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Chromebook Pixel

mark — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 06:17:21 +0000

The Chromebook Pixel is a laptop that brings together the best in hardware, software, and design. It has a 4.3 million pixel 12.85″ touch screen, Intel® Core™ i5 Processor (Dual Core 1.8GHz), 32 GB Solid State Drive, 4 GB DDR3 RAM and a anodized aluminum case. Google is proving that a Chromebook can be much more than a cheap toy.

I have a Samsung Chromebook. The $249 one and I like it a lot but it is a bit flimsy and plasticy. It is also a bit slow. It’s good for email, web-search and most other low-end pursuits but stutters sometimes when playing video. I love it but it could be much better. That is were the “Pixel” comes in. Its solid construction, high-end hardware and perfect design make the “Pixel” a totally different class of machine.

Now the cons. The Samsung easily gets 6 hours of battery life but the Pixel is far lower. It is advertised that it gets 5 but I hear when you play video that it can be more like 2 or 3. This is to be expected.

This perfection comes at a price. The pixel cost $1299 for the 32GB SSD and WiFi only model and $1449 with LTE, a 64GB SSD.

With both you get a terabyte of Google Drive space for 3 years.

The “Pixel” cost a lot and for such a high price you need a real computer with a real operating system. You can easily install Ubuntu with all of its complement of opensource applications on the “Pixel” in a dual-boot configuration. Just enable the developer mode and run a simple script.

Is the “Pixel” worth it? I think it could be. Jeff Jarvis of This Week in Google believes it’s worth it. Leo Laporte of TWiT has purchased one and I’m still waiting for his review on Before You Buy.

The only way I’ll know for sure is to purchase one but that’s a lot of donuts to shell out.

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Big Attachments In Gmail

mark — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 04:59:29 +0000

You can now send really huge attachments to Gmail using the new Google Drive integration. Here is Veronica Belmont of Tekzilla to tell you all about it.

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Chrome’s Remote Desktop

mark — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 18:52:38 +0000

Let Veronica of Tekzilla show you how to use the remote desktop add-on in Chrome. That’s right! control your friend’s and family’s computer from right inside Google Chrome just like you might do with GoToAssist or other expensive commercial applications.

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New Chromebook

mark — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 18:45:38 +0000

I just got my Samsung Chromebook today. I’m still getting use to it but my impressions so far are very positive. It’s very thin and light but because there is no wasted space the keyboard and screen are large enough to work on. I’m looking forward to the long battery life (6.5 hours). My old laptop gets less than 2 hours. At this point there is much to say. It is a very small computer that only does one thing, web-apps.

In some circles the Chromebook concept is wrong headed. Some say why make a computer that just does Interent? Well, like me many people live on the Internet. All of there work and creative projects are there in the cloud.

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HTTPS For Yahoo Mail

mark — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 19:52:22 +0000

I have been complaining for quit some time now that Yahoo has a hole in its security. After using the secure login to access your email and other Yahoo tools you then are forwarded to an insecure page, leave your login cookie visible so anyone to see your password. Other websites fixed this long ago after “Firesheep” demonstrated the potential of the vulnerability.

It’s taken them years to fix but it’s finally here. You can go into your Yahoo mail options, general go to the bottom and check ”Make your Yahoo! Mail more secure with SSL.”

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WordPress 3.5

mark — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 19:48:14 +0000

The new WordPress 3.5 Elvin is a major step up for WordPress. It’s new more intuitive image handling is great and makes editing and posting images a dream. The new default theme that comes with 3.5 is 2012. The big header that was in 2010 and 2011 is turn off by default but is available if you want it. There are a lot of new features to help you to create web-sites.

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Pixlr

mark — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 19:43:37 +0000

Pixlr is a web-based image editor that is quite good. It does most of the things you usually need an image editor to do, rotate, crop, flip, color-balance, levels, curves, hue and saturation. It has effects like sepia, solarize and desperate. Pixlr has filters like blur, noise, halftones and more. It has all the tools that we expect in Photoshop and all the Photoshop clones. Best of all it has layers with layer-modes just like Photoshop!

Is this just like Photoshop? No! Will this take care of all of my professional image editing needs? Probably not! Will Pixlr take care of all of my basic image editing job. I think it can and it’s free!

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Google While Offline

mark — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 19:23:49 +0000

Offline Apps

Google Chrome can be used offline with some applications (Google applications at first but there should be more later.)

There are different methods for each of the Google applications. Let me explain:

Gmail – At the present time this is the only way to use Gmail offline and that is using a Chrome app called “Gmail Offline” of course. It does not look much like Gmail. It is more like “MS Outlook”.

Calendar – To use Google Calendar is more straight forward then Gmail. Go to Google Calendar, click the gear icon on the right then click “Offline” and click “Enable”. The offline experience is identical to the online.

Google Drives (Google Docs) – This to is straight forward. In Google Drive go to Settings and click “Offline”.

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Gmail and GDrive Integration

mark — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 19:09:35 +0000

Google has announced that soon Gmail and Google Drive will work together. If you want to add an attachment to an email you will not have to leave Gmail to grab a URL from a document in Gdrive. You will browse to the file as if you were adding it from your computer. This will make it a lot easier to share files via email.

Here’s how it works. Hover over the plus sign next to the paperclip, click on the Google Drive symbol and select the document that you wish to attach.

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Secure Your Digital Life

mark — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 19:03:36 +0000

Iyaz and Leo tell you “How To” make your tech life more secure.

Setup two factor authentication in Google,
How to set up 2-step verification on Facebook,
Backup and lie. (learn more)

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