Is your computer acting odd? Check you startup items with AboutMyPC.net!

We all experience slowness with our PC from time to time. Is it a virus? Is it that new program we installed? It's hard to know sometimes. However, if you examine the each startup item that is present when your computer boots, you can figure out what is slowing it down.

But how do I know what this startup item is? you may ask. You just installed a a couple of new programs and your computer is slow all of a sudden. But when you check the names of startup items in your Windows system, you don't know what the names mean. Well AboutmyPC.net is here to help.

With AboutmyPC.net, you can check the names of each individual startup item and decide if it is something you want slowing down your computer during bootup. You can even research and find out if the startup item is malicious. Many viruses are detected by how they affect your computer at start up time. AboutMyPC.net can help you find out about and speed up your PC.

This information has been brought to you by your friends at AboutMyPC.net.

Install Chrome OS to USB

Thanks to our friend Jorge Sierra at Makeuseof.com, we can now install Chromium OS, the open source version of Chrome OS to a USB drive. This will allow us to boot the OS natively on our computer, not in virtualization software.

I will walk you through how to install Chrome OS on your USB drive and boot your computer with it.

Things you will need:
1. 4 GB or larger USB drive
2. Image Writer program
3. USB image of Chrome OS
4. A Windows (or Linux :). I added alternate directions at the bottom) computer that can boot from a USB drive

1. Download the USB image and Image writer program. 

You can use Mr. Sierra's torrent file to download the Chrome OS USB image: Chrome OS to USB torrent file (just right click it and select "Save Link as...). You will need a BitTorrent client to download the image via the torrent (I recommend utorrent). Or you can simply download the file here: Chrome OS USB image.  For Windows, a program called Image Writer for Windows will be included in the torrent or file download. I will show you how to install Chrome OS on a USB drive in Windows.

2. Write Chrome OS Image to USB drive

To write the Chrome OS image to your USB drive, you will need to run the Image Writer for Windows by clicking on "Win32DiskImager" file that you downloaded with the Chrome OS image. After you install it, run the program and browser for the Chrome OS image clicking on the folder icon beside the text field in Image Writer. Select the image, then select your USB drive under the device section. If you don't know the letter of your drive, go to My Computer and see what label it has (should be (G:) or (H:) depending on how many drives you computer has). The writing process takes a few minutes, so don't be alarmed at its slowness.

Now select "write" to write the Chrome OS image to your USB drive.

3. Booting the Chrome OS USB image

Next, you will boot into Chrome OS using the USB image. First you will make sure your computer is set to be able to boot from a USB drive. To do this, simply change the boot setting in BIOS to look for a USB boot image (move USB drive above Hard Disk in you boot sequence). Now restart your computer with the Chrome OS USB plugged in and it should boot it before looking at your hard drive for an operating system. If you have any questions, just ask me in the comments!

For Installing Chrome OS on a USB drive in Linux:

Follow Step 1 and 2 above until the point where you write the image to USB drive. In a Linux environment, there is a Python script that you can use to write an image to a USB (I obtained it from Moblin.org) Here is a link to download the script: Image Writer. It is recommended that you have Python 2.4 or greater installed.

Write the image to the USB drive:
In a terminal type these commands-

# cd [directory with downloaded image-writer file]
# chmod a+x ./image-writer
# ./image-writer [Chrome OS USB image file name]

Make sure you replace "directory with downloaded image-writer file" and "Chrome OS USB image file name" with the actual directory and file names on your computer. The script will ask you which drive to write to. Simply enter the USB's designation and let it rip!
Thanks goes to the Moblin team for Image Writer.

Once again, credit goes to Jorge Sierra at Makeuseof.com for the Windows directions.

The Future Will Unfold as It Does: Chrome OS and Android to Merge

Since Chrome OS was announced, many have questioned how it will relate to Google's mobile operating system, Android. Some commentators say it will harm the company's goals, a so-called splintering of strategies, too many closely-related products. Others say the two systems will compliment one another and produce a thriving ecosystem.

Recently, the question was put to Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt. His response? "The future will unfold as it does."A good and mystical answer from the top of the search giant.

Google's official response to this question is:

"[W]e're reaching a perfect storm of converging trends where computers are behaving more like mobile devices, and phones are behaving more like small computers. Having two open source operating systems from Google provides both users and device manufacturers with more choice and helps contribute a wealth of new code to the open source community."

The official response seems to hold more water, albeit not as yoda-worthy. Google seems to be counting on the fact that mobile phones and laptops are going to migrate towards one another in terms of form and functionality. This reveals the near-perfect placement of Chrome OS' abilities. Google has produced an operating system that some call "too simple" or "not powerful enough" However, I would argue that it is just simple enough and not over-powered.

As mobile devices become more powerful, many users will find that they can do much of their daily computing on them. And with the maturation of web applications, many will find that they do not necessarily need a strong desktop computer to complete tasks. This is where Chrome OS comes in. With it, users will find that their needs are met almost perfectly, without the need to buy expensive hardware.

I do realize that there is and will continue to be a market segment that needs powerful workstations. There are multimedia editors and scientists that need high-end to supercomputer systems and Chrome OS will not suffice. However, this is a small niche in the computer industry and Google is not targeting it. 

Many people are also worried about how the two systems, Chrome OS and Android, will actually merge. Will it be messy and confusing for customers? Will it turn out to be a Frankenstein of an operating system, not fit for mobile devices or laptops? I don't think so. I think the merge will have plenty of time to happen naturally. As mobile devices become more powerful, they will be able to handle a system much like what Chromium OS (the open-source version of Chrome OS) is today. And that's what will be sold with them. It seems as though it will be more of a merge involving mobile devices and Chrome OS, with Android bridging the time between.

What do you think? Will the Android/ Chrome OS merge be a mess? Or will it produce a beautifully simple yet functional system to rule computing for the next decade? Let us know in the comments!

Desktop is now accessible in Chromium OS

It looks like Google's developer's are hot on the job of making Chromium OS into a consumer-ready Chrome OS. Perviously, if you were to select the Chrome OS desktop tab (the one the far left corner of the browser) it would take you to a login page for an @google.com account. Now it takes you to a page so you can login with your own credentials.

The desktop for Chromium OS is quite interesting, with multiple web-app icons. The icons include Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, Google Calendar, Google Reader and more. This shows that Google isn't attempting to shoehorn users into signing up for their services. They politely provide shortcuts to two more major email providers right on the default desktop.

The Chromium OS desktop also has the disclaimer "UI under development. Designs are subject to change." at the top. It also links users to chromium.org/user-experience, which explains what the Chrome OS developers are doing and how they want the UI for the system to be developed. So what do you think of Chromium/Chrome OS' user interface? Let me know in the comments!

Chrome OS and Security

Many people shy away from cloud computing because they think it is insecure. They think just because they can't touch the hardware that their data is on that it is being passed around willy nilly. However, I think they are thinking about security the wrong way. And Chrome OS will protect their data in ways they can't see. Yet.

How Will Chrome OS  Be Safer Than Windows or Mac OS X?

Google is designing Chrome OS to be secure from the ground up. With vital operating system aspects in read-only memory and boot-time checkups on your system, Chrome OS will be much safer than current systems. Google has released an overview of security here: Chrome OS security overview.

"The perfect is the enemy of the good". The developers of Chrome OS point out that they are not searching for some "mythical perfect system" for security in the operating system. They know that a good system has many fallbacks in the case that one part fails. This means that a virus cannot infect your machine if the creator beats a single security feature.

"Don't scapegoat our users". Oftentimes I hear "Well they shouldn't have went to that website or downloaded that program". Google wants to make it to where we can take calculated risks with our web browsing and not be infected with malware. When using Chrome OS, you won't be blamed for "doing something stupid". The system will be secure enough for you to do what you want.

Is the Cloud Safe?

As for cloud computing, I trust a locked server farm more than my backpack. And I bet your briefcase doesn't have security guards that are paid to protect it 24/7. So why are people so worried about keeping their data in the cloud? If it's that "private" encrypt it before uploading. And if your data isn't on your laptop, then it can't be swiped by some dude that is just walking by. Google has spoken of plans of encrypting all user data in Chrome OS. Just another way Chrome OS will present security features that are unheard of today.

Chrome OS FAQ

PCWorld has a great piece up about Chrome OS. It's a FAQ-type article that explains some of the confusion points about Google's upcoming operating system. There's just one section that I have to add a "correction" to:

Will you be able to work offline?
JR Raphael from PCWorld says pretty much "no". I say nearly a certain "yes". Raphael correctly explains that all apps (as we currently know) will be web apps. This means you will use Gmail or Yahoo or another web-based email service, not Outlook or Thunderbird. He says that without a network connection, only some functionality off apps will be present, that developers "may be able to build in a small amount of offline functionality for their programs".

However, developers have already done this. Gmail has offline functionality. You can read emails and write emails without an Internet connection. Gmail simply sends the newly composed emails and downloads newly received emails when the connection is restored. Just like Outlook.

Other than that one small misstep, Raphael does a good job of clearing up the Chrome OS confusion. Check it out here: "Google Chrome OS: A Simple FAQ"

How to Install Chrome OS in VirtualBox

As I revealed in a previous post (First Look at Chrome OS) I have installed the early Chrome OS build in VirtualBox. Here I will walk you through the steps of how to do it yourself. I am using a VirtualBox on Mac OS X 10.6.2, so a few things might be different if you are attempting this in Windows or Linux.

First you need to download the Chrome OS image from Gdgt.com (Chrome OS VM image download) and download and install VirtualBox (VirtualBox download). Installing VirtualBox is pretty straightforward so I won't go into that. Choose the VMware image on Gdgt.com, as I could not get the VirtualBox image to boot. You can still use the VMware image with the VirtualBox program.
1. Make a New Machine

After you have VirtualBox opened up, Select the "New" button in the top left corner to create your new Chrome OS machine. Next, name your machine (I chose Chrome OS) and select "Other" under operating system and "Other/Unknown" under version. I think it would be okay to leave it on "Windows" and "XP" for these options, but I'm not sure if VirtualBox does anything special for a Windows machine, so I went with a generic start.

Update: It looks like the network connection won't work in Chrome OS for some people if they choose "Other" for their OS. We found out (through the discussion in the comments) that picking "Linux" as the operating system and "Linux 2.6" as the version might work better for some host PCs.

2. Select the amount of RAM for you Chrome OS virtual machine

Next you select the amount of RAM to dedicate to your Chrome OS virtual instance. I selected 542 MB of RAM as this should be plenty for Chrome OS and not push my test machine (2 GB of RAM total) to the limit. You would choose the amount of RAM you think is appropriate here.

3. Select the Chrome OS disk image

Next is the hard disk image selection. Select "Use existing hard disk" and click the small folder icon next to the text field to browse for the Chrome OS .vmdk image you downloaded. You will need to add a new disk image by selecting "New" in the top left corner and then browse to where your Chrome OS image was downloaded.
Continue after the break for the rest of the guide.