Krepel's Photo Corner

Google gifted me a CR-48 Chrome OS Laptop!

2010-12-22T12:42:00.007-06:00

While working late Friday night, my wife called to tell me I received a package and ask if she should open it. I told her to go ahead, and my disbelief quickly turned to excitement as she told me it was the Google Laptop I applied for. I had submitted my application maybe a week and a half earlier not thinking I had any chance of being one of the lucky recipients. They must have liked something I said or the way I answered the questions, because beginning Friday the 17th, without any notice that it was coming, I was experiencing the sleek, instantly starting, web-only laptop.

Although the OS is the main feature, the hardware still deserves a major shout out. It is one of the most sleek & comfortable laptops I've ever used. The rubberized plastic feels silky smooth on your palms as you type. The edge of the palm rest is nicely contoured, so it does not dig into your wrists. The chiclet keyboard is not back lit but otherwise on par with some of the fancier keyboards I've run across on laptops. I applaud them for not going with the 1366x768 resolution that is so unfortunately popular these days. Sure that is HD when talking about streaming video, but its far from I consider to be high resolution for any other application.

Some of Google's hardware cues extend beyond comfort and, if heeded by hardware manufacturers, could make some serious advancements to the netbook platform. Since having a high powered Android phone, I've found myself using my computer less to do things the phone can do more quickly and efficiently, like check email and read the news. The solid state drive and no frills operating system, however, gives this laptop an almost instant startup time. I've found in the last week that the speed with which I can get to my Gmail, Google Reader, and Google Calendar on this laptop is eliminating the inconvenience that was steering me toward my phone before. Google also replaced keys like Caps Lock and the Function keys with buttons that are more useful, like a "search" button, which really just opens a new tab, because the address bar in Chrome also functions as a search bar. The function buttons are replaced with forward and back keys, a refresh key (instead of F5), brightness, and volume keys.

Now to the meat of this subject, which is the Operating System and how complete of an experience you can get if you only have the internet. For the vast majority of what I do, this laptop works very well. As a major Google fanboy, I have extensively integrated their services into my daily operations. The Chrome OS plays very nicely with that methodology, which you will notice immediately when you log in using your Gmail address. If you use Chrome on your regular computer and you have it set to sync, you will feel at home using Chrome OS as immediately as this laptop boots (less than 14 seconds as Andy and I timed here: http://youtu.be/w5mJ5ga6_kU). My bookmarks, settings, apps, and extensions all sync in a blink of an eye. There's no downloading all the little programs I use to make life more convenient on my other systems. You just log in, and begin to enjoy an internet experience that just plain works.

As good as Chrome OS is as a portal to everything you already do on the internet, there are some major kinks to be worked out when it comes to converting anything else you might use a computer for. For example, I use Dropbox to sync my files between multiple computers, but I still use regular desktop software to create, view, & edit most of those files. Google Docs is very handy, but it is a different experience from using a local filing system.

More notably, the apps for integrating devices with the cloud are far from being robust enough to convert tasks like working with photos and syncing iPods & iPads to a cloud only experience. The journey to making this blog post is a prime example. The CR-48 counts an SD Card reader among its 4 available connectivity ports. Being the experimental guy I am, I set out on Saturday to take photos of the laptop, upload them to the cloud, and include them in this blog posting using only the CR-48 (and a camera, because using a mirror to take photos that include the device itself is so Myspace 2005). Since my DSLR uses CF cards but my point & shoot uses an SD card, I decided to settle with lower quality photos to be able to pull this off. The hours of reading FAQ's and Forums to figure out how to get photos from the SD card into Blogger were far from what I was hoped for. I learned to go to about:flag to activate the SD card slot; I learned that once activated, the content browser is not fully functional enough to upload photos, I learned that apps like Picnik and Aviary, whose higher tech (flash or html5) uploaders that do not work as well on conventional computers are better at browsing the SD card than the native content browser in Chrome OS; and I learned that Picnik, although quirky, can then upload those photos to Picasa, which in turn can upload to Blogger. Whew! It took more trial, error, and hoop jumping than the average user will probably tolerate, but I made it!

To wrap up my first impressions and the summary of my first week with Chrome OS, I'm very intrigued, but I think it still has rough edges that need to be smoothed before its ready for mass consumption. Especially if the machines that come out with this OS can be sold at an affordable price point, there is a large contingent of the population that will likely find this to be all they need in a computer. People who haven't grown up with computers that just get on to check emails, browse Facebook, read the news, and do some banking may find this to be exactly what they need. Power users, who are techie enough to do things like photo editing and gadget syncing but not geeky enough to hack the system or seek out work arounds may just get frustrated with it. For those people, like me, it may be something they have to use when they want to do light tasks on the comfort of their couch, but they will likely have to maintain another, more conventional computer, at least for now. Just like youngsters like me who grew up with this technology as it emerged can pick up a brand new smartphone and take advantage of its full functionality in minutes, kids that start using systems like this now will likely be able to navigate cloud storage and apps more easily than people who are used to getting things done differently. We'll see where this takes us.

New Years 2009/2010

2010-01-06T21:22:00.001-06:00

Its nice to be loved. This years choice of New Years Eve activity left us turning down more invites than we wanted to (sorry Will & Danielle, Jen and the CPSTL Crew, my family at home). We ended up with a delightful evening spent at the Wine Press (http://www.stlwinepress.com/) with one of our few college friends remaining in the city and another home on break from grad school, Carolyn and Heather. The photo above was actually the first time my new camera has been held by someone besides Allison or I. I'm told my face showed fear and skepticism as Julie (Greg's partner in the Wine Press and Peace Printing) offered to take the photo. I'd had photography and other techie conversations with her before. Not wanting to offend anyone, I temporarily relinquished my new piece of machinery.

It was fairly tame compared to many NYE activities I've participated in. We chatted away the first part of the evening over savory snacks at Carolyn's condo before heading out to the bar. Once there, we continued our memories and discussions, topics of which my current memories are few, over wine and appetizers. For $35 a person, we each got a bottle of wine, a champagne toast, all the appetizers we could eat, live music, and a pleasant, smoke-free atmosphere in which to enjoy it all.

And we all know the best way to ring in the new year 21st Century style--by texting all your friends. I can't legitimately claim to be above this practice. Allison and I were both texting as well. But hey, I sent out a small handful of personal messages, not a generic mass texting!!! MasstextFAIL.

But really, it was a great night, with great friends and great service (provided by some friends...you run one great establishment Greg). Dollars for enjoyment, this was one of the best New Years Eve's yet.

I-64 Opening Celebration/5K Run

2009-12-06T22:09:00.003-06:00

We walked on the new I-64 this morning. The festivities lasted all day, but there was a 5K run in the morning and the proceeds went to charity, so we did that....but walked. Yes, we got up on a Sunday when the sun was still rising...

This was probably the emptiest I'll ever see the highway. It was definitely worth the time and effort to get down on the highway. The road feels completely different when you're on foot from when you're in your car.

Some of the cyclists, like this one, were pretty intense. They got the eastbound lanes and runners (or walkers like me) used the westbound lanes.

Look! We made it in under an hour! The people at the finish line were WAY too excited for us walkers. Notice to the right: Fox 2 News was filming on site as we walked by. I don't think a clip of us made it on the air.

On our mile hike home, however, we ran across Ken Leiser from the St Louis Post Dispatch. He was trying to get us to say something interesting. We were too tired and on the spot to provide that, so he took what he could get and wrote it: http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/commutingtraffic/story/77902429EB3EAE9686257684005C34A9?OpenDocument#tp_newCommentAnchor

About 30 seconds after we walked away from him, the idea struck Allison that I should have said something about taking photos that I otherwise would never be able to get. D'OH! Isn't he the reporter; shouldn't he have seen my camera and asked? Oh well, I can only shift blame so much. I sounded like a bit of an idiot, but it could have been worse. I did chuckle at how the article makes it look like Allison and I were the only 2 who decided to walk.

By the end of the walk it was turning out to be a very nice day. They had bagels from BreadCo (Panera) for us at the end, which I thought to be a very nice touch. I also got a cool athletic T-Shirt out of it. All in all, it was a neat experience.

Flat Stanley

2009-12-06T15:38:00.002-06:00

My cousin sent us a Flat Stanley to do some things with over Thanksgiving. The story goes that the boy was squished "as flat as a pancake" by a bulletin board, but other than being flat, he was fine. He found the major benefit of being flat was that he could be folded up and mailed instead of having to pay airfare to visit his friends around the world. So we had to take some photos and send him back with some souvenirs of his trip.

We were Houston bound, so Stanley got a trip within a trip. Unfortunately, anytime we thought about it, we couldn't find souvenirs, and anytime we were around cool souvenirs, we didn't think to get any. So we took photos of Black Friday shopping and him joining us for dinner.

In lieu of souvenirs, I photoshopped together some collages and wrote in descriptions of his experiences. We when printed them on 8x10's to mail back with Stanley. I hope they get a kick out of it!

Sourdough

2009-11-23T16:35:00.001-06:00

Here's my first stab at sourdough. Apparently, you have to grow it first, then bake. So early this week I began my pet starter and fed it daily. Then, as if a cup of goop grossing Allison out on the counter isn't enough, you have to proof it by adding more flour and water and letting it sit out for another 6-8 hours. I ended up with a frothy, sour smelling mess like this:

...and I couldn't have been more excited.

After hours of proofing, rising, rising again, and one last hour of baking, I reached sweet (well...sour really) satisfaction. Now to work on the 2nd batch; I'll try to make it with a wetter dough this time and allow more time to rise. I'm hoping for a softer, fluffier effect. If I succeed, my coworkers will get a tasty, freshly baked treat at our staff meeting tomorrow :)

Alison at MO Botanical Gardens

2009-11-08T22:47:00.003-06:00

Isn't she a cutie?!?! At first look through, this is my favorite shot of the day.

Saturday morning, Allison and I joined our friends at the Missouri Botanical Garden to take their little Alison's 6 month photos. We've been wanting to go for so long...being photographers and all.

With it being fall, not everything is in bloom, but the place is still pretty. If only the flowers behaved how the weather felt, they would have been blooming like they do in May. I did end up getting some neat textures with which I'd like to figure out something to do. I'll let you know what I come up with.

Halloween 2009

2009-11-03T11:10:00.004-06:00

The day started out rough with finding a lot of water in our basement in the afternoon when we came downstairs to do laundry and work on photos. October was apparently the wettest month on record for St Louis. Luckily, the majority of the mess was contained to the unfinished portion of the basement with just a little trickling over to the drain, which is counterintuitively in the finished part.

Looking at the bright side, it is nice to now own a dehumidifier and a Craftsman 12 Gallon 5.0 peak horsepower wet/dry shop vac :)

The day got better as it turned into night. We cleaned up as best we could, and old friends converged on St Louis for a night out. Rakesh, Will, Allison and I enjoyed a past favorite-Il Vicino- for dinner in downtown Clayton and moved on the the Central West End to check out the giant costume party that is the Euclid/Maryland intersection.

After getting our fill of costumed crazies, we opted for a chill evening at our more recent favorite, the Wine Press.

The Wine Press is a hidden jewel of St Louis, tucked off the beaten path of the Central West End in what was formerly known as Gaslight Square. At this bar, where you will find no arguments over matters of taste, you will almost always find Greg Stevens, the owner, working the bar himself with a small staff. Chat him up some night, the conversation is always worth it.

After more drinks than I can remember, the bar had to close and we all went home. Thank you old friends for saving my day :)

Mary & Jon's Wedding Photos

2009-10-26T19:57:00.002-05:00

Just finished going through Mary and Jon's wedding photos. You can find some of them on facebook, but the whole collection is here:

http://bmkrepel.com/mary&jon

hope you enjoy them! If you want any prints, send me an email.

Maybe I'll start a blog?

2009-10-18T11:20:00.004-05:00

Here's Mary and Jon's first dance at their wedding last weekend. What a happy and fun day :)

I'm glad I had my camera with me and was able to pick it up and go!