Can Ubuntu 12.10 replace Windows 7? Obviously, we have Windows 8 now. Nonetheless, some people are still preferring Windows 7 over Windows 8. Ubuntu 12.10 is a good comparison to Windows 7, and so it might be a good alternative for Windows 7. I’ve found a great video on YouTube which goes through various popular Windows 7 tasks on Ubuntu 12.10, to see if Ubuntu 12.10 can replace Windows 7 or not. Enjoy!!!
Google’s premium laptop Chromebook Pixel is a nice expensive toy, but how nice? Well, if you ask me, I would say probably not much. Nonetheless, if you ask other people, I bet some of them would bet that I’m wrong. I’m not going to be mad though, because everyone has their own opinion. This is why I don’t mind to embed the YouTube video right after the break which shows you the unboxing of Chromebook Pixel. Oh, if you insist on asking why I do not think much of Chromebook Pixel, you can just check out my other article which is “Nice Try Google, But You Can Do Better Right? Chromebook Pixel Is Nice, But It Should Be Nicer!!!” By the way, check out the awesome unboxing of Chromebook Pixel right after the break.
Is Chromebook Pixel real or just a concept? It seems that arstechnica reported that Chromebook Pixel is indeed a real product. According to arstechnica’s “Google’s new touchscreen Chromebook Pixel: a $1,299 laptop for cloud dwellers” article, Google had just announced the existence of Chromebook Pixel. If Chromebook Pixel is real, so? The buzz about Chromebook Pixel is that it’s an exotic animal. By this I mean it’s basically a machine which mainly focuses on staying connect to the Internet only, but it’s a very gorgeous only online machine (if we discount that it does have some offline features). I’m sure it got some offline features, but it is designed to be working with the cloud. It’s no surprised really since Chromebook Pixel is a more expensive version of other Google’s Chromebook products. So, Chromebook Pixel is more of a beast among Chromebook products, but its core functionality is still all about cloud functionalities. Simply really, Chromebook Pixel is just a lot more gorgeous in terms of screen resolution and other whistles and bells.
arstechnica reported that Chromebook Pixel has screen resolution of 2560×1700 with 239 pixel per inch, 1.8GHz Intel Core i5 processor, 4GB RAM, 32GB flash storage for Wi-Fi model and 64GB flash storage for LTE model. By purchasing Chromebook Pixel, a customer will get 1TB of Google Drive cloud storage for free for 3 years. Cloud storage? If you never heard of cloud but know of Dropbox, then Google Drive is somewhat similar to Dropbox. 1TB of Dropbox would be nice eh? So, if you like Dropbox that much, then I guess 1TB of Google Drive is definitely one of those temptations that is hard to refuse.
It seems that the screen resolution for Chromebook Pixel is the main focus, because 2560×1700 is a lot. It’s a beast! I’m not a fan of i5 processor, therefore in term of processor Chromebook Pixel is a let down for me. 4 GB of RAM only? In my opinion, 4GB of RAM for any machine from today onward isn’t enough (but you might think otherwise and I don’t mind). Since Chromebook Pixel is an always online machine, 32 or 64 GB of flash storage does make sense until it doesn’t. How come? In my opinion, the 2560×1700 screen is a waste on Chromebook Pixel. I’m reasoning that whoever wants to work with such beautiful/exotic screen resolution might need to store humongous sizes of visual data (e.g., videos, photos, etc…), but what Chromebook Pixel doesn’t carry — Chromebook doesn’t support USB 3.0 and 802.11ac Wi-Fi speed — will hamper the productivity of whoever wants to use Chromebook Pixel in a more hardcore manner.
Now, if Chromebook Pixel supports USB 3.0 and 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard, even though Chromebook Pixel doesn’t have huge local drive storage space, I will definitely want a Chromebook Pixel for myself, even with the current might be Chromebook Pixel’s price range $1200 – $1400. How come? Let pretend that I’m a real photographer (because I’m only an aspiring one), I definitely have tons of photos and videos to store, to make backups of, and the likes. With USB 3.0 support, I can use USB 3.0 capability to speedily transfer my videos and photos back and forth between the external hard drives and Chromebook Pixel, because making data backups is so important to people like the photographers. Let say I’m a paranoid data integrity and data redundancy freak, and so if Chromebook Pixel supports 802.11ac standard, I can definitely speed up my backup of data to the cloud.
You see, I think Chromebook Pixel lacks some really important features even though it is obviously designed to be an online only machine. I think Chromebook Pixel should not emphasize an online only machine to the point that alienates the good features that it supposes to carry for offline needs. Instead of carrying USB 3.0, Chromebook Pixel carries USB 2.0. We know USB 3.0 is the way forward, but people are also comparing USB 3.0 against Thunderbolt too. This is why it’s so weird for me to see Chromebook Pixel carries only USB 2.0. Perhaps, not carrying any USB support at all might make more sense than not carrying USB 3.0? Also, faster Wi-Fi is always a must have feature. We know that we have the faster Wi-Fi capability through 802.11ac standard/capability, but Chromebook Pixel decides to not support 802.11ac?
Besides the lack of various important features I mentioned, Chromebook Pixel does look like a very nice toy. From what I’ve seen of it, it looks nice! The screen, the body, and the shape of Chromebook Pixel speaks to me in a very positive manner. Simply put, I love the overall look of Chromebook Pixel. Unfortunately, it reminds me of Macbook products. Fortunately, I think it might look even better than Macbook Pro, but I’m not sure unless I can see and touch it (only see a video of it). Oh yeah, if you think I’m a Mac fanatic, then you don’t know me at all. Obviously, that should be the case since you don’t know me at all in real life. Nonetheless, let me reveal to you something about me, I’m also a Windows 8 and Linux fanatical sort of person. If I know another good sort of OS-brand-hardware type out there, I might as well be a fanatic for such too…
Before I end this post, let me say that you can also reach out and touch that beautiful Chromebook Pixel’s screen. How come? It’s a touchscreen yo! Check out the Chromebook Pixel in the video right after the break. Enjoy!!!
Backup Backup Backup – And Test Restores (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Today, broadband upload speed is nowhere near the speed that is desirable for people to backup their digital contents to third party backup service providers or I should say doing backups to the cloud. I’m using Crashplan backup service provider, and it seems that it took me ages to backup my Windows 8 PC — containing 500 GB worth of data — to Crashplan’s cloud with AT&T U-verse 3 Megabit per second upload speed. On the sort-of opposite spectrum of doing backups to the cloud is doing backups to a local network’s backup device or devices, and it turns out Crashplan software is doing so much better, like way better, when it backups the 500 GB worth of Windows 8 PC data to a NAS (network attached storage) and external hard drives. Basically, at the moment, I see that Crashplan shows that it’s 97.2% done with a backup for Windows 8 PC to a NAS, 54.1% done with a backup for Windows 8 PC to an external hard drive, and 10.2% done with a backup for Windows 8 PC to Crashplan’s cloud. So, I think you get the gist why doing backups to the cloud is super tedious and slow. It really does take ages.
If one day Google Fiber ever comes to my town, I will definitely see doing backups to the cloud as a positive thing. For now though, 3 Megabit per second upload speed is definitely too slow for me to do a backup from a local network to the cloud for 500 Gigabyte worths of data. Imagine people who have like Terabytes worth of data, I wonder how would they feel if they have to do backups to the cloud. With faster broadband such as Google Fiber, I believe the cloud with become even more popular. If the cloud is not too expensive for people to store Terabytes worth of data and Google Fiber type of service is readily available, I don’t see how people would not find this combination a super delicious one. Yummy bandwidth and data redundancy if we care not about the possibility of data leak from a possibility of weak computer security in the cloud. Of course, don’t forget to encrypt whatever data when such data are to be stored in the cloud, yo?
I’m just talking about doing backups of data only, but obviously any faster broadband which is in the league with Google Fiber offers more than just the upload essential, because Google Fiber type of download speed (i.e., Gigabit per second bandwidth) can also bring more opportunities to people and businesses alike. Just imagine the possibility of having Google Fiber type of broadband connection… more households may be able to enjoy playing games, streaming movies, listening to music, surfing the web, watching Internet TV, video chatting over the Internet, shopping online with enhance experience (e.g., interactive media shopping experience which allows people to use video chat and 3D interactive contents), and a lot more at the same time.
With such amazing possibilities — that I had mentioned — float to the surface of the pool when faster broadband gets deploy, we can definitely see modern businesses that rely on the Internet for revenues will see faster broadband a positive thing and a must thing to have. For the people who are the consumers of all Internet and digital things, they might be even more addicted to the Internet since they can do more all at once. Imagine the fantastic feeling of a big size family when Google Fiber sort of broadband service provider is coming to town, the family will definitely not have to take turns to consume all Internet and digital things.
Update: OK, so I was a bit too harsh on TechSmith. After talking a lot more to them, a tech support guy at TechSmith was able to point out why Camtasia 8.0.3 would not launch on Windows 8. It turned out that the upgrade for Windows 7 to Windows 8 would definitely prevent Camtasia 8.0.3 to work correctly, because to have it worked one needed to install Windows 8 from scratch. That meant I had to reformat the computer, re-installed Windows 8 as if it was brand new, and then Camtasia 8.0.3 would work correctly when installed onto Windows 8. I was able to confirm this as I had done exactly what they told me, which was to re-install Windows 8 from scratch. You guys can read the rest of my original blog post, but only part of the old paragraphs are still meaningful now, because this paragraph right here is the solution to my complaint in the title. I’m smiling at the moment, please share the joy with me! Read the rest of the old post so you get what I’m saying in this post!
