Nani und der große thefacebook Ratgeber

…und ein Eintrag in der Serie “dafür könnte es unmöglich eine Zielgruppe geben!!”

Aber es gibt sie doch:

hier noch ein Bonusfoto mit mir und meiner Reaktion drauf:

Peace out

A chromeful of books, pt. deux

As promised a while ago, I would post my musings regarding the chromebook and its usability from a consumer’s perspective. So here we go go go.

First off, the questions raised in my previous article can be easily andwered. While technically possible, you should forget about printing or word processing – the chromebooks are in no way productivity machines. You could scribble around with Google docs, email those docs to yourself and print them out on a real computer, but I wouldn’t, never ever, use it instead of something like Libre Office.There simply isn’t a reason for being online when doing something like writing a thesis or a paper, and even if there was, Wi-fi hotspots are still very rare (Europe, Berlin Mitte, and Tokyo Shinjuku is where I checked), and I’m not checking into a Starbucks only to be able to do a task every 2 cent netbook does by itself and OFFLINE. Also, Google docs is NOT available offline. So, Google lied about that and advertised falsely in my opinion.

A further set back is that it could be rather slow in rendering webpages. That is a sorry thing given that rendering web pages is the only thing a chromebook should do.

But. If you’re ok with paying a premium for essentially a netbook, if you’re not looking for a maximum of cashback on your little investment, and if you have a full productivity machine near you, you will be able to look at the upsides of the Samsung Series 5 chromebooks. It is really a slick little device, thin, light, and nearly without any noise. It boots up in a little less than the ad said, and if you’re done for a while, you can just close the lid and put it into sleepmode – if you open it up again, you’re exactly at the same screen you were before closing the lid within the time you can manage to put your hands on the keyboard – which is also a crowd favorite around my house. As opposed to a tablet it gives you quick multiuser access and a guest browsing mode (as UNIX machines do) and I have to admit – having it laying around your bed, kitchen or couch is joy. So all in all, if I’m going to do chats/voice/video, reading, shopping, or watching teh youtubes etc., I’ll grab the chromebook – if it’s free, that is.

So there you have it – a secondary machine, akin to a tablet, whick brings you the web within seconds, and has an always on feeling with its endless battery, and thinking about it, that wasn’t such a silly idea on Google’s side, because the web gets a whole new quality when you can be spontaneous about it.

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Check out a fully featured review on the Verge here - http://www.theverge.com/2011/10/18/2497238/samsung-chromebook-series-5-review

Na das ist ja vielleicht ein Wetterchen hier.

Via wunderground, die Weather Underground app im Chrome Appstore

Your social media needs you!

Coming directly from the man himself – Aaron Wood on Google + -, here’s the up to now ultimate comment on the social media out there.

Hit it:

 

♫♫

A chromeful of books

So we wanted to buy one of those brand spanken new Chromebooks. The idea was to take Google’s stance on netbooks and use it in our households as a light, easy going secondary machine, especially when on the move. Since we all have Google accounts, there shouldn’t be much else to think about…

But then, come the 14th of june, second thoughts ensued. While it is true that most of the time we spend our time on the web browser, and the best of them all is by far Chrome, and while we are more than willing to try out something new all the time, there definitely are instances where you need something like a desktop – even a netbook can be able to output your music or videos on the go, and that can be nice on a train or wherever you choose to carry your little machine.

But the big hassle can really be 1) printing and 2) using your netbook as a word processor on the go.

1) Chrome OS lets you use a printer by linking your printing orders to an external machine, which must be running Mac OS X or Windows. So, you need to set up that other machine first, tell your Chromebook that it’s supposed to send the print jobs there, and then finally print your files and docs. You can do this directly if you own a Cloud ready printer that can connect directly to the Internet – but that is hors de question for our little 20€ HP printer (*cough cough). The whole thing is called Google Cloud Printing Service  – you need access to the web in order to print.

2) We would want to use the Chromebook primarily as a productivity machine (with some Plus thrown into the mix), and the answer then would be Google Docs. As we’re noct using  Google Apps, we’ve been using Docs as a sidekick to our normal productivity, when we just want to quickly share a spreadsheet or text file with others and then download or print the outcome. It hast served us well in that regard. But I wouldn’t wanna work on my primary large Libre Office document with web apps. I just need the functionality of a big, offline, single purpose word processor. Some things Google docs simply cannot handle.

While still going back and forth between those two points, I think I am just go ahead and order the machine (in Germany, it’s done exclusively via amazon) and see if we can tone down printing to the least amount necessary, and split big, important docs into smaller Google Docs versions in order to work on them on the Chromebook.

If all goes well, I’ll keep you posted!

Love, Nanausicaa

 

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Second Chromebook picture by Virtual Leo. Thanks.

No wait balloons?

A quick reblog of a post by Laura Sweet (good name), the life and work of Larry Moss, the balloon art creative.

That’s one of the things one should do with an applied maths degree.

A new spaceport ready for business?

Just reminded me, with all the BBI talks going around, of a brand new little spaceport inside the city.

Just saying.

A visit to the Computerspielemuseum

A few weeks ago, I went to the Computerspielemuseum with a few friends of mine. The entrance is 8 Euros, and the place is still quite small, but the visit is worth the cheddar.

Your are greeted by these statues, growing in numbers it seems. There is also a little shop with geeky t-shirts and books and the like. Then you get to do a little quiz where you may drop your knowledge on the unsuspecting viewers.

The different generations of consoles and homecomputers are presented, and after that, the big gaming franchises in these little boxes. Pick your favorite memory, and be astonished at how many there actually are.

Highlights then include vintage arcade stations of 70ies and 80ies classics

as well as truly ancient magazines

…until you reach one of the uncontested highlights: The Painstation (TM). You get to sign a non-liability-paper, while the guy handing you the paper and instructions gleefully warns you that the Painstation (TM) causes real pain and everybody watches you being whipped, zapped and burned. Then, two people opposed to each other put their hands on the station while playing an increasingly difficult game of against-each-other-Pong. Miss the ball and yout get whipped, zapped and burned:

It is a bit difficult to catch on a photo, but here is the hand of a match winner -

I lost almost instantly, four times in a row, because I couldn’t help but quickly pull the hand away at the first sign of danger, even though the first few punishments aren’t even painful at all.

Now then, in the meantime I was able to take a picture of the very first issue of classic Dungeons & Dragons:

and talk with one of the classic parsers…long time since I had a conversation with a computer.

Finally, an old acquaintance…reminded me of the TV-heads in the bar in Back to the Future II.

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Computerspielemuseum

Karl-Marx-Allee 93a, 10243 Berlin

Phone: +49-30-60988577

Mail: service@computerspielemuseum.de

Open: Any day except on tuesdays 10 – 20 h.

Love you Jules

Since it’s his birthday today, Google says a little hello to Jules Vernes by changing its logo into today’s doodle -

You can use the lever on the right side to navigate around.

Now wait here

…for further instructions. Just in case a few days or weeks go by without updating this thing, listen to this other piece of streetart.