two chromebook “issues”

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The Chromebook has now been with its real owner for a month.  Mostly positive experiences.

Issue #1 – Adding bandwidth when almost out of bandwidth

The Chromebook gives you a warning when you are about to run out of the free 100MB for the month.  This is good.  It gives you time to register for the 1GB plan.  Successful so far.  Unfortunately, the 100MB ran out DURING this transaction.  In particular, it ran out between the payment and the acknowledgement screen.  Which made the acknowledgement screen say “waiting” forever.

What went well: You can pay by phone which means you can upgrade your plan even after you run out of bandwidth.

What could have gone better: When calling, the answer was that the plan had already been upgraded (from the online attempt) and the solution was to restart the Chromebook.  Which could have been done without the phone call

Issue #2 – “Old” version of Chrome

The Chromebook is currently on Chrome version 21.   One website required “Chrome 22 or later.”  Chrome 22 came out in September.  The problem occurred in November.  I don’t think it is reasonable for a website to demand the very latest browser.  This isn’t a technical website – people shouldn’t have to upgrade constantly.  Plus you can’t upgrade the Chrome browser until the Chromebook itself is ready to upgrade.  It’s only one website so I find more fault with the website than the Chromebook.

Solution: I used the website on my Mac reading it over the phone to the Chromebook user.

A good thing 

When I used the Chromebook, I’d get “dropped connection” type issues and need to refresh the page.  Apparently I was pushing the Chromebook too hard by having two tabs and changing pages often.  The Chromebook’s real owner never does that and hasn’t had any such issues.  This does make sense – we are on 3g and I’d never seek to do so much on my phone.

roku replacing cable?

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A friend asked me to help her set up Roku to replace Time Warner Cable.  I’m not a fan of Time Warner (I had to get a DVR on no notice and the DVR periodically doesn’t record.) so no worries about helping them have one less customer.

Requirements

We started by listing what shows she watches to make sure the Roku met her needs.  The must haves were all on network tv with the exception of Fox News and HGTV.  HGTV doesn’t stream live anywhere although some shows are on their website.  Knowing this, she decided it wasn’t worth cable for just that one channel.

Setting up the Roku

They made this part really easy.  The instructions were simple and easy to follow.  The only wrinkle was that the Roku comes with a RCA component cable.  There is an option to use a HDMI cable, but you have to buy it separately.  My friend’s TV requires an adapter to use a RCA cable.  Lucky her cable box uses a HDMI cable so we borrowed that.

Activation was online.  Roku gives you a URL to type in.  It then polls to see if you’ve activated because the Roku knew it was activated as soon as we entered the registration info on the computer.

What went well

The Roku is easy to use.  It is easy to search for channels on it.  In fact, it does everything it promises.  The problems were almost all caused by external parties.

Problem #1 – six month Hulu Plus gift card

Roku is running a promotion that you get 6 months of Hulu Plus for free if you buy the $79 version.  They said you get it even if you buy the hardware in a physical store.  Needless to say, Best Buy knows nothing about this.  Calling Roku tech support, they insisted that Best Buy has the 6 month gift card and knows about it.

Problem #1.5 – CBS on Hulu

This isn’t really a problem; this is me not looking in advance.  I figured we would test the Roku with a show that we both like – Big Bang Theory – and tried to find it on Hulu Plus.  This show is available live free on over the air tv.  And later on cbs.com.  (We then tested watching Modern Family and the quality was good.)

Problem #2 – Fox news

The Fox News Channel listing shows an option to watch “Live Video.”  Including a link to the image because this is so key.  

See how it clearly says you can watch live video?  Well, you can’t.  Going to that channel on the Roku only shows three options – live audio, shows and topics.   Roku support says it is available “certain times depending on your area.”  I don’t buy that.  Searching online said this feature was always intermittently available.   The website live.foxnews.com takes you to FOX Business channel.

I did find an explanation of what is going on that is better than Roku Support’s answer.  Per RokuGuide.com:

FOXNews.com Roku channel has been relaunched as Fox News Channel. Gone is live weekday streaming of the Web-based Fox News Live program. In its place you now get live 24/7 streaming of Fox News Radio and clips from several popular Fox News television shows.

So far, Roku provides a convenient way of getting shows from different websites.  Which can be done for no additional fee.  Convenience doesn’t generally save money.

Conclusion

Over the air tv + watching internet streams on the tv seem like a better bet.  Still doesn’t show Fox News, but why should my friend pay $80 to have the same abilities she can get for free.

chromebook and external monitor continued

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Mission

Hook up my mother’s old tv to the Chromebook as an external monitor and use the new tv for tv.

Prep work

Back in NY, I tried to setup the Chromebook to use an external monitor and failed because I needed a display port to VGA adapter.  So I ordered one.

Why this still wasn’t trivial

When the adapter got delivered, I encountered some other problems.  Fir st a surprise. I paid $2 extra to Amazon for fast delivery.  It came via the Postal Service in 3 days.  It was fast, just odd because it said the package was coming via Fed Ex.

Anyway, I tried testing the Chromebook and new adapter with the new TV to make sure the adapter was good and the Chromebook could handle an external monitor.  It could of course.

Challenge 1 – DCI vs VGA

The old TV I wanted to connect it to had a DCI-I port and not VGA.  It didn’t even occur to me this might be a problem.  Radio Shack doesn’t sell a converter.  Suprisingly Staples does.  Which I found out when Radio Shack suggested I look at Staples.

Challenge 2 – The missing remote

This particular TV had a lost remote.  And a remote is needed to change from TV mode to DCI or PC mode.  We found a universal remote and the instructions for it.  Then we switched the mode.

Challenge 3 – The TV isn’t long enough

The VGA wire plus adapter is longer than the horizontal space in that part of the tv.  In particular the stand blocks it.  Hmm.  What to do about this.  I tried shoving it in to no avail.  I then tried unplugging the adapter from the VGA cable.  I inserted just the DCI adapter into the tv and screwed it in tightly.  I then inserted the VGA cable into the adapter at an angle and screwed it in as tight as I could.  Amazingly this worked!

Success

It was a lot harder to do this than it should have been.  But the result was an external monitor and a new tv.  Interestingly, setting up an external monitor for my mac was trivial.  I already had a mini display port to vga adapter from when I used to plug the mac into my real tv.  From then on, it was plug and play.