[Closed] Chromebook and documents

yes, google slides is the google suite equivalent. It can open for showing and editing ppt and save your own Slide creations as ppt too.

Excellent news. Thanks.

My technological knowledge suddenly seems to be five years behind. Where is the best place to learn this stuff?

Right there with ya 🙁 the laptop i', using right now is so hot I could probably cook my dinner on it but I don't know what the best replacement is to make a decent decision these days

It's a real challenge, i can see the uses of laptops, tablets and chromebooks. It has taken me months to get to this point but I think a smart phone and a chromebook will meet my needs.

you can use PowerPoint Online app for Chromebook as well, works great as long as you are on line. Some compatibility issues with presentations made on PowerPoint and then shown on Google Slides. There is also Word Online but I still use Google apps over either

If you pdf presentations I assume that overcomes compatibility issues?

yes. direct conversion/attachment to email or export/download from within the Slides app.

Thanks Stoner. I guess you're a Chromebook convert. Any shortcoming to be aware of?

as above, I've only had problems when people have put animations in and it hasn't played them. I bought my Chromebook for all the same reasons, certainly wouldn't go back to a laptop, I don't feel that it lacks anything. There is loads of apps and extensions available plus the 1TB of storage I got with it means that storage is no problem.....as long as you get on with Google products and you have access to the internet it's great

I guess you're a Chromebook convert

just a little.

I have 3x chromebooks and now a chromebox too.

I run my company and mine and my colleagues company entirely within the Google environment - and I build financial models for a living. Made my career wrangling Excel, but can now quite happily continue to do so exclusively in Google Sheets.

The main benefits are platform independence and redundancy of data storage. I can kill a laptop, login to another and everything is just as where it is supposed to be. I keep a chromebook in France. Just log in, and all my work materials are there, cookies are synchronised, its as if I was at my desk at home.

I can walk into any internet cafe (do they still exist 😉 ) and again, up and running as if I were at any one of my own machines.

Also, virus protection and update management is seamless and low impact. No resource hungry anti-v software or Gigs of microsoft Update junk to download every few days.

Great. I run my own little company, still a one man band at present, and I still want to look professional when I'm giving presentations, chairing workshops etc.

Sounds like non issue. I was tempted by a Toshiba. Any other recommendations?

google drive on a chromebook will synchronise google docs locally. but not PDFs. (Download them if you want the security of having a copy with unknown internet connections).

Also learn how to turn your phone into a tethering hotspot for emergencies.

I like my samsung series 3s, I think they are better than my HP11. But the Samsung's arent available anymore. There's a grade mfctr refurb one on ebay for £125 at the moment.

I dont know toshiba

The acers are perfectly good. TBH, the spec's are fairly immaterial. They all come with 2Gb RAM and 16Gb SSD. There's not much needed to differentiate.

the laptop i', using right now is so hot I could probably cook my dinner on it

That's probably because too many process are running and using too much cpu. That makes it hot. Have a look in the task manager or resource monitor.

Stoner - does Google read the stuff you put on google drive like it does your email?

No. I pay for my google services.

EDIT: Well, I'm sure it does "read" my stuff, but it doesnt then spam me with 2for1 deals on development sites in Greater London as a result.

If I were using it for business I'd be wary of that - not personally but because of what my clients might stipulate.

I bought one of the Acers, and liked it alright, but got frustrated at the slowness of it all.

The screen went tits up, so I swapped it on for a little Acer Transformer book, which I'm a lot happier with.

It came with a years worth of office as standard.

If your clients are FBI-dodging, silk road trading, ner-do-wells, then I dont blame them. For the rest of the world....
...it's just scaremongering.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/05/hmrc_is_going_google/

I've got the new Toshiba (CB30 B 104), with the full HD screen and 4GB RAM. It gets very good reviews and John Lewis had it £50 off a couple of weeks ago, so only cost £219!

It's excellent, as far as I can tell from two weeks' use and no prior experience of Chromebooks...

It's almost certainly replacing my laptop for 99% of things. I don't think I can print from it as my printer isn't Google Cloud Print enabled (it's about 10 years old), but I tend to print most stuff at work anyway.

EDIT - This one: [url= http://www.johnlewis.com/toshiba-cb30-b-104-chromebook-intel-celeron-4gb-ram-16gb-ssd-13-3-full-hd-silver/p1841467 ]http://www.johnlewis.com/toshiba-cb30-b-104-chromebook-intel-celeron-4gb-ram-16gb-ssd-13-3-full-hd-silver/p1841467[/url]

That's the best thing about the Transformer book, its able to print out to my old Epson printer, just by plugging the USB in, no fannying around!

If your clients are FBI-dodging, silk road trading, ner-do-wells, then I dont blame them. For the rest of the world....
...it's just scaremongering.

Not necessarily.

If you send something to someone you're working with, you have to know where it's going. You can't then hand it over to a third party without their knowledge. It'd could easily be breaching the terms of the contract you've signed. You have to trust the people you are working with.

Speaking as someone who receives a crapload of training on the subject on a regular basis.

That's probably because too many process are running and using too much cpu. That makes it hot. Have a look in the task manager or resource monitor

Cheers but there's not really much going on in there. All it takes is a few chrome tabs and it starts going into meltdown - it is a tad old now though...

Another chrome user here. the only thing that bugs me is no Silverlight (no Eurosport player) if that bothers you, and I can't download from my Spotify acct.

Acer 720 user. Love it 🙂

I recently bought the Toshiba CB30 B 104. Not had any issues with it. As said though. You need internet connection.

So much faster (and cheaper) and easier than a laptop.

Cheers but there's not really much going on in there. All it takes is a few chrome tabs and it starts going into meltdown

Age doesn't make computers get hotter.

You've only started a few chrome tabs, but I bet there's some shite software going nuts in the background.

I bought a Samsung Series 3 chromebook (on which I'm typing this) two and a half years ago. I use it every single day. I have a Windows 8.1 laptop for astrophotography stuff and an iMac for the heavy lifting. When I bought my laptop I was shocked (shocked, I tell you!) to hear fans going off when it was slightly taxed.

It is the chromebook I use much more than all the rest. Its just so convenient.

The only thing I wish is that it had a celeron processor for a little more oomph.

I thought with the Chromebooks you could do some stuff offline (create one or two docs)if you had the right App? So didn't always need a connection? It's just access to everything that needs internet?

Any shortcoming to be aware of?

(that would make it almost perfect for me!)

There's a gmail offline application which syncs and works well.

All native goggle drive apps (Docs, sheets, slides, drawings etc) get local versions saved for those recently opened i.e. within the last month or so (depending on storage). These can be opened using google drive when offline. You can also create any one of those files when offline too, and it will be sync'd to your google drive once connected.

Other file types stored in your google drive will not be sync'd locally (i.e. pdf or mp3 files) but you can download them and save them in the local drive yourself if you need to have an offline copy.

I love my Chromebook, stuff I've discovered in the last year:

Needed a new compatible printer (£40)
You can't actually install Apps like an Android phone.
My model won't do dual screens as its only got a VGA out.
Not really found any way to touch up photos. Although the editing options on my phone and the new Google Photos will now make that easier.

That I spent about 0.4*365=146 hours each year waiting for my Windoze laptop to boot, restart after update prompts and shutdown, plus all the constant popups, crashes and having anxiety syndrome if it was away from its charger for more than 30 minutes.

Needed a new compatible printer (£40)

I just got a grade refurb canon with Google Cloud Ready on eBay for £29.

You can't actually install Apps like an Android phone.

There are a number of "apps" that do install locally as extensions, such as gmail offline and other google suite offline functionality. But yes, most "apps" are actually wholly webapps and so require internet connections.

My model won't do dual screens as its only got a VGA out.

I think they all come with HDMI now. Didnt know any only came with VGA even from the start!

Not really found any way to touch up photos. Although the editing options on my phone and the new Google Photos will now make that easier.

Google photos is finally the right solution to photos by google. google+ wasnt. Picasaweb was OK but editing was ropey.

Pixlr or Polarr for editing photos?

I've got a chunk of music downloaded / ripped to my laptop.

Is there an (easy) way to transfer that (and play it; including being able to access downloaded stuff) on a Chromebook.

What's the difference between a Chromebook and a Netbook?

Stoner you are correct, HDMI but no VGA, end result is still just one screen if you happen to be used to two at work etc.

Also last week, I hadn't realised there was no ethernet port and had to use the old laptop to identify that my super dooperfast new internet was losing 50mb/s slower on wifi compared to wired.

There is a ton of stuff on you tube on how to use chromebooks. Love mine. Only downside is I can't use garmin connect

Is there an (easy) way to transfer that (and play it; including being able to access downloaded stuff) on a Chromebook.

I have dual screens setup on my "desktop" chromebox - they come with HDMI and a DisplayPort (easy adaptor to HDMI) and it extends the desktop screen seamlessly, out of the box.

downside is I can't use garmin connect

TBH that's typical of garmin's out of date approach to the world. They should have launched a webapp years ago. If it doesnt have a webapp, I dont use it. That's one of the reasons I started moving from microsoft office over 8yrs ago, because they were so far off the pace with webapps of their office suite.

Can use garmin connect on mine. No probs.

Can use garmin connect on mine. No probs.

go on....
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Garmin connect fine on mine ([url= http://connect.garmin.com/ ]http://connect.garmin.com/[/url]).

Do you mean Garmin Express, the PC uploader, or the older uploader (was that called connect)?

I can manually upload .fit files from my Edge 800 to Garmin Connect, just plug it in and it appears as an external drive.

[i]downside is I can't use garmin connect[/i]

Strava

Edit: Doesn't Garmin connect require yo to download the programme? (can't do that on Chromebook)

Now all I need is John Lewis to do £50 off again...

i can upload rides from my Garmin into Connect and view them etc. Infact, someone on here told me how to do it ! can't remember exactly as at work on PC, but it's about opening the file on the Garmin and browsing into the activity