Cloud Printing from the Google CR-48

Image via Wikipedia

Printing has come a long way!

One of the developments in the Chrome OS operating system is the use of something called "cloud printing."  What this is, basically, is registering your printers with Google's print servers.  It's a great concept; you can register your printer at home, the printers at work, anywhere you can run a chrome browser you can register those printers for cloud printing.
On the CR-48 anything you want to print can then be directed to any of the printers that you have registered with the cloud. So, you're on the road working on a spreadsheet and when you're done you want to print it at work so it's ready for that early meeting, no problem.  When you select a printer from your list of registered printers, you'll also be able to set any of the options on that printer that you would normally be able to set.  Multiple copies, 2-sided, collated, color/b&w, no problem.  You can manage the print jobs by using the option menu and looking "Under the Hood" for the button to "Manage printers...".
At present, only printers connected to Windows machines are configurable from the Chrome options menu, but if you have Linux or MacOS you will have to do a little command line work to make the magic happen.  Here is a link to a blog with information on setting up cloud printing in Linux and MacOSX.   But it's worth the extra effort in the flexibility it provides.  On Linux systems there is also a PDF printer driver, so you could conceivably select that as the print device and actually create a PDF file on your linux machine's local file system.  Very sweet.
Have any questions about printing in the cloud?  Let me know.  It's worth you time to get it configured and working for you.

Related articles

• Google Cloud Print Beta: Hands On (pcmag.com)
• Google Cloud Print Allows You To Wirelessly Print From Mobile Safari Gmail (cultofmac.com)
• Google Cloud Print - Print from Anywhere Anytime (searchenginepeople.com)

The Developer Channel

Image via WikipediaA couple of days ago I made the decision to run my CR-48 on the developer channel as opposed to the beta channel.  I know that you run the risk of more bugs in the developer channel, but I was anxious to see how the extended file system worked.
So I made the switch and immediately downloaded the developer version of Chrome OS for the CR-48 and found that the extended file system worked well for the USB flash drives and SD cards I inserted.The built-in file browser pops up and displays the contents of the flash drive and clicking on a file in the browser displays it appropriately in the browser window.  Nice job Google.
But that wasn't all.  Last night there was an update available for the developer channel.  I installed that one also (actually, it kind of happens automatically), but I'm not sure what's changed in this version. The trackpad seems to be more responsive. And some of the fonts seems sharper, but that's kind of a subjective observation.

I'll poke around and see if I can find out what might have changed in the latest version of the developer channel.  Love the CR-48.  It's everything I hoped it would be so far!

Here's a screen shot of the current versions installed on my CR-48:

Related articles

• Switching to the Dev Channel in Chrome OS (thechromesource.com)
• Chrome OS Dev Update Brings File System Support, More Experiments (thechromesource.com)

WiFi Problem on the CR-48

Image via WikipediaOne of the annoying things that I have noticed on my CR-48, and that I have reported to Google, is the inability of the OS to keep a WiFi connection active when the computer goes into standby mode.  What normally happens is this:  I'll be using the notebook, and get distracted by something else for a few minutes.  The computer goes into standby mode, with the display off and the little blue power light blinking.  I'll touch the touch pad and the computer wakes back up.  The network icon still shows me connected to my home wireless router. But at this point, I can no longer get any data.  Refreshing web pages result in page not found errors.  I must manually go into the settings window, disconnect the wireless and reconnect.  At this point, everything is back to normal.  Other computers using my wireless network do not exhibit this behavior so I have to surmise that it is a CR-48 problem.  I sent in feedback, but I don't see this issue listed in the known problems area of the Chrome forums.

Is anyone else experiencing this type of behavior?  Let me know.