I just recieved my Chromebook in the mail last night and I was super excited. I thought the test flight program had ceased, so I figured I'd probably never really have hands on with the Chrome OS. Now that I've had the device for around 20 hours, I don't feel like I would be missing much. 

The concept is great: you spend most of your time in a browser anyway, so that's all Chrome will give you. That might be great for 75% of the world, but for a system administrator, it doesn't do anything I need it to do. While I'm on the topic of "normal people," almost everyone that checked out the CR-48 at work today asked where the rest of it is. 

I figured I'd go through day 1 with the Chromebook so you can see the challenges I faced while attempting to use it.

When I showed up at work (at a bank), I went to connect the machine to the network. Oh wait, what's that? Wifi-only? No Ethernet? Well, that sums up the day. I couldn't even use it. More secure enviroments don't allow wifi, so no Internet really kills the Chromebooks usability. I didn't want that to stop me, so I continued to use my desktop, primarily using just the Chrome browser. 

There are really two things I have to have in order to survive in my line of work. First is a CLI of sorts. I need to be able to SSH and telnet to devices. Second is a terminal services/VNC/RDC connection. Chromebook provides none of those things. (Even the SSH clients in the Web Store require Java Runtime Environment, which cannot run on the Chromebook.) It's such a let down.

I came home, excited to have another go with the Chromebook, but I need to lauch a site. I can't access my server in any way. The only thing I can think to do with this thing is surf the web and write blog posts about how limiting the Chromebook is. Even that is difficult because of the crummy trackpad. Scrolling is atrocious, the edge of my thumbs click clicking elsewhere on the page, repositioning the cursor, highlighting and deleting text. Oh this is so much fun!

Real quick, a list of must-haves before I feel this device can make it in any kind of professional environment and a short list of pros:

Cons

• No VPN
• No SSH/Telnet
• No VNC/RDC
• Crappy trackpad

Pros

• Really fast startup/resume
• Long battery life
• Built in Verizon 3G
• Price 

With these things in mind, I can't recommend the device to any serious computer user. Even the trackpad would seriously frustrate the casual user. Maybe the new hardware manufacturers will address that issue before it launches in June. At that point, the surfers of the world should be happy, but if you want to do anything besides browse the web, keep looking. 

Update: I was able to get the Cr-48 into developer mode which allows the user to access the Linux core. From there I could SSH to my server and such. The only downside is I have to hit CTRL+D and look at a frowny face every time I reboot. :)

Instacast is a very solid podcast app. Made it to the front page of my iPhone. Checks for new episodes while you’re on the go. You can cache the podcast so when you’re out, no need to use 3G data. Continues downloads in the background…

Everything about this app is beautiful, functional and amazing. ★★★★★

A lot of people have really given Apple some flack about the newest version of iTunes. Of course, I have things that I wish would've been done, but overall, I believe it's a step in the right direction.

Many people are complaining about the icon. I can't believe people get so outraged by something so insignificant. Would you rather have the Windows Media Player icon? I didn't think so.

Others have critiqued the monochrome icons in the Library. I think they look slick. Just my opinion. This leads to the next complaint that you can't distiguish between the app being in focus or running in the background. Honestly, I don't like that the apps get brighter white when they're out of focus. Does it matter if iTunes is in focus? If it's on top, that's close enough for me. The stoplight seems to give it away for me.

Oh yeah, the stoplight. It's sideways. Who cares? It conserves screen real estate. I'm ok with that.

On to my gripe... That's right, just one. How can Apple release a new version of iTunes and completely neglect Remote.app for iOS4? I need to remotely control my music, but I can't even connect my phone to my iTunes library. I've been waiting for Retina support, and this is making the wait even more unbearable.

Recently I migrated from Blogger and Wordpress to Posterous since I read lots of great things and saw many people migrating as well. Sometimes you shouldn't follow the crowd without realizing what you're getting into. Here's my problems with Posterous at its current state. Hopefully this will help educate you on some of the quirks you may face. 

1. No "Save as Draft." Are you kidding me? Where am I supposed to jot my ideas, compose my posts, and let them sit for later proofreading? Apparently Text Edit on my Mac like I'm doing now. This blows my mind. I guess they're taking a new approach to things with this "email a post and we'll blast it out," idea that leaves traditional bloggers out in the cold. Call me selfish, but I'm thinking for us people that use our editors to collect our thoughts and create posts, that feature should be included.
2. CSS. Many people that want a simple blog don't care about this, but for people that are remotely interested in customizing a site for them, access to the CSS is necessary. I don't want to have to manually override with my CSS all the time.
3. The layout/features of the post editor. Why hide things like tags, date, and Autopost options? That stuff is important. Since it's hidden, I almost always forget to go check/uncheck boxes and tag my posts. Where is the geotagging box? On the other hand, the media uploader is nice.
4. Search. It doesn't work…at all. End of story.
5. Visitor Stats. Not that any other service I've used has done a phenomenal job of this, but I'd like to have more traffic stats inside Posterous. Instead, they have made it easy to add Google Analytics, which is nice, but I want something easier.
6. Speed. I don't know if it's the large about of scripting that's going on for the various functions on the site or the 3-5 page redirects I get every time I navigate to a page on my site, but Posterous seems very slow.
7. Mobile Support.  Posterous boasts about their mobile theme being included and ready to go, but I'm not impressed. Lots to improve there.

I'll jump off my soap box now. Hopefully these things will be addressed in future releases, but until then, be mindful of its limitations before committing.

Stick around for "What's Right with Posterous."

I guess I missed the announcement, but when I fired up Pulsar to finish listening to a radio show from the trek home from work, I saw that Pulsar 2.0 was released. I read the first couple of points in the changelog and couldn't wait to get this app installed.

In case you didn't know, I love music. Therefore, Sirius is a necessity for me. Unfortunately, Sirius requires me to pay a separate fee for online streaming, but that's a rant for another day. Pulsar is a Mac-only application that streams Sirius stations to your Mac.

The app functioned great before, but the new features make it even better.

What's New in 2.0:

• Pause Live Radio - Click the Pause button to pause audio at any point! When you come back, you can pick up right where you left off, or jump ahead.
• Evolved Interface - Pulsar's interface looks better than ever, and it's now even easier to use.
• Improved Favorites - Favorites can now be sorted, by simply dragging them in the Favorites view.
• Growl Integration - Pulsar now shows your current song info via Growl, so you can see it in any app.
• Last.FM Integration Too - If you use Last.fm to track your listening habits, Pulsar can scrobble your listening data.

Overall, it's a nicely executed, beautiful and greatly appreciated update to an app I'd almost forgotten I purchased. Oh, and of course I have to share a screen capture.

Recently in the great MacHeist bundle, LateNightSoft gave away an early release of their new software, Squeeze. Essentially Squeeze compresses and decompresses files on the fly to allow you to get the most out of your hard drive space. This is great for someone that is low on space and wants every ounce, but there is a catch.

Don't use this one a primary machine that you backup with Time Machine. Every time you open a file and Squeeze is called to decompress or compress, Time Machine marks the file as changed. Therefore Time Machine backups to grab the last couple of songs you downloaded in iTunes is now a 3-6 hour affair.

I didn't realize what was going on at first. I thought that maybe I was making changes, or my VMs were causing issues, but I never remembered it taking this long before. That's when I started checking LateNightSoft's website in their FAQ.

Toward the bottom it reads:

Is Squeeze compatible with Time Machine?

Yes. Time Machine will have no problem in backing up compressed files. However, there is one inconvenient. After Squeezing files, Time Machines detects that the, now compressed, files have changed and makes a new backup for them. So, your newly compressed folders will be completely backed up again. We are looking for a way to improve this in a future release.

So yes, it works, but not very well. Until they sort this out, I recommend avoiding it, unless of course you're not using Time Machine...then go for it.

On another note, I highly recommend their product Xslimmer. More on that later.

Last week Cloud App was introduced to the public. I want to say it's the best file sharing service out there, which it still may be, but there are some issues. Let's discuss.

First off, Cloud App allows you to upload files via an application on the Mac, or from any web browser. From there, if using the Mac application, the URL is automatically copied to your clipboard, which is great. Now you're ready to share the link with others. Dead simple.

There are even "raindrops" that allow other applications to upload the selected item(s) with a keyboard shortcut. Awesome! It's super easy for me to upload a picture from Aperture and paste the link in an email or in a blog post.

If we stopped there, I'd be sold. My issues come in when you start trying to edit your files. Once uploaded, it is impossible to rename the file, so if you aren't going to recognize "DSC_0028" later, better change it before you initiate the upload.

My other issue is with deleting files. More specifically, accidentally deleting files. The cute icon that helps you distinguish the type of file is linked turns into the delete "X" when you hover over it with your mouse. I thought I was going to open the file and clicked on the icon quickly, before I noticed it was changing to an "X" and bam, the file was gone. There was no confirmation, and no way to recover the file. Luckily I still had a copy of the file on the camera's SD card.

I was trying to share a rather large file and Cloud App didn't even acknowledge that I was dragging a file to it. It didn't even give me an error message. Finally I did some research in @getcloudapp's Twitter feed to find out what was going on. It turns out the file size limit is 50MB. It would be nice if that tidbit was made known.

Overall, I believe the Cloud App service is great. These nuisances can be remedied in a simple update, and I look forward to the day that these issues are fixed. I definitely recommend checking it out because for the price of free, you can't beat it's ease of use.

Also, check Dropbox for cloud storage, syncing files across multiple computers and OS's and public file sharing.  Click this link and we'll both get an extra 200MB added to our free accounts.

One of my favorite apps to help me keep my life in check is Things by CulturedCode. I'm going to make this brief, as their are thousands of in-depth reviews and how-to's out there.

Things is a GTD app that helps me keep all my lists and to-dos in check. It has "Areas" that allow me to create tasks for work and for home separately. Also, it has the ability to schedule reoccurring tasks, such as paying rent or giving my dog his flea preventative.

The Focus areas are nice, and allow me to see what's coming up, so I can make sure to stay on top of all my tasks.

Overall, it's a well designed, beautiful app with an iPhone app that provides almost all of the same functions. Syncing is easy, though it requires wifi.

This brings me to complaints. I want to be able to sync through a server, even if I have to host it myself, I'd like to be able to sync over the air, remotely. Also, a web GUI would be great, since I don't have a Mac at work. Also, on launch, I'd like to be able to select which Focus area to show. I prefer "Next," not the default, "Today."

I've tried many GTD apps, but this is my favorite overall. Though it has it's shortcomings, it's by far the best on the market. With a couple more features and tweaks, Things could be everything I ever dreamed of.

My Mac has 17.5 GB of audio files and 140.8 GB of video files in iTunes. Now, that's a lot more than my 16GB iPhone can hold, in case you couldn't do the math. iTunes allows me to select what movies I want to sync as well as which TV shows to sync. I wish I had a little bit more control of the TV shows thing, but I can live with that.

My complaint here is that not all of my audio files fit on my phone. I'm using the "Sync only checked song and videos" option for my phone which means I have a large selection of my music library unchecked. I check the songs I want on my iPhone and uncheck the ones that I'll just listen to on my computer. Which brings me to my problem.

When I'm just hanging out around the house, I put on some music and let it play through. iTunes decided that since I don't have songs checked, I never want to hear them. Well, I do. I just don't have room for them on my iPhone.

Thinking that Apple has a solution for everything, I checked my iTunes preferences, sure there would be an option to "play unchecked songs." I was wrong. When an unchecked song comes up in the playlist, it is skipped. If I double click the unchecked song, it will play, but once it finishes it will move on to the next checked song. Am I the only person that thinks this is painfully annoying?

So let me propose an solution: add a line in the preferences to "Skip unchecked song in playback," so that I can uncheck that box. Thanks!

I thought the idea was grand when I first heard it. Eye-Fi had created SD cards for digital cameras that had WiFi capabilities. This allowed you to send pictures from your camera over to your computer without having to dig out that annoying USB cable. Additionally it is able to use WPS (WiFi Positioning System) technology to geotag your photos. For $60, I was sold.

Until I looked at their card comparison... I thought 2GB would be plenty for me and that the $50 card would suffice. Then I noticed the Eye-Fi Pro. Oh, so you mean to tell me the Eye-Fi Home only does jpeg photos and not RAW? Are you serious? So now, I'd be forced to upgrade to the Pro version and pay $150. Additionally, the geotagging (which requires WiFi access points to even work, isn't available until you get the Explore Video ($99).

So I was very excited about this initially, but now... well, you can keep your card, and I'll keep my USB cable.