love my chromebook, but...

it was 2002 when i installed thinkfree office as a cross-platform alternative to a popular proprietary office suite. that is when i began moving my life to the cloud. i realized that having to manage data on several computers running different operating systems was silly. i needed access to much of the same stuff on my mac, sparcstation, linux and windows pcs, and i didn't want to have to maintain multiple copies. the cloud made sense to me, though it wasn't then quite the buzzword that it has since become.

back then i predicted that we would one day run most of our software over the internet on a subscription basis. while we haven't arrived there yet, we're certainly going that way. i can now edit documents, touch up photos, record music and video, take notes, send email and text messages, make phone calls, listen to music, read books, watch movies and television shows, and write code all online. since that pretty well sums up most everything i do on a computer today i decided to take the plunge and pick up a chromebook, the samsung series 5 with 3g (in a lovely arctic white.) i have to say, i'm loving it, and i will keep you posted here about my adventures in google's vision of the cloud.

before i wrap up this post, i'll share my impressions after my first week with chromebook. i have to say, there are so many things i love about this device that i can't list them all. speed and convenience are at the top, though. but i have two needs that the chromebook doesn't address. one, i must have a local rdp client. i need to communicate with my company's terminal server from the public internet, but i also need to talk to virtualbox machines that are running on private networks. web-based rdp-to-html5 services can't access my private ip addresses, so a local client is a must. word is, google is working on this, so i'll wait. the second is java. now, if the chromebook had a jre then my first concern might disappear—i've found a very fine java rdp client. but there are many web sites that use java, not the least of which are those that host games like minecraft and runescape. after all, all work and no play...

i've looked at clouds from both sides now

i like saying buzzwords. not because i have any practical use for them, just because it's fun. it's entertaining when standing around at some quasi-professional gathering to work a phrase like "cloud computing" into the conversation. the other person's eyes glaze over, a little dollop of spittle forms at the corner of their mouth, and they become totally engrossed in whatever i have to say. i have become the subject matter expert, and they are now completely in my power. well, we all have our hobbies.

really, one of mine is finding new and innovative ways to do things. i ran across eyeos rather by accident, but was intrigued by the possibility of putting the whole os "in the cloud" on a local network. yes, it is reminiscent of the dumb terminals and time-sharing systems of yore, but still, an operating system that runs in a web browser has some appeal.

now, i know that it's not the right call for everyone. i certainly don't have any practical use for this right now, myself. but it has got me thinking, and i like that. it's also caused me to take an interest in php scripting, the heart of eyeos applications—and being motivated to learn something new is always cool.

'cause when we stop learning, we start dying.