I was just pondering the other day that Google utterly owns my existence. You may chortle a bit, but I’m not joking. Google has ownership over my passwords, eMail, chat history, contact list, calendar, books, some pictures, documents, phone and…yeah. You get the idea.Now, I never have to leave Google – like I ever had to with an Android phone. Google and I shall be together forever, forming a kind of strange Serial Experiments Lain symbiotic relationship.
Topic at hand, the laptop. It’s pretty nifty. The keyboard is strange. There is no button that says “home” or “end.” They’ve done away with Caps Lock (drats!), and the touch pad is one big clicker. I’m having a hard time getting used to the new keys, but it will come in time, I’m sure.
On the flip side, it’s disconcerting to NOT have a Start Menu or desktop. How will I find that app I installed…oh, right, new tab. Another issue is the chat. I’m used to opening up gMail and chatting that way. Chrome OS has a built-in chat overlay, so the chat boxes from that float over the gMail chat windows. I’ll obviously have to alter my chatting habits, but did send in a bug report just to annoy the developers.
Speaking of the built-in chat, that’s really really nice. It chills out at the bottom of my screen, and when I want to send someone a message I just hover over the bottom of the screen. Chat list pops up, I select a person and awesome happens. Yes, it’s the little things that make me happy.
However, the best part, there’s no branding on this bitch. It’s just a matte black netbook. And it’s light. And there’s no logos. For it’s size, it’s actually fairly study [feeling]. I think it might actually survive more than a few months with my kids. Because, of course, I never abuse my electronics.
Now I’m off to finishing melding into the Wired. Or install some more apps.
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