Monthly Archives: November 2017

ChromeOS is still going strong

I’ve not written anything about ChromeOS since I retired. I was talking with my wife about Chromebooks recently, and that got me thinking about the state of ChromeOS. I did a quick bit of Googling and tried to brush off a few years of Chrome cobwebs. Interesting that Chromebook sales were well over 2 million in 2016 (more than Macs), and have taken a big chunk of the education marketplace, tho that’s unsurprising given the price, managability, longevity, and robustness.

Honestly, even though I’m still working part time in technology management, I’ve found I play with tech less and less in my spare time. I try to play more, fish more, travel more…but I think that fishing is still getting too small a slice of time 😉 . I’ve still got the same two Chromebooks, the Samsung and Acer mentioned here in this blog. We’ve used them on and off, but I’m amazed in some respects that these devices, from 2012 and 2013 respectively are still very viable and useable, and that the Chromebook specs (other than CPU speed) have not increased. The things that make a Chromebook useful (full browser, quick boot, malware resistance, etc.) are still viable in 2017. If someone just needs to browse and do email, it’s hard to beat a Chromebook and a basic internet connection.

It will be interesting to see what happens with Android apps on ChromeOS, but for that I will need to buy a new Chromebook 🙂

Fall kingfish

In the fall, before the water temperature drops below the upper 60’s, the king mackerel show up in numbers in the near-shore waters off the southern banks of NC. I’d not been able to fish as much as I wanted this fall, due to conflicting cycles of travel and weather. When the weather was good, I was working or traveling, and when I had time the weather was less salubrious. I did manage to boat a few kings this season, notably managing to squeeze in a <4 hour trip between conference calls today (11/6). It was a dead calm day, with fog all day, which is highly unusual. Slick seas, but 1/2 mile visibility. Landed two, an 8 pounder (26″ FL) and a 17 pounder (37″ FL). The bigger fish gave me several great runs as I brought him in. Now, as we’re looking at a cold snap, rain and wind for the next week, I can be happy I caught some!