Blogs Dec 22, 2010 at 11:46 am

Comments

1
"this thing is a blogging machine"

Not much else it can be. Its just an terminal emulator with a GUI. MS has been selling desktops like this for years, Starbucks still uses them in their call center downtown.
2
"memory" refers to the volatile, fast-access data stores in a computer, generally RAM.
"storage" refers to long-term, stable, slow-access data stores in a computer, generally a hard disk or flash memory.

When you confuse the two, you stop sounding like a tech writer, and start sounding like a books writer.
3
@2: I am shocked that the books writer sounds like a book writer.
4
Can you disable the trackpad completely? I hate the things, and always use a separate mouse. Mouses today can be used even on your pants leg if you need to, and the wireless nubbin is so small you can just leave it in all the time.
5
What Fnarf said. The only computers with good trackpads are mac laptops. (Although the Dell webbook I have, which my wife hackintoshed with the Snow Leopard OS, had some driver update that makes this one better than any other PC laptop I've ever used.)
6
Mac laptops do have the best trackpads, but I still go for a mouse over that thing unless I have no choice (flight, train, etc.).

Paul, hows the battery life?

How is the performance/duration for offline writing? Like if you wanted to plop somewhere and just churn out words offline?
7
"They started running Windows almost exclusively, for one thing, and that's always seemed like too much OS for what I needed in a portable computer. "

I have to ask- why didn't you just make the leap to Linux? There are several distributions that work beautifully on netbooks and you can make your setup as complex or simple as you like. If you didn't want to do the install yourself, there have always been netbooks you can order with Ubuntu pre-installed.

I agree that their is definitely a place for the Chrome OS computer in the marketplace. Would I spend money on one? No, but that is hardly the way to measure the market's viability :).
8
The trackpad hate is a little silly. OK, maybe I see more trackpads each day than the rest of you (due to my job) but there are a lot of really nice trackpads out these days. Sony has great trackpads and some of Samsung's are very pleasant too.
9
Just to let you know, but all the IT mags say that 2011 will be the year of the Tablet and the widespread adoption of mobile devices like cellphones.

Interesting seeing how sex segregation exists in the consumer bases for different platforms. The internal chipsets don't care, of course.
10
@8: YOU WILL DIE FROM YOUR TRACKPAD! DON'T YOU KNOW THOSE THINGS CARRY HERPES?!
11
Can you break down step by step how you got photos from your camera to the Cr-48 and then to your blog?

Because this review claims that it was impossible to get the Cr-48 to load photos from their cameras, or to read them off the SD card.

My take is that while my MacBook from 5 years ago did cost too much of my salary to afford to carry it around, the one I use now cost less than $1000, is more powerful and roomy, and it's trivial to keep the drive backed up all the time. So a cheap portable replacement for my "real" portable has come too little too late.
12
@Will- sex segregation? Can you clarify a little?
13
@Fnarf: If there's a way to disable the trackpad entirely, I haven't found it. A lot of Cr-48 users have switched to USB mice (is that right? Is "mice" plural for computer mouse?) I love my MacBook's track pad. This one is okay for the most part, but a little too jumpy even at the lowest setting.

@Pairs I have used Linux sometimes, and the one problem I have with it is that it doesn't play very well with other systems. When I was using my Asus Eee, I was doing a lot of freelancing, and I needed to use a bunch of different formatting for a bunch of different clients. Linux wasn't super-easy.

@2: I freely admit I'm not a tech writer, but I thank you for pointing that out. I'll tie memory to RAM from now on.

@Fox in Socks: As I said in my first post on the Cr-48,, I haven't been able to get a shot directly from my camera to my SD card. Putting in a different SD card with an image I wanted didn't work either. The computer just won't recognize my camera or an alien SD card. It's part of the memory accessibility problem I was writing about today. For blogging purposes, I just right-click the image, save it to memory, then The Stranger's blogging software searches the computer and finds the image.

@1: That's kind of the point; that's all I want it to be.

@Joe: The battery life seems to be about eight hours of continuous online usage. I haven't tried the offline writing yet, but I'll let you know soon how that goes.

14
I'm sorry I'm being dense, Paul.

When you say "I just right-click the image, save it to memory" you mean you right click on an image which is already located on some other web site? Meaning that you had to first use some other device besides the Cr-48 to upload your photos? I just want to clarify that because if what you're saying is that photos can't get from your phone/camera to the web without carrying around two fucking laptops, then well, that's fucked up right? And it's not really a bloggers tool at all, is it?

Because, you know, it basically can't do pictures or video. It's a text-only blogging tool, like some sort of Lynx text browser from 1992. It's not a trivial issue.
15
@13, opinions are divided, but I prefer "mouses" for computer mouses, leaving "mice" for the rodents.

Re: photos. I'm confused too -- are you saying that the computer can't recognize the SD card that came out of your camera, and your camera can't shoot to the SD card that came with your computer? Is there some kind of funky formatting on it? An SD card should be like any other SD card, for easy swippety-swap. And, as Fox says, it's not clear what you're right-clicking on, or what "memory" you're saving the file to -- do you mean the flash disk in the device? Is there no file browser?
16
@7 is right. I'm a Windows bigot but installed Ubuntu netbook remix on my 7" eee a few years ago. Maybe Win7 fixed the need for that, but...
17
@16 Windows 7 works well on netbooks too, I've found; I much prefer using the Win7 Pro or Ultimate on netbooks though, instead of the Starter edition which comes standard on them (the netbooks) these days.
18
Couldn't you send your cell phone pics to your picasa account and post them to your blog, presumably blogger, from there?
19
i'm wondering how long it took you to get your's , i'm on the list too.
20
Agree that January is early in the year, but not that the Google has promised offline docs in January. Could be any time Q1 or arguably in Q2.
21
I agree with most of what you have written. I too have been testing the CR-48. I found that it is extremely friendly for the non computer types. Our experience has been that there is no explanation and people are able to use without worrying about what sights they might visit, and download. We are not bloggers or journalists, we are retailers and consultants who have been very comfortable using the machine. For the first time we used an application called Mail Chimp, Cloud Canvas, amongst many others. Granted not all the applications are smooth as the desktop yet, but I must say not worrying about computer crashing or being infected by a virus is really liberating. Please frequent the Web Store I'm sure you will find many applications or Glorified bookmarks very useful. Good Luck.

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