All the cheap netbooks now come with harddrives, because even a much smaller SSD is more expensive. So that reduces battery life. Of course, you now get Windows 8 with it. So you install a linux distro on it, struggle a bit with UEFI and hardware drivers, etc.
There are cheap netbooks that come with SSDs. They also come with ChromeOS, rather than Win8. Probably less of a mess to install Linux onto them, too (especially from the hardware driver end, since if Linux-based ChromeOS runs on it, there's less of a chance that the hardware isn't supported in Linux.)
While I do like my Chromebook, I must inform you that you are mistaken. All of my ChromeOS apps are hosted, which means that they are very much controlled and maintained by the developer. All of my traditional OS apps (even in Android) are held on my device and I decide when I want to update them to what the developer has decided is "good".
Neither of those are inherent features of the OS. You can build a ChromeOS app that let people continue using old versions even when newer ones are available, and you can build apps for traditional OS's that, even though they are installed natively, phone home and refuse to run anything but the latest version.
Also -- and this may have been a misreading -- GP was a response to reading GGP as expressing the view that Google would control all of your apps on the Chromebook, not that each app vendor would control their own apps. Each app vendor controlling their own app (including having the option of deciding not to exercise invasive control) may be the case with ChromeOS, but then again, it is exactly the case with traditional desktop OS's, as well.
I have a SimCity install that I can play with anytime I want whereas the new SimCity model is completely dependent on what the host decides is appropriate.
Yeah, and that new SimCity model is for a game on a traditional desktop OS and has nothing to do with ChromeOS.
WTF? if they aren't selling miserably then that means Windows RT surface devices are a stunning success which by last months estimates have sold triple what chromebooks have.
Or it means that "selling miserably" doesn't mean the same thing for devices with what amounts to basically a traditional mobile OS (similar to Android or iOS) trying to break into that crowded market and something promising a new model selling to early adopters. (Which is why WinRT devices are seeing major price cuts, while ChromeOS devices aren't, and are often selling at a premium above MSRP. Its pretty clear that WinRT devices are failing by the standards of the people selling them, ChromeOS not so much.)
At any rate, have fun uploading 20 gig videos to the cloud before editing them.
Why? With Web Intents and either local video capture or a video device that can connect to the local network and expose its data via HTTP, there's no reason you need to upload anything to the cloud, even if the app is hosted there.
Remember netbooks? They got to be rather good under-$300 laptop computers before the industry killed them off for not being expensive enough and not requiring any expensive or intrusive "cloud service".
Actually, I think it was Microsoft that killed them off with the feature set and licensing costs and conditions for various Windows versions, which made it so that laptops either wouldn't have basic features or wouldn't be inexpensive.
Google (and maybe some other companies) would be happy if they were constantly controlling the apps you were using, but I so no advantage in that approach to me.
No one is "constantly controlling the apps you" are using on a Chromebook, any more than on a traditional desktop.
LOL that is practically the same catch cry NC's, Java Stations, IBM Net stations et al. Every time it is "this time it is different", it isn't, it is still a limited computer that for full functionality is reliant on a network. all 3 of the machines I mentioned their also had the ability to run a limited set of applications locally and they also all claimed they were the future of what people wanted and just like the Chromebook they sold miserably.
Yeah, I remember when those other things you are comparing Chromebooks to were being reported as the top selling computers at major retailers, and were doing well even when they were being sold at a substantial premium over the MSRP. Except...not.
Chromebooks aren't selling miserably. One reason is that the Chromebook model fits the way lots of people actually use their computers today, not some kind of model that a company thinks might become dominant in the future.
...because unless Chromebooks are significantly cheaper than a regular computer running Windows/OX X or Linux, where's the point?
For many users, the simplicity and low maintenance overhead of ChromeOS's browser-centered design, and the easy hardware replacement (no concern about transferring files and programs) of the cloud model have value. Sure, for other users, the flexibility and independent local storage model of a traditional OS have more value, but not all users are alike.
Not unless you expand the definition of thin client to the point where its meaningless.
Then there is the issue of all my data residing on 3rd party data-center which might get hacked, data mined by the service provider without my permission, destroyed in an unseasonal flood disaster or just discontinued because the service failed to meet profitability goals.
Nothing requires Chrome apps to store data on a remote server (and there's even less reason for them to do so exclusively.) Obviously, they can and there is some utility to doing so (which doesn't rely on it being exclusively), in terms of providing access-from-anywhere, but local-only storage is viable from Chrome apps, as well.
The same broken concept of crippled terminal type computers seems to have been repeated so many times over the past 30 years (time I have been in IT).
The Chromebook isn't intended to be a "crippled terminal type computer", and its concept is new.
The reason people keep getting this wrong is that they think of it as an OS that is "just a browser", but refer to an outdated concept of what a web browser does that misses the entire point of Chrome (not just ChromeOS, but Chrome more generally.)
[I'd be a lot more sympathetic...]...to the Chromebook concept, if the model was closer to something like Dropbox: the master copy of a document is on the server, but you always have a local working copy, and you can keep working on it while you're offline.
That's pretty much exactly the model for apps using the offline APIs that are central to the idea of ChromeOS's viability.
I still can't believe Google ignored all of these lessons, and instead decided to re-animate the late-90s "network computer" zombie.
Serious question. Can you store files and run apps locally?
Yes. That's rather the point of the variety of offline-related APIs that have been pushed as web standards by -- largely though not solely -- Google and which are supported by ChromeOS (and, for that matter, Chrome and a number of browsers on other OS's, too.)
Did North Korea just beat the French after a long resistance against the Japanese? Does North Korea have the backing of anyone like the old USSR?
And America is not structured in such a way to actually be able to sustain any type actual war for more than a few months.
North Korea's in a much worse position than the US when it comes to this.
The US would simply run out of the money to produce $100,000 missiles and $10,000,000 helicopters before NK ran out of the ability to produce people, $20 AK-47s, and $5 explosives.
Few wars last long enough that producing people is a factor. Producing food, on the other hand, is one, and its not exactly North Korea's strong point.
Another thing to consider, is that unlike anyone the US has ever fought a war against, North Korea has a high probability of having a small number of nuclear weapons and, as long as neither China nor Russia is not supporting their aggression, no ally with a large number of nuclear weapons (this is pretty much the opposite of the situation in Vietnam) this dramatically increases the likelihood of the US feeling the need to go acheive a swift victory (including going nuclear if necessary), while removing the primary constraint on the use of nuclear weapons (the probability of massive escalation from the other side.)
China's fear of living with a nuclear armed despot on its doorstep dwarves its fear of a unified Korea.
What evidence do you have for that assertion?
China actually flipping to support sanctions against NK, which is what appears to have provoked the latest escalation in North Korea's decades-long series of this kind of outbursts?
Can someone explain to me what it is that gives such a small country that has comparably weak military (they are ranked number 28 in the world according to http://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-listing.asp [globalfirepower.com]) and pretty much zero chance of surviving a week in a real war the balls to be so dickish and war-hungry?
Basically, having a gun (well, one of the world's largest concentrations of conventional artillery, more precisely) to South Korea's head (capital). Plus the nukes don't hurt, but its mostly the gun-to-the-head.
I think at this point China wouldn't have anywhere hear the concerns they had 60 years ago with a unified Korea provided that unification got an agreement from the US to withdraw from the mainland.
I think any basically US-friendly government in a unified Korea would remember what happened the last time the US withdrew from the peninsula, and would be very reluctant to accept (much less demand) a US withdrawal. Certainly not to accept a US withdrawal to placate a neighboring Communist state with an overwhelming local conventional military superiority.
FTFY there was never an armistice in Korea, just a cease fire.
An armistice (such as the Korean War Armistice Agreement) is essentially a cease-fire intended as permanent, usually because it foresees the negotiation of a final peace treaty or settlement during the resulting cessation of hostilities. So you didn't fix anything, just made it less precise.
However, winning the hearts of the North Koreans would be incredibly harder. Remember, this is a culture that, for at least a generation or two, has been completely brainwashed into thinking their Dear Leader(tm)(r)(c) is some sort of god.
This is a culture that, for at least a generation or two, has faced starvation and deprivation of the masses contrasted against the visible luxury of the elite in a fairly stunning manner. If you don't just import a foreign (and South Korean is "foreign" in this case) elite to replace the old guard, its probably not all that hard to get them (the masses, rather than the remnants of the old elits) to abandon any affection for the Leader (Great, Dear, or otherwise).
Getting them attached to something else in any kind of durable way, of course, would be less easy.
NK army essentially won the war first, to the point where McArhur was insisting on nuclear solution because South Korea was for all bits and purposes taken except for small patches in the South.
That was because they invaded after the US had withdrawn, and had essentially won a NK-SK one-on-one match before the US could deploy.
You might notice that that's not an option anymore, so even if the balance of power between the two Koreas taken alone was the same in 2013 as it was in 1950, that result wouldn't be a good guide to what is likely now.
The situation on the Korean peninsula wasn't exactly created by the Korean people. It was engineered by the Americans, Chinese, Russians and Japanese; because a unified Korea would have been so economically powerful NONE of the above wanted it to exist.
Not really true. Japan might not have, but no one was really listening to them at the end of WWII. America and Russia both wanted a United Korea to exist, and both wanted to direct how it was going to be set up. Same as in Germany, they each saw half a loaf and not fighting a war with each other immediately as superior, in the short term, to any other alternative that was on the table.
no armistice was signed when the Korean War ended.
Presumably, you are trying to use a fancy word for "peace treaty" and failing, as an armistice was, in fact, signed by the belligerents on July 27, 1953, which established "complete cessation of all hostilities in Korea by all armed force".
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There are cheap netbooks that come with SSDs. They also come with ChromeOS, rather than Win8. Probably less of a mess to install Linux onto them, too (especially from the hardware driver end, since if Linux-based ChromeOS runs on it, there's less of a chance that the hardware isn't supported in Linux.)
Some Chromebooks are ARM, some are Intel.
Neither of those are inherent features of the OS. You can build a ChromeOS app that let people continue using old versions even when newer ones are available, and you can build apps for traditional OS's that, even though they are installed natively, phone home and refuse to run anything but the latest version.
Also -- and this may have been a misreading -- GP was a response to reading GGP as expressing the view that Google would control all of your apps on the Chromebook, not that each app vendor would control their own apps. Each app vendor controlling their own app (including having the option of deciding not to exercise invasive control) may be the case with ChromeOS, but then again, it is exactly the case with traditional desktop OS's, as well.
Yeah, and that new SimCity model is for a game on a traditional desktop OS and has nothing to do with ChromeOS.
Or it means that "selling miserably" doesn't mean the same thing for devices with what amounts to basically a traditional mobile OS (similar to Android or iOS) trying to break into that crowded market and something promising a new model selling to early adopters. (Which is why WinRT devices are seeing major price cuts, while ChromeOS devices aren't, and are often selling at a premium above MSRP. Its pretty clear that WinRT devices are failing by the standards of the people selling them, ChromeOS not so much.)
Why? With Web Intents and either local video capture or a video device that can connect to the local network and expose its data via HTTP, there's no reason you need to upload anything to the cloud, even if the app is hosted there.
Actually, I think it was Microsoft that killed them off with the feature set and licensing costs and conditions for various Windows versions, which made it so that laptops either wouldn't have basic features or wouldn't be inexpensive.
No one is "constantly controlling the apps you" are using on a Chromebook, any more than on a traditional desktop.
Yeah, I remember when those other things you are comparing Chromebooks to were being reported as the top selling computers at major retailers, and were doing well even when they were being sold at a substantial premium over the MSRP. Except...not.
Chromebooks aren't selling miserably. One reason is that the Chromebook model fits the way lots of people actually use their computers today, not some kind of model that a company thinks might become dominant in the future.
For many users, the simplicity and low maintenance overhead of ChromeOS's browser-centered design, and the easy hardware replacement (no concern about transferring files and programs) of the cloud model have value. Sure, for other users, the flexibility and independent local storage model of a traditional OS have more value, but not all users are alike.
Not unless you expand the definition of thin client to the point where its meaningless.
Nothing requires Chrome apps to store data on a remote server (and there's even less reason for them to do so exclusively.) Obviously, they can and there is some utility to doing so (which doesn't rely on it being exclusively), in terms of providing access-from-anywhere, but local-only storage is viable from Chrome apps, as well.
The Chromebook isn't intended to be a "crippled terminal type computer", and its concept is new.
The reason people keep getting this wrong is that they think of it as an OS that is "just a browser", but refer to an outdated concept of what a web browser does that misses the entire point of Chrome (not just ChromeOS, but Chrome more generally.)
That's pretty much exactly the model for apps using the offline APIs that are central to the idea of ChromeOS's viability.
They didn't.
Yes. That's rather the point of the variety of offline-related APIs that have been pushed as web standards by -- largely though not solely -- Google and which are supported by ChromeOS (and, for that matter, Chrome and a number of browsers on other OS's, too.)
Did North Korea just beat the French after a long resistance against the Japanese? Does North Korea have the backing of anyone like the old USSR?
North Korea's in a much worse position than the US when it comes to this.
Few wars last long enough that producing people is a factor. Producing food, on the other hand, is one, and its not exactly North Korea's strong point.
Another thing to consider, is that unlike anyone the US has ever fought a war against, North Korea has a high probability of having a small number of nuclear weapons and, as long as neither China nor Russia is not supporting their aggression, no ally with a large number of nuclear weapons (this is pretty much the opposite of the situation in Vietnam) this dramatically increases the likelihood of the US feeling the need to go acheive a swift victory (including going nuclear if necessary), while removing the primary constraint on the use of nuclear weapons (the probability of massive escalation from the other side.)
China actually flipping to support sanctions against NK, which is what appears to have provoked the latest escalation in North Korea's decades-long series of this kind of outbursts?
Basically, having a gun (well, one of the world's largest concentrations of conventional artillery, more precisely) to South Korea's head (capital). Plus the nukes don't hurt, but its mostly the gun-to-the-head.
I think to have that analogy correct, you need to reverse "United States and Iraq". China:NK::US:Iraq, not China:NK::Iraq:US
I think any basically US-friendly government in a unified Korea would remember what happened the last time the US withdrew from the peninsula, and would be very reluctant to accept (much less demand) a US withdrawal. Certainly not to accept a US withdrawal to placate a neighboring Communist state with an overwhelming local conventional military superiority.
An armistice (such as the Korean War Armistice Agreement) is essentially a cease-fire intended as permanent, usually because it foresees the negotiation of a final peace treaty or settlement during the resulting cessation of hostilities. So you didn't fix anything, just made it less precise.
This is a culture that, for at least a generation or two, has faced starvation and deprivation of the masses contrasted against the visible luxury of the elite in a fairly stunning manner. If you don't just import a foreign (and South Korean is "foreign" in this case) elite to replace the old guard, its probably not all that hard to get them (the masses, rather than the remnants of the old elits) to abandon any affection for the Leader (Great, Dear, or otherwise).
Getting them attached to something else in any kind of durable way, of course, would be less easy.
That was because they invaded after the US had withdrawn, and had essentially won a NK-SK one-on-one match before the US could deploy.
You might notice that that's not an option anymore, so even if the balance of power between the two Koreas taken alone was the same in 2013 as it was in 1950, that result wouldn't be a good guide to what is likely now.
Well, it would be somewhat of outrageous in the degree of understatement that comes from saying "day" when "5 minutes" is probably more accurate.
Not really true. Japan might not have, but no one was really listening to them at the end of WWII. America and Russia both wanted a United Korea to exist, and both wanted to direct how it was going to be set up. Same as in Germany, they each saw half a loaf and not fighting a war with each other immediately as superior, in the short term, to any other alternative that was on the table.
Presumably, you mean North Korea. Because otherwise, WTF?
Short term, no, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a unified Korea as the dominant economic powerhouse of East Asia 25 years after reunification.
Presumably, you are trying to use a fancy word for "peace treaty" and failing, as an armistice was, in fact, signed by the belligerents on July 27, 1953, which established "complete cessation of all hostilities in Korea by all armed force".