I’m a big Windows person. It’s what I grew up with, what I learned how to use first, and it’s far and away the operating system I’m most familiar with. I navigate Windows and its many quirks with ease. I was the first in line to upgrade my work laptop to Windows 10, even though it’s technically not approved for general use, because I have it at home and enjoy using it.<\/p>\n
Now that I’m in my seventh year as the school’s technology coordinator (can’t believe I just wrote that), I find myself struggling to fight complacency and stay fresh and active. I decided recently that I need to try some new things, even if I hate them, just so I don’t lose my touch, or gain distance from the technology community I love so much.<\/p>\n
That’s where the Chromebook Challenge comes in.<\/p>\n
I had planned for a while to purchase my own laptop to use for work purposes, as sort-of a DIY replacement to my beloved-but-ancient work laptop. I wanted something without the shackles that my employer places on their laptops–with all the features, abilities, and power that comes with an unmanaged laptop.<\/p>\n
But then, last week, my Check Engine light came on.<\/p>\n
After a scary $625 near-disaster transmission problem, and being told that I need another $1,000 of work done over the break, I figured this was a sign that I need to try Chromebooks.<\/p>\n
Chromebooks are great for lightweight computing, and all the reviews I read from people who use them for work say that they’re able to do about 90% of their job on them. It so happened that Amazon had this<\/a> nice Acer model on sale, which got good reviews online, so I took the plunge. It arrived Sunday.<\/p>\n The “challenge” in Chromebook Challenge is that I intend to use this as my primary work computer from now until the winter break in December. I’m not sure how or if it’ll work, since I occasionally need to do Very Fancy Things, but I’m willing to give it a shot. I also intend on taking it with me to the technology conference<\/a> this week–I took a smaller Chromebook last year to the same conference, just to take notes on, and it worked great for what I needed.<\/p>\n I will be checking in throughout the next two months with progress updates, insights gained, and thoughts about Chrome OS. Looking forward to my adventure!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’m a big Windows person. It’s what I grew up with, what I learned how to use first, and it’s far and away the operating system I’m most familiar with. I navigate Windows and its many quirks with ease. I was the first in line to upgrade my work laptop to Windows 10, even though […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[41,37,38,42,39,40],"class_list":["post-144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal","tag-byod","tag-chromebook","tag-chromeos","tag-devices","tag-laptop","tag-personal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mikevigilant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mikevigilant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mikevigilant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mikevigilant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mikevigilant.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=144"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mikevigilant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":145,"href":"https:\/\/www.mikevigilant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions\/145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mikevigilant.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mikevigilant.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mikevigilant.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}