Image by lewong2000 via FlickrThere was a new Development Channel release at the end of last week (3/17) which for me has fixed a couple of glaring problems. The previous release had the annoying habit of continually restarting every time I would bring it out of sleep mode. It had something to do with reconnecting to the wireless network in my house, which is a problem that has persisted since I got my cr-48. I would need to disconnect and reconnect my wireless in order to get any data. And then the release came that would make my cr-48 crash completely while trying to reconnect to the wireless. So, I'm happy to report that this release doesn't crash my cr-48 on wake-from-sleep, and even successfully reconnects to the wireless occasionally. This is something that still needs some work, but it appears to be getting close to completion.
Another problem is that the location aware features of the cr-48 crash the cr-48. If you try to use any extensions or apps that are location aware, the crash occurs. Some examples are the full-page web app from the weather underground, and Twitter if you try to use location stamping on your tweets. This problem has been around for the last two releases on the dev channel, so hopefully a fix is forth-coming.
Overall, the CR-48 experience is getting better and better. I have noticed an increase in the speed and responsiveness of the system, with quick redraws on loading of web pages. Flash-heavy pages still seem a little choppy, and scrolling with the track pad while loading one of these pages is jerky at best. Scrolling with the down arrow key is much better. Speaking of flash, the newer dev channel releases include to different flash engines: one called pepper and the "regular one." In order for most flash pages to work, the pepper flash needs to be disabled.
Cloud printing still works well for me, but the about:flags print preview page is still broken. Luckily for me, most of what I print is pdf, so I can already see what the printed output will look like.
The last couple of dev channel releases have also seen the addition of a widget in the status bar that looks like a little square. Much has been asked and answered on many blogs as to the purpose of this widget. It is, in fact, a window changer that becomes active when you have multiple windows open. It somewhat mimics the task of the "next-window" button in the top row of the keyboard, but unlike that button, it will not display crosh shell windows when used. So if you have a crosh window open, you still need to use the "next-window" button to see it.
Oh, one more thing: the slideshow url still doesn't work, so you need to use the trusty file:/// url to see any screenshots or image files that you may have. It will be nice when this is fixed; a lot of users are complaining that screenshots don't work, when in fact it is the slideshow functionality that is broken.
As alway, anxiously awaiting the next update to see what goodies it brings!
