From an old TV-shaped iMac, to the Power-PC new-style iMac, and then continuous upgrades to other iMacs, Mac Minis, iPhones and so on – I had them all.

As readers of my blog know, I started to use Chromebook machines some times ago, and starting from a hobbyist kind of feel, I have gradually started to use them on a professional basis.  I have owned I think 7 Chromebooks of various ilk including the amazing Pixel and today, as I am writing this piece, I am using my new Samsung Chromebox desktop which was delivered a few days ago from amazon.

I was using an Apple Mac Mini (latest) at home but using a Chromebook Pixel in the office and weirdly I became so naffed-off by using my Mac Mini whenever I had to that I got too frustrated last week and snap-purchased the Chromebox.

To those of you who do not use Chromebooks or do not see the point of them, I urge you to move asap – you will not regret it.

My Mac mini:

• Was slow to start-up – my Chromebox isnt
• Made huge fan noises when using flash – my Chromebox doesnt
• Was slow to load apps – my Chromebox doesnt
• Was NOT fun to use, it felt old – my Chromebox doesnt
• Can use TextWrangler – my Chromebox doesnt (I’m working on finding an alternative!)

I installed Flipboard over a year ago I think. I used it a couple of times, thought it looked nice. I then must have forgotten about it.

However, a few weeks ago, I rediscovered it after reading an article in WIRED magazine, and what a fool I have been for not using it on a daily basis in all that time.  Let me explain…

I travel to work via train for 40-50 minutes each day in which I usually read books on my Kindle device.  I get some great knowledge…but its sloooow in coming…I read a whole book in a week’s worth of travelling usually and get some great insights. But it’s some insights, not hundreds of insights.

Since reinstalling Flipboard and giving it a good tuning to fit exactly my requirements – i.e. requesting tech, entrepreneurial, a little football, and business news, I have a magazine made for me, every single day.  But not just a magazine – an information-packed magazine with virtually zero ads, very few filler articles and a time travelling device that makes the journey from Stoke on Trent to Manchester each day something of a breeze.

So what does that culminate in to?  I would estimate that on a typical 40-minute journey that I read the equivalent of 3-months (YES, MONTHS) key, industry-related material. Because my Flipboard settings are so finely tuned to me, I am bombarded with extremely relevant articles that I would not normally find, or find in much, much smaller amounts by sticking to existing methods such as my favourite blog sites and favourite offline magazines.

So my journeys are not journeys, but amazingly proliferate sessions in which I am left with many ideas to use in my role.  I have many ideas, I have vastly increased energy (because of the ideas) and key to it all, I share between 2 and 10 items each day with key members of my team, whether that be inspirational quotes and articles, or entrepreneurial insights to those muc

I don’t even want to link to them – they are spam forum posts with references to lolita etc.  They all point to a particular page on my site, which is a list of 2000 links that I have curated from my data collection activities.

I don’t think its a malicious attack on me, as I am sure that someone would link to my home page.  I’m not sure of the motive tho. Anyone have any ideas? Maybe its someone wanting to promote a link that they have on my own page – helping my page to rank more with some crappy links?

Ideas on a postcard.

Firstly, why do I own five Chromebooks?  Well, I originally was intrigued enough to buy the original Samsung model.  I used it for a few weeks and then it sat in a cupboard for almost a year.  Not much use.  With the release of the newer Samsung Chromebooks, at a bargain £220, but with better specs, I thought that I would give it another go.

Bam! I fell in love.  Those of you that remember the love you had for your Commodore 64, Spectrum etc will know exactly what I mean.  It was my machine. Mine. It belonged to me and it fitted around what I liked.  This all sounds silly to those that have not yet worked on a Chromebook for a week or so.  There hasn’t been a PC, Mac or a laptop since around 1995 that you feel is your ‘baby’.  I think that this version of the Chromebook brings back the love in to computing.  It has things wrong with it, so you work out how to fix them.

Unfortunately, on a Christmas outing, rather drunk, i dropped it and it broke, but I bought myself a new screen and patched it up again. Now I love it even more – its even more my creation.  However, I then bought a new one to use at home.  Then…I was gifted one by my business partner….and THEN…a few days later, the Chromebook Pixel was released…..so I just had to have it….which made five Chromebooks in total.

So, you could say that Chromebooks are taking over my own computing life….I think that they will start to infiltrate offices too very soon.  In fact, our new appointment at Online Ventures will be the first person other than myself to use a Chromebook as his full-time computer as of Monday – something that I am really looking forward to seeing.  On that note, as a business, buying a laptop that needs extremely little support, for just £220 is a dream come true.  No software issues, no network issues. We already use Google Docs for everything, so its just ‘login and go’…that should be worth quite a bit from an IT support cost saved.

So, because Chromebooks are so useful, quirky, fun, interesting, fast(ish), customisable in a way that just feels more customisable than a Mac or Windows machine, I can see them becoming more and more of a feature in an office near you soon.  You know what, I now HATE using applications if I use my desktop Mac in my home office…it feels so unnecessary these days.  The browser is more than enough for me.

And finally, the Chromebook Pixel that I mentioned above…its great…I genuinely don’t think Chrome OS needs a touch screen or amazing sound etc at this point, but boy is it a nice piece of kit.

It is the combination of 2 searches:

larger

and

before

‘larger’ finds files larger than x mb.  You would use it like so:

larger:3m

before finds emails before a certain date. You would use it like so:

before:2012/1/17

So put them both together:

larger:3m before:2012/1/17

…and you have a way that finds all emails larger than 3mb in size from before the 17th of January 2012.

You can then choose to delete or whatever you like from there….and watch your inbox shrink!

I came across a quote that I thought was apt.

Jealousy is the tribute mediocrity pays to genius.

I am not for one minute considering myself a genius, but I am pondering other people’s mediocrity.

To those readers of my blog that I have removed from my employment in the past, some of you were very talented but had awful attitudes, and some of you had marvelous attitudes, but had little talent.  If you had both, you stayed in my employment. Get it?

I do not tolerate mediocrity in the workplace.  That is why places where I work become successful. It is a very simple calculation.

As far as I am aware, of the quango of people that I have expunged from Online Ventures, to make it the great agency that it is today, not one of you has proved me wrong. At best, some of you have moved sideways. So, honestly, I do not see your point.  You are just proving further the reason to let you go.

I may be ugly, I may not be the world’s best escort, should I venture on that career path, and nor am I perfect. But I am extremely hard working, and very talented. My 10+ year record of success shows this.

I would advise people that want to succeed to view the following infographic.

In the past 10 months of my business life – specifically from the 1st of April – I have embarked on a project that is Online Ventures.  Im a director of this business along with a couple of other people.  Having joined on board around that time, I had the arduous process of removing what was 90%+ deadwood. Specifically small businesses that had clung to the coattails of my fellow directors, produced nothing of any value whatsoever, but had talked a very good talk and pulled the wool over many people’s eyes.  Some of them still exist (somehow) around Manchester, but make no money and are not happy.  Just why would you do that? At least be happy with what you do.

Thankfully, they are all gone now bar just two people from 23 no less.  We have in that time replaced them with people and micro-businesses that had been ignored by people at other companies.  I have built a genuine set of ‘raggy dolls’ that I wouldn’t replace for any others in the world.  Almost none had industry knowledge before their arrival, but each one of them could jump ship tomorrow – probably for a 50%-100% salary increase – but wouldn’t do so.

You see, there is something else at play when it comes to your work life.  It’s not about who you know, or where you have been seen.  It’s about who you work with, telling the truth, being happy, working damn hard, not gossiping, smiling, being in work at 8am (not 10am) because you want to be.  It isn’t about intimidating people with your job title, or taking credit for things that other people have helped you with.

Why am I writing all of this?  In the past week, I have had a few really nice things happen to me that make sticking to my principles and not settling for mediocrity all worth while.  You see, business does not have to be about money-grabbing or bullying, it can also be about sweet revenge (in the ‘killing them with smiles’ kinda way) and also in the form of meeting other people in this business life that you didn’t think existed anymore.

It REALLY doesn’t have to be ‘that’ way.  Business can be euphoric, enthralling, exciting, fun and warm.  If you just hang on in there and do things right, even when you see those lesser than you getting short-term advantages, your own personal greatness can – and will be rewarded.

Having been an avid Mac user for around 7 or 8 years, I simply didn’t think that using another OS would better my daily computer usage.  Well, I was wrong.

I have now used the Chromebook daily, mainly as a desktop machine, pretty much since my last post on the subject.  In that time I have learned to live on the cloud completely, save for a few image files, and change many habits that I had accrued over the years.

One thing that has surprised me is just how fond I am of the little silver Samsung that I come in to work to see every day.  Not since I used an Oric 1 and Commodore 64 way back in the 80′s have I been so enamoured with my main computer.

There are some quirks, but they are quickly taken away by the sourcing of a new app or a different way to do something that I thought could only be done a certain way.  There is pretty much only one piece of software that I miss which is the amazing TextWrangler, but I have tried a few other apps and they just about make do.

The battery life, as is well-stated around the web in various reviews, is unbeatable and I never have to worry.  As I write this, the battery icon is red, but I assume that there is plenty of time left, such is the lifespan of it. I just checked and there is around 35 minutes.  It has been on the battery for days and still it isn’t dead!!

I did encounter one problem with my Chromebook – I broke the screen falling over when carrying it – but I bought a new one almost instantly online and still have ordered a new screen for the existing one.  That’s now 3 Chromebooks that I own – this one, my broken-screen one and my original Samsung Series 5.

Anyway, enough rambling.  I will never use another computer now for my daily doings in my role.  Why would I? I can do everything on my Chromebook.

However, since having my Macbook Air stolen by a certain Rionne “I need to run reports!” Williams, I decided that I would try to get by with something to replace it.  For a short while I was using an old Macbook Pro, but I thought that I would give the new Chromebook a whirl.

OK, so it has been 2 days…

On my first day of using it, I was doing the usual – a few meetings, a few documents (in Google Docs, my usual option anyway), some browsing and some research – nothing too taxing.  Today I have needed to use FTP to upload and edit a file, which also went well.  Not as good as FileZilla perhaps, but nothing that I am concerned about.  Again, in terms of browsing and watching a couple of instruction videos on Mixergy.com, it has been trouble-free.

A bigger screen…

With the new Chromebook having an HDMI port at the back, I thought that I would see what it was like using multiple desktops on two monitors.  Well, let’s just say that it doesn’t .  Whilst not absolutely necessary, it is very useful for someone in my role to have two monitors for some tasks that I will be doing.

So, I used the HDMI port to simply replicate the Chromebook screen on a 24″ Hanns-G monitor that I have in my office.  Again, this was problematic.  It would not work until I had changed my Chromebook to ‘dev/unstable’ mode, meaning that the ‘build’ of the operating system was more up-to-date than the standard Chrome OS releases, but also more unstable.

So, after changing to dev mode, I rebooted and upon turning on the Chromebook again, my monitor came to life, with a great big Chrome OS desktop on it.  However (again), when I typed in my first URL to view, it took aaaaages for the page to render, but further viewing of other pages was faster, albeit not as fast as on the supplied screen on the Chromebook.  Is an extended monitor via HDMI worth using on a Chromebook? NOPE!

Summary

Whilst I am very happy with the Chromebook for use as my #1 machine for business use in my role, the lack of ability for a smooth, fast operation using an external monitor will surely make my decision tougher when incidents occur later down the line…but until then let’s see.

Score

• 9/10 (for normal use)
• 3/10 (for use with external monitor)

Why is it worth it?

Well, currently, there are 782 videos hosted on the site which provide extremely useful information for many lenses of the business community.  I have watched 3 this morning, which is already worth the $25 that I have paid for this month’s service.  Where else can you find something that costs $25 that gives you such a great potential to earn more money from whichever application you are involved in?

I would only advise you to take the premium option as there is just so much value in there.

Why and where would you use it?

Well, the ‘why’ part of this question is easy.  You WILL take some humdingers of advice from almost every video on the site.  But more than that, there are some really interesting videos and subject matters that will give many viewers the edge over competition.  For those entrepreneurs that have no local business gurus to help them, these videos are a godsend.  In terms of where would you use it…well for me, spending 40 minutes each day on the train, listening/watching these videos will fill that time up nicely and productively indeed.  But also, listening, rather than watching the content, as I go about my daily tasks on my computer is also something that I will be doing over the next few months for sure.

Summary

Get it. If you are serious about becoming successful, I seriously cannot think of anything else near to the $25 price mark that would help you anywhere near as much as Mixergy.com

*I would like to add that this post does not contain affiliate links.  Take a look at the links – they go direct to Mixergy.com – this is purely a genuine recommendation.

The data is built by using a Google Docs Spreadsheet (yes, no mysql database) and then manipulating this with some PHP code and the amazing Rgraph graphing software.

If you love football/soccer, and love data visualisations, then maybe it will be of interest to you.  If you do not, well, then it won’t

Here is a teaser graph which is shows (over the past 2 seasons), Home Win %, Away Win %, Home Not Lose % (where teams haven’t lost a game) and Away Not Lose % (same but away).

This should maybe help people to have a flutter on those teams that very usually do not lose at home and very usually do not lose away – or maybe you can see something else useful in that data? I’m not a gambler, but maybe I can help those that do?

Added extra – here is a chart that shows the goals per game that each team (again over the past 2 years) has scored both home and away.

Added added extra – this chart shows a rating for whether the price of a home ticket is worth it across the season for each club. Based on ticket prices, win percentages and goals per game, it shows what kind of fun people have for the cost of a Premier League ticket. Please note that we are still waiting for Reading to win a home game so my calculation will work!

Whilst its still a bit ‘top secret’ at present, the sunburst graph below shows a mini-overview of an industry, with keyword reach, links and social data represented.  Dont worry if you do not understand it yet, as you are not meant to – there is no legend after all.  Soon enough, I will release the chart in our insights report and it will be a new, fresh way to show the shape of an industry online.

As a gesture of good will, I then made this in to a free keynote document that allowed people to create their own timelines (those with OS X anyway).

You can see screenshots of the keynote timelines (monthly and yearly) below and you can download the free keynote timelines here.

Here’s the question – are you sites good enough to get links from some of these sites?  I’m sure that you will find some amazing links here for your or your clients sites.

If you do find this page useful, please retweet it, or dare I say link to it from your own site

* I know that some of the longer URLs cover their score, but Im sure you get the picture.