Chromebook!

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Tue Oct 01, 2013 11:30 am

On viruses/security/porn, though based on following it on media and messing with a crappy one in-store:

I think Chromebook is great for that, because its OS is new and (from what I've heard) basically a big ol web browser. Generally the less you can fiddle with important bits the safer a computer is. Chromebook is not meant for heavy customization outside of apps and wallpapers.

But then again, Google is watching you on that thing. Possibly even with your webcam (half joke!)

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Tue Oct 01, 2013 12:17 pm

Pseudo Stupidity wrote:
But then again, Google is watching you on that thing. Possibly even with your webcam (half joke!)

In all seriousness, Google/facebook/your-internet-mom are always monitoring your activity. It doesn't matter if you use a Chromebook or not for that.

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Tue Oct 01, 2013 6:21 pm

Facebook only sees what you show it (and what other people show it). Google goes to great lengths to know what you're doing if you use any of their services. I still use gmail and Google search because I think they're good services and the spying isn't worth using Bing yet, but it still creeps me out that they read my mail and keep my search history saved.

I'm certain the Chrome OS has something that lets Google know everything you're doing on it. It's how they make all that sweet, sweet money.

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Tue Oct 01, 2013 11:59 pm

Yes, Facebook only sees what you show it but you are also friends with various people who often tag you or put up pictures of you on random picture sharing sites.

Also, most people aren't aware of all the privacy settings on facebook so while that might be a case of user ignorance, there is still responsibility on the websites.

Starmaker · Post by **Starmaker** » Wed Oct 02, 2013 8:17 am

I'm pretty sure Facebook builds web profiles of nonmembers, too.

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Wed Oct 02, 2013 11:34 am

Facebook does build profiles of old members (and keeps adding to them based on what other people post). Not sure if it does non-members, because nobody would buy that data since it's so likely to be inaccurate.

I'm always amused when Zuck says something like "We just want to help everyone connect." No you don't, you want to harvest data and KEEP harvesting data even when people tell you they don't want you to do that.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Wed Oct 02, 2013 11:52 am

The annoying thing is that Facebook makes it very difficult for other people to get the data that should be publicly available.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Wed Oct 02, 2013 8:14 pm

So, new discoveries today:

1) GoogleDocs fucks up formatting. Really badly. So while it's moderately okay to read documents in GoogleDocs, you don't actually want to take that as it currently is with all its invisible fucking cloud of fucking with you and actually paste it anywhere where other people will see it. This is a good lesson, and I have learned it well.

2) My scanner doesn't work with the chromebook. The opinion online as to which scanners do actually work with the chromebook boil down to "it depends." Also noted.

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Thu Oct 03, 2013 7:45 pm

Pseudo Stupidity wrote:Facebook does build profiles of old members (and keeps adding to them based on what other people post). Not sure if it does non-members, because nobody would buy that data since it's so likely to be inaccurate.

I'm always amused when Zuck says something like "We just want to help everyone connect." No you don't, you want to harvest data and KEEP harvesting data even when people tell you they don't want you to do that.

Not sure if it is still true, but facebook used to track everyone (including non-members).
And including any site with a facebook 'like' button etc.

http://www.firstpost.com/tech/facebook- ... 33684.html

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Fri Oct 11, 2013 11:38 pm

So, the chromebook saga continues. I have recently had a favor called in to scan some stuff from a crop of hideously overpriced forty-year old gentlemen's magazines, stuff from back in the days when the "incense" adds weren't meth, silvia, and artificial weed but frickin' cocaine. Anyway, a few things quickly became apparent:

Chromebooks don't play well with scanners. Or at least not my ancient scanner/printer chimera. Just will not handle the drivers. I then tried to store the scans on an SD card and move them over that way (since both have an SD card slot), but my scanner/printer shat itself and died.

So, time to go get a new scanner. I wanted a decent, reasonably priced flatbed, and held out vague hopes that I could get one from any of the local big box stores.

Ha.

First off, it turns out that flatbed scanners don't exist on the normal market anymore. Online, maybe, special retailer/manufacturer, maybe, but not at 6PM in Middle Georgia. I went to five stores and there were two flatbed scanners, and they both sucked. It's like someone had figured out how to make hippogriffs and all the crazy bastard horse and falconry guys go together until there were no more fucking horses and eagles for sale, just goddamned hippogriffs. Nothing but 3-in-1 printers as far as the eye could see. And all of them have the exact same fucking size scanning plane.

Anyway, the thing with chromebook and printers/scanners is that it doesn't like the drivers and doesn't have much memory, and most (99%?) don't have any sort of "save to GoogleDrive" feature. So what you want is something with wifi capabilities (so you can access it over the network) and, even then, preferably a USB and SD card slot so you have some options in moving shit over. In this regard I was spoilt for choice, as there are any number of scanner/printer abortions that meet those bare requirements. The trick then is to try and find the shit with the least amount of annoying, useless accessories and add-on crap.

I ended up with a $200 hp thing that looked like an old fashioned laserdisc player and which goes by the brandname Envy. Not even fucking kidding. That's 2/3 the price of this fucking chromebook, or close enough. I still don't know why. Let's hope this shit works!

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sat Oct 12, 2013 11:52 am

so . . 300 for the chromebook and 200 for the scanner . . 500 would have probably gotten you a nice enough laptop with windows as well and you could have used your old scanner i think?

yeah, that's kinda what i hate about computer stuff x.x

erik · Post by **erik** » Sat Oct 12, 2013 12:50 pm

Except his old scanner/printer shit the bed.

It seems like a conundrum as I have no idea how Chromebooks are set for drivers. When I look at industry specs for various scanners they only mention Windows and Mac.

I see there are cheaper Envy wireless flatbeds out there, but they may not have a large enough scanning surface for your needs. This Envy at least goes to 8.5x14 and is $130+tax.

Here's reviews of larger flatbeds...
http://large-format-scanner-review.toptenreviews.com/

Of course the highest rated one (which goes 11x17) is mentioned as cheapest and is $300

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Sat Oct 12, 2013 12:58 pm

The big problem in both cases is less price than availability: this is the crap that was available in my hick-ass town on zero notice.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Sat Oct 12, 2013 1:08 pm

I'm sorry, Ancient History. I hope the scanner does what you need it to. And if you use it as a printer, I hope the ink isn't that expensive.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Sat Oct 12, 2013 4:48 pm

So, today's lessons.

1) The HP envy actually works fairly well with the HP-built chromebook. The wireless printing is efficient, and you scan to email really easily, which is good because for some reason trying to scan to portable media isn't working out as well.

2) Editing this material is a son-of-a-bitch. Ghost, do I miss having Adobe installed. You get what you pay for, and in this case that's a billion fucking free apps each of which (maybe) does one thing and at least half of which just point you at a webservice with limitations, delays, etc. Right now I have to scan it as an image, edit it in a free knock-off of AdobeIllustrator, then upload it to a site to convert it to a PDF, and THEN I need an entirely separate app just to merge the one-page PDFs together. Chromebook, thou art not designed for document design work.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Sat Oct 12, 2013 6:50 pm

Have you tried Pixlr?

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Sat Oct 12, 2013 6:55 pm

PixIr is fine for editing images, but it won't convert to PDF or from PDF.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Thu Oct 17, 2013 7:19 pm

I feel I should clarify the "efficiency" of the whole wireless printing process. This is not, as one would maybe hope, the kind of thing where the wireless chromebook talks to the wireless printer and magic happens. Instead, this is some sort of net-based back-hack that HP has worked out through linked accounts online. So instead of going to your wireless network and seeing what devices are available, the chromebook is basically emailing the print file to the wireless printer through some clusterfuck of google and hp servers. Upshot being: it can take several minutes from when you hit the "print" button onscreen to paper coming out, and I'm not entirely sure if I could get the two devices to talk to each other if there was no internet. I mean, presumably there must be a way, but I haven't figured it out yet.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Sun Oct 27, 2013 1:21 am

I know that the chromebook is not a real computer. I accept this on many levels. I know that this means I need to research things ahead of time, because there are things I know it cannot do that I would expect something of its general shape and price range to do.

So, the issue: there is no DVD player. You can't actually get a separate CD/DVD player to plug into it, because it doesn't accept any of the drivers or codecs or any of that, and VLC doesn't work on the OS. So if you convert the DVD to something that it can read and load it onto a flash drive, you're good! Otherwise, you're fucked. And it seems you're really fucked, because I can't think how you'd rip and convert a DVD without a real computer.

So, I went out to Best Buy and now have a portable DVD player. No, I didn't go for BluRay. Fuck you and your BluRay.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Sun Oct 27, 2013 1:34 am

Are you telling me that there are things on the internet that you can't download?

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Sun Oct 27, 2013 1:46 am

Minor addendum: I've yet to find a torrent client that works on chromebook.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Sun Oct 27, 2013 2:10 am

Oh, God. I'm sorry.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sun Oct 27, 2013 3:44 pm

Just what CAN a Chromebook do at all? x.x
From what you are telling us, it sounds like it can not even do as much as a Cellphone using Android can do nowadays . .