<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<rss version="2.0" xmlns:s="http://www.techrepublic.com/search" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"  xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
<channel>
    <title><![CDATA[Discussion on Conceptualizing Chromebooks, Chrome OS, and HTML5-based apps ]]></title>
    <link><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-344652]]></link>
    <atom:link rel="hub" type="application/rss+xml" href="http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com/" />
    <atom:link rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" href="http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-344652/rss" />

    <description><![CDATA[]]></description>
    <language>en-us</language>
    <lastBuildDate>2013-05-21T20:41:21-07:00</lastBuildDate>
             

    <item>
        <title><![CDATA[Another Abstraction Layer]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-344652-3482016]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[My new Acer chromebook will arrive today.  but think about a bootable USB with a writeable filesystem.  All I need to carry is the USB stick and I can use my favorite Linux distro, apps and files on any computer that can boot the USB.  With a little effort I can make it very secure like the Chromebooks.  I already have online storage of most of my work anyway.  Now I am just choosing which kind of system I will access it with.]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-344652-3482016]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[ivank2139]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Wed, 10 Aug 2011 08:44:59 -0700</pubDate>
    </item>
             

    <item>
        <title><![CDATA[Angry Birds]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-344652-3453377]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[Is just one example, and only serves to illustrate the point. If you can make Angry Birds as a standalone Chrome OS and it faithly replicates the experience as on all other platforms, then how can it BE an app on iOS or Android but NOT be an app in Chrome? By extension, if I can have a locally stored, persistent application that isn't removed by clearing the cache - you may have packaged something that was always *possible* in a new manner, but that might be the most important concept to discover. Before that, you had an opportunity, but you weren't leveraging it, so it doesn't matter if it existed or not. Afterwards, you've delivered something new. Let's extrapolate - if Angry Birds, then why not Microsoft Office as a Chrome App? Or Photoshop? Or movie editing software? Now, technically - there may be something that differentiates these programs running in Chrome OS from a traditional, native compiled binary executable - but from the end user's perspective if that is transparent, then it is really a moot distinction. My concern is that a lot of people don't understand what Chrome OS is and don't really get what you could do with it. Many people think a Chrome App is just a shortcut to a webpage that hosts a webapp, like Googe Docs or Gmail. That isn't the case. Many people still think you need a network connection to the cloud to leverage a Chromebook. No more than you need a network connection and the cloud to leverage the maximum potential of any modern personal computing device. If Chrome has a file browser, and I plug in a USB thumb drive, the Chrome file browser should allow me to navigate and manipulate the files on that thumb-drive just like I could on any other device capable of reading it. Copy files, move files, rename files, delete files. Open them in a suitable application. Chrome is sitting between me and the native kernel and preventing me from having direct access THERE... but it still gives me access that is effectively the same. At that point... where is the distinction? I think potentially, depending on how they handle these kind of questions, what kind of apps eventually show up for Chrome OS, there may not be one. Just another OS platform. The biggest problem I see is that there hasn't been a user-interface market this crowded since the end of the 8 bit PC era. That caused a lot of problems and challenges back then, and it'll do the same again today, too.]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-344652-3453377]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[dcolbert@...]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Mon, 23 May 2011 10:14:30 -0700</pubDate>
    </item>
             

    <item>
        <title><![CDATA[Offline browsing]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-344652-3452899]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[Offline browsing does not an application make. It's nothing new. I think Angry Birds is Flash and you've always had the ability to download and view flash from the flash player. The only thing that could be new is if you were able to run server side code locally. For example, running a crippled Apache server on your PC just so you can test some PHP. The important thing here is the meaning of words. The IT industry is filled with examples of people who misuse technical terms so much that their meaning is diminished or obscured. When does code become a program?We have many languages that depend on a command interprater and in this case the command interprater is multifaceted. You need all the server side support like PHP and you need the client side support like webkit. This is a lot of overhead. Compiled code has many advantages. These &quot;Apps&quot; are not applications.]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-344652-3452899]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[Spitfire_Sysop]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Fri, 20 May 2011 16:45:44 -0700</pubDate>
    </item>
             

    <item>
        <title><![CDATA[That is almost EXACTLY what Chrome is doing...]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-344652-3452834]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[That seems to be the achillies heel of Chrome OS. Unless they have some sort of wacky patent, which they may... but I don't see how that would work... but otherwise, any OTHER browser should be able to introduce the same basic concept easily - and any &quot;Chrome OS&quot; app is effectively an &quot;IE OS&quot; app, too. Although right now, it does seem like there is some unique developer framework being used to run certain Chrome Apps. Angry Birds is one of them. So Google does seem to be up to something.]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-344652-3452834]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[dcolbert@...]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Fri, 20 May 2011 09:14:50 -0700</pubDate>
    </item>
             

    <item>
        <title><![CDATA[With Chrome]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-344652-3452825]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[I go back and forth on my opinion. Conceptually, it turns a browser into an OS shell inside whatever native OS you're running it on, I think. I agree in spirit with the idea that apps (at least robust ones) have generally consisted of some sort of compiled code - and so that is obviously where some of the confusion and indecision over Chrome comes. But the fact is that Chrome will save a boatload of apps in a local, offline accessible mode, display their launcher icons from a simple desktop GUI interface, and run those apps at any time, at any place, giving the end user the same experience. I mean, Angry Birds is Angry Birds - and when you're running it in Chrome, you're not running it as a web app from a web page, you're running it as a local app. Initially Chrome got this reputation for calling a simple link to a web page an &quot;app&quot;... which they did do, and which was probably a mistake. But what Chrome is doing with a whole bunch of recent apps that do not require an online connection, that isn't the same thing as creating a link to chrome.angrybirds.com - this is being able to download an app from that URL and get to it and load it anytime you want. That itself isn't so new, the presentation shell that makes that easily accessible for the end user is the novel concept that Google has introduced. You can download and run Angry Birds in IE... but you don't get the desktop experience if you want to reload it later. That little difference means a lot, especially to the &quot;most users&quot; you mention, who I agree, it really doesn't matter to. But the pros are the ones who are getting hung up on the details - and I think a lot of them don't understand - Chrome OS can deliver ANY kind of app, offline, there is just an extra layer between the hardware and the executable code... which is no different than running a compiled Java app (and that MAY be what the app you're running in Chrome is... or it may be Java Script, or HTML 5, or who knows what else Chrome OS will support as a local offline app... my guess is, anything that any other browser will support).Not that I disagree with any of what you have to say. Just thinking out loud about what Chrome really *means* as an application platform for end users. It means a lot more than the press currently seems to understand, I think - a lot more than a lot of tech-industry workers have realized. We'll see.]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-344652-3452825]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[dcolbert@...]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Fri, 20 May 2011 09:11:29 -0700</pubDate>
    </item>
             

    <item>
        <title><![CDATA[A Parallel I draw]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-344652-3452777]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[First, very well written article! On with the soapbox, and I'm not pushing M$ by any means, just showing a parallel I often like to see. When an admin configures a Windows Environment, or any other centralized file and application type environment, part of the whole goal is to make the content available to the user, and as hardware independant as possible for thought of hardware failure and control. If one sets up a simple network with an AD server, centralized file shares, and web based applications, doesn't even the Window PC become simply a gateway to a private cloud? Sure there is an installed program to access the content for Documents, etc, but take most CRM applications for example. Nearly all of them utilize a Web GUI anymore, so what's to stop an administrator from forcing the ONLY application to run on a Windows machine is IE, and have everything run from the browser session itself? Isn't it the same kind of action Chrome is taking? Even thin clients are essentially doing the same think. I agree that the concept is not revolutionary, but simply well thought out and presented. If this doesn't make any sense, my apologies, as it is Friday! ]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-344652-3452777]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[Toolman5774]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Fri, 20 May 2011 06:56:42 -0700</pubDate>
    </item>
             

    <item>
        <title><![CDATA[What is an &amp;quot;Application&amp;quot;?]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-344652-3452629]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[The word Application was used exclusively for binaries that are executable natively on your kernel. Some people called them programs and still do. Now we have many different computer languages and other ways to load and display content. A &quot;Flash Application&quot; never used to be considered a real application because the Flash program itself is an application that then reads and displays the contents of a flash file. The same could be said for a webpage. You need a web browser to display the content making Chrome the application and everything inside it is a webpage. I understand that WebApp developers hate it when you call their WebApp a webpage. I am not diminishing the value of web enabled code. It can be very complex and do the functions of an application but it's not executable code. It's more like a script because it is not compiled. Now all these &quot;computer appliances&quot; come along with their &quot;Apps&quot; and we need to redefine the word Application. Should we distinguish between compiled executeables and webpage applications? I think so but I guess it doesn't matter to most users.]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-344652-3452629]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[Spitfire_Sysop]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Thu, 19 May 2011 14:12:24 -0700</pubDate>
    </item>
    </channel>
</rss>

