Let me explain. Most probable Google Chrome OS will consist in a Linux kernel, a new window manager and Google Chrome browser on top of all these. Keep in mind that Ubuntu as of 9.04 has an official release for ARM processors. If you need a similar experience today you can get Ubuntu Mini iso (which is a 12 MB download) for x86 architectures. Most probably starting with 9.10 release it will be available for ARM architectures also.

Then, check the instructions from this ubuntu forum . Idea is that you need to install a few packages from the command line:

sudo apt-get -y install gnome-core gdm network-manager-gnome fast-user-switch-applet human-theme x11-xserver-utils tangerine-icon-theme gnome-themes-ubuntu ubuntu-artwork jockey-gtk gnome-screensaver gnome-utils

apt-get install laptop-mode-tools ubuntu-laptop-mode wpasupplicant # this one is for supporting a laptop

apt-get install maximus # this one is for achieving the maximizing effect from the Ubuntu Netbook Release .

Then using Ubuntu Tweak and Add / Remove Programs from Ubuntu desktop environment you can install Firefox 3.5, Google Desktop (with gadgets support), Google Gears, AWN and Firefox Prism . I’ve also installed Pidgin and VLC. The bottom line you get an web oriented OS which takes around 80 MB of RAM (at idle) and is very responsive.

On the other hand take a look at all these links:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10282037-56.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=Webware

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10280270-56.html

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10006582-56.html

http://friendfeed.com/scobleizer/3a1eac42/why-did-google-announce-chrome-os-this-week-well

And all these announcements from Google related to Google Apps out of beta this week and Google Chrome OS makes more sense.

So the way I see things Google won’t be able to change the status quo in the OS world.

But if Google some how succeeds we will run a Google OS on a Google approved device using only (is going to be only a matter of time ) Google services (no Facebook or Twitter for you). And btw you will probably have Google Analytics at desktop level .

For all these reasons I will stick with the Web OS option that I described at the beginning. If I am wrong in my assumptions let me know in a comment.

For the moment this service closing is just a minor annoyance, but should be an alarm signal. Trust is something that is very difficult to build and very easy to loose. Probably in the higher levels of Google hierarchy they decided that the amount of information that the users are storing in the notebooks does not improve the relevance of the adverts served to those users in Gmail or in the Google search pages. So they decided that Notebook is not needed for their plans. Once Google chooses to close some services, it’s obvious that if the situation is going to be even worst they could choose to close other services. I know the service was free, but I would have like to have a better export option at least.

On the other hand something else to take in the account. Because Microsoft is making a lot of money with their offline software (Server, Windows, Office and so on) they can afford to loose some money with the online division, so they are able to still offer a lot of things for free. The most interesting to me is the 25GB Skydrive storage space. I start uploading some non vital files for testing purposes and it seems to work pretty well. Once Microsoft announced this some months ago, I expected that Google will match this, but nothing happened. This was my first alarm signal that maybe not everything is nice and dandy in the Googleplex.

Now I am looking for an offline RSS reader that would match Google Reader capabilities and if I will find one, then Gmail is the last thing that still has me linked to Google Services.

I know I can replace Analytics and Feedburner anytime with other options for skunkworks.ro

It appears that all good things are coming to an end. And I am sure now that in the next months a lot of free services from other Web 2.0 companies will dissapear. Probably is best to start thinking offline software again and somehow find the means to maintain the collaboration level and community feeling that the Web 2.0 services are offering

Take a look at these two links AppEngine and Azure . Is so easy to read and understand Google’s language and so annoying to read the corporate language of Microsoft.

An excerpt below to prove my point.

What Is Google App Engine?
Google App Engine lets you run your web applications on Google’s infrastructure. App Engine applications are easy to build, easy to maintain, and easy to scale as your traffic and data storage needs grow. With App Engine, there are no servers to maintain: You just upload your application, and it’s ready to serve your users.

You can serve your app using a free domain name on the appspot.com domain, or use Google Apps to serve it from your own domain. You can share your application with the world, or limit access to members of your organization.

App Engine costs nothing to get started. Sign up for a free account, and you can develop and publish your application for the world to see, at no charge and with no obligation. A free account can use up to 500MB of persistent storage and enough CPU and bandwidth for about 5 million page views a month.

What is the Azure Services Platform?

The Azure™ Services Platform (Azure) is an internet-scale cloud services platform hosted in Microsoft data centers, which provides an operating system and a set of developer services that can be used individually or together. Azure’s flexible and interoperable platform can be used to build new applications to run from the cloud or enhance existing applications with cloud-based capabilities. Its open architecture gives developers the choice to build web applications, applications running on connected devices, PCs, servers, or hybrid solutions offering the best of online and on-premises.

Azure reduces the need for up-front technology purchases, and it enables developers to quickly and easily create applications running in the cloud by using their existing skills with the Microsoft Visual Studio development environment and the Microsoft .NET Framework. In addition to managed code languages supported by .NET, Azure will support more programming languages and development environments in the near future. Azure simplifies maintaining and operating applications by providing on-demand compute and storage to host, scale, and manage web and connected applications.

Both companies are presenting similar services, but somehow Google language is easier to read.

The device seems complete and the reason for the missing things it seems to me that it has to do a lot more with the  marketing part than to the real technical dificulties. I am sure that if they really wanted they could have implemented a front camera with ichat video capabilities but that would have been a direct attack at ATT.

Also the way Apple is solving the multitasking issues is pure genius. Not from technical point of view but from business point of view. Apple will be able to control what and when goes to your phone from all the apps that will run on the Iphone.

I am not at all happy with the way Apple implemented their Mesh version (btw now it makes perfect sense why Microsoft had choose to preview the Mesh in advance, even they didn’t had the mobile support implemented). It seems that Apple is not able to make up it’s mind. If the syncronisation works so well why are you duplicating Google’s work and create a suite of web based apps? At least the way Microsoft is doing it you aren’t presented with duplicated way of doing things. Also it seems to me that Microsoft has the edge on this one from technical point of view. I am sure I am not going to pay 99$ per year for something that I can have for free one way or another.

Not sure if something can be done related to the video and audio codec support. I hope that the VLC for iphone project is completely succesful. Also it seems to me that the storage capacity is too small. Because now I am sure that a good part of that storage capacity is going to be taken by the application data.

Last point that I want to make is the lack of device level encryption. I may be wrong but so far I am pretty sure that you can not have something similar with truecrypt in the Iphone firmware. I know thath you can nuke an iphone remotely but I would be happier if I know that my personal data is encrypted and unavailable if I loose my phone

Somehow these companies are managing to campaign against DRM better than all the organizations that are fighting against DRM.

It is amazing to see how easy they are playing with images which are big. And I mean BIG (tens of gigapixels, maybe even more). It is more amazing to see how easy and fast they are able to look (visual search) for all kind of visual features in the big image.

It is so easy to look for human faces in a video surveillance “tape” that is scary. Also the availability of video surveillance equipment especially in big cities is scaring. If you put these technologies together than makes sense for the conspiracy theorist in me to say that “they” and I do no mean Microsoft, were using this kind of technology for years most probably tens of years.

• The way the system talks with other devices other WIFI and Bluetooth is much more interesting then the innovative GUI paradigm.
• Is the first time in months when Windows Vista (the OS that this system uses) appears in all sorts of articles, and no one mentions the DRM in Vista and how bad is for the world . And this is happening because everybody is busy talking about something much more interesting then DRM. A new computing paradigm from Microsoft. A proof that the big giant is awakening and slowly moving towards new territories.

A sign of things to come

I won’t comment on the Photosynth software. I will just say that is strange, beautiful, and without a doubt I am not able to get a useful thing out of it other than the kind of fun I get when I am playing a nice game. I would really like to see what’s behind the software (the magic that makes everything happen).

The most interesting part is the fact that if I am not mistaking  this is the first piece of software from Microsoft which can be run in a browser other than Internet Explorer. Is something similar with Bush and Bin Laden having a coffee together. It is the first sign that Microsoft is recognizing the life outside their empire. I wonder if this extension is running on Linux also. My laptop is an Ubuntu Linux machine, but the video card is too weak. That would be even more interesting.

The question to ask is what are the real plans of Microsoft? Why are they writing an extension just to make sure that the 80% users of Internet Explorer and the 15% users of Firefox are using this software?