Chrome OS Pilot Program: Applying - Receiving - Setting Up!

On Tuesday December 7 of 2010 Google's Chrome Team announced  that Chrome OS was ready for real user testing. The Chrome Web Store opened and a Pilot Program was launched for qualified users to try out the Cr-48 notebook, which would be sent free. Of course, I immediately applied for mine, hoping to be selected to participate and have input into what promises to be a turning point not just for innovators but for all who live life on the web. I have been living a virtual life for years and every day it mimics my real life more and more. After becoming a Google Certified Teacher, and even before, most of it has been linked to Google in a big way. The support team for their products is what makes them a great company. Every time something comes up they are and have been very responsive, so every time something new comes up I want to be there ASAP, knowing that if the product is good it will change and or transform how I live my life.

Since the release of the Chrome browser there has been a change in how I live life on the internet. The announcement last year of a Chrome operating system was a real hope of a new way of doing so. Applications that are web based means no hard drive spinning under my fingers, unnecessarily consuming energy. I do most of my word processing using Google Docs, maybe about 90% I would say. There is very little I save in my devices other than video editing. My pictures live between Picasa, Flicker, Facebook and others I have forgotten already; my videos after editing live mostly on youtube; I don't archive email to my hard drives; hey, I learned from many crashes that whatever I put in local drives will follow Murphy's law! My 'stuff' lives in many places, most of them not local. My backup drive still exists, but it is mostly for video that needs to be edited sometime. In all, I want to live life not worrying about my 'stuff' being lost when I leave my laptop behind and without having to rely on the life of computing devices that have proven to be unpredictably reliable.

So, nack to the pilot program, I received my Cr-48 on Friday December 10 of 2010. What a thrill! The device looks awesome. No brand, no logos, just a black laptop. The keyboard is all lowercase and without a caps lock key, so no more yelling online! (Yes, you can reassign the search key that is placed where the usual caps lock key was to be what you are used to having there, but why would you? I know I won't.) The simplicity of it is exhilarating. Computers tend to have too many buttons, which is why Macbooks look more attractive than PC's most of the time. Minimalism is attractive for someone like me who prefers to understand the fundamental aspects of life over the complexities of appearances. Function keys are replaced by buttons that are easy to understand - back, forward, refresh, next tab, full screen, brightness and volume. Great, they make guessing a thing of the past! Everything else on the keyboard is what we are used to.





Once turned on (it turns on right away, very fast!) the setup is simple: choose your location in the world and of course, choose your internet access point. Remember, it lives to go online. Next step is you as a user: setup your username and password - Google account of course. Then take a picture, if you want of course, but how could you say no? It's the first chance to test the camera! Once the picture is taken the notebook does some update for a few minutes as it gets ready to be used. After this you are immediately greeted by the Pilot Program's welcome screen. This makes you realize that you are in the Chrome browser and that there is no exit button. No desktop, no Start button, no Finder, just Chrome. The same experience I have been having for some time now browsing in Chrome is extended now to be the only thing I do. Simplicity again makes for bliss. My computer is setup and works without me having to name it three times, go through pages of agreements and warnings - it just works. Up to now it has been a beautiful experience.

As the title of this post says, up to setup. Now it's time to use it and see what it's like to have the latest innovation in my hands and have the opportunity to give feedback to a great team of developers that have been putting forth great products for years. Thanks to the Chrome Team of course! Next post will come shortly - there's much to say about the experience - right now of course I am blogging from the Cr-48!!!