Google+, Chrome and Blogger- the tablets are coming

It has been a while since I last posted.  I have been traveling a lot for work, this is the busy season for college recruitment. During this time away from Blogger I have been exploring Google+.  Must say I enjoy Google+ better than Facebook. Facebook during the same time did a few updates to personal streams and page insights that I don't think have really improved the user experience.  I never played games on facebook and got annoyed when friends played and posted things in their stream, which I prompted blocked. G+ has the games stream split so you only see the notifications when you are in that section. The use of circle also allows you to share only with those friends that play, rather than making it public.  My G+ game blog will be more complete on another day.

While Facebook has been flailing, Google has been rather quickly revamping their products with new looks for Google Docs and calendar that have really stream lined their look and made it easier for me to find items on the screen.  Many of the items with Docs and Calendar have gotten new feature, which makes migrating to the cloud easier.  You no longer feel that you are loosing features my moving to online apps.  I did a quick trial on the new presentations formats and I now feel comfortable using them instead of having to use another app for holding my recruiting slide decks (table slide shows and classroom presentations)

Just today I finally got around to looking over the revamp of blogger. I think it is wonderful.  I love the Dynamic view template both as a reader and blogger. I might start blogging more often.  I saw some professional bloggers on G+ say that G+ might be a better platform for them do to the innate social feature. WHy have two platforms when you can do it on one. Time will tell how that goes.

Then just tonight, the Chrome update created game store and music store icons for the new tab page.  I am excited to see where this may go.

Finally, Chrome recently change the format of the new tab page, and it looks a lot like a tablet set up.  The sleek, minimalist design of docs, calendar, and blogger only add to the thoughts that Google is predicting that the tablet is the future. I don't have a tablet yet but I am glad that the two formats are starting to merge into one experience.  I hope they keep the Chromebook around for education, I think the price point and easy replacement will help get more kids connected to the web tools.

My Apple vs Android/Chrome blog will be down the lone on where I think this will all be in 5 years.

Chrome Cr-48 Volume Controls

For some reason the volume control and mute buttons on the key board is not adjusting the volume.  I have reported the bug and will let you know if the volume control returns.  Sound card is working, just can't adjust the current volume which is rather loud.

On a positive note- love the battery life and the fact the I can see how long is needed for full charged, in addition to seeing the amount of charge remaining.

Update 3/5 7pm. Volume control has returned. Yeah!

watching WVU on ESPN3 and Google Chrome OS Cr48

I watched the WVU vs Rutgers men's basketball game on my Google Chrome cr-48 laptop.  Initially the flash player crashed and wouldn't load (reported bug since the plash player crashed a few times in the past 48 hours).

Once a new tab was opened the flash player worked and I was able to watch the game without incident.  I opened the game on my desktop to compare the two.  Performance was the same, laptop was less than a second behind because of wifi.  Interesting that they show different commercials to different people online.

Overall pleased with performance.

PS WVU won at Rutgers 65-54 on their senior day.

Webinar issues on chrome OS cr-48

This evening I was planning on participating in the Google Seminar online "Building a class site with Google Sites" which was being offered through webex.com. 


Unfortunately that didn't work well in Chrome.  


There are three plug-ins that were needed and only one is a web based format. 

• FlashPlayer 6.0 or later- check
• Windows Media Player 9.0 or later- nope
• QuickTime 6.0 or later- nope

When starting the webinar it was missing a plugin even though flash player was tested and working.


I had to switch over to my HP desktop without any issues, in Chrome.


Part of this is just having developers start moving their apps and programs online rather than as desktop programs.  My guess is somebody else will develop a webinar app without the need for desktop software.


Testing onward!  (good webinar on building a googlesite for a classroom application.

Some walls today on Chrome OS

Today I encountered two issues on Chrome OS on the CR-48.

First video- Currently Netflix isn't supported but they noted they are working on it.  Comcast Xfinity video player is only set for Windows and Macs right now, not sure if that is a COmcast issue or a Chrome issue.  Other services like YouTube and Hulu work just fine.  I watched the latest episode of Fringe without any issues.

Second- Google Docs drag and drop- There was a website that I wanted to download an excel file from and it downloaded no problem.  I wanted to upload it to Google docs, but the drag and drop feature didn't work in Google docs from the Download window in Chrome. I was able to upload using the browse button in Google Docs. Seems like that UI needs smoothed out to make cloud computing more intuitive.