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How Google plans to rule the computing world through Chrome

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Re: How Google plans to rule the computing world through Chrome

#81

Post by jlgreco »

VikingCoder wrote: post #79
jlgreco wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Besides mudding the issue by confusing data with function, the Chromebook does have these features, and there is nothing about it that even indicates these features are deliberately second class citizens. In this analogy your VCR has the ability to write an input source to a cassette, all you've got to do is hit the record button on the front of it but is incapable of writing to the first or last 10 minutes of the ta…

Is there anything in Notepad to indicate it's a deliberately second-class citizen? My Roku doesn't have any built-in movies, my DVD player doesn't have any built-in movies... It's not "needlessly crippled," it's brand new. Windows 3.0 would be seen as needlessly crippled if it were released today. Look, if you don't like it, that's fine. But you can't convince me that it's not a viable product for many people, in man…

Notepad doesn't need to indicate that it is second-class because standard end users don't give shits about text editing. Standard end users use word processors. Text editing is itself a second class activity; playing your videos and browsing your pictures is not.

> My Roku doesn't have any built-in movies, my DVD player doesn't have any built-in movies...

Yeah, I'm starting to think you are deliberately being weird. My complaint is not that my movies were not pre-installed on the thing.

Re: How Google plans to rule the computing world through Chrome

#82

Post by wslh »

jlgreco wrote: post #77
wslh wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that ChromeOS as a base operating system is difficult to imagine but I think that the new rich GUI is moving towards HTML (beyond its use for browsing). Flash, Silverlight, and WPF will be replaceable very soon. Metro has a similar goal but less "standard". I also prefer to have the opportunity to use the browser engine as a rich GUI but develop in any programming language (like Python or C#). It seems like t…

Using HTML to create an entire user interface seems entirely reasonable to me, and a hell of a lot more pleasant to work with as a developer than the traditional way of doing things.

Yes, one area where Microsoft is ahead of Google is in designing interfaces within the IDE. Probably this trend is changing since Android Studio but I am waiting for the HTML/CSS/JS Studio (not Aptana/Eclipse).

Re: How Google plans to rule the computing world through Chrome

#83

Post by pyoung »

hollerith wrote: post #24
pyoung wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is going to be a big departure in what developers want, and what consumers want. For the most part, over the last 10 years, those two groups were largely using the same computers and OS's, but that has already changed, and will continue to do so. If Google can get their platform in front a ton of people, the developers will most likely follow (although they maybe using different machines than the consum…

>On a random side note, just picked up a Samsung Chromebook. Which one: the one with the ARM (the Series 3) or the one with the Celeron (the Series 5)?

Series 3. Admittedly, there are a few applications that I use that won't run on ARM, but there are also plenty of alternatives that do. I would imagine that will change pretty soon though.

Re: How Google plans to rule the computing world through Chrome

#84

Post by VikingCoder »

jlgreco wrote: post #81
VikingCoder wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there anything in Notepad to indicate it's a deliberately second-class citizen? My Roku doesn't have any built-in movies, my DVD player doesn't have any built-in movies... It's not "needlessly crippled," it's brand new. Windows 3.0 would be seen as needlessly crippled if it were released today. Look, if you don't like it, that's fine. But you can't convince me that it's not a viable product for many people, in man…

Notepad doesn't need to indicate that it is second-class because standard end users don't give shits about text editing. Standard end users use word processors. Text editing is itself a second class activity; playing your videos and browsing your pictures is not. > My Roku doesn't have any built-in movies, my DVD player doesn't have any built-in movies... Yeah, I'm starting to think you are deliberately being weird.…

DVD players can play movies, if you plug one in.

Chrome can play movies, if you connect to a site that has them.

Standard end users don't give shits about built-in apps in Chrome. Standard end users use web applications like Google Docs, Flickr, Facebook, Smugmug, and on and on...

Re: How Google plans to rule the computing world through Chrome

#85

Post by jlgreco »

VikingCoder wrote: post #63
gwgarry wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also don't see how anyone can trust Google with any of these technologies considering how they have been butchering all of their existing applications or outright shutting them down. Gmail is a shell of itself. Google Docs are a glorified WYSIWYG editor. They drop products like flies. They explicitly state that their job is to get as close to the creepy line as possible and not cross it. This has bad idea written a…

> Gmail is a shell of itself. I'm having a hard time thinking of anything GMail used to do, that it doesn't any more. Can you list some?

Not wasting massive amounts of screen space, but I think they recently added a "condensed" view again so that issue seems to be resolved.

Re: How Google plans to rule the computing world through Chrome

#86

Post by jlgreco »

VikingCoder wrote: post #84
jlgreco wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notepad doesn't need to indicate that it is second-class because standard end users don't give shits about text editing. Standard end users use word processors. Text editing is itself a second class activity; playing your videos and browsing your pictures is not. > My Roku doesn't have any built-in movies, my DVD player doesn't have any built-in movies... Yeah, I'm starting to think you are deliberately being weird.…

DVD players can play movies, if you plug one in. Chrome can play movies, if you connect to a site that has them. Standard end users don't give shits about built-in apps in Chrome. Standard end users use web applications like Google Docs, Flickr, Facebook, Smugmug, and on and on...

ChromeOS can play movies... sometimes.

Here is a fun use-case for you: A mother sits down in front of her laptop with a swanky 10GB/mo dataplan from Verizon. To her right is a SD card, on which are several videos of her children at their latest soccer game. She plugs the SD card into her computer, the SD card reader slot being one of only 5 ports that it has.

Can she watch her videos, without blowing through her dataplan?

With ChromeOS all bets are off. ChromeOS professes to support such a use case, as does her Android phone. Unlike ChromeOS, she can be confident that her Android phone will not let her down.

This isn't a reason why I don't use ChromeOS. My reasons for not using ChromeOS are weirder, and I do not fault ChromeOS for not meeting my needs. Rather, these are reasons why I could never recommend ChromeOS to friends and family, people I otherwise recommend software that I do not like to.

Re: How Google plans to rule the computing world through Chrome

#87

Post by VikingCoder »

jlgreco wrote: post #86
VikingCoder wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DVD players can play movies, if you plug one in. Chrome can play movies, if you connect to a site that has them. Standard end users don't give shits about built-in apps in Chrome. Standard end users use web applications like Google Docs, Flickr, Facebook, Smugmug, and on and on...

ChromeOS can play movies... sometimes. Here is a fun use-case for you: A mother sits down in front of her laptop with a swanky 10GB/mo dataplan from Verizon. To her right is a SD card, on which are several videos of her children at their latest soccer game. She plugs the SD card into her computer, the SD card reader slot being one of only 5 ports that it has. Can she watch her videos, without blowing through her data…

Yes, you have valid complaints, for why you wouldn't recommend today. I think those complaints are going to go away, over time.

The world of 10GB/mo dataplans is as dead as the world of 14.4 Kbps modems, it just doesn't know it yet. Google Fiber is going to push the other ISPs kicking and screaming into the modern world.

When I record videos on my Android Phone, they're automatically uploaded to the cloud for me. I can view them instantly. There are Android Cameras / Videocameras coming to the market that do the same trick.

Also, I'll point out to you that people in Moore, OK are looking through rubble for family photo albums. If they'd been in the cloud, instead...

Also, Notepad professes to be a word processor. It sucks at it, and ChromeOS's native video-watching app sucks at it.

Re: How Google plans to rule the computing world through Chrome

#88

Post by VikingCoder »

jlgreco wrote: post #76
VikingCoder wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Their distro" is the Internet. A Chromebook without the Internet is ludicrous, because no user operates like that. They might have been better off to not have the local picture and video player. They're the embarrassing "Notepad," if I want to make the analogy to Windows, again.

"A Chromebook without the Internet is ludicrous, because no user operates like that." I don't believe that anybody doesn't . Even android phones have better offline capabilities ( Way better, and generally with less offline storage to boot) and people expect their phones to always be online.

"I don't believe that anybody doesn't."

Here are the devices I own that are always online, when they're on:

TiVo, Logitech Revue, Wii, Chromebook, Android 1, Android 2, iPhone, Desktop 1, Desktop 2, Laptop 1, Laptop 2, Laptop 3, Laptop 4, and Kindle Fire. (I might be missing a couple.)

I expect my Chromebook to ALWAYS be online. Not least of which, because my Chromebook has 3G, just like my first Android phone did.

Re: How Google plans to rule the computing world through Chrome

#89

Post by VikingCoder »

WayneDB wrote: post #78
VikingCoder wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, YouTube does solve the problem of playing your videos. And sharing them with your friends. And archiving them, in case of disaster. If you're willing to use YouTube, of course. If not, you can use Smugmug or Flickr or Vimeo or... ChromeOS is inherently an operating system that uses the internet to solve users' problems. Expecting ChromeOS to have BUILT-IN ways to do what you want to, is kind of silly, in my mind…

YouTube or any other Internet Only service does not solve the problem of playing my videos very well. Why would I want to upload gigabytes of video instead of downloading a small program to play them locally? If I care about archiving things - why would I want to archive just my video files? I don't think anyone expects ChromeOS to have many built-in ways of doing things - but I also don't expect ChromeOS to be very…

> Why would I want to upload gigabytes of video

To archive them. To share them.

> If I care about archiving things - why would I want to archive just my video files?

You wouldn't. You'd want to archive anything. I genuinely don't understand the point you were trying to make here.

> it's not solving users' problems very well at all

I disagree. It solves my problems better than most other devices. "Playing my videos," it does extremely well. Step one, I shoot them on my Android, so they're instantly uploaded. If I have a video that's not on Android, I upload it to YouTube to archive and share it.

Many people in Moore, OK are shifting through rubble, looking for family photos. I think backing photos and videos up online makes a ton of sense...

Re: How Google plans to rule the computing world through Chrome

#90

Post by greenyoda »

VikingCoder wrote: post #56
skinnymuch wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You wouldn't use Paint to view pictures on vanilla Windows. You'd use apps far better suited (and already set as default). I think you still have a point in your comment though.

In Windows 3.1 days, I absolutely would have used Paint, if I were lucky enough to have it open my file type. If you unplug both devices from the internet, there's absolutely no question at all which is superior - Windows, hands down, no argument from me. But if you let a Chromebook get on the internet, and you're comfortable using the best tools on the internet to solve your problems... there's a lot going for a Chr…

There are places where people want to use their computers where there's no internet, or very slow internet, or a fee for using the internet. For example, on airplanes.
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