literally two minutes after I’ve fitted an extra 2Gb of RAM to my new Chromebox (came with 2Gb), my bro posted me this article.

http://www.t3.com/news/google-plans-to-make-chrome-use-less-ram

Chrome to finally go on a RAM diet. About time! 🙂

I do like my new Chromebox though. I have finally retired the monstrous i5 PC. I reckon it consumes well over £100 of electricity to run a year. And the Chromebox will take substantially less given a peak 65W demand. (My old PC had a 1,000W PSU FFS 😀 )

Out of the box, the Chromebox happily runs two monitors without a whimper of complaint as well as standard USB peripherals like a webcam and HIDs.

Only minor glitch, my relatively newish Canon inkjet (Wifi ready, natch) wasnt “Google Cloud Print ready” and so is redundant. Such printers require a PC or MAC host to run as a print server to provide printing service to Google Chrome devices. I picked a up a refurb’d Canon on ebay for £29 which is Google Cloud Print ready, and it talks to Google servers in the cloud instead to receive it’s printing orders.

The chromebox is also a Grade A refurb unit from ebay for £130. The extra RAM cost £18.

Once I’ve cleaned and stripped my old PC, I should get a few hundred for various parts. And even better finally be fully Microsoft Free!

That’ll do nicely for my puny Vaio P series.

Chromebox is a “desktop” chromebook, is that right?

I’m a chromeOS convert (though have been windows free for 15yrs on various flavours of linux), I just need some way of using some crappy proprietary teaching software for work (shockwave based I think). Currently have my chromebook c720 running ubuntu and WINE to do it, but it’s not a perfect solution.

Chromebox is a “desktop” chromebook, is that right?

yep.

It’s about the size of small box of tissues. In fact mine came with a vesa mount and it sits on the back of one of the monitors like a parasite.

It seemed a waste to keep a big PC fired just to run Chrome. Yes, I lose some MS function but I’ve been planning for it. I lose my dual PC TV tuners and Windows Media Centre recording all my terrestial TV. But I dont watch live TV, and now since I mainly watch iPlayer or ITV player or other play again services, including Blinkbox and Google movies/TV I dont really need the PVR function. And we get superfast broadband within the next few weeks. So it’s all timely.

I confess I have one extra back up up my sleeve. My bro has a server on 24/7 at home and he’s allocated me a virtual machine slice to use if I need to do any PC stuff in an emergency – I access it using the Chrome remote desktop protocol.

thinking I can run it though my telly with a remote keyboard?

yes.

quite a few people do that. maybe try and find a keyboard with an integrated trackpad.

In the flat I have a an android TV (runs a kind of jelly bean) http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00PU9A8L2/ref=pe_385721_37986871_TE_item and control it pretty well using one of these: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B009GZN462/ref=pe_385721_37986871_TE_item

it connects via a wireless mini dongle.

as a small controller it’s fine. For more normal computer work, Id still want a bigger keyboard. But for browsing and STW’ing it would actually suffice.

EDIT
this looks good
http://www.ebay.co.uk/171803824080

PSA Acer C720 Chromebook on discount at morgan computers. Its a really tidy unit.

Grade A refurb stock. £135 with code WHSAL88

http://www.morgancomputers.co.uk/?page=product_detail&product=14874

Oh, I was hoping for pictures of a shiny bike.

How does Cloud Print work out for you? Print is something traditionally that sucks the horses wotsits across a WAN even optimised so interested to know if it works in a timely manner.

It works OK. There’s a delay, but it’s not consistent, it might be a minute, maybe a few seconds. Setup was relatively painless once I’d worked out I had to go back to the printer after Id accepted the printer’s registration against my google account at the workstation.

Sharing with Mrs Stoner a piece of piss, but note that a printer can only be registered to one account at a time. Although there’s no limits on the numbers of shares you can add.