Monthly Archives: July 2012

Chrome OS

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With the beginning of the new fiscal year, I decided to evaluate a couple of Chrome OS devices, a Samsung 5 550 Chromebook and a Chromebox. Part of my portfolio at UNCG are the IT Compliance Office and the IT Security Office, and devices like these may be a good alternative for us. Given that UNCG is a Google Apps for Education (GAFE) school, tight integration to the “Googleverse” is a big plus.

I’m really quite favorably impressed with both the Chromebook and the Chromebox. If you think about our use cases, you’ll likely find that most of what you do is web-oriented, and that’s the niche for Chrome. Nearly instant boot and restart, tight OS security that’s very difficult to compromise, “desktop” browser experience rather than mobile. Synchronizes with the Chrome ecosystem. Lots of applets. Will is do everything a Windows, Linux or OSX computer will do? No. Will it do most of what I do? Actually, yes, and will do it well. It’s simple and inexpensive. $449 for the WiFi Chromebook, and $329 for the Chromebox.

What about a home device? Will it replace my iPhone? No, of course not. My iPad? No, the touch tablet is a great content consuming device (tho I’m doing this blog post on the iPad, so you can create). My iMac? Hmmm. Well, I can’t run full Turbotax on Chrome, I can’t run Xcode on Chrome, I can’t rip and reformat a DVD…but my set of use cases for the full desktop or laptop is small and getting smaller when I add a Chrome OS device to the mix.

Can it be used for most of what folks do at UNCG? Almost! There is a glitch with the way the 1.0 Citrix Receiver on Chrome interacts with UNCG’s Citrix infrastructure. I hope we can resolve it, because if we can, we’re very close to replacing the basic office machine. Again, the value proposition to UNCG is enhanced since we’re a Google school.

Take a look at Chrome OS; you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Natural Bridge smallmouth trip

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I just returned from a fantastic weekend of flyfishing for smallmouth bass on the James and Maury rivers in the Natural Bridge, VA vicinity. It wasn’t a bassclave, but my buddy Sam and I have convened on Natural Bridge Station to chase bronzebacks. Friday 7/20 we drove from NC to VA. Arrived at the Maury River about noon. A bit of color from heavy rain Thursday night but it looked fishable. Went to River Road and rigged the pontoons and rods. Shuttled the pickup (I brought my bike to facilitate) and hit the river. Started slow, but picked up when I switched to a yellow legged Tequeely that Sam tied. Caught a couple bass, sunnies, and redeyes in a flat stretch. Then, I found a fast run where the river splits around an island. Sam went one way, me the other. Missed a couple, but it looked promising. Got out of the boat and started catching bass on virtually every cast. I’d still be there but figured Sam would wonder where I was 😉

All told, I caught about 25 bass including this 13 incher:

Maury River smallmouth

Sam had the fish of the day on his line, about a 4 pounder that threw the hook after a couple of jumps.

Saturday 7/21, we floated float the Saltpetre to Horseshoe Bend/Narrow Passage section of the James. CSX has put up a barricade on the river side at Saltpetre making it more difficult to get the boats to the river. However, the work was was worth it!

Here’s a shot of Sam working a promising spot:

Sam casting

Tried a few different flies but settled quickly on the Tequeely again. The James was crystal clear and the yellow legs of the Tequeely pulsed on the retrieve. I got hot early and was catching fish fast, bass and redeyes. We stopped for lunch at the old train bridge abutments. It was interesting as we looked up and saw two of the biggest sycamore trees I’ve ever seen, each looking to be 7 to 8 feet in diameter. Fascinating to think how long they’ve been there. We finished our lunch, and I caught a half dozen bass in a riffle just a few feet away from our stop. Caught two more as I floated through the same riffle on the boat. After a while, I cooled off and Sam started catching ’em. However, we caught fish all day, one or the other of us.

My best was 15″ fish:

James River Smallmouth

I also landed several 11-13″ fish. Sam caught a 15″ fish in the last riffle above Narrow Passage that towed him at least 50 yards down the riffle. He also caught many 11-13″ fish. Each of us boated 40 or so bass and that many redeyes as well.

A helluva good bass fishing weekend!

A year without cable

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It’s been a year since we dropped our Uverse tv subscription of $116/mo (3 tv’s, HD, Showtime) and put up an antennae for over the air (OTA) reception. Since I last wrote about this we’ve added an additional $70 pre-amp (to help with the picture when trees are fully leafed out and wet!). I’m very satisfied that we made the switch. There are a few things we miss, but there are streaming workarounds for most. The picture on network shows is phenomenal, better than cable. Sometimes when there are temperature inversions or other environmental issues, we’ll get pixelization, but not often on the most popular channels.

We’ve found that we do buy a few things from iTunes, such as the TNT series Falling Skies and The Closer. We’ve maybe spent $100 on content.

Adding things up, you have:

Antennae & amps $275

TiVo (w/wireless) $170

Year of TiVo service $240

Hulu+ (6 mos free w/TiVo) $48

iTunes video content $100 (tv shows)

Tour de France app for Jan’s iPad $15

That’s $848. Saved $1400. Net $552 savings, year one. Without equipment purchases, projected year 2 savings ~$950.

How much do you really like (and watch!) cable?

Comments: TiVo does Hulu streaming, and non-Prime Amazon, and Netflix.

Caveats: I already was paying for Netflix subscription, so that doesn’t count. We have Amazon Prime which pays for itself with shipping savings, so streaming via that doesn’t count. I have a Mac Mini hooked up as my media center PC for Amazon Prime streaming.

Downsides: no ESPN. ESPN3 streaming works, since we still have Uverse as our ISP.