Verizon Wireless 3G on Cr-48

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Just enabled the complimentary Verizon Wireless 3G service for my Cr-48. It took about 5-7 minutes but it was painless.

Only thing that beats me is why I had to enter my credit card information to get the free service – they say it is for confirming the identity. Couldn’t Google/Verizon use Checkout account to do that?

Now I should really make a folder for text-only/mobile versions of websites I frequent. It’s only been a few minutes and I’ve already used up 5MB of data!

Speed seems good though. I am switching back to Wifi, and keep this service for the rainy day.

Originally posted at http://post.mahesha.com/verizon-wireless-3g-on-cr-48

Empty ‘em v0.76 Available on GitHub

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I am making version 0.76 of Empty ‘em – my Thunderbird add-on – available on GitHub at:

https://github.com/downloads/asolkar/emptyem/emptyem-0.76.xpi

Only change in this version is that maxVersion of Thunderbird is bumped to 3.3a* – so it installs on latest nightly builds from the comm-central branch.

I am not updating the add-on on the addons.mozilla.org (AMO) since it does not allow maxVersion to be 3.3a*. Which means that I will have to update the add-on on AMO for every alpha release. I’d rather release it now for all alphas, later for all betas and eventually for the final release of Thunderbird 3.3.

I’ve been using Empty ‘em on 3.3a* versions of Thunderbird for a while now. It seems to be working fine. Then again, I’ve only tested it with Gmail(IMAP) and MS Exchange (IMAP) accounts.

Empty 'em 0.76 in Thunderbird 3.3a (Shredder) - Click for full size

Empty ‘em 0.76 in Thunderbird 3.3a (Shredder)

Take it for a spin and let me know of any issues on the Empty ‘em Support Group.

Chorme OS – Printing to File

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I almost do not have a printer at home – I have an old one, but I use it so rarely, the cartridges are always dry. So when I need to print something, I usually print it to a file on my Linux laptop – a .pdf file. Then take that file to work/FedEx Kinko’s – via Google Docs/Dropbox/other cloud service/USB drive – and print it. I am sure there are many who do that.

Also for archiving online transactions, like bank transfers, purchase acknowledgements, etc. – when you don’t necessarily need a print out, but just want some kind of a digital confirmation you could print later if needed – ‘print to file’ is such a convenient feature to have.

Just wondering why Chrome OS got rid of the print to file feature of the underlying Linux OS? Google cloud print is cool and all, but if you don’t have a Windows PC with a printer connected, you are really out of luck. Am I missing something, or Chrome OS indeed does not have a print to file option?

What do I think of the Cr-48?

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It’s been exciting few days playing with Cr-48 – the new Google Chrome OS laptop. I’ve been playing with it, trying out various features, doing my usual browsing, some development even. I must say I have not felt very restricted yet. But it’s been only a few days.

From the past few days’ use, here’s my impression about the Cr-48.

The Hardware

Anyone interested in Cr-48 has already seen many pictures and read about its hardware. I am going to write about only the points that I thought were significant.

Pros:

  • The 12.1in screen is just right for casual web browsing. I find the resolution optimal.
  • Keyboard – even with missing function and caps-lock keys – is nice and big. Keys feel good to the fingers when typing.
  • Battery life is amazing! I haven’t drained it completely yet, but I won’t be surprised if I get 9+ hours
  • Doesn’t look like this thing heats at all. Even after many hours of use, it barely gets warm. This is so much better than the Sony Vaio VGN-T140P I use currently

Cons:

  • Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU N455 @ 1.66GHz (1 core, 2 threads, integrated graphics) seems to fall short, in my opinion. Especially when playing videos. From what I found, YouTube does not offer HD videos (480p+) when accessed from Cr-48. If I play an HD video on Vimeo, it is choppy as hell. Intel touts HD performance of their integrated graphics, so I was a bit disappointed there
  • I may be still getting used to it, but the touchpad is not quite there yet. It supports 2-finger scrolling, it is big, nice and sensitive. But I think it may be a bit too big and sensitive. While typing, I invariably touch/tap it causing unintended things to happen.

Some detailed hardware info, for the curious:

If you can’t see the embedded Gist, head to GitHub

I got this from chrome://system/.

The Software

Chrome OS has evolved very well. I played with it a bit in VirtualBox when it was initially announced about a year ago. But the user experience of Chrome OS on Cr-48 is a totally different thing – it is much better.

Like I mentioned, I don’t feel restricted at all when it comes to casual browsing – news, social networking, blogging, shopping etc. Watching videos was not very pleasant, but I think it should get better with better hardware (or drivers?).

There is not a lot of scope for local development. But if you have a remote machine, where you could ssh and do some development, that is sure possible. I did not try starting an X-application on the remote host, but I did some terminal stuff – editing PHP/HTML/JS/CSS in Vim. Here’s what I found. ALT+CTRL+t takes you to a terminal – a tty. It starts a shell called crosh. If you type help it shows all the commands it supports. ssh is one of them. Once you are in the ssh session, you can do pretty much anything you do in a terminal – on the remote host. You can start multiple terminals with ALT+CTRL+t. You can circle through terminals and the browser with the next tab button.

Much More to Come

There are a lot of things I haven’t tried yet – local storage (which seems like a 16GB SSD), external memory (USB/SD card), VGA connection to the TV/monitor, other peripherals via USB, etc.

When it comes to consuming shared content, Chrome OS has not issues. But I am curious to know how easy/difficult will it be to share content with Chrome OS. I’ll find out when I share my next set of pictures.

I’ve kept my 100MBs of December data from Verizon Wireless for later in the month, when I’ll be away from home. So I am not sure how the 3G connectivity works. WiFi has been very stable and was easy to configure.

I’ll post more as I find out.

So, at the moment, I think the Cr-48 is a neat device. Will I buy it? It depends on the price point. For now the price is free, so I am loving every bit of it. In my opinion, commercial Chrome OS devices will have to be cheaper than the cheapest netbooks out there to fly. Even better, subsidized by wireless carriers like Verizon – hopefully not with service contracts.

Until later, Cheers!

An Awesome Gift from Google

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Google recently hosted an event about Chrome OS. During the event they announced a pilot program for developers/testers to try the reference hardware – the Cr-48 prototype. I applied for it, and within 48 hours, the thing was at my doorstep.

They really do mean speed!

Thanks Google for the surprise gift.

Now let’s get to using it and sending some constructive feedback – using just Chrome OS. No Vim to type posts, no Gimp to get and edit screenshots, no FTP client to upload images. Will see how that goes.

Much more to come…

Your old Firefox Sync key is no good!

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After a recent upgrade of Minefield (nightly trunk version of Mozilla Firefox) my Sync was completely broken. All I got was the following error message when I started Minefield:

Wrong Sync Key error - Click for full size

Wrong Sync Key error

One installation of Firefox kept working fine for me, all the others failed to sync after that particular update.

It turns out, the old Sync Key we all cherry picked is no good. A Minefield update probably changed my key to a longer, harder-to-remember key – I must say without any indication/notification. I reckon harder-to-remember also means harder-to-guess, so its a good thing for the security of my data in the cloud. However, on the flip side, I will need to print the key and keep it is some safe place – there’s no way I am going to remember that one! Or even better, I’ll put it in my Passpack.

Once I figured that the Wrong Sync Key error was not because of broken Minefield, but because Minefield indeed changed my key, I could quickly bring all the other installations of Firefox in sync again.

All that needs to be done is, grab your new key like so:

  • Open Minefield (or Firefox) button → Options → Options (Which is Minefield (or Firefox) button → Preferences → Preferences in Linux).
  • Go to the Sync tab
  • Expand the Manage Account group
  • Click on the My Sync Key item
  • Copy/Print/Write down/Passpack your Sync Key displayed in the dialog that shows up

Then in the installation of Firefox where you get the Wrong Sync Key error, update the Sync Key with the new key. This pretty much involves resetting Sync information and setting it up anew, like so:

  • Open Minefield (or Firefox) button → Options → Options (Which is Minefield (or Firefox) button → Preferences → Preferences in Linux).
  • Go to the Sync tab
  • Expand the Manage Account group
  • Click on the Stop Using This Account item
  • Select Reset All Information in the dialog that shows up.
  • Now setup Sync afresh in the Sync Preferences – using the new Sync Key

I hope when this changes makes into the Beta, there will be a proper notification and process to upgrade the keys in all Firefox installation. Until then, hope this helps…

With or Without You – Nautilus File Browser Side Pane

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If you are a Gnome Desktop user on Linux and use Nautilus File Manager to browse your files, here’s a handy tip.

When you access your files via the Places menu, (e.g., Places → Home Folder), there are two ways you can view your files (among many other ways, I guess):

  • The file manager window has a browser pane on the left. This pane (also called the Side Pane) provides easy access to your bookmarks, mounted drives, etc. This is my preferred way. Here’s what it looks like:
    File manager with browser pane - Click for full size

    File manager with browser pane
  • The file manager window does not have a browser pane. One of the reasons I am not so comfortable with this is that it opens a new window when you double-click on a folder. Too many windows can result if you are browsing around. And here’s how it looks:
    File manager without browser pane - Click for full size

    File manager without browser pane

It is a matter of personal preference. Since I use Ubuntu extensively, and its default is to show the file manager with the side pane, I am kind of used to it. So when I started working on another computer where the default was without the side pane, I wasn’t very comfortable.

But as it turns out, like with many other customization options on Linux, this was easy to change.

All it takes is to set the configuration key /apps/nautilus/preferences/always_use_browser to be true. There are a couple of ways you can do that.

With the Configuration Editor GUI

You can start the Configuration Editor from the Application → System Tools menu. Or use the gconf-editor command in the Terminal. Once in the Configuration Editor, navigate to the /apps/nautilus/preferences/always_use_browser key in the left side pane:

/apps/nautilus/preferences/always_use_browser key in the Configuration Editor - Click for full size

/apps/nautilus/preferences/always_use_browser key in the Configuration Editor

Check the checkbox to enable the preference.

With gconftool-2 command

Much easier way, for folks who are not so much against the Terminal. Open the Terminal and use this command:

gconftool-2 --set --type=bool /apps/nautilus/preferences/always_use_browser true

So there. And while we are at it, a quick poll, may be?