Tag Archives: Chrome

Burning Chromebook: Day 5

Chromebook and MacBook Air

Chromebook and MacBook Air

I doubt if I will have a huge need to use SFTP/SSH on the Chromebook, but I did spend some time taking a look. At the moment I believe there are two options available to me:

  1. Secure Shell Terminal emulator and SSH client.
  2. ShiftEdit.

There is also a Chrome Extension (FTP Client), but based upon the reviews this is not something I will pursue.

No issues with Chrome so far. I imported my old Safari bookmarks and plan to test Desire2Learn access over the weekend. This is where I think I might see some quirks, but D2L indicates that the browser is supported.

TweetDeck worked well. Unlike some of the early versions this version has spell check.

I don’t plan to integrate my work and home email accounts into Gmail. The webmail options are functional, albeit a little clunky. With home email I will have to decide which of the three options are best for me:

  1. Horde
  2. RoundCube
  3. SquirrelMail

MacBook Air

Chromebook

Notes

Office Word

Google Docs

No issues so far. Spell check does not seem to be available offline. This might be fixed by installing an extension.

Office Excel

Google Sheets

No issues so far.

Office PowerPoint

Google Slides

Some formatting issues with imported files. “Present” not an option unless using native slide format.

iWork Keynote

Google Slides

Files

Considerable formatting issues with imported slides. Downloaded QuickTime mov, m4v, and mp4 files playable in Files.

iBooks Author

No equivalent.

Was not expecting to find an equivalent.

Dreamweaver

ShiftEdit.

Works well. Did not see spell check as an option.

Photoshop

pixlr

Tested with some basic cropping and resizing. Need to test more extensively.

Cyberduck

  1. Secure Shell Terminal emulator and SSH client.
  2. ShiftEdit.

No issues so far.

Safari

Chrome

No issues so far.

Twitter

TweetDeck

No issues so far.

Email

Gmail and Webmail

No issues with Gmail so far. Have to configure webmail.

Screenflow

  • Google Hangouts

  • Screenr

  • Screencastle

Have not tested.

iTunes

Google Play Music

Working well. Music Manager has uploaded the majority of my library.

Evernote

Evernote Web

No issues so far.

Dropbox

Dropbox

No issues so far.

Burning Chromebook: Day 4

I had not expected to find an equivalent to iBooks Author, but have installed a couple of epub readers. I don’t really anticipate having a great need for these, as I will be reading ebook predominantly on the smartphone.

Epub Readers

Today I concentrated on finding a Chromebook alternative to Dreamweaver. I had assumed that there might be a version of Amaya or KompoZer, but that was not the case within the Chrome Web Store. The best alternatives that I found were:

ShiftEdit

ShiftEdit

ShiftEdit looks like it will work for me. There is a Chromebook app which connects to the web service. The only thing that I did not find during my cursory testing was spell check, so I will have to use Google Docs to work around this.

MacBook Air

Chromebook

Notes

Office Word

Google Docs

No issues so far. Spell check does not seem to be available offline. This might be fixed by installing an extension.

Office Excel

Google Sheets

No issues so far.

Office PowerPoint

Google Slides

Some formatting issues with imported files. “Present” not an option unless using native slide format.

iWork Keynote

Google Slides

Files

Considerable formatting issues with imported slides. Downloaded QuickTime mov, m4v, and mp4 files playable in Files.

iBooks Author

No equivalent.

Was not expecting to find an equivalent.

Dreamweaver

ShiftEdit.

Works well. Did not see spell check as an option.

Photoshop

pixlr

Tested with some basic cropping and resizing. Need to test more extensively.

Cyberduck

Have not found solution yet. I might be able just using Secure Shell Terminal emulator and SSH client.

Have not tested.

Safari

Chrome

No issues so far.

Twitter

TweetDeck

No issues so far.

Email

Gmail and Webmail

No issues with Gmail so far. Have to configure webmail.

Screenflow

  • Google Hangouts

  • Screenr

  • Screencastle

Have not tested.

iTunes

Google Play Music

Working well. MUsic Manager has uploaded the majority of my library.

Evernote

Evernote Web

No issues so far.

Dropbox

Dropbox

No issues so far.

Burning Chromebook: Day 3

Native PowerPoint files don't "Present"

Native PowerPoint files don’t “Present”

Day 3 of testing moved onto using Google Slides. I was able to open up existing PowerPoint presentations, and was impressed that Chrome discreetly placed a link to other apps that would interact with the file. However, Google Slides did not allow me to present the slideshow (although it would for presentations created in Google Slides). The way round this was to import the existing PowerPoint presentation into a new Google Slide file. Importing created some formatting issues which were not there when I opened up the original PowerPoint file, so in future I would have to factor in time to make minor adjustments.

Imported PowerPoint files will "Present"

Imported PowerPoint files will “Present”

Unsurprisingly the Chromebook did not like native Keynote files. My options here would be to export from Keynote to PowerPoint and then display using Google Slides (or a cloud service like SlideRocket). Here, the export process created more formatting errors (and the rather nifty transitions and visual effects are lost). Sadly using iWork.com to present is no longer an option, with the service being shut down in 2012, but if I wanted to preserve all the features of the original Keynote file then playing an exported QuickTime file might be an aceptable workaround (providing I did not need to see presenter notes).

MacBook Air

Chromebook

Notes

Office Word

Google Docs

No issues so far. Spell check does not seem to be available offline. This might be fixed by installing an extension.

Office Excel

Google Sheets

No issues so far.

Office PowerPoint

Google Slides

Some formatting issues with imported files. “Present” not an option unless using native slide format.

iWork Keynote

Google Slides

Files

Considerable formatting issues with imported slides. Downloaded QuickTime mov, m4v, and mp4 files playable in Files.

iBooks Author

No equivalent.

Was not expecting to find an equivalent.

Dreamweaver

ShiftEdit (Cloud9 IDE might be an option too)

Have not tested.

Photoshop

pixlr

Tested with some basic cropping and resizing. Need to test more extensively.

Cyberduck

Have not found solution yet. I might be able just using Secure Shell Terminal emulator and SSH client.

Have not tested.

Safari

Chrome

No issues so far.

Twitter

TweetDeck

No issues so far.

Email

Gmail and Webmail

No issues with Gmail so far. Have to configure webmail.

Screenflow

  • Google Hangouts

  • Screenr

  • Screencastle

Have not tested.

iTunes

Google Play Music

Working well. MUsic Manager has uploaded the majority of my library.

Evernote

Evernote Web

No issues so far.

Dropbox

Dropbox

No issues so far.