Juixe Techknow

Google publicly announced Chrome OS in back in July 2007. They’ve been busy building a lightweight browser-powered and cloud computing-enabled Operating System. Recently in, December 2010 Google announced a test pilot program for a Chrome OS notebook dubbed Google CR-48. On the day of the announcement, some insiders already had the CR-48 in hand but Google also opened up the test pilot program to the general public via a signup form. The signup was targeted to developers, educators, and individuals alike. By way of a Christmas miracle, I was able to land a Google CR-48 and have been using it for days now.

As soon as the details of the Google Chrome Notebook were made available I was immediately in love with the Google CR-48. It’s basically an ultra light weight cloud computing client running a slimmed down web enabled Operating System. The CR-48 is as portable as an iPad but with a full keyboard. The CR-48 has a smart track pad that supports iPad-like touch gestures. The CR-48 is always on, just like an iPad or Mac Air, so there is no boot up time when all you want is just check your email or post a tweet. That said, the CR-48 is not a official product and that is evident by the simple black frame, it’s even without a trace of corporate logo or Intel inside sticker. Because the CR-48 is not a official product, I won’t say much about the industrial design and finish of the hardware other than to say that unlike the iPad, it has a USB port and a SD slot.

Google Chrome CR-48 Notebook

As soon as you open the CR-48 it turned on magically and prompted me to sign in. Unlike the iPhone or iPad, the CR-48 doesn’t require you to connect to a computer before you can use it. After some setup steps, you can sign in and take it for a run. As soon as you log into the device, you will see a Chrome browser taking up the whole screen with a single tab. It does take some time to realize that the CR-48 is a laptop with just one application, a browser. That is all it is, a browser. There is nothing to see, move along, it’s only a browser. Your desktop is your default page as shown in a Chrome browser. It merits repeating, the Chrome CR-48 only has one installed application, a Chrome browser.

As soon as you log into the CR-48 you find a browser in full window mode and if configured correctly with your home’s WiFi, you can start surfing the net. I’ve been using the CR-48 for reading blogs, checking email, liking status updates on Facebook, and accessing the web applications I use on a daily basis. Google does have a Chrome specific Web Store where you can install free and paid applications but I’ve not found anything of interest.

Aside from the technical specification of the Google Chrome CR-48 notebook, what is more interesting for me is that this is the first cloud computing client, a sort of Web 2.0 Thin Client. I am a avid user of Google Docs, GMail, WordPress, and other online services that have a large amount of my data in their respective ‘cloud.’

Realizing that this is a cloud client, privacy issues and data mining concerns immediately become apparent. It is already known that Google saves user searches and that with this and other identifying data they modify search results. It is already known that Google Adsense ads are targeted to the sites you visit. Can you imagine how valuable your browser history and usage statistics is to a company like Google? Google has a large amount of identifying information with from all angles of your browsing experience, from Google Search, Google Adsense, Google Analytics, and now Chrome and it’s Chrome notebook. I can see a future where Google would be giving away Chrome and Android-based devises for free because they can collect so much valuable information and up sell users with highly targeted ads.

The CR-48 is a great little notebook but a machine like that would never replace my laptop. At this time and with it’s current specifications, it can’t handle the hundreds of pictures I am known to take over a weekend, it can’t handle the gigabytes of video I take on a trip, and as great as Google Docs is it’s still not Microsoft Office. I see the CR-48 as a great web surfing machine while TV surfing.

It is that time of year where we reflect on the accomplishments of the passing year and look forward to the one to come. Here is a window into the past year in technology through this year’s popular posts on TechKnow Juixe.

Programming Rants

• Software Engineering in Pictures
• The Resume is Dead
• Resume and Interview Tips
• Programmer Pickup Lnes
• More Hats, More Problems
• Working Code is Just One Corner Case

Products and Features

• Foursquare Missing Features
• Apple vs Android
• The Future of Apple TV
• Facebook Was My Idea
• Facebook Zuckerberg and Plain Text Passwords
• Google Has Lot Its Focus
• Google Dead Pool
• Amazon Should Buy Blippy

Tutorial and Resources

• Use Google Forms for Surveys and Polls
• Model Business in Google Docs
• Check if GMail Account Has Been Hacked Into
• Apple iPad Top Resources
• iPhone Frameworks

Patents and Trademarks

• Us Patent: Virtual Currency
• US Patent: Linked List
• Cease and Desist Trademark Craziness

Code Conversations

• Captcha This, Byatch!
• Mushroom Life Cycle
• Zombie Code
• The Mayor of Dead Space
• Remote Debug Your Thinking Process
• All Code is Inherently Evil

Retweet 2010

• Retweet December
• Retweet November
• Retweet October
• Retweet September
• Retweet August
• Retweet July
• Retweet June
• Retweet May
• Retweet April
• Retweet March
• Retweet February
• Retweet January

Random Thoughts 2010

• Random Thoughts December
• Random Thoughts November
• Random Thoughts October

Year in Review

• Year In Review 2009
• Year In Review 2008
• Year In Review 2007
• Year In Review 2006
• Year In Review 2005

No explanation required, here are some random thoughts that occurred to me during the past month. These ideas are usually to long to force into 140 character limit of Twitter but not fully develop to merit their own post.

Which is worse, a developer that will fight you every inch when you ask him to add a feature that upsets the balance of his understanding or the isometry of his code or a developer when asked to add a feature simply does it without question?

It is estimated that up to 90% of Internet traffic is spam. For some product searches up to 80% of Google results are spam because of black hat SEO.

In the span of year a typical teen on Facebook would have written more text than the whole of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare and would contain more drama than Shakespeare’s plays combine but it won’t be considered literature.

I travel for business a bit. I usually stay in the same hotel chain, if not the same hotel. I would like the hotel check-in process to be as easy as Foursquare check-in. In fact, if I am already in their reward program, and if they already have my credit card, they already know all pertinent information about me, why do I even have to check in or out at the front desk? Here is a million dollar idea, have a way book a hotel from you iPhone, you are immediately given a room number, if available, and your credit card in file or reward card is used to open the hotel room door. There is no need, unless you need more towels, to deal with the front desk.

Saying that listing to rap long enough will make you want to shoot someone is like saying that listening to country long enough will make you make love to your truck.

By the lack of features in iTunes, you would think the current version is still under better not version 10.1. As far as consumer applications go, iTunes is pretty polish but it is immediately evident that most of the engineering staff go into the iTunes store and not the management of your digital content. It feels to me that there are a lot of key features missing in iTunes. It might be that I just don’t know some secret incantation of how to do what I want, but I’ve searched online with little success.

Here is a short list of features I wish were available in iTunes.

iTunes should have the ability to activate, and most importantly deactivate, a computer or device from your iTunes account online. I want to log in and see what devices are activated with my account ad deactivate them.

One other feature I require from iTunes is the ability to sort and filter music and other content by the account that purchased it. I have a repository of music bought from several different accounts from different family members or friends. In some cases, I want to deactivate their account and delete their music.

One problem that I’ve frequently encounter is that the album art of music get’s corrupted. Over time I’ve seen that the album art for a song will be of a different artist. I wish I can have a way to tell iTunes to correct or update it’s album art repository.

Just like opinions, at the end of the year everyone has their own predictions for the new year. I came to these predictions by reading the back of caps of green tea bottles. If you like to see my accuracy with past predictions see the predictions for 2009 and 2010.

• Mark Zuckerborg will be summoned by congress for a congressional hearing to clarify privacy settings and violations when some White House intern force checks in the President at a Hooters.
• Digg will buy Reddit from Conde Nast and rebrand the merged organization as Reddigg.
• DVDs and Blu Rays sales will slow as users switch to on demand streaming service such as Netflix and Apple iTunes.
• Groupon will be purchased by Yahoo for $1.5 billion dollars.
• Facebook will have a major privacy and security flaw but non of its users will notice because they all found a pony in their stream.
• Google will allow its developers to only use cheap commodity Linux machines. Google employees will no longer be allowed to program in Macs.
• Google will start to aggressively push and market the Go programming language as an replacement of the Java programming language in the enterprise.
• Google will buy PostreSQL.
• Google will buy the Library of Congress.
• Quora will buy the domain ask.com.
• Ticket Master will buy Eventbrite.
• Rupert Murdoch will sell MySpace for $35 million.
• Mashable will be sold to Rupert Murdoch for an undisclosed $50 million dollars.
• Michael Bay will write, Steven Spielberg will direct, and Johnny Deep will star in Zynga: The Movie.
• Zynga and Rock Star Games will co-develop a crossover game called Grand Theft Auto: Farmville.

Very rarely has Amazon ever let me down.  I have always viewed Amazon as an innovator in their industry and ahead of the curve in technology.  But a recent experience made me rethink their customer support. I recently ordered Village Naturals Body Soak blend of bath minerals, salts, and vitamins. The body soak comes in a plastic jar is made of fragrant sea salt sized minerals. When the FedEx delivery person dropped off the package, it was in a plastic bag. I immediately knew something was wrong, why would the delivery service place a Amazon package inside a plastic bag for delivery. I opened the Amazon package and it all became instantly clear as the strong fragrance of the body soak fills the room. The lid from the body soak jar had opened during transport and all the contents had spilled out. The reason FedEx had wrapped the Amazon package in a plastic bag is because the body soak salts and minerals had spilled out of the Amazon box.

Upon receiving the package I opened it, and noticed the damage. I took several pictures of how I have received my items and immediately called customer service. Amazon customer service apparently follows Hollywood’s old adage, “don’t call us, we’ll call you.” You can enter your phone number and they quickly call you back. I spoke with the customer service rep and told him the problem. At first I had difficulty understanding him because he masked his voice in an unnatural way that made him sound like robot, kinda like Calculon. I explain to him that the jar in which the bath salts where packaged in opened during transport and spilling all the salts which leaked out of Amazon box. What struck me was when he asked, “can you use still use it?” I explained that the bath salts also scraped and damaged the front and back of a book I also had purchased.

Half Empty Jar of Fail

The Amazon customer support did refund me for my products and said that I had to mail back the damaged products as soon as possible or else they will charge me for it. I joked that he is getting an empty jar, because all of the bath salts where lost during transport. In fact, I eventually tried to place all the remaining bath salt that were in the Amazon box into the product container and I didn’t even have 20%. After all that was said and done, this is the details that the Amazon customer representative wrote on the return details for the body soak, “the top of the jar is somehow opened. and theres a leak on it. all the content came out.” For damaged book, the description read, “the pebbles soaked the book. and the book is damaged.”

I don’t mind that Amazon, and other companies, outsource customer support functions to other English speaking countries. I am by no means, a xenophobe, especially since I myself can be considered a xeno. But I am a idiotphobe. That said, I dislike how customer support outright lie about their identity. In a fake American accent but with hints of post-colonial Indian accent the customer service agent greats you as, “Hi my name is Steve.” I feel like saying, “Hi Steve, my name is Raja Shankar Ramachandra Maximus Decimus Meridius IV.” Why the false identity? It’s fine that they take “American jobs” which most American’s wont want but do they have to take fake American identities too? Business is usually based on trust, and when your company representatives misrepresent themselves how can customers trust you.

On last customer service pet peeve, the last thing I want to hear from customer support is “how is your day going?” when they are trying to stall for time while they look some information in some screen. Worst still is when they put you on hold for no reason other than they don’t want to have you on the line, like they are uncomfortable by you waiting for them to finish with your request.