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 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,...

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.