Todd Lyden

According to Gartner, world sales of Chromebooks has grown by 27% in 2015. That's 7.3 million! I was there when they were still known as the CR-48. I documented a lot of my experience both here , here , and here . It is semi-amazing to me that here we are nearly five years later and the Chrome OS is not just a ubiquitous browser, but the "system" is running a wide variety of laptops, desktops, and netbooks. According to StatCounter, as of March 2015 ,  Chrome  is not only the most popular mobile browser without tablets but also with them counted in.  And I am here to tell you, my family STILL uses that little demo model of the Chromebook. Nearly five years later, we are now finally contemplating getting a newer version just because the old one was probably never designed to last this long. According to Joe Wilcox, this is the year of the Chromebook .  Read his article and it is not hard to see why. Schools and businesses are pushing them big because it ...

I mocked Google's efforts with Buzz here. And they deserved it. Now Google is rolling out the "Google + Project." Sounds like a bad band name doesn't it? The want desperately to take on Facebook where it lives- in the "social." They've been trying with this straight up Google + (plus) thing that for all intents and purposes looks like nothing more than a glorified delicious or digg knock-off designed to be some bookmarking device? Here are some of mine: That's not too social- but what Mashable has to show is looks promising. Some highlights: Sparks addresses my above concern. Using the +1 system, they are going to develop interests online and more or less become friend/associated curated content for you. Circles- meant to directly compete with Facebook's trying to delineate your social down to more manageable chunks. It has specific group chat and photo functions! They have a "group video chat" called "Hangouts." They are al...

I decided to experiment with my CR-48 Chrome/Google Notebook today. I was travelling all over town with a group so it was a perfect chance to test the available of networks and ultimately to finally test the Verizon wi-fi . Lessons learned: 1. my town SUCKS for free internet. Hopefully they can solve this. You'd think in the locations I was that there would be more available networks. Nearly every single one was protected. The few that I found were extremely weak signals. 2. Chrome based work RELIES on internet. I wish they would figure some way to do some work without the link, but until they find a way to have some connection or some space (heck, even a usb)- this bad boy is WORTHLESS without an internet connection. 3. The Verizon wireless provided by Google was a joke. 100mb? I burned through it in just about one and half hours without trying. I did not do much. Seriously, the last thing I did was write this post. I still love this notebook. I still like the cloud,...

Image via CrunchBase I've mentioned my CR-48 usage. (Makes me think of Commodore 64 , ah the good OLD days. Still don't have a good name for it other than "Chrome Notebook.) In my last missive, I mentioned Grooveshark . A conversation on Damond Nollan's Blogtalk show prompted me to recommend it and I am doing so again. Since the Chrome Notebook is beholden to the cloud, I've searched for options for music listening. Little did I realize how serious people were about their iTunes. I've NEVER liked iTunes. I downloaded it, but that sucker is such a DRAIN on computers. It was slow clunky and I hated dealing with it. Grooveshark, while slightly clunky, has a simple interface, is fairly intuitive, and pretty much has much of what you are looking for. I've found about 90% of any music I've ever looked for. It allows for easy sharing to Facebook and Twitter. You can easily set up playlists and designate favorites. My only gripe is my fault. They have a mobile...

Make sure you sing that title to Aerosmith 's "Living on the Edge." Been living with the Cr 48 or Chrome OS Notebook for a week now. Doing most of my web work on it when I can. Impressions 1. Reviews online that complain about the hardware need to quit their complaining. This was a FREE prototype. Reviews that complain that the system is wonky, knock it off. This is the beta test!  2. The devil might not have made the trackpad , but some demon did. I finally got the feel of the two fingered scrolling and even got the hang of right clicking with two fingers. However, it was still jumping all over the place! Probably just a hair too big. 3. The webcam and microphone are silly. But then again, I did not pay for them, but then again why include them? 4. The offline experience blows. This was built for the internet and the cloud, when you can not connect to them. Ugh. One glaring drawback that would kill this for any non-serious computer user. 5. Ain't nothi...

I just about gave my wife a heart attack this afternoon opening a non-descript box at lunch time. She had ordered something online and we expected it to be it- some cleaning stuff. It wasn't. It was a Chrome Notebook from Google. I am fairly sure I had a similar reaction to my daughter's birth. Except, I was probably louder this time. I'm not going into an indepth review, other smarter people have done that already. I was just giddy that I got one. Three quick impressions: 1. it's fast. period. open it and it rolls, close it and it's off. 2. the touchpad is from the devil. i finally got the two fingered scrolling to make some sense, but the damn thing still jumps around. i ordered a wireless mouse to ease my pain. 3. i think cloud living will work for internet stuff. i am still trying to find work arounds for certain system based things and why doesn't the flash card work? Otherwise, Google, you beat Santa  this year, well played.

  Let's look back at some predictions for this past year and how good or bad they were- First Techcrunch:  http://techcrunch.com/2010/01/01/ten-technologies-2010/ The Tablet -  definitely, iPads are the rage and with others making the moves in the last year, they are the netbooks for the next year. Geo:  Sadly, not as much as you might want to think.  Techcrunch REALLY pushed this as far back as 2009  and it is still not as prevalent as folks who use it think it is versus those that don't. Realtime Search-  There is real-time searching? Yes, but do people really care? Chrome OS  It only took another year and they are finally doing it. Try again in 2011. HTML5  Yes,  but again- another slow burn. Seems to be a theme? Y Mobile Video-  Seriously? Augmented Reality-  Huh? Mobile Transactions -  Wha? Android-  most definitely. This past year and in the last few months saw a huge uptick. 2011 could be a huge year for Googl...