In my previous post, I wrote that I got a Lenovo Windows10 laptop, well since then, I've sold it and got another one. This one is an Acer, the R3, 11.6", touch screen little white clamshell laptop. The 14" wasn't to my taste as I prefer smaller screens, and I don't need a beast since I don't do, or use anything that really requires a strong CPU. I have to admit the two core Celeron processor is a bottleneck at times, but I can live with it, since it's a passive cooling laptop, no fans, no noise. The one thing I wish it had would be an SSD. The reason I switched back to Windows was automation, and my hobby. I love and enjoy taking pictures, of nature, life, and family, and I want to make sure those memories are saved, not just locally or on an external hard drive, but in the cloud as well. I couldn't achieve that with Linux, since I couldn't find a single automated solution to upload my images to google photo's, amazon, or smugmug. Currently the google photo's is the only fully automated solution, the amazon client is semi-automatic, as I need to tell it which folder to upload, as is the case with the smugmug solution. I'm happy with this as I have a great workflow to check out my images, edit if needed, then just drop the pictures in a folder which then get's uploaded. The Chrome-book had one disadvantage, I couldn't sort, and pick my pictures it would just automatically upload all, then I would need to go and pick and choose online. The linux laptop didn't do the auto backup for me (except when I used Crashplan for backup) but with that I couldn't retrieve and view my images easily as with both the google photos, and amazon photos. All in all, I am happy with this little laptop, and to my surprise, Windows10 isn't bad either. I stopped actively using windows with Windows XP. So I could say that Windows10 is a step in the right direction. I would say I wish they had good tablet offering when I bought my Android tablet, and maybe even a decent phone offering starting to lean towards getting a Lumia, as it's would be well integrated with my laptop. The Apple eco-system is great, phone/tablet and laptops work great together, but their prices are a bit high to my taste. This little laptop I got is 1/3 the price of the 11" MacBook Air, and it can do everything the MacBook could, though slower no doubt.
I think my next move will be either to change my tablet to a Windows10 one or replace my phone.
Showing posts with label ChromeOS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ChromeOS. Show all posts
Saturday, March 12, 2016
Saturday, November 28, 2015
Contrary to the Blogs Title, I've switched to a Windows10 Laptop
After years of resisting Windows as my main Operating System on my laptop(s), I gave in, and got myself a Windows 10 laptop. Lenovo Flex2, 14" being a hybrid, Touch screen, and Cinema mode, which I've tried and works great for watching movies. I gave chromebook a chance but it doesn't fit my needs. My hobby (photography) didn't work out with the Chromebook.
Automatic backup, auto uploads, and normal photo applications are a bit behind on Chrome OS. Mainly the automatic backup didn't work well on Chromebook or rather it did not fit in my workflow. And I couldn't find any auto-backup to google photos for Linux. I tried using the browser for my uploads, but my choice of Chromebook in this case, with 2GB of RAM was not the best. I used a tab for uploading images, and then went to another tab to edit my blog, when I checked back, the upload was stopped and had to reload, and restart the uploads. Not a problem usually, but even editing my blog, and switching between tabs it keeps reloading the tabs when switching. I know it's because of the lack of RAM, and buying another Chromebook in Hungary is expensive, and this Flex 2 was a really good deal. So I went along, bought it, upgraded to Windows 10, and I've been enjoying it so far. All my photography software work, I can download, rate, pick my pictures, and then only export/upload the best picks.
So far Windows 10 seems to work great (I did not manage to get a blue screen of death yet). I will be writing more about my experience with it. I have to admit my Desktop will still and will always run Ubuntu, but for my hobby, and upgrading my Camera I will use this new laptop. Until later...
Automatic backup, auto uploads, and normal photo applications are a bit behind on Chrome OS. Mainly the automatic backup didn't work well on Chromebook or rather it did not fit in my workflow. And I couldn't find any auto-backup to google photos for Linux. I tried using the browser for my uploads, but my choice of Chromebook in this case, with 2GB of RAM was not the best. I used a tab for uploading images, and then went to another tab to edit my blog, when I checked back, the upload was stopped and had to reload, and restart the uploads. Not a problem usually, but even editing my blog, and switching between tabs it keeps reloading the tabs when switching. I know it's because of the lack of RAM, and buying another Chromebook in Hungary is expensive, and this Flex 2 was a really good deal. So I went along, bought it, upgraded to Windows 10, and I've been enjoying it so far. All my photography software work, I can download, rate, pick my pictures, and then only export/upload the best picks.
So far Windows 10 seems to work great (I did not manage to get a blue screen of death yet). I will be writing more about my experience with it. I have to admit my Desktop will still and will always run Ubuntu, but for my hobby, and upgrading my Camera I will use this new laptop. Until later...
Tuesday, July 7, 2015
Google Photo's new service
Google decided to yet again give the world a new service called Google Photos not to confuse this with the Google+ Photos. This new service is separate from the old picasa web, and the google + photos. The idea is great, all your images in one place, from all your devices. Now that I have a chromebook it makes sense. But interestingly, I need to use the web version of google photos, maybe in a future update the OS will have a new app for it.
This new service if you will does finally give a URL to share, which I will use to insert a picture here (for testing Purposes) NOTE: it doesn't work on blogger :S
I usually like uploading my images to my SmugMug account, which does give a shareable link that works just fine on my wordpress photoblog, and here on blogger. I like the fact that so many services are offering free photo storages, but not all are created equal. Flickr, SmugMug (this is not free actually), Google+ Collections, iCloud, Dropbox, OneDrive.
Be aware though even though they say it supports resolutions up to 16MPixel, I've yet to figure out how it's stored. As I upload via my browser on the chromebook, edit on my tablet. The resolutions are mixed, I believe that it downloads/edits photo's to the max of the system you use to edit it. So if I edit using my tablet, I get a 1920x1080. If I edit on my chromebook, using online apps, such as picmonkey, I get yet a different resoltion. If I use snapseed, or pixlr on my tab, I get mixed resolutions, I can't figure out how it decides/what size to edit/save as. I know I can manually save the file at a given size, but snapseed doesn't ask, with pickmonkey, and pixlr I save at max size, but I still get small picture sizes. Which is ok great for web sharing, I still want to have the full resolution incase I want to print. So experiment, try before you go full Google Photos. I'll probably stick to using my SmugMug storage for full size images, that stores it at real full resolution.
Just my two cents... happy to hear your experience.
This new service if you will does finally give a URL to share, which I will use to insert a picture here (for testing Purposes) NOTE: it doesn't work on blogger :S
I usually like uploading my images to my SmugMug account, which does give a shareable link that works just fine on my wordpress photoblog, and here on blogger. I like the fact that so many services are offering free photo storages, but not all are created equal. Flickr, SmugMug (this is not free actually), Google+ Collections, iCloud, Dropbox, OneDrive.
Be aware though even though they say it supports resolutions up to 16MPixel, I've yet to figure out how it's stored. As I upload via my browser on the chromebook, edit on my tablet. The resolutions are mixed, I believe that it downloads/edits photo's to the max of the system you use to edit it. So if I edit using my tablet, I get a 1920x1080. If I edit on my chromebook, using online apps, such as picmonkey, I get yet a different resoltion. If I use snapseed, or pixlr on my tab, I get mixed resolutions, I can't figure out how it decides/what size to edit/save as. I know I can manually save the file at a given size, but snapseed doesn't ask, with pickmonkey, and pixlr I save at max size, but I still get small picture sizes. Which is ok great for web sharing, I still want to have the full resolution incase I want to print. So experiment, try before you go full Google Photos. I'll probably stick to using my SmugMug storage for full size images, that stores it at real full resolution.
Just my two cents... happy to hear your experience.
Sunday, February 1, 2015
Re-living the windows OS pain
Today, I had to re-live the pain of re-installing a windows laptop for family. At 1.6 GHz single core with 2GB of RAM. It's been updating the system for 7 hours, and it's not done yet. This is truly when you appreciate a chromebook. Wish they were cheaper in Hungary, I would recommend replacing this painfully slow laptop, with a chromebook in a heart beat.
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