So I got my Samsung Chrombook today and I decided to start a blog to talk about it. I got it in a fairly large box from Amazon.com and when I opened it and the box for the Chromebook is about the same size as what my 13” Macbook Air came in.

I easily opened the box, removed the Chromebook while my kids stood there in amazement (and envy) and mentioned how they couldn’t believe that Google had just given this to attendees. My youngest quickly removed all the plastic around the laptop while I removed the plastic from the charger.

The charger is in two pieces and the power connector is much slimmer that what I have seen on other electronic devices. I read in the quick start guide that an optional airplane charger can be purchased from Samsung. I’ve never had the need for such a charger as most airlines I’ve traveled on have had regular US power adapter plugs.

I quickly turned the chromebook on and it went through its first time installation process. It asks you to connect to a local Wi-Fi if you have one. Later on you can activate the 3G service through Verizon. When you do activate the service you get 30 days of Free service up to 100MB data per day. There were other plans available to signup for but I wanted to see how the machine reacts later when the service expires (more to report later).

After you sign-in with your Google account, your presented with Chrome (duh) and two tabs. One with a simple tutorial to get you accustomed to the keyboard which has larger keys than I’m used to. The second tab is the Samsung homepage which asked you to register with Samsung.

You basically live in Chrome the whole time. Which is sort of odd for me as I’m always switching between apps and the browser, but then again all my apps are tabs! So there is a fundamental paradigm shift that you’ll have to make, and in my case it may be a good one as it feels like I’m more productive. Hey I’m writing this blog.

Some things that I did was figure out how to print and that is solved using Google Cloudprint, which worked flawlessly for me. I test printed from Google docs to my Samsung color laser printer that’s attached to my Macbook Pro. I made sure Google Music works and started streaming music immediately.  I played around with Google+ and added a bunch of people to a bunch of new circles. Went through the Google Marketplace and added all the regular apps that I use, but now that I need to use through Chrome. I was able to find Evernote, Dropbox, Freshbooks, Angry Birds, and Aviary. 

What I need to keep looking for is a good set-up to develop CSS/HTML and publish it to my servers. My goal is to set this puppy up to be as productive as my Macbook Air. I’ll document all me efforts here.