Google's Cr-48 - Part Two

Our 8 hour drive was pretty uneventful... as far as the Cr-48 and the internet are concerned. I blew through the 100mb of free data during the first few days of having the netbook, so I caved and paid the $9.99 unlimited data day-pass. I’ll admit, I was impressed watching Jenna check in to Facebook and surf the web in ease while I was driving through some small towns in rural southern Georgia. Now, in all fairness, Jenna doesn’t like to be constantly connected like I do, so she didn’t spend much more than an hour or so on the web, but the signal never faltered, which is really saying something considering how far away from civilization we were. No amount of cows or silos blocked the 3G signal. It is now our 2nd morning in South Carolina and the only time the Cr-48 has NOT been connected to the cloud is when I turned it off... which is when we were sleeping.

Google's Cr-48 - Part One

The unboxing was rather uneventful due to the fact that I was at work and had no idea the Cr-48 was even coming. I received a phone call at close to 5 on Wednesday afternoon by my girlfriend asking if I ordered anything because there was a package for me. After a minute or two, the only thing I could think of was..... Google! So I asked Jenna to open it and let me know if the box inside had a hamster on it. Imagine my surprise when she said "Yeah, and a helmet, and a wheel, and a rocket..." 

Holy crap. I REALLY got one.

The next few entries in this blog will be about my experience with the Cr-48, Chrome’s experimental netbook running the Chrome Operating System (Chrome OS). For those that don’t know, Cr-48 is the periodic element for Chromium.
First, I’d like to thank Google for sending me one, especially since they wanted me to tell them why I am unique and why I should be part of the lucky 60,000 test subjects to receive a Cr-48. And what exactly did I tell them? I simply said that “Out of the hundreds of thousands that will be applying for this program.... I am not unique”. But I do know how to play online. So either my name got chosen by mistake, or they really want to test people from all walks of life.

So stay tuned for Part One.

Santa Google, I really hope you visit me!

It’s that time again. When the air gets a little chilly, and people all over the world enter a berserk-like frenzy in trying to go to all the retail stores in town and spend their next 9 paychecks to buy gifts for friends and family. While a very select few will get an early Festivus gift from Santa Google. Even though I signed up for the Pilot Program, sadly, I doubt I will be counted in that lucky few category that will be receiving a CR-48 Netbook from Google, as they are probably sending them to programmers, developers, and tech websites, and I am none of the above. Of well, I can still read all the reviews and watch the videos and learn as much as possible about ChromeOS that is loaded on them. I would tell you what it is, but there are so many better places to learn that from. Engadget.com has the best review I’ve seen on ChromeOS and the CR-48 and you can read that here (it has pictures and video too!). And yes, that’s really all I’ve been reading about for a few days since Google announced it.

Well, the next few weeks will be kinda busy. We are hosting a Christmas dinner for my girlfriends family (20+ people) tomorrow night (help me!), so that should be interesting. Follow that up with one more week of work, with some last-minute hectic berserk-like shopping, and then a beautiful 10 full days away from work with a trip to my dad’s place in South Carolina thrown in. I really need this break too, as the last “vacation” I had was when we bought our house and I took a week off. That wasn’t a vacation. That was working at home. Moving, unpacking, cleaning, driving, lifting, and sleeping somewhere in between. So it’s been close to 2 years since I’ve taken any decent amount of time to recharge my batteries.Yes, I really do need this.

I do apologize for the infrequent posts, but I'm not that great at keeping a schedule. Unless there's food involved. Or video games. Or sleep.

Happy Turkey Day!

It seems that another Thanksgiving is upon us, and do you have any idea what that means? If you guessed a long weekend and plenty of leftovers, you’re right! So let’s start off the Turkey day with a new blog post!
I’d like to take this chance (because I haven’t posted since the news came out) to congratulate all of the employees of Google for getting a 10% raise. Now I know that every one of you that just read that sentence were imagining me using a LOT of sarcasm. Don’t. I am genuinely happy for Google’s employees. Why wouldn’t I be? I am a loyal Google-ite and I want to continue to see quality products produced by this team. Google made a lot of money this year, as they do every year, and their employees worked hard, so Google does the right thing by showing their appreciation for a job well done by providing raises. I’m just jealous that I don’t work for Google, or at least a company that shares the same values.

Now, the (former) employee that leaked the raise intel has been fired for doing so and I really feel bad for this guy. Yes, it was an inter-office memo from Eric Schmidt for Google employees only and leaking that memo was incredibly stupid, but firing him for it? Seems a bit harsh. Well..... if he was a quality employee, it seems harsh. If his superiors were just waiting for a good reason to fire him due to poor work, then that’s another thing. I don’t know anything about the guy, well except the fact that he is now unemployed. Happy holidays! I hear Facebook is hiring.

I mean really, is anyone genuinely mad at Google for giving raises this year? Am I mad at Google? How can I be? I don’t work there. People take offense to things that in no way affect their lives. What is wrong with us?