A Book Review – “The Checklist Manifesto” by Atul Gawande.
I buy too many books, and often they sit on a shelf (or my Kindle) for months or even years before I read them.
In this case I bought “The Checklist Manifesto” by Atul Gawande almost as a stocking stuffer. I had bought a book I really wanted online, and since I have been trying out checklists to make myself a little more efficient, this looked like something to add to the order. I was expecting a book about how to write checklists.
Instead I got a book that verged on a thriller. The author has a brilliant, first person writing style, and personally pursued the use of checklists from aviation, construction, medicine and even five star restaurants. From visiting Boeing and seeing how a checklist could save an aircraft by getting in a simulator and experiencing an emergency firsthand to standing in a restaurant for a night counting how many dishes got sent back before they left the kitchen. How Walmart was getting relief supplies into a ravaged New Orleans days before FIMA and the federal government.
This book is fascinating, powerful, thought provoking and absolutely essential reading. I will never see complex processes and systems the same way again.
The author proves that our world has become incredibly, even dangerously complex, and demonstrates that the humble checklist can show us ways for the average, or even exceptional mind to manage and tame the complexity.
He walks the reader through the process of creating a checklist for the WHO (World Health Organization) for use in surgery all over the world, from impoverished and overworked hospitals to the best in the world. What they did wrong (making them to long or complicated) and how they solved the problem. The author, a top surgeon, decided to “eat his own dog food” and applied the checklist in his own operating room. It picked up problems immediately, and in one case, described in a humble and honest style, proves that the checklist worked, and saved a life on the author’s own operating table.
The statistics came back from hospitals and operating theaters around the world where extraordinary, and gratifying.
A team of smart people with almost no budget created a checklist, and a desire to use it, and sent it out to the world. That list will continue to save lives for years to come.
I read this book in one day, and will read it again, soon. And I am already writing checklists to help me manage my much too busy business and life.
This seemingly innocent plugin that allows the capture and annotatiuon of screenshots has been caught with it’s hand in the till, according to mig5.net. I caught onto this story courtesy of the Chrome Story Blog.
Awsome Screenshot Access
Basically the Awsome Screenshot plugin spies on all the web sites and pages you visit, sends the data back to servers for storage, and at a later date a web-crawler identifying itself as “niki-bot” begins scanning those pages. The purpose is not clear, but the terms of service for “Awesome Screenshot” states:
When users access the software, certain non-personally and personally identifiable information (the “User Information”) may be collected, stored and used for business and marketing purposes, such as maintaining and improving the Services, conducting research, and monetization. This User Information includes, without limitation: IP address, unique identifier number, operating system, browser information, URLs visited, data from URLs loaded and pages viewed, search queries entered, social connections, profile properties, contact details, usage data, and other behavioral, software and hardware information. If you access the Services from a mobile or other device, we may collect a unique device identifier assigned to that device or other information for that device in order to serve content to it. This collected data may also be supplemented with information obtained from third parties or submitted by users.
Awsome Screenshot Logo
My advice would be to run, do not walk to your computer and remove the Awsome Screenshot plugin immediately!
Thank you to the sites mentioned above for doing the detective work on this one!
I posted some weeks ago about my trials with the SlimPort adapter on the HP Chromebook 11. I had purchased one adapter that worked most of the time. Ultimately, I decided it was the high powered HP charger causing problems. The factory charger is wasted anyway because through the SlimPort it is reported as a low power charger. I guess the HP charger supplies more power than the SlimPort adapters can handle.
I am using an LG E2250V monitor. It is about four years old, and I suspect this may be an issue in some cases. Maximum input resolution is specified as 1920 x 1080 and this fits with the HDMI 1.0 to 1.2 standards. Later devices are backward compatible, but the HDMI 1.4 Spec was released in May 2009, so my monitor almost certainly does not support the latest spec. This may well be causing compatibility problems with devices built to the newer SlimPort Spec which was updated in September 2013 and is probably what is used by the HP 11. All the devices I tried are HDMI 1.4 compatible.
I have purchased and tested four different adapters.
The first one, as described in a previous post, is the MyDP Slimport to HDMI adapter. worked well out of the box, but began playing up. The Monitor began to flash on and off, and eventually just stopped working. I purchased and connected a high quality HDMI cable, to no avail. I was using the HP 3 Amp charger.
MyDP Slimport Adapter
I removed it, and worked without a monitor. Coming back a couple of days later, and using the 2 Amp Nexus 7 charger, the adapter came back and worked reliably.
In the meantime I had purchased replacements of several types. Two display the current SlimPort logo, and two do not.
I will break my findings down into the two types of device.
Dongle Style Adapters
The first type I will classify as a dongle. a Micro-USB plug with a short lead attached to a small box with an HDMI port, and a Micro-USB charging port. Both work perfectly, with a low power charger. The one I used for weeks is a MyDP Slimport to HDMI Adapter as shown above. Amazon has it here.
Slimport Dongle Style
The other one has the SlimPort logo and orange name.
CY SlimPort Cable Adapter – Does not work on my monitor
The other type is a lead, about 1.5M long with a Micro-USB plug on one end, and an HDMI plug and Micro-USB port on the other.
I have two of this style.
One is labeled With the SlimPort logo and orange text, the other is not, but it does have an orange band around the Micro-USB plug.
The lead type CY adapter with the Logo simply does not work on my LG E2250V monitor. It looks like this.
It works fine on my new TV, but not my monitor.
Patuoxun Slimport to HDMI Adapter
Patuoxun SlimPort to HDMI Adapter
The other Patuoxun device has worked perfectly, and I am using it now as I type this. Amazon has this adapter here
Having discovered the information about HDMI standards, I tried the two lead style adapters on my relatively new Television. It has modern HDMI ports. A Google Chromecast will switch the TV on and change to the HDMI port automatically. Something only the latest HDMI ports will do. The lead style cable both work perfectly.
This tends to support my theory that much of the pain being reported is people with older monitors or TVs that do not have ports compatible with the HDMI 1.3 or perhaps 1.4 spec.
Chargers
I would like to stress that I have no proof that the 3 Amp HP charger caused the problems I had earlier. However in no case did the 3 Amp HP charger used through the SlimPort adapter charge at full power. They ALL showed the warning that I was using a low power charger, so I have permanently connected a 2 Amp charger, and overnight it brings the Chromebook up to a full charge. If I am in a hurry, I use the HP charger as a stand alone device.
SlimPort is Future Proof
The good news is that the Slimport standard is designed to drive screens up to 4K-UltraHD video and up to 8 channels of audio. So I guess that is future proof!
I have been able to get the bad adapter to work in some cases by lowering screen resolution to 1024 x 600, but it looks pretty ordinary, and it would be an emergency measure only.
So for now, I have an option that works well, and a couple of spares.
I suspect the non-functional cable will work when I upgrade my monitor in the future.
Anyone want to buy a slightly used SlimPort adapter?
The big news for Google Docs / Drive users this week is that Drive now has add-ons or plugins.
Go into Drive, Create a new document or sheet and you will find a new menu option, “Add-ons”, and from there you can see a list of add-ons that can be installed in Drive.
Add-on list
The current crop of add-ons include label printing, mail-merge, faxing, grammar checking and inserting graphs, charts and mind-maps.
This ability to add what you want, and exclude what you do NOT want is a shot across the bows of Microsoft Office. Office has, famously added everything including the kitchen sink, and then charged a small fortune for the privilege of upgrading to the next, even more bloated version.
Add-ons menu
Google is allowing third parties to build tools that many people want, and then plug then into the Drive ecosystem. I hope the ability to sell these add-ons is there, because good software should be paid for. It takes a lot of work to write and maintain these tools. Many developers fall back on ad supported software, but this often provides a poor experience for the user.
I want to try before I buy, but am happy to pay for tools that I use.
So instead of hundreds of dollars for each copy of Microsoft Office, the idea of paying nothing, or a couple of dollars for each feature I actually want is compelling.
Check out the video here:
Google Docs just got ADDINS! this is a huge step forward:
In my last post, I described how pleased I was with the HP Chromebook 11 coupled to the Slimport to HDMI adapter. Unfortunately, after about 10 days, I began to have problems. The HD monitor I was using via the SlimPort adapter began to flick on and off. as the problem worsened over a few hours, I switched to a new HDMI cable.
This improved things significantly, so cable quality is a big issue. In the interests or reliability I purchased a high quality lead from a local retailer. The problem continued to get worse.
I did some reading. The SlimPort specification indicates that it is designed to put up to 0.5A or 500ma into the device via the charging port. The HP 11 power adapter provides 3A. I wondered if the charger was overloading or overheating the SlimPort adapter. I began to fear I may have permanently damaged th adapter. None of the local retailers carry SlimPort. I orders two more, of different designs from the Internet.
Apparently the SlimPort standard changed recently, so I may be using out of date hardware. The latest ones have a red “P” logo. The two I have on order have that logo. The one I am using does not.
While all the swapping and connecting was going on, I also lost access to ALL USB devices, I did a power-wash. Everything came back except my passwords, they had to be re-entered.
I removed the high powered HP adapter and connected the 2A Nexus 7 charger. Despite warnings, it holds my HP Chromebook to about 2% power loss per hour while the laptop is running.
The Slimport adapter and cheap cable are currently working faultlessly, But I will report on the adapter I have ordered as soon as it arrives.
It removes the need for an HDMI cable by supplying a cable with a SlimPort adapter on one end, and an HDMI connector on the other!
I have lost almost an hour by starting this Windows 7 Computer.
It took 5 minutes to start. The Logitech mouse driver had to be downloaded and installed. The manufacturer of the PC downloaded a critical update. The Logitech webcam downloaded an update. Windows began downloading 95Mb of updates. meanwhile I could not open a web browser, for reasons unknown. One of the updates hung at about 80% and after making a cup of coffee and doing a clean-up around the office, I decided to reboot the computer.
The PC stopped in the “shutting Down” screen for about five minutes, and then I held the power button down to kill it.
When it re-started, I chose to start normally, and was back up pretty quickly. Now more updates where coming, and a virus scan was under-way. I could at least get Google Keep open and begin typing this. I am a little frustrated, so the keyboard is getting a bit of a pounding, but soon I will close this machine down and go back to my Chromebook.
Well, the updates failed the first time, so I re-ran the installer. After 15 minutes and a re-boot, Windows 7 is finally working.
BTSync has synced files from another machine, and I can go back to being productive.
The Google HP Chromebook 11 does not have an HDMI port for an external Monitor, it uses a Slimport video adapter. This uses the micro-USB port to connect to an external monitor.
The HP 11 also charges via the Micro-USB.
Slimport Adapter
The need to charge and use the external monitor at the same time felt like it may be a deal breaker. I spend long hours with a 22” external monitor connected, then I need to pick up the Chromebook and go. It needs to be charged when I unplug the monitor and walk away.
Hewlett Packard have covered my needs.
Slimport is an interesting technology. Previously I purchased a rather expensive MHL adapter for my Samsung Galaxy S III phone. It was expensive, and would not work at all unless a USB charger was plugged into the MHL adapter to power it. This was cumbersome and annoying, and I have rarely used it.
The Slimport is different. I had to order a Slimport adapter online, because Harvey Norman do not have Slimport adapters in stock. It took two weeks, but the adapter finally arrived and I began experimenting. My adapter is Slimport to HDMI (you can also get Slimport to VGA) and has a micro-USB charging port on the side.
The Chromebook finds the Monitor
I plugged the Slimport adapter in, and immediately the Chromebook detected the 22” E2250 monitor and extended the desktop. I was able to click on the notification and go to the settings screen.
There I was able to establish the physical relationship of the two monitors. Music and sound automatically switched to the speakers connected to the monitor.
When a USB charger other than the 4 amp charger supplied with the Chromebook is plugged in, a warning pops up the the charger is low-powered and may not charge the Chromebook while it is running.
Low Power Charger!
When I plugged the original 4 amp HP charger into the Slimport adapter, I got the same message. However the laptop charges happily, if a little slower, while I am using the Slimport adapter and monitor. I suspect the HP charger uses some unassigned pins to charge via the micro-USB at a higher rate.
One of the impressive things about the Chromebook is it instantly re-configures if anything is unplugged. Unplug the monitor, and all windows are squeezed down onto the laptop screen. Plug it back in, and they move back to where they were.
I tried this with my Acer Zenbook, unplugging the micro-HDMI cable and the computer crashed when it woke up on the road. I was confronted with the full Blue Screen Of Death (BSOD) that has pretty much disappeared with Windows 7 and up. The machine was useless, and I had to work most of the day with my phone. When I got home, the Zenbook took over an hour to scan drives and get itself working again.
Windows 7 – 0 to Chromebook – 1
I continue to be impressed with the robust nature of the Chromebook experience. The odd crash is recovered and re-started in less than 10 seconds, and I have yet to lose a word due to a crash.
Recently I took delivery of my new workhorse, a Google HP Chromebook 11. (http://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/devices/hp-chromebook-11/) The packaging alone made me fall in love with this little device. The moulded white cardboard box with rounded edges that mirror the rounded corners and edges of the Chromebook made me want to touch it. I thought it was plastic, but once opened, it is clearly a recyclable paper material
I think everyone has learned from Apple that the product should be front and centre, and not buried in packaging, and the HP 11 packaging follows this rule. Lift the lid off the box, and it is the first thing you see.
Somehow the photos I have seen made me think the HP 11 was thicker than it is. I knew the weight, only 1Kg, before I saw it, but the size and lack of weight is still amazing me.
HP 11 From the Front
The box has the Chromebook, charger, a card with the three steps to use it (switch it on, select a network, log in) and that is pretty much it.
The screen is the standard (for most Chromebooks) 1366 x 768 resolution. I love this size, My Asus Zenbook has much higher resolution, and frankly the tiny characters and icons are a problem in the readability stakes, I keep fiddling with settings looking for something more readable. The screen is noticeably better than the Samsung, and people who have compared the machines say it is much better that the Acer 720 Chromebook. The Acer is much faster, but for me, the micro-USB charging and superior screen are the winning features. I want to travel with one power supply only. The HP Chromebook 11 allows that.
I quickly power wiped my Samsung and passed it to my son. He has been hard at work configuring it to his liking.
My only disappointment was that the supplier, Harvey Norman Launceston did not have a SlimPort adapter to allow me to connect the Chromebook to my 22″ External monitor. The HP uses the newer and better SlimPort technology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayPort#SlimPort) rather than MHL to access an external monitor through the micro-USB port.
I have (an expensive) MHL adapter I bought for my Samsung Galaxy SIII, and rarely use. MHL requires an external USB power source. The Slimport is different. It is self powered, but in most cases allows the device to receive power through a second socket. I have ordered a Slimport adapter on line, with a 5-7 day delivery for an extra $10.
MyDP Slimport Adapter
It is still half the price I would have paid Harvey Norman if their had been one in stock. I prefer to support local suppliers when I can, but in this case necessity overrides local business profits.
In the meantime, I am using the Chromebook display with a stand that lifts the computer slightly to save neck strain, and it is working quite well.
The speakers, hidden under the keyboard are quite good, and surprisingly loud. Some have complained about distortion, but sounds surprisingly good to me.. It plays music and uses Hangouts with no noticeable issues for me. And you can always plug in headphones or speakers.
The keyboard is excellent. I dislike rattles, but this keyboard has a firm feel with good movement and no rocking or clattering. The keyboard is not back-lit, but that is hardly surprising, and with the white keytops, is pretty visible in low light. The keys are textured and feel quite nice to type on. Like all Chromebooks, the keyboard layout it the Google Chromebook design, with dedicated keys for search, changing apps, moving forward and back in the browser and taking the browser to full-screen. It also controls volume, screen brightness and mute. Having the soft power button next to the backspace key has caused problems for some, but I have never had an issue with it.
Many people complain about lack of a delete key, but Alt + Backspace is delete, and if you REALLY want it, Alt + Search is Caps Lock, something I do not miss at all.
HP Chromebook 11 Keyboard
The HP 11 was famously pulled from sale in the US due to overheating and melting chargers. My Australian charger works fine, but I confess, it still feels pretty warm after a full charge. I will monitor it for a while before leaving the charger unattended overnight.
I tend to be influenced by functionality rather than industrial design and beauty, but this time, I have to say, it really looks sweet!
The light weight and effectively instant suspend and resume mean that this laptop will be doing a lot of travelling with me. I have made a slipcover out of Mylar bubble wrap and gaffer tape as some protection.
I will write again when I have the Slimport adapter to test my full desktop setup.
We keep our secrets in files. It has been said that only people with something to hide object to surveillance and want privacy. Personally, I don’t have many secrets, There are plenty of things I do, say and write that I do not want shared, photographed or discussed. It is PRIVATE.
Everyone has secrets. Governments have secrets. Every business has customer information that must be kept from prying eyes.
Software and hardware companies work long and hard on new products and projects before they release them to the public. And the details will still be secret in many cases. Kentuck Fried Chicken and Coca Cola have secrets.
For Example NASA
NASA
In 2001 NASA suffered four data losses when laptops with unencrypted data where lost or stolen.
NASA suffers major data breach
David Miranda
In August, 2013 David Miranda was detained at Heathrow under anti-terrorism laws. He was not suspected of terrorism, he is the partner of Glenn Greenwald, who has been publishing documents leaked by Edward Snowdon that are embarrassing to the NSA and GCHQ in the Guardian newspaper.
David Miranda detained
Miranda was forced to hand over passwords for his laptop, phone and several USB keys he was carrying.
If he did not comply, he could be detained. He was being held under duress. More on this later…
Encryption Tools
There are a number of encryption tools. some of them “on the fly tools” like TrueCrypt.
What is “On the Fly” Decryption?
TrueCrypt mounts a drive, partition or volume (file) so it can be seen and accessed by the operating system as a drive or folder. Files can be copied, read, run, deleted and be edited in real time.
These are just a few of the tools available. Most are not free:
Comparison of disk encryption software
One of the most popular is Bitlocker, and it is free… But it only works on Windows, and do you trust Microsoft?
Is Bitlocker Safe?
Microsoft has admitted building a back door into Skype after purchasing it. It works with the NSA because as a public company, it has no choice. And it is suspected that there is a back door into Windows, written into the encryption DLL from Windows 95 OSR2 onwards.. It is closed source. No one can look at the code and see if it is clean.
So Microsoft products may not be trustworthy.
The NSA have even attempted to have a back door built into Linux.
Linux Back Door?
Fortunately, as an open source project, that is not easy to do, with many eyes looking on.
There are other trustworthy open source projects, but TrueCrypt is well known, cross platform, and here.
System agnostic, create a volume on one OS, it works on all the others
Safe, an independent code audit is underway, thanks to a Kickstarter project
TrueCrypt is very flexible. It can encrypt:
Whole drives
Partitions
Containers (Files that can function as encrypted folders or drives)
It can open containers on:
System drives
Network drives
USB and SD devices
It can open or mount devices upon:
Booting the system
Connection of the device (inserting a USB for example)
On user request ( by using the software to mount a volume)
It can disconnect a device upon:
Shutdown
After a period of inactivity (eg. No read/write for 10 minutes)
When suspended
When requested (manual / user dismount)
Some Features
It treats an encrypted partition or file as a folder In linux, or, on Windows, a drive letter
TrueCrypt volumes can be stored anywhere, including a USB drive
All settings are stored in an XML file, not in the Windows registry
It uses on the fly symmetric encryption, the data is never stored unencrypted in the file system.
A volume looks like noise. There no header that can be used to identify it. It can be any file extension.
One corrupt block (128 bits) does not destroy the volume, the header is duplicated
Encryption Technology
The encryption is based on a huge pool of entropy used by the random number generators. This is drawn from the clock and calendar, MAC and IP information, random data from the network card, and movement of the mouse and keystrokes.
Use a Good Password (NOT One of These)
The weakest link is the password. ALWAYS use a good password. Here are the worst 25 passwords from 2013. If you use one of these, congratulations, you are in good company, now CHANGE IT!
Some of the more advanced features of TrueCrypt are:
Files can be used as part of the password. This will help on a community PC because a keyboard logger cannot read the file data
Security tokens (tags, USB devices and smartcards) can be used as security tokens
Up to three encryption keys can be chained for maximum security (it IS slower)
Header files containing the encryption data can be saved and stored
Header files can be used to recover “lost” volumes if passwords are lost
Plausible deniability.
If you are arrested, held prisoner or in a ransom situation failing to give a password can be life threatening. Plausible deniability is being able to demonstrate good faith by giving the demanded information without giving away secrets
In the US and Britain you can be jailed for refusing to give passwords while being questioned as a suspect.
David Miranda, mentioned earlier, supposedly had the password to an encrypted USB drive in his pocket…
Miranda Was Carrying a password
Note the third bullet point. They decrypted ONE file. If they had found anything incriminating, he would not have been released nine hours later. Perhaps it was a sacrificial file used to protect the presence of a TrueCrypt hidden volume in a duress situation…
Hidden Volumes Provide Plausible Deniability.
A hidden, encrypted volume can be created within a volume. The TrueCrypt application tries to open the outer container with the provided password. If it fails, it searches further. If there is another, hidden container, it opens that.
The result is that in a duress situation the first password will open the outer container and reveal the not so secret, sacrificial files. The second password will open the second truly secret volume.
The size or even existence of the hidden volume is difficult to prove, because TrueCrypt fills every container with random data, So it always looks full.
Until decrypted, a TrueCrypt partition/device appears to consist of nothing more than random data (it does not contain any kind of “signature”). Therefore, it should be impossible to prove that a partition or a device is a TrueCrypt volume or that it has been encrypted (provided that the security requirements and precautions listed in the manual are followed).
Safety and features
Partition headers can be backed up. 1k file. if a corporate PC has an encrypted partition, and the employee loses or changes the password, management can come back with the backed up header and recover the data.
Does TrueCrypt use parallelization?
Yes. Increase in encryption/decryption speed is directly proportional to the number of cores/processors your computer has.
Benchmarks run under Windows XP found that it ran faster on a TrueCrypt volume than it did using native Windows file systems, because the TrueCrypt drivers use multiple cores or processors to increase throughput!!
Encrypting a system drive creates an ISO image you must burn. The disk can repair a damaged boot-loader. damaging the boot-loader could cause TrueCrypt to not know the password, the disk can repair it.
TrueCrypt is aware of, and manages wear levelling on SSDs
The TrueCrypt installation installs an excellent 150 page Pdf manual.
There are command line options, for details of usage applying to the Linux and Mac OS X versions, please run: truecrypt –h
The 31 day Chromebook Challenge has been… challenging. There have been some failures. I have learned a lot and developed a huge respect for Chromebooks as a daily work tool.
I have also gone back to Windows or Linux on several occasions, and then realised there was an alternative that could have been used on the Chromebook.
The Lessons – Chromebooks Offline
I spend a good part of my day on the road and away from Internet connectivity. That has been one of the challenges I faced with the Chromebook. It rose to the occasion beautifully. It is lighter than my Asus Zenbook, and a lot cheaper. I feel no fear of damaging it shoving it in and out of my backpack. I have saved hours on sleep and wakeup time.
ASUS Zenbook UX31E
My Zenbook crashes if I suspend it while it is connected to an HDMI port and external USB drive. Often it will not disconnect the external drive without me shutting the computer down and rebooting it. On one occasion I lost and entire day when I had to wait to get home to allow it an hour to go through recovering from a nasty BSOD when I woke it up after unplugging the HDMI cable to my external monitor. A day lost.
The Chromebook handles peripherals reliably and instantly
My Chromebook desk setup
The chromebook goes to sleep instantly. If the external monitor is disconnected, all open windows are re-sized and appear on the Laptop screen. When the external monitor and USB devices are connected they are found and activated immediately. Open windows can then be dragged back to the the external monitor. The screen resolution is identified correctly and silently. I simply have to go into settings to identify the orientation of the second monitor once, and ChromeOS remembers it.
The Chromebook is Fast
Asus ultrabook
My Zenbook is A quad core i5 processor. It is fast, it is hot. The fan runs much of the time. After a month with the totally silent Chromebook I find that the fans and heat have become quite distracting.
The Chromebook boots faster than the Zenbook despite the humble Exynos processor. It simply has less work to do. Google us using the Linux kernel for ChromeOS and have stripped alls sorts of un-necessary stuff out of the system. It boots fast, goes to sleep instantly, wakes up instantly, and then spends a few seconds discovering anything plugged into the ports. It takes about 5 seconds to identify and activate the HDMI monitor, USB network card, mouse, 3Tb western Digital drive and my 64Gb Kensington USB thumb drive, if they are present. Otherwise I just lift the lid and start typing.
There has been criticism of the Exynos based Chromebooks browsing slowly, and I notice that scrolling can be jumpy when multiple tabs are open. The graphics works fine, I can play full screen video with no problems. The number of tabs seems to be the issue. Chromebooks need more than 2Gb of RAM for heavy users. But I am using a music player, countdown timer, Keep, Drive, a couple of docs, and perhaps a dozen tabs. It runs faster that the Zenbook with a similar load of applications. There is simply less overhead.
The Chromebook Cannot do some things
Evernote cannot be used offline. I am now using Evernote much less, and relying on Keep and Google Drive
Truecrypt cannot be used on Chrome, so my secure volumes are closed to me.
Chrome does not support Scanners, so OCR is a problem. But using the Drive app on Android to photograph a document makes it a searchable PDF.
It cannot capture or Edit audio or video while offline. There are apps that work online. I will continue to use Linux to edit video and audio.
I cannot access files stored in Dropbox unless I download them while online
In Conclusion
This post is getting too long, so I will simply say, The Samsung Chromebook will continue to be my daily carry. It will travel with me, be used constantly, and be connected to a monitor and charger when I get home. The Zenbook will be used once or twice a week for the things I simply cannot do on the Chromebook.
I am very interested in the HP 11 Chromebook. It has similar specifications to the Samsung, but is lighter, has a better screen, and charges from a micro-USB adapter.
I will follow up with a later post. – Enjoy! – Phil Stephens
