Here's a DAMNED good raster editor (think: photoshop/gimp) that is available via the chrome webstore.

Sumo Paint:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/d...nmod?hl=en-US#
http://www.sumopaint.com/

It is surprisingly full featured, and is certainly production worthy. Very, very, impressive stuff.

Four stars.. Seriously, this is one full-featured app by any standard.. And just think, it's available on your N900's as well! So long as you have a modern browser w/ flash. Bravo.

Zero-install, zero-maintenance, and zero-sign in. Just click and use.

The Chrome Web Store makes a HUGE difference in the discovery and installation of web applications.

Some users complain that it's just a repository of links. But is that such a bad thing? Without the web store, it would be a nightmare trying to find meaningful apps using a search engine. With the web store, I can not only find apps, but view comments and ratings that let me know if something is worth trying or discarding.

There is also another benefit. It seems that the web store champions the use of OpenID and oAuth for sharing data between providers in a way that gives the user control. Why this is significant is that certain apps don't require you to create a yet-another-account to use. You can rely on your google account, click a quick confirmation with full disclosure about what will be shared (generally email account), and you're done!

This makes finding and using a web app as easy as launching an app using your OS.

I love it. Really great stuff.

I can't wait until NaCl arrives and web apps compete ever stronger with desktop apps.

Another really cool aspect of Chrome apps is that you can by default have them launched full-screen on your system. This is a really nice feature as it makes the app the only focus on your screen.

It does have a few shortcomings, though. I would like:
- the ability to use the mouse to pull down the tab display by hovering close to the top. If this was an option, that would be ok.
- the ability to skip between windows, without having them all full-screen, just the one that I wanted.

All in all, it's generally not necessary, though if you're doing some hard-core productive work and wish not to be disturbed, are watching a movie or playing a game and wish to be more immersed, this is a wonderful feature.

This weekend, something unexpected and wonderful happened. I had been feeding my girlfriend some game recommendations starting with 'Plants vs. Zombies' in the chrome web store, and slowly progressing to different titles. She has even installed some titles of her own! After recommending the game 'Royal Envoy' (which is a very fun strategy), I made the connection that she might like something a little more advanced like starcraft.

Long story short, she doesn't just like it, she loves it.

I would have never expected my girlfriend to be a gamer. Never. She doesn't seem the 'type'. She looks like a model, is generally fashion conscious, and fit the cultural mold of liking the typical things a girl like that 'should' like. She has even talked about her disdain for games in the past. But I'm glad that I've torn down those walls, and exposed her to a new form of art which gives us another thing to share in common.

Now, starcraft is an older title, and is inexpensive, but beyond the low price there were a few of barriers to entry.

First off, I needed to know about it. For a person that's not a gamer and not exposed to that type of content, this game is invisible. It's just not on the radar.

If that weren't enough, trying to convince someone that is a casual gamer to plunk down $60 on a title would be a huge challenge!

Add that to the difficulty of the game lack of a clear path of progression from simple titles to titles a little more complex. There are tons of games out there, some casual and some not, but finding games suitable for the target-audience is a tough job for someone that doesn't have a recommender, or access to a source of information.

What's even worse is that she uses a Mac! Starcraft is available, but AFAIK Mac's aren't terribly known for their great game support. Compatibility and games can be an issue.

Rub all of these things together, and you have content that's literally cut-off from someone that might actually really enjoy it.

The Chrome Web Store, solves those problems by exposing the user to content, makes trying something truly painless, almost guarantees compatibility, opens the door for pain-free payment models, and lets users get a general feel for the title based on user reviews.

I think this is what the Apple App store did so well. It made it really easy to find and try new things at a low risk. The chrome web store does it better as its basically painless to try something new.

Right now, the Chrome Web Store has a fairly weak game selection. There are some very good titles, but most things are sub-average. Also, the market seems to be finding price-points that work. I fully expect this to change.

I expect that the quality of titles, and the ease of use to increase by leaps and bounds in a few short months. Companies like Unity3D and Google are substantially lowering the cost of developing games for the web which will mean more, and higher quality titles. Also, the industry is finding what works and what doesn't -- from price straight through to ease-of-use.

We may not see WebGL games that give modern titles a run for their money, but the platform is more than suitable for pretty much all types of games, and certain games like real-time-strategies and Massively Multiplayer RPGs would simply be FANTASTIC on this platform. Why? There's no need to 'upgrade', new units, fixes, etc, can be delivered automatically.

For developers, this is also great. Why? Testing doesn't need to be near as thorough before release. In fact the game need not be complete and can be released in stages. This reduces risk, costs, and lowers time to market. Mechanisms like micropayments can ensure a nice return for serious players, and exposure through free demos can increase dramatically.

I'm a big fan of the web. I think it's a marvelous platform that is quite powerful and has grown nicely beyond serving up simple pages of text, graphics and links. The Chrome Web Store fills in a crucial need for the web as a platform, the discovery of content whilst improving ease of use.

Sure, the webstore won't replace Crysis, Mass Effect or Dragon Age, but a casual 10-15 min of Angry Birds et al between heavy CLI sessions will do just nicely (no, I don't know what CLI stands for )

I have Jolicloud desktop (from webstore) set up as my home page; and I have to say I really like running Chrome now, it's like running ready-out-of-the-box linux distro on a virtual machine hosted by your browser - granted I run Chrome(ium) on Arch Linux already (on Windows 7 it's actually even more impressive). Installing apps is a breeze, exactly like on the actual Jolicloud OS, except you are running everything inside Chrome web browser.

Not sure if I could totally rely on cloud as my work puts me often in spotty WiFi coverage or mediocre 3G speeds for tethering. I'd hate to be on an overnight without being able to log on to my OS. I mean, no TMO for a day? Outrageous!

Thanks for the Jolicloud reference! It seems like Chrome only a little more OS-like in its interface. I'll be interested to check out the jolicloud applications, and play around with them! I wish that they had more 'sign in' options, including a Google Account -- not terribly unreasonable being that it's in the Chrome App Store. This would make it far easier to dive right in and give it a shot for those of us that don't use facebook.

I'll assume that your CLI reference wasn't sarcasm... CLI stands for "Command Line Interface." It is the text only interface very popular on Linux for entering commands and manipulating files on your machine. Here is an example picture below of a linux CLI:


Yeah, and internet connection is a must for Chrome OS. However, I suspect apps will include the HTML5 feature of 'offline mode' more and more in the future. Angrybirds already supports offline usage -- you can play devoid of a connection. Also Google Docs will also roll out offline mode soon.

So Capt'n if you had a netbook lying around, and some free time to spare which would be your choice of OS on there?

Windows XP, Windows7 Basic,
Fedora, UNR,
Moblin, MeeGo,
ChromeOS, JoliOS,
Android?

It would be ChromeOS. No question.

I would like a way of accessing media and services from my home server, but the ease, ubiquity and speed of a Chrome OS computer would be a great casual machine around the house or on the road.

Right now, the app selection is somewhat small, but I am quite confident that this will change quickly. I am discovering new things all the time and the development tools are growing quite impressive.

I'm also looking forward to known chrome improvements like the proliferation of NaCl, improvement of WebGL, general bug-fixing, improved homescreen, etc. But I know these things are happening, and extremely quickly.

@capt'n, yes, I do know what CLI stands for. Sarcasm, FAIL

One thing that drove me away initially from Joli was the unreliable sign in process either through your Joli ID or facebook account. I opted for the facebook and that in turn raised the "security in cloud" issue: what happens if my facebook account is hacked, do I then worry about my OS security as well?

I prefer google sign in, however I'm still a little skeptical on the security of the cloud.