiful as Lion is, the makeup may be caked on thicker than Tammy Faye Baker. Part of my Apple fanboy inside is crying out in pain as I hope in vain that the Air can get restored to its former vibrant self, but I have to think this particular system upgrade was too much for it. It's fantastic to have an alternative arrive on the doorstep that very day. Obviously, the price (free) isn't bad either, but I wouldn't have even touched it, let alone stayed on all day, if it didn't deliver when I needed it to. My Macbook Air and I, on the other hand, are going to have a nice long talk about the future - even if it means a clean install or a data wipe, which doesn't sound very Mac-like.

Obvious Disclosures: The CR-48 was part of a free pilot program. The Samsung Chromebook was delivered free to Google I/O attendees. The Macbook Air I paid for (and got reimbursed from Paladin).

Upgraded Chromebook Syncs Quickly

I just took a few minutes to power up and turn on the Samsung Chromebook that arrived this afternoon after Amazon shipped it post Google I/O. Now that it's set up, thanks to Google browser sync, it's practically a clone of the CR-48, with identical bookmarks, themes and extensions.

As for the hardware, it's very light, sleek, and classy. Great trackpad. Nice keyboard. Now all I have to do is delete my account on the CR-48 and pass it over to my wife so we both have Chromebooks to match our Macs.

While Apple may not be a huge fan of Samsung, I've grown to be over the last two years especially. They make great TVs, tablets, phones, laptops... you name it. If you're buying in to the Android and Chrome ecosystem, they do a solid job.

/via My Google+ Profile.

ChromeOS Now Supports Multiple Displayed Windows

In the latest build of ChromeOS, version 751.0 for those keeping track, running on a new version of Chrome 14, the operating system has introduced a new windowing feature that lets you put multiple tabs side by side instead of the previous standard where new windows either became tabs in the browser, or went to a new screen altogether. Now, you can take notes on one side of the screen and read email in the other, or run apps on one side while keeping your favorite social network on the same screen. It brings the system even closer to more traditional OS's like Macintosh and Windows, with the exception being you're not exactly dragging windows around a screen in an up/down fashion, only splitting them left versus right.

The feeling of the new windowing effect is more akin to Apple's Coverflow display instead of being reminiscent of spaces. This means no more copying text from one screen, tabbing over to another and pasting, but also no secretly running ESPN in one screen to stay tuned to the game while working on a Google Doc in the front.

Running Multiple Windows on the CR-48 In ChromeOS (Gmail and G+)

The windowing effect comes courtesy of an icon in the top right corner in what's starting to look like a menubar, with the time, WiFi signal, battery status and now a small rectangle. When running multiple windows, you can Maximize to a full screen mode, or Restore to go back to the previous status. The two foreground windows can split screen, divided in the center, which you can pull left or right to give one more or less space. Third windows and beyond get a small sliver on the right, in the order they were opened.

Writing The Blog Post In a Notepad While Checking Gmail on ChromeOS

You can still Alt-Tab between open windows, while hitting the Window button on the keyboard (for the CR-48 at least) toggles between Maximize and Restore, instead of switching windows entirely, as it had before.

The option to have multiple windows in one screen was one that I've been waiting for, since accosting Google's Don Dodge at Google IO about the feature following day two's focus on ChromeOS. For us press people, having one window to take notes and another do post those notes or do some other task is very helpful.

Still Looking to Sync the World of Desktop, Mobile Devices

As an over-extended digital device collector, I have my unfair share of tablets, phones and laptops strewn about my office. My kids are practically tripping over them, each one having its own use or unique operating system. As I use each of these devices, I find myself seeing gaps in the way different applications share data - keeping user information local to the device and locking it away so I lose information when I switch. While the Web and the buzzword-heavy "cloud" are helping matters, we've still got a lot of room to grow.

As I move from device to device, I'm doing so making decisions based on what applications and data I will find when I get there. By using my laptop, I lose access to games and apps that run on my Android phone and tablets. By using my phones, I lose the desktop apps. While some are looking to Apple to lead the way by merging the OS X concept with iOS, less talk has been made of bringing these iOS apps to a touch-screen enabled desktop. Maybe the idea is not happening because it's a bad one, but some smart app developers have thrown caution to the wind and brought their content to practically every screen.

Take the ubiquitous Angry Birds franchise for starters. I can play Angry Birds on my Mac from the app on the Mac App Store. I can play it on Google Chrome on the Chromebook. I can play it on my Android phone and tablets. I can play it on the iPad and iPod Touch. It's everywhere. The downside, of course, is that I have to conquer all the same levels again on every device, with no central record.

A little better is how Barnes and Noble approaches its NOOK eBooks. Purchases I make on my NOOKColor may initiate there, but I can also read the same books from my NOOK app on the Galaxy Tab (7 inch or 10 inch) and there's even a Mac client. I just have to sign in to my account and my library is right there. Very cool. If I'm connected to the Web, it will even know which book I am reading and open to the right page. That's the kind of integration I am really looking for.

You can also see smart integration of user preferences in the way Safari on iOS has the same bookmarks as on your computer, or how Chrome bookmarks follow you from Google Account-enabled machine to machine.

But most of the time apps are not behaving this way. Android's default browser is still not Chrome (and this baffles many), so the integration isn't there. Meanwhile, if I play 9 Innings baseball on my Galaxy Tab 10 and get through 81 games, starting the same app on my Galaxy Tab 7 starts at game 1. Even if I buy in-app enhancements to the game (and others like Home Run Battle 3D), those enhancements are device-specific.

Now that we can have Web-centric user profiles and can back up our user content, history and preferences, the very least we can do is be sure that our activity is matched across similar mobile devices. I recognize that often coding for desktop and mobile can be very different, but as the devices blur between smartphones, tablets, laptops and desktops, a screen is a screen is a screen, and I want to get the same stuff everywhere.

Defaulting to a Web-centric operating system like ChromeOS is a start, of course, but it's early days for that, and not everything has yet made the trip. I'd love Spotify on my CR-48 the same way it's on my phones and tablets and Mac, but it's a major hole until it hits the Web.

One practically has to make a mental matrix to remember what content and services are available on which devices, and what one loses when they choose one screen over another. I'd like to see more developers thinking about eliminating these gaps and giving users what they want no matter what screen they choose.

Google IO Chromebooks To Reach Attendees In August

In May, to cheers, Google's Sundar Pichai announced that all attendees of the company's developer conference would be the recipients of free Samsung Series 5 Chromebooks, one of the two launch OEM partners, alongside Acer. Unlike other giveaways at the event, and unlike Oprah's traditional "look under the chair" showmanship, the devices were not immediately available, but would be coming soon. General availability was highlighted as June 15th. Now, as many of us have started to see via email notifications from Amazon, the promised Chromebooks won't be making it to eager recipients until early to mid August.

Last week, I got a note from Amazon with two codes - one for the free notebook and one for free shipping. But availability of product was in question as it is displayed as sold out on the merchant's site. Last night, I finally got a note with a delivery date of "August 03 2011 - August 10 2011". Checking with other attendees, they too heard either that date or even a bit later.

For those who don't already have a CR-48 lying around, as I do, and need to get their hands on a Chromebook ahead of August, BestBuy.com and Amazon might have some for purchase. Either way, once they arrive, it's an interesting reset on what you've come to expect from a laptop. I've rapidly grown accustomed to always on Internet and battery life that goes all day with my Chromebook. My fellow Google IO attendees will need to wait another month to see the same.

YouTube, Android Offer Alternative to iTunes Film Rentals

One of the new product announcements at Google IO in May was the introduction of movie rentals from the Android Market. Following the path beaten by Apple with its iTunes and Apple TV pairing, popular movie rentals can be picked up for the typical price of $2.99 or $3.99 each, are watchable in the next month and playable for 24 hours after you start. It's familiar, but new for Google, who added the option to their marketplace a month ago, making one less reason one has to be shackled to iTunes. The video rental service is powered by YouTube, who has clearly shown they know how to push Web video content to hundreds of millions of homes worldwide, and is ready to try longer-length content.

As mentioned frequently here, I've been a longtime iTunes user, and have slowly migrated away from the platform, thanks to increased use of Spotify and Google Music on one side, NOOK on the other, and now, movies, by way of Android Market, on top of Netflix Instant. The focus is not so much an anti-Apple vendetta, but just finding new ways to consume rich media on my changing array of devices. The more Android and Chrome I have in my house, the less iTunes is an option - until Apple changes its mind.

Some Top Titles On Android Market (Powered by YouTube)

The promise of the Android Market offering is to play these movies right in your Web browser, on any of your Google account-enabled devices. There's no need to download the movie (as iTunes does), but you instead start streaming after an extremely minimal amount of buffering, at either 320p or 480p. Purchases are sent to the account you have registered with Google Checkout, and the item shows in your Android Market purchase history. All straight forward.

Streaming "Just Go With It" On Chrome Via Android Market

In the last two days, I pulled down Adam Sandler's romantic comedy "Just Go With It" and Vince Vaughn's "The Dilemma". Both $3.99, I can play these videos on the Web (and even Google TV's Chrome App) and expand to full screen. In our on demand world, the experience is on par with Apple TV or Netflix Instant, and your service preference depends on the device you're using or the title you want. Using the Android Market interface is actually just a front end for YouTube's full-length feature movie rentals (see all of them here), including films like The Hangover, Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, The King's Speech, Knocked Up and many others. It's yet another example of Google trying to push to the browser what traditionally has been handled with desktop client software.

YouTube Reminds Me to Watch The Movie I Rented

My Rented Films Visible on YouTube

I tested the video rentals on my Mac, in both Chrome and Safari and on the CR-48, as well as on Google TV. Essentially, if the app can play YouTube videos and you can sign in with you're Google credentials, you're good to go.

My Receipt Delivered Via Email, Like Any Other Google Checkout Purchase

At Google I/O, it was promised that ChromeOS (and these rentals specifically) would bring more offline access for those outside of broadband streaming. I assume those will come soon, to solve for the poor souls stuck on airplanes who still want access, and might still be going to Apple to shell out three or four bucks at a time.