Here's a very neat web application for distraction free writing.
http://pen.io/zen/

Minimalist and effective for the task. Make the browser fullscreen for truly distraction free writing.

I would improve the application by:
- locally cache writes using the HTML5 storage between syncs
- provide a clearer path to document storage via the cloud (eg. oAuth/openID for storage credentials and a file list)
- Provide basic text-editing capabilities -- but keep the interface minimalist

cool find, thanks!

Gentlemen... and women... gentle-people, start your engines. NaCl is nearing release!
http://blog.chromium.org/2011/02/nat...r-takeoff.html

For those that don't know, NaCl is an abbreviation of (Native Client) that allows for native code (eg. C/C++ compiled code) to execute directly in the browser in a secure way.

What this means is web apps that have the same performance benefit as native installed applications, and a rich API for securely accessing system resources (eg. GPU or webcam). Anything from a video player, a high performance game, or even a photo-real ray tracer will be able to execute right inside of the browser.

Of course, this still carries the benefit of the web. Zero maintenance, zero install, zero upgrade.

My only complaint is that NaCl currently targets x86, and ARMs cortex A15 will meet intel on the battlefield late next year for low-end performance. There is a project called pNaCl (pronounced pinnacle) that promises x86/ARM compatibility through translation, though I suspect that speed will be sacrificed. As Cortex A15 includes virtualization (a tool that NaCl uses, AFAIK) then hopefully the project will allow for compilation to different supported architectures. It would be nice to target both x86 and ARM.

I'd love to see some existing linux GUI programs ported. Can you imagine running Blender in the browser at full speed? A quick API wrapper for remote storage, remotely caching the executable, and you have a damned powerful solution. Imagine offloading some of the final rendering to a $10/mo cluster -- seamlessly. The mind boggles at the coolness.

Were this possible, I would relegate linux to my server, and my chromebook would be my solitary interface.

Here's a great presentation on the Google Web Toolkit, which is a way of doing web app development using traditional Object Oriented programming for quick ports and quick development. The presentation centers around game programming

VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_sbusEUz5w

But there are other benefits for developers other than a familiar workflow:
- Heavily obfusicated javascript code
- More compact javascript
- Compiler optimized code for faster execution
- You can target Android! (phone/tablet/GoogleTV!)
- You can target FLASH for non-HTML5 browsers

The Android distribution is a big deal for developers, and this makes the GWT a very attractive proposition. Flash expands the target market in a huge way!

Angry birds was ported (assuming from Android) in a 'short time' using the GWT to run entirely in HTML5. Early experiments compiled Quake and had it run in the browser.

What's most interesting, is this: as NaCl rolls out, I'm guessing that GWT will provide a way to compile native code. This means that not only do your processes not change, you also retain most of the performance benefits of writing native code with the web as a target. This is speculation, but not terribly ambitious speculation.

Very impressive.

How about booting linux (2.6.20 kernel) in your browser? Yep, no joke:
http://bellard.org/jslinux/
http://bellard.org/

It requires a modern browser (eg. firefox 4, chrome 11), but it works although mine stops right after freeing unused kernel memory.

Perhaps the web will start to be seen by seasoned developers as a serious development platform.

Here's an interesting demo of the Samsung chromebook:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkGbIyPTOlo

Here are the interesting bits:
- You can have a floating (minimizable) 'panel' in the lower right-hand corner for playing media and videos as you do other things. This stays on-screen regardless of what you're doing.
- You can have not only different tabs but different 'windows' as well, with their own set of tabs. This is similar to multiple desktops in that they are full-screen and you can group tasks. Alt-tab will slide between windows.
- There is no need to turn on/off the computer. Opening and closing the lid will do that for you -- very nice.
- There's a file manager for managing USB drives and on-system files (eg. media)

For those that are interested in chromebook security, have a read here:
http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/...urity-overview

I have so much more confidence in a chromebook security (and say my firewalled server) than a typical desktop OS.

I'm looking forward to something like jetty enabled applications that I can just plop on my server and host services like SSH clients for my chromebook, media player/browser as well as other neat locally hosted apps.

doesn't NaCl mean table salt or is my chemistry that bad

Yep, it sure does. So NaCl is Sodium Chloride (salt), or in this case, Google Native Client, which is a plugin that allows for C/C++ code to run safely in the browser at full speed.

NaCl files commonly have a .nexe extension.

Native client essentially replaces the need for more and more plugins, as the code can be run at plugin speed with access to certain system level functions. For example, there would be no need for a java plugin if you produced a small java interpreter .nexe. Similar can be said for DRM video.

But it goes beyond plugin-level services to full blown applications. It would be quite possible to port a full-blown 3D modeler like blender
, a demanding video editor complete with GPU acceleration, or even a classic console emulator with ROMs that you store on an SD card, the device itself, or a personal data server.

This is neat. RPGjs allows you to easily create a classic console RPG in HTML5 playable on the web!

http://rpgjs.com/
DEMO: http://rpgjs.com/examples/

Ah, this brings back memories!

I've been using a Chromebook for about a week, and I like it. I'm thinking of putting ChromiumOS on my Dell Minis over the summer. It does exactly what I want my students to do.