I’ve read a few interesting reviews of Google’s Cr-48 Chrome OS notebook. It looks like the thing boots straight into the browser in about 10 seconds, and does EVERYTHING on the internet. In fact, if there is no internet connection, there is no functionality on the laptop.
It’s interesting that everything is going to the cloud. We had a brief discussion about it on the NoobToob Modcast Festivus episode recently. I have purchased several games on Steam and GOG, and I’ve generally been pleased with not needing to keep track of the box or the key. If I want to switch computers, all I have to do is pull it down from the cloud onto whatever machine I want. So far, I haven’t had any problems.
A close friend of mine recently told a story about how many of her e-mails were wiped out when a family member who “knows computers” came in and “fixed” her machine. Apparently, the e-mail software she uses pulls the messages from her ISP’s remote server, and once it does, they are erased on the other end.
This sounded so strange to me. I’ve kept my e-mails out in the cloud for nearly all of my internet experience, starting with Rocketmail and moving on to Hotmail. The only thing that I’ve had to deal with is Hotmail’s messages that are 5 years or older and not in a folder. Either way, I haven’t worried about losing the information with the loss of my machine. I backup my information locally, but I generally store it in the cloud.
By the way, some of you may recognize today’s image. It’s Kickle after he has rescued the princesses. I used it for my signature on the NoobToob forums for a long time, and I decided to take a break today and use it for my “clouds” theme. I’ll have new, fresh work up on Monday.