Tag: google

Possible Weight Loss and Health Benefits With E-Cigarettes

On By Michel McDonaldIn HealthLeave a comment

I have been thinking about Vaping a lot lately.  Not just for the benefit of smoking an e-cigarette, but to help me lose weight.  What if you could lose weight simply by “vaping” with an electronic cigarette?  Here me out on this one because I’m really seriously wondering if it would help.

When I smoked cigarettes as a teenager and in my 20’s, I wasn’t always hungry because as we all know, cigarettes are an appetite suppressant.  Although I did still eat food, I just didn’t eat as much, I especially didn’t eat as many sweets as I do as an ex-smoker.  When I quit smoking in 1996, I gained 50lbs almost within the first few months because I had replaced the bad habit with another bad habit, ice cream, twinkies, donuts and sunflower seeds.  All of a sudden I had a craving for everything sweet that I denied myself when I smoked.  Here we are 16 years later and I am over 100lbs overweight and I can’t seem to lose weight at all.  I have been able to maintain it, but every so often it goes up a bit.

This company named Zeus E-Juice sells E-Liquid for your Ego E-cigarettes in many sweet flavors.  I was wondering if perhaps that might cure my sweet tooth so I’m not going to the store and buying junk food.  I try to stay away from junk food because I am diabetic now, so I’m not supposed to have any sugar, but that doesn’t stop me.  If I “Vaped” with sweet tasting E-Liquid, would that take away my cravings altogether so I can lose weight? I mean, I just want the sweet taste in my mouth, you know?  But we all know that I’m not going to chew on something sweet just for the taste and then spit it out into a napkin.

I did a Google search and I think I might have found my answer.  Someone asked the very same question in an e-cigarette forum.  Vaping to help with diet urges…  Here are a couple of short responses.

  • Some people have reported losing weight after starting to vape, some haven’t. It’s not really intended for that purpose. But to each their own.
  • Look up Steeljan on Youtube and shoot her a message. She actually started vaping as a way to curb sweet cravings and lose weight.  (I intend on asking her)
  • Since beginning vaping there have been no more trips to the snack machine at work or stopping at the convenience store for a snack while driving. That alone has helped and although I haven’t stepped on the scale the trousers are a little more comfortable.
  • I smoked (quit) about 30 years ago and have been dying for a cig ever since. Even dreaming I took up smoking again. Long story short, I heard about vaping about a month ago and bought them at a gas station for my smoker son. I started vaping too and LOVE it. Needless to say, I no longer buy them at the gas station!! I have also been dieting for a year and took off 30 pounds. I haven’t weighed myself in a while but I CAN tell you that vaping keeps me from snacking. btw…I also have asthma and I have no shortness of breath vaping. The best news is my son hasn’t had a cig since vaping either!

Those are certainly the responses I was hoping for.  The only problem now is, why would I want to start vaping if I don’t smoke and have no current urges to smoke?  Well, you can buy the e-liquid with NO nicotine and as far as I know there are no risks of addiction, but at the same time I don’t know that for a fact.  I mean, if I vape only when I have a craving, there is no harm in that, right?  I’m sure a puff or a toot, as I heard someone say on YouTube, a few times a day isn’t going to cause an addiction.  It’s just going to curb the cravings, right?

So this is my question if anyone will respond.  Is it a good or a bad idea for me to start vaping for this very reason?  Do you think it will actually help me lose weight?  Your responses are greatly appreciated.

Microsoft Support Center Scam

On By Michel McDonaldIn Computer2 Comments

Today was a very good day.  I played EverQuest 2 for a couple of hours and I was having a ball.  I was video chatting with a friend of mine with Google Plus Hangouts when the phone rang.  I looked at the Caller ID and it said Unknown Name Unknown Number.  I never answer the phone when it says that, but Darrin does sometimes.

The phone first rang at 6:38pm and I guess Darrin answered it, but then he hung up on them.  They called again at 6:41pm and Darrin ran into my room and told me not to answer it, but I did anyway.  He whispered to me telling me that it’s a scam.  I was trying to hear what the guy was saying, but I had Darrin whispering to me while my friend was talking on my computer and I had to go into the hallway just to hear what this guy was saying.

Whoever was on the phone was asking me if my computer was on and at first I thought yeah yeah yeah and my refrigerator is running too, I guess I better go catch it, right?  I thought it was a crank call, so I asked “Who is this?”  He told me he was from Microsoft Service Center.  I asked him what he was calling for and he told me that I had viruses on my computer and that I can turn it on now.  I told him that he must have the wrong number because I don’t have a virus, but he insisted that he had the right number.  I couldn’t understand why he was telling me that I had a virus and that I had to turn my computer on, I mean, it was on because I was video chatting with someone.

I was getting a bit miffed with having people trying to talk to me while I was on the phone and with this guy telling me that he was from Microsoft and that my computer had a virus.  I asked him for the phone number where he was calling from, and he gave it to me.  (213) 221-3528.  I told him that I would call right back, but I was really going to Google the number so I could find out whether anyone else had gotten a call from that number before, but I didn’t find anything credible because it wasn’t on the caller ID so nobody else had complained about it.  I remembered that he said he was calling from Microsoft Service Center, so I Googled that and got a toll-free number 1 (866) 587-1775 and called them.

I spoke with an Indian man who I explained what happened to me when we got a scam phone call from “Microsoft Support Center” and he told me that Microsoft will never call me.  I agreed it sounded a bit suspicious, I figured he would tell me that there was nothing to worry about and that I should be fine, but instead he told me that they probably put a virus on my computer.  He asked me to open the Internet Explorer browser and go to a specific website, which now I can’t remember and for some odd reason it isn’t in the history.  He had me enter a code and run a program that will allow me to text chat with one of their operators named Deborah.  The program window said “My Tech Guru’s” on the top.

The man I was speaking with told me to continue the conversation online with “Deborah” and hang up with him, I assume so he can take another phone call.  She told me that she would use that program to take over my computer so she could find any viruses that I might have gotten from these people who had called me.  I really don’t know how that would be possible considering I never click a pop up ad and I never read or click links in spam emails.  The only thing I ever do is go on Facebook and Twitter, check my emails, and play video games.  The only time I ever click a link is in Twitter and Facebook when I’m reading news articles or signing petitions.  I don’t really see how I could get a virus.

I asked “Deborah” several times if this was going to cost me anything and she wouldn’t give me a direct response.  She asked my permission to control my PC and I kept asking her if it was going to cost me anything and again, she skirted the issue.  She told me that she had to find out what was going on first before she would respond.  I think I asked her 2 or 3 times before she took over the computer.

She clicked Start and Run and typed something, but I can’t recall what it was.  A window took forever to load and she ran it twice and the window she was waiting for finally came up twice.  She looked around and then closed the windows.  Then she clicked run again and typed cmd and opened the command window and typed a few things, then finally opened an events window which she scrolled through and found all these things that had errors like Bonjour and Chrome.  I’m not sure what Bonjour is, but it’s always been on my computer.  I know that the Chrome errors are probably from every time it crashes.  I’m sure Bonjour is constantly crashing, but she told me that those were viruses.  Yeah, Chrome is a virus… whatever.

She stopped poking around my computer and began talking to me about what she needs to do to fix my computer.  She told me that it needs to be fixed today, like right this minute and I began asking her again, how much is this going to cost me?  I think I asked 6 to 8 times before she finally told me that it was going to be $117 for a quick fix or $199 for a whole year.  I told her that I had around or about $50 in the bank and that there was no way I could afford that.  She tried getting me to change my mind for about 5 minutes and I explained to her that I had no money, so she gave me a better deal, $69.99.  I told her no way, I have less than $50 in the bank.  She asked me how much I could afford and I said $20, and even then I still can’t afford that, I have $50 in the bank.  She lowered it down to $39.99.  I said Deborah, we are in the middle of the month, that will leave me with $10 for groceries for the next couple of weeks.  You can’t do this to me.

UGH!  She tried getting me to pay her $40 but I kept telling her it was not easy to feed 2 people on $10 in 2 weeks and I told her maybe when I get more money, but I can’t promise anything.  She was having trouble letting me go, but I had to tell her that I had to go.  I revoked her permission and closed the window.

The phone call started at 6:38pm and then I called Microsoft Service Center at maybe 6:50pm and by the time I exited the chat with Deborah, it was probably 8:15pm.  I had wasted so much of my time on this issue for nothing.

After I got off the chat with her, I was going to Google Microsoft Service Center, but then as I was typing, the auto thing dropped down to finish my sentence with Microsoft Service Center Scam.  I clicked that and it showed me a list of things.  One from Microsoft itself…  Avoid Phone Scams is from the Microsoft website.  They also have this Microsoft Safety Scanner which is FREE!  Although, it’s probably not going to fix anything, but at least it might tell me what’s going on.  I’ve been scanning my computer with that for the last 3 1/2 hours and it has found 6 infected files.  It’s not even halfway done so I expect it’s going to run all night before I finally find out what’s going on and what my options are.

I was Googling for more information that I could use for this post and guess what I found out?  I Googled that phone number that I called and found that THEY too are a scam, and I let them take control of my computer.  866-587-1775.  Then I found them again on the Microsoft website.  Well, so much for a search engine giving me credible information.

My suggestion is that if you get a phone call from someone saying they are Microsoft and telling you that you have a virus on your computer, hang up!  Don’t call Microsoft Service Centers, just go directly to the Microsoft website and scan your computer.  I’ve been using Avast Antivirus because I can’t afford to keep paying Norton every year for their updates, but now I see I’m gonna have to get another antivirus because this isn’t showing me the 6 viruses that the Microsoft Safety Scanner has found so far.

I hope this will all be fixed by tomorrow so I don’t have to worry about it anymore.  We’ll see.

Update: I forgot to mention that “Deborah” told me to change my email and bank passwords.  I did, and I also changed my Facebook password just in case.

Update: Last night when I wrote this, I said there were 6 issues.  When I got up at the ass crack of dawn I noticed that it had finished scanning, but it wasn’t at the scanning screen anymore so I didn’t know how many issues were found.  As far as I knew there were still only 6, and those were just on the C drive.  I have 2 hard drives, my old 320GB hard drive which won’t work with my new motherboard as the main hard drive, so I use it as my backup drive.  Then I have my new hard drive which is my main hard drive and is the E drive.  The window said that there were 3 issues, 2 of them were on the C drive and they were a Scooby Doo theme which I haven’t used in more than a decade, and then the E drive showed 1 issue which I can’t even remember the name now, but it had the word fun in it so it must be evil right?  LOL.  I let the Microsoft Safety Scanner remove all affected files and then it rebooted.  As far as I know there aren’t any issues, but I will keep that scanner around and do quick scans from time to time.  I’m not really worried about it anymore.

Google Chromebox

On By Michel McDonaldIn Computer, Google ChromeLeave a comment

I guess I am so far out of the loop with Google tech because I had no idea this even existed until tonight.

A friend of mine told me she didn’t have a computer tonight, she uses the internet right from her cell phone.  I told her that I was surprised, that I thought every household in America had a computer by now.  I was about to tell her that they are so cheap now that you can get a Google Chrome laptop for $299, but wanted to back it up with a link, so I Googled “Chromebook” and found the Chromebook page which also had a link to the Chromebox.  My mind was blown away.

Ok so here are the specs.

  • Intel® Core™ processor
  • 4 GB RAM
  • Built-in dual-band WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n
  • Gigabit ethernet
  • 6 USB 2.0 ports
  • 2x DisplayPort++ Output (compatible with HDMI, DVI, VGA)
  • DVI-I single link output (compatible with VGA)
  • Bluetooth 3.0™ compatible
  • Kensington™ key lock compatible

The specs don’t say that it also has a 16GB hard drive which doesn’t seem like a lot, but this is an internet based computer only, you can’t install anything on it*.  You turn it on and you are automatically connected to the internet.  Actually, it takes 7 seconds to boot up into the internet.  I mean, it’s like you turn it on and BAM instant websites.  So the only reason you even need a hard drive is for downloading pictures of your friends and family and/or music.  I mean, that’s all I download with my Chromebook *wink*.

The best part about this baby is that if you have an HDTV, just plug it into your television with the HDMI cable.  You can have it sit right next to or on top of your cable box and/or video game consoles, and then have the keyboard and mouse on your living room table, or wherever it is that your HDTV lives.  You could also buy an external monitor and put it on your desk if that is what you wish I suppose, although I think it would be cool to have it hooked up to the TV instead.

Why get this instead of a regular computer?  Well, some people ONLY go onto websites to look at their email or Facebook or Twitter.  Why buy an expensive gaming machine just to check your email and to get into political rants with your Aunt Beverly?  You can do everything with the Chromebox that you can do with a regular desktop.  For example, you can write a book, yes you heard me, you can write a book using Google Documents.  You can, like I said earlier read your email, you can go on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, you can even play games.  Yes, the Chrome Web Store has games like Angry Birds, Bejeweled, Crash Bandicoot among many others.  You can check the news and the weather, you can even watch Netflix movies or even watch your favorite TV shows on Hulu.

Now aren’t you glad you follow my blog posts?

I love Google Chrome not just because it’s (IMO) the fastest browser available, but also because they were gracious enough to include me in their Chromebook pilot test “CR-48” which I love and have been using ever since they sent it to me in mid-December 2010.  I went several months last year without my desktop and I wouldn’t have had a computer had it not been for Google for sending it to me.  I had to do everything on the Chromebook from writing the first half of my book, to email and twitter and Facebook, I even watched the first 3 seasons of Sliders on Hulu with it.  So yeah, thanks Google for that.

Note: *When I say you can’t install anything on it, I mean like Microsoft Word or Lord of the Rings Online.  They have an app store where you can download and install apps and extensions.

My CR-48 Brick

On By Michel McDonaldIn CR-482 Comments

In the middle of December of 2010, Google surprised me by sending me an email asking me if I wanted to test a laptop with the new Google Chrome operating system if I sent in bug reports.  Happily I accepted the task and received my free laptop 2 days later.  I was shocked that I actually got it and I did the happy dance.  It’s sometimes mistaken for the pee pee dance, but it was a happy one.  I have had a wonderful year testing out this wonderful toy, but sometimes good things have to come to an end because it’s a brick now.

Ok to clarify, the laptop isn’t broken, it just won’t stay online.  I have it connected through my WiFi network, but as soon as I try to type something, it loses the signal.  The only way to get it back is to reboot.  Rebooting used to help, but now it just won’t stay connected anymore.  It will stay connected for hours, but as soon as I try to type something, it goes offline.  I can watch videos on YouTube, I can browse people’s Facebook page, I can look at any website in the world, I just can’t type anything.

At first when this would happen I would switch over to Verizon 3G, but I only get 100MB free data every month and I have already used 50MB over the last few days every time I want to type something.  At this point it’s just a waste of electricity having it on because if I want to type something, I have to do it on the desktop.

I tried doing research to get it fixed.  I went to the help section and looked at boards and found out that this is happening to a lot of people.  Someone said that Google was in touch with him and sent him an email with a link to a website that has instructions on how to take the laptop apart to re-seat the wifi connection, but I’m afraid I might just make it worse.  I really don’t know if that is the problem because it never gets moved, so there is no reason for anything to be loose in there.  It stays on my desk in the same spot all the time.  I rarely if ever bring it to another room of the house, and when I do pick it up, it’s to dust.  And, it only goes offline when I try to type something, why would it stay online for hours at a time, but then shut off as soon as I try to type something if the problem is that the wifi connection is loose?  I don’t think they are related.

A few of the people say that it’s not a software glitch, that the hardware needs to be re-seated, but that does not seem to make sense in my case.  I think it’s a software glitch and the only thing I can do is wait for Google to put out a new update.  How long will that take?

I have cleared my browsing data, browsing history and emptied the cache.  Before that whenever I would move the mouse it would go offline, so now at least it stays online until I type something.  It has gotten a little better, but not by much.  I deleted the cookies, cleared saved passwords and autofill form data and I deleted all of my files because they were redundant anyway.  I most likely downloaded images for blog posts or to transfer to the micro SD card for my phone.  The remaining files that aren’t on my computer were transferred to a USB flash drive.

I will continue to do research on the matter because I really want my CR-48 back.  I have lived my whole life without it, but I don’t know if I can live without it now.  I know that’s sad, but it is such a cool thing.  For anyone who doesn’t have one, they don’t know how awesome it is so they don’t know what I mean, but trust me, if you had one you’d understand.

I posted on the Google help boards, so hopefully I will hear from someone who can help.  Will update on the matter.

The Guild

On By Michel McDonaldIn TVLeave a comment

I like to call myself a nerd but I guess I can’t really say that I’m that big of a nerd because I waited so long to watch The Guild.  If I had a nerd membership card I’d probably be asked to surrender it.  Well, I just watched the entire series so maybe if I had one it could get reinstated.  Oh whew, that makes me feel so much better.  Having been reinstated and all.  Wait… did that just happen?

I’ve heard of The Guild and I’ve wanted to watch for such a long time but the thing is, I really don’t like watching tv shows on my computer.  I mean, the sound issues alone are enough for me to shy away from it not to mention that I’d have to sit still, I’m kind of a spaz.  But I really enjoyed watching it regardless.

How I actually started watching it is a funny story.  Thinking of the Roku player I decided that since my Chromebook could plug in to my TV I would use that as my Roku player.  The Chrome store has tv apps so I thought I would browse the Google Chrome store looking for some tv apps to install and found Clicker.tv.  I installed it then signed in and guess what was in my queue?  The guild!  So that is what made me decide to watch it.

I started watching it but it wasn’t loading properly.  That first episode had a link to watch it somewhere else.  Bing and Blip.tv so I watched the first episode on Bing.  But then I had to go back to Clicker to choose the next video and I thought there had to be a better way so I wouldn’t have to click anything, just sit back and watch it load the next episode automatically.  So I chose Blip to watch it.  I only watched the first 2 seasons through that.  I decided to check Hulu and there it was so I watched the 3rd and 4th season there.

I think it was much better on Hulu though but that’s just me.  All I had to do was add those 2 seasons to my queue and just play it from there and it played one episode after the next.  Then again Blip had more extras which I enjoyed watching.  Hulu doesn’t have those extras so I’ll have to go back to Blip to watch the season 3 and 4 extras.

Last night I watched the first half of the 3rd season in the kitchen while making dinner then this morning watched the 2nd half and all of season 4.

Well, now if anyone asks I can say that not only did I watch it but after 2 days I am addicted.  So good for me… I think.

I can’t wait for the next season, and I know there is going to be one because I saw Felicia Day talking about it on Attack of the Show.  They were at a set which I did not see in any of the 4 seasons that I watched.  So I know there is a future of the show.  I can’t wait to see it.  I will definitely add that to my tv page lol.

Update: Once again I failed to do my research until after I hit the publish button but I went to the official guild website and found that not only do they have extras but they also have the first episode of season 5 available. So… watch the guild on their official website.

Update: Felicia Day is on Attack of the Show today, August, 1 2011 talking about her new web series called Dragon Age of Redemption.  I believe that is a new series where she is in the set that I referred to and has nothing to do with The Guild.  I seem to recall her wearing elf ears in that scene which she wears in this new web series.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OF2mPgwrlT4

My So-Called “Fake” Blog from Reviewme

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily Blog2 Comments

I have been using 3 specific websites to get paid to blog with over the last couple of years and have made quite a bit of penny from it.  I’ve been broke lately and haven’t gotten as many paid blog offers as I used to so I thought I would go searching for some more websites to sign up with to make more money.  Times are tough and you do what you have to do right?

So I found this website on the Google search engine – 26 Sites That Pay You to Blog

I am looking at the list and thinking, wow, I had no idea about any of these sites.  So I start with number 1 and sign up, number 2 and number 3.  It gets boring having to fill out so many forms so I figure 3 is enough for today.  I’ll see what happens with these 3 for now and if I don’t get as many offers as I had hoped for then I will sign up for more later.

One of the sites that I signed up for called Reviewme sends me a rejection email.  I’m ok with a rejection email as long as it’s a legitimate reason for rejecting me.  These are their reasons for rejection:

– The website is a suspected fake.
– The website does not have enough link popularity.
– The website does not have enough traffic.

Fake?  Seriously?  I can see the link popularity or the traffic issue but fake?  Do they seriously think that I would create a fake website to sign up for theirs?  Really?

I bought this domain name sometime in 2002, the name Xanapus is based on a character that I played in the MMORPG game “EverQuest”.  It was a very odd name which is what attracted me to it.  I liked it and I’ve been using it all over the internet ever since to sign up for websites.  I didn’t start blogging with it until around 2007.  I have spent many hours every day over the last 9 years on this website and 4 years on this blog and to have them tell me it’s a suspected fake is just insulting.

I emailed them telling them this:

“You think my website is a fake?  I have had this website since I believe 2002.  It is my own personal website.  I started blogging in 2007.  I have spent many hours of my life every day over the last 5 years on my blog and to have it called a fake is an insult to me personally.  Thank you, I now have a new blog post to write about.”

I was so mad that I forgot that it had only been 4 years since I’ve been blogging but whatever.  This is their response to me:

“When reading the below e-mail, it states these are the most popular reasons for rejection, not the reason/s it was rejected.  I would suspect the traffic was lacking and that is why it was rejected.”

Whatever reviewme.com, screw you! There are 25 more websites in that list that I can sign up with to make money to feed my family with.  Yes, 2 dudes and a dog is a family to me.

Google Plus

On By Michel McDonaldIn Social Network1 Comment

Do we have enough social networking websites or are there not enough?  It all started with MySpace, not everyone was on board with it at first but people started flocking to it when they found out how cool it was.  Then Facebook came along and proved that it was better and it literally killed MySpace which people stopped using.

Google Plus is one of the newest social networking websites and it doesn’t seem like anyone really wants to give it a chance because they don’t really want to leave Facebook.  I think they think that they can only do one social network and that’s it but that’s simply not true.  You don’t have to limit yourself to one.  Heck, I should know because I’m using Twitter and Facebook every day and now I have added Google Plus.

What I like about Google Plus is the circles feature.  You can put certain people in your circles and when have friends and family who have such different interests as I do, you need to segregate them into those groups when you post the crap that I do.

Some of my friends and family love my sick sense of humor, while others think I’m disturbed and have even threatened to block me so they don’t see the things that I post.  I also don’t want everyone to see my posts from my blog which is why I have created a Facebook fan page and only invited those whom I want to read my blog to like the fan page so the others don’t see it.  With circles you can post whatever you want and you can choose which circles get to see it and which circles can’t.  That is what I’ve been looking for.

There is another feature which I absolutely love.  You can start a hangout, which is a cool new webcam tool, and invite people to join you.  It’s not just a video conference tool for 1 on 1, it’s a group video conference so you can invite as many people as you want.  I’m sure there is a limit, I don’t know what it is though.

When you are in a hangout, it adds a post on your wall saying that you are hanging out with 1 or 2 people or whatever the number is.  There is a button that says “join this hangout” so other people can join without inviting them.  I’m pretty sure that the only people in the circle you invited when you started the hangout can see that invitation though.

What’s great about the hangout is that when someone starts talking, the video focuses on them.  When someone else starts talking, it automatically switches to that person.  If you click someones video then you can’t get out of that auto switching for some reason and you have to leave the hangout and come back to allow the auto switching to continue.  Also, sometimes someones video will freeze and the only way for that to fix is for that person to exit and come back.  Other than those 2 issues it’s perfect.

I love the hangouts because I think that will be a great way to have a family reunion with family members you haven’t seen in a long time.  Or you can have your book club join via hangout.  Or maybe you just want to chat with a bunch of people.  Whatever the reason is, it’s a very cool tool.

I think that Google Plus will eventually catch on.  It doesn’t have games like Facebook does but given time I’m sure it will eventually.  I don’t care about games as much as I care about connecting with people.  At least that’s how I use social networking websites anyway.

I personally hope that it catches on because I really like the circles and hangout feature.  I’ve been telling people about it but so far I only have a few friends.  Hopefully they will come over and allow me to segregate them in my wall posts (LOL) and hang out with me in a group video chat.

Join me in Google+  If you can’t get in, ask me for an invitation via Twitter @xanapus.

Acer and Samsung Chrome Netbooks Announced

On By Michel McDonaldIn Computer, CR-48, Google Chrome3 Comments


I saw the news this morning on Twitter from Editor for PC Magazine Lance Ulanoff:

Google: ACER introing netbook-sized ChromeBook #$349. Samsung’s ChromeBook: $429 for Wi-Fi Avail June 15. #io2011

I was way off on the price.  I figured that since the Google Chrome OS is a browser-based only computer that they would sell a Google Chrome OS Netbook for $150-$200.  I never thought they would sell as high as they are.

Chrome OS Site also reports the specs for the Samsung netbook along with other pictures of the netbook from different angles.  The Samsung Chrome OS netbook will sell in WiFi only for $429 and 3G for $499.

I have been using my CR-48 Google Chrome OS netbook since mid December when they first started shipping and I love it.  I still use my desktop computer but only for things that I can’t use my CR-48 for like photo editing with Gimp, balancing my checkbook via Microsoft Money and playing Lord of the Rings Online.  My CR-48 has basically become my default computer for everything else, as it was supposed to be for the pilot program.

I cannot say that I agree with those prices because you can get a netbook for the same price with Windows installed and be able to install software that you want on it to do everything my desktop computer can do.  The Google Chrome OS is internet only.  You can get the internet on a Windows netbook so why pay that much money?

It’s a great operating system, I just don’t think it’s that great that you would pay $500 for it.  I think that they will go down in price eventually so I would wait until they are a more reasonable price.

GPS on CR-48

On By Michel McDonaldIn CR-482 Comments

I’m browsing through the Chrome OS Help page under the “Chrome OS Known Issues” page and notice they have a “Can’t Use GPS” and when I click the + it shows “While the Cr-48’s hardware has GPS capability, we do not currently support this feature” and out of curiosity I open the Google Maps page and notice there is a thing above the little man you drag.  I mouse over it and it says “Show My Location” so I click it and boom… it narrows onto my house with a little glowing blue dot ON MY HOUSE!

Ok so I don’t know why but when I took the screen shot it moved away from my house but it’s still close lol.  So much for GPS not being supported because hello, it’s working.  Now we just need to take a little trip somewhere to find out how good it works.

I’m loving this Chrome OS netbook more and more every time I discover something new about it.

Gmail Video Chat with CR-48

On By Michel McDonaldIn CR-48Leave a comment

I got my CR-48 in December the first week they were shipping them and I didn’t really mess with the video chat until Christmas day when a friend of mine got a webcam for Christmas.  We tried it but my mic didn’t work so she couldn’t hear me.  When we came home from San Diego after Christmas we tried it again but my mic still didn’t work.

I’ve been so frustrated that the mic didn’t work and that I had no volume control but realizing I wasn’t testing the laptop but the operating system I started to come to the realization that it might never work.

Whenever Google would do an update on the Chrome OS I would check the mic settings and it never worked, that is until yesterday when they did their update.  I immediately checked the mic settings and not only did the mic work but so does my volume control.  Finally!

I emailed that same friend about trying again and she finally got on Gmail today so I sent her an IM directly from the Gmail site using Gmail chat.  I started the video chat but her video didn’t work at all.  I thought, well let’s go to Facebook using the Social Plus extension.  That didn’t work either so we went back to Gmail but I waited for her to engage me this time.  I don’t know what she did but it worked and we talked for about 45 minutes I would say.

It was a success!  It was as good if not better than using Skype.  Since I’m on a cloud based computer I can’t install Skype so Gmail chat is the next best thing.

The only strange thing about it was that when she held something up to her webcam it looked like a mirrored image to her but it looked normal to me.  I held up a package of something and it was a mirrored image to me but she saw it normal.  It was a little strange but if you think about it, we’re sort of like looking in a mirror, she can see me as if I were on the other side of the glass and vice versa.  A bit weird but that’s fine, I’ll take what I can get.

I’m just really excited that I can video chat lol.