Well, here you go guys, as I promised in my last post about Samsung Chromebox Price and Specs, an unboxing video of Samsung Chromebox.

Watch the video first, and then I will do the talking.

Okay, I had a question about the Chromebox + Keyboard + Mouse combo. Well, looks like that is also going to be an option, because in this unboxing video, you will see a user manual that talks about a mouse and keyboard that comes with the Chromebox. However, the unit that we have on this unboxing video is just a Chromebox and then a power cable.

Chromebox, the power cable, and some documentation stuff, that’s it?

Since this guy got his hands on the Chromebox early, we will soon see a detailed review of Samsung Chromebox out there on the web. So, stay tuned guys and please drop your thoughts about the new Chrome OS device, here in the comments section.

Will you be buying one?

In a surprising development, Tiger Direct, an online retailer, leaked specs and price of the Samsung Chromebox. They accidently made the product page active.

ps: Stay tuned for an unboxing video

Even though Tiger Direct removed the page from their website, cached webpages from Google still give us the complete details of the new Chromebox.

Samsung Chromebox – Price

Well, the first question that everybody wants an answer for – what’s the price of Samsung’s Chromebox? So, here you go, its price $329.99. It is not a very attractive price for those who are waiting for cheap versions of Chrome OS devices, which we all hope, will give a popularity boost to Chrome OS. However, if you look at the specs below, you will see that this is not a really bad deal after all. Let me know if you agree!

Specs – Samsung Chromebox

• CPU: 1.9GHZ Intel Celeron /Intel Core i5
• RAM: 4GB DDR3
• Storage: 16GB Solid State Drive
• USB Ports: 2x Front / 4x Rear
• Headphone/Mic Jack
• Video: 1x DVI and 2x Display Port
• 1GB Ethernet
• Bluetooth
• WiFi
• Optional 3G (Verizon)

Here is the complete specs saved directly from the Tiger Direct Page

That sounds really promising, especially when we hear a lot of complaints about Chromebooks with less processing power and memory to handle powerful applications on the web and HD videos.

Chromebox – A Little Flashback

Chromebox was announced during Google I/0 2011, about an year back. Sundar Pichai of Google Chrome team teased everyone with a picture of Samsung Chromebox. The latest update we got about them was, ““Samsung™s Chromebox Is Coming in Mid-2012 for $400″  The release date still sounds almost true, but the price has been reduced from $400 to $329.99, which is of course a really good move.

There were rumors about a Wireless Mouse and Keyboad getting bundled with Samsung Chromebox, but we do not have any confirmation on this yet.

So, Google I/O 2012 is going to be a really exciting event for all Chrome OS fans!!

Google Chrome team has announced the beta release of a  Terminal Emulator app for Chrome OS and Chromebook. Here are the details.

Secure Shell App for Chrome OS

Secure Shell is an xterm-compatible terminal emulator and stand-alone ssh client for Chrome. It uses Native-Client to connect directly to ssh servers without the need for external proxies.

Secure Shell is a Beta release and has known bugs.

ecure Shell is an xterm-compatible terminal emulator and stand-alone ssh client for Chrome.  It uses Native-Client to connect directly to ssh servers without the need for external proxies.

Secure Shell provides similar functionality to PuTTY for Windows, and the ssh command-line application for Mac OS X and Linux systems.  It’s available on Chrome OS as well as Chrome for Windows, OS X, and Linux.  Chromebook users can use Secure Shell to replace the ssh command from crosh.

This is a Beta release.  Most of the what you need from an ssh client is ready, but expect some rough edges.  Check the FAQ and the Open Bug List for some of the details.

Google Drive is here. !!

Google Drive is designed as an open platform. That means, third party app developers can create awesome applications that work directly with your Google drive. While we are waiting to see such apps from those brainy developers, Google has worked with a few and added 15 apps to Chrome Web Store for you to get started. Here is the list.

Title of each section is a link the app itself. Click to download.

1. Pixlr Editor

Pixlr Editor is  a full featured photo editor direct in your browser, no download, no wait and 100% free.

If you are used to working with Gimp, Paint shop pro or even Photoshop you will feel right at home with this online image editor. It contains lots of the features that you normally see in desktop applications but just one click away.

2. Graphing Calculator by Desmos.com

Here is the official description “We set out to re-imagine the graphing calculator from the ground up, building on the best technologies available. This is beautiful, powerful, intuitive math that lives completely in your browser ”

3. Floorplanner

Floorplanner gives you the tools to make beautiful floor plans, fast. If you’re moving into a new house, planning a wedding, or reorganising your living room, Floorplanner has the right tools for you

4. Lucidchart: Diagramming

The easiest way to draw flowcharts, mockups, UML, mind maps and more. Work together in real time with your team and clients.

5. AutoCAD WS

View, edit, and share DWG drawings through your web browser with the AutoCAD WS web and mobile application.

6. Smartsheet Project Management

Smartsheet’s cloud worksheets redefine how teams collaborate on projects and tasks. The web-based tool combines a familiar spreadsheet-like interface with file sharing, automated workflows, Gantt charts, sub-tasks, dependencies and more.

7. Pixlr Express

Pixlr express is a smooth and modern photo editor, with all the effects, overlays and borders from the popular pixlr-o-matic but with more control. There are also lots of adjustments, stickers and a text tool.

8. DocuSign

Instantly send contracts, documents and agreements and more for electronic signature directly from Google Drive and your Chrome browser using DocuSign®, the global standard for eSignature. Once you’ve tried DocuSign, you’ll wonder how you ever got along without it!

9. Aviary for Google Drive

Edit any photo in Google Drive with Aviary’s powerful yet simple photo editor!

10. Pixorial Video

Pixorial is the video storytelling platform that lets you easily send, upload, edit, organize and share your video memories.

11. MindMeister

MindMeister brings mind mapping to the web allowing for real-time collaboration and truly global brainstorming sessions.

12. Revisu

The easiest way for creative teams to share their designs, track version history, and collect feedback.

13.WeVideo for Google Drive

Powerful collaborative video editor for Google Drive

14. Gantter

Gantter.com is an enterprise web 2.0 project scheduling application that optionally integrates with Google Drive. 

15.Balsamiq Mockups

Balsamiq Mockups for Google Drive allows you to create, edit and share sketch-quality wireframes, all within Drive.

I had this question, I know many others who asked the same question, here on the Blog and on Google Plus, what are these Aura and Ash in Chrome OS and how are they related or different from each other. Ben Goodger from Google explained these two concepts on the Chromium dev group the other day. I am posting it here for everyone.

If you don’t touch code in src/chrome you can probably ignore this.

*Aura vs. Ash*

Aura is evolving to encompass more than just the window manager/shell
environment work for ChromeOS. I’m going to attempt to spell out some of
the differences here so that it’s clear what defines to use in code and to
help everyone get a better understanding.

*Aura *is the hardware accelerated UI framework built on CC.[1]
*Ash (the Aura SHell[2])* is the ChromeOS window manager, desktop
environment etc. Ash depends on Aura and Views. Ash is built with use_ash=1
in your GYP_DEFINES, which #defines USE_ASH. This also implies USE_AURA.

At the time of writing, it’s not really possible to have a build of Chrome
using Aura without Ash, since there’s no one to set up the container that
hosts the environment. *This is changing.* Elliot is working on
self-hosting Aura in Views. What this means is there’ll be a Chrome build
on Linux that can be enabled by specifying use_aura=1 in your GYP_DEFINES,
which #defines USE_AURA (not USE_ASH).

Are you confused yet?

Think of it this way. Aura is the accelerated window framework. We built a
window manager (ash) on top of it for ChromeOS. We are conducting initial
explorations to determine how we can use this underlying framework for UI
in non-ChromeOS. If we can get it to work, it means we’ll be able to do
some of the cool things we’re able to do on ChromeOS on other platforms.

*What does this mean for the developer?*

Not much, except that many of the places we use #if defined(USE_AURA) in
src/chrome were wrong, and Elliot’s had to fix them. If you’re doing
something ChromeOS-specific, it’s probable that unless it reflects an Aura
framework change, it needs to be #if defined(USE_ASH) instead.

*Any other dependency things I should be aware of?*

James Cook produced a nice diagram here showing the basic dependencies:

http://dev.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/aura/aura-and-she… 

But also note that Ash is a pretty high level thing (with user features
etc) and so src/content is also not allowed to know about it, though
src/content is allowed to know about Aura.

-Ben

[1] We actually use a small shim API between us and CC, which lives in
src/ui/gfx/compositor right now. ui::Layer wraps a WebLayer.
[2] Yes I know there’s a Unix shell called ash. Sorry. It was either this,
or AuraProxyStubImplHostDelegateFactoryStubProxyViewImpl.

Source : Chromium Dev

Before I get you this video, a small announcement about the blog. I got hit by “wordpress conditional hack” and had to re-do the entire wordpress installation. So, if you find some thing missing, links broken etc, please drop me an email (check the about page).  

This is a fresh start with a fresh wordpress install (and data restored from the MySQL back of course). However, the blog should be faster now. Let me know if you find any difference!

I have to get my blogging back on track. There are so many updates I might have missed in the last week. So, to lets get things rolling with this short video showing off latest improvements on the new desktop UI, and also the uber tray which now has network related icons, and even the google profile picture of the signed in user.  Have a look.

Stay tuned for more detailed coverage of the new features of Chrome OS

thanks chromiumosforge.com for the video

This is like an album of a teenager. Chrome OS is no longer a baby anymore. I mean, it’s not just  a browser anymore. The team is hard at work to give it a more operating system look. “operating system” as in traditional concept. Many of us liked the face that Chrome OS is just a browser. But looks like not everyone did. That should b why Chrome team decided to give it Desktop, wallpapers and icons to make it look more human.

The wallpaper is what grabs your attention first. There is a mock UI available showing how the screen to change wallpaper will look like. This feature is yet to be implemented.

Next up, the apps. These will be removed from the new tab page, where they happily live now and will be placed on desktop as a list of icons. Here is the new tab page without apps

Now here is the Desktop with apps.

The icon on the left end brings up the desktop with apps. The folder icon opens up the browser window. Now, lets take a look at the desktop notifications. The time, battery and connection icons have been moved to bottom right corner as you can see on this screenshot. This gives it more Windows like look.

You will see notification pop-ups when you change songs on your media player (like the screenshot below) or when there is a new email.

Next, the “Uber Tray” notifications :- This  lets you control some settings of your Chromebook. It is still work in progress and accessible behind a flag in chrome://flags

This will show your profile icon, battery, date, time, controls for brightness and volume and also a link to the Help and Settings pages. Now, lets take a look at the file manager.

And here is the screen where you send your photos to Picasa.

So, what do you think? Do you like how this boy (or girl) is growing up?

made possible with François Beaufort and Hexxeh’s vanilla build on my netbook

Okay, it’s time for us to take a look at latest developments in Chromium OS / Chrome OS. Thanks to François Beaufort, I have some interesting stuff to share, complete with screenshots.

Web Intents – Try It Now!

UI for Web Intents in Chromium is still a work in progress. However, for the adventurous kind, extensions are available to try on any latest Chromium builds. Install one of these extensions…

Web Intents on Chrome - Click To Zoom In

Bit.ly Extension Click here
Goo.gl Extension  Click here

…and then add this bookmarklet to help you shorten URLs:
javascript:window.navigator.startActivity(new Intent(‘http://webintents.org/shorten‘, ‘text/uri-list’, window.location.href))

“Help” Menu In The New Settings UI

Chrome is moving towards a new clean and fluid UI. It had “Settings” and then “Extensions” sections when I checked last time, but they have added “Help” as well. There is nothing much here yet, but I am wondering if it will be the traditional help content or something innovative! What do you think?

Use Your USB Mouse Left Handed on Chrome OS

I remember reporting this, but it was not completed then. Chromium OS now has this option working fine, if you are left handed and connect a USB mouse to a Chromebook, you have the option of changing the primary button of your mouse.

Chrome OS will get a volume icon on the toolbar soon, something you’ve been missing after switching from Windows? Here is a screenshot.

Some Code Names – Lumpy, Slumpy, Edison and Newton

Remember Lumpy and Slumpy? I posted recently about these code names. There have been some updates on these names, so my previous guess was not completely correct. Stumpy is the codename for the Samsung ChromeBox by Google. This codename is only used by Google. At Samsung, they call it Newton. 

Lumpy is code name used by Google for the new generation Samsung Chromebooks (most probably those we saw at CES). Samsung, for some reason, does not like this name as well. They call it Edison.

Dell pushed its last Chromium OS update for Download on May 13th, 2011. Now, here is new build from December 18th, 2011. May be a Christmas/New Year gift from Dell Linux Team?

Chrome OS Dell MIni

Download Link – here

Instructions – Remain the same, read the detailed description here. Oh, don’t forget to check the comments section, a lot of interesting stuff there too.

Google Chrome OS on your netbook, its something that most you want to have Its cheaper than any Chromebook available in the market now. If you read my posts about selecting a Chromium OS build, you will know that there is no build that gives you good hardware support along with the latest Chromium OS features.

Enter Lime build from Hexxeh

Lime is a new build announced by Hexxeh which gives you daily builds from Chromium OS so that you will have the latest Chromium OS features available along with added hardware support to get it working on a variety of hardware combinations. Finally, I have a really good build for my Dell Netbook which will support its Wifi card too.

Hardware Support – The Hilight

Lime supports many more hardware pieces, especially Wifi cards which the vanilla builds by Hexxeh did not. Here is the list of hardware supported.

• Broadcom WiFi – BCM43XX
• Ralink WiFi – RT24XX, RT28XX, RT30XX
• Realtek WiFi – R8187SE, R8712U, RTL73, RTL8180, RTL8187, RTL8192XX
• nVidia GPUs – 6 series and newer

Java Support!

Yes, a Chromium OS build with Java Support, finally.”Need your fix of Java? Java is now fully supported with Lime! More plugins coming very soon!” writes the developer. So we  can see more plugins being added soon.

Download it from  Hexxeh’s Blog