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Re: [LUG] OT: Chrome Books - opinions...?

 

On 13/05/11 10:25, Roland Tarver wrote:
On Fri, May 13, 2011 at 9:28 AM, Gordon Henderson
<gordon+dcglug@xxxxxxxxxx>  wrote:
On Thu, 12 May 2011, Roland Tarver wrote:

It all sounds lovely, but - everything in "the cloud" :-s ??? Really?
Although I have no evidence or experience to prove it (except the
recent amazon outage) I just don't have a good gut "feeling" about all
my data (or mums, etc) in "the cloud"? Do you? Do others?
Lots of news buzzing about on this recently - the Chrome Book, etc. the
Register had an article on it some time back when they got the beta
version (Cr-48)

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/12/14/google_chrome_os_cr_48/

and reading today,

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2011/05/13/the_chromebook_proposition/

it seems that there is now a local file-manager built into the OS - and that
means local (or USB, etc.) storage. So it does look like it's going to be
possible to get files out of the remote storage "cloud" and keep them
locally - for backup, etc.
I think there should be at least an option like this for those who
are, ?understandably, cautious?

Still doesnn't address the need for the application though - if that's
hosted remotely, then you might have your data, but nothing to process it
with! Keeping a local cache of application might work though, who knows!
Vendor lock in?

I won't be rushing out to buy one, but have they released the software yet
to allow people to install it on their own devices? It was something I did
look into some time back (over a year), but never really put much effort
into it. (Or is it just android with the chrome browser and a few local apps
:)

Gordon
http://url.drogon.net/r

Another persons opinion about this. Rightly or wrongly his thinking is
close to mine. It will be very interesting to see what people choose
to do in the coming years.... I guess time will tell....

Largely from Grants comments, I am going to have a look at google docs
- just to see what *I* would feel happy using it for. :-)

Many thanks to all those you commented.

Best wishes
roly :-)

As far as I can tell there are all the tools you need for free to do almost whatever you want in computing. There are two ways to make money out of you: 1) provide a service. For me this would be connectivity, a web server and associated storage. 2) Or do what google, ms, apple et all are trying to do - keep you ignorant and provide 1/2 service - one that doesnt encourage you to actually learn about computers and what they can do and how to use them so they can charge you for the privilege of using your 21st century technology to emulate a victorian office. The only docs you should ever write are emails or possibly web pages. Spreadsheets are like programming without the last 30 years of software engineering experience added and should never be used in enterprise. Facebook should be a small app on your webserver that allows you full control of YOUR data that you can allow friends to connect into. Modern computing solutions car be compared to Ford selling you a car with a half blacked out windscreen, charging you for a chauffeur, charging you to drive down certain roads to buy certain FORD compatible bits, making the engine oil run out really quickly so things go wonky and you think you need new ones. Learn to drive, learn to map read and then you may be shocked to discover that the CPU is in fact a matter transporter and most of the driving around was unnecessary.
Tom te tom te tom

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