Aetheric Research, Ltd.

Running software development projects ‘in the cloud’ has several barriers that traditional development projects do not face.  First, regardless of the project, you’ll need someplace to keep the files when you’re not working on them; most “cloud storage” currently is biased towards either backups or towards documents; obtaining a URI to work with a project from one cloud on a service hosted in another cloud is rather like pulling teeth.  This barrier can be overcome with some careful work (or a solution that I’m currently developing), but in the meantime, ShiftEdit has some useful features.

ShiftEdit is a PHP editor with the typical syntactical highlighting, automatic indenting, and paren-completion that developers have come to expect from traditional IDEs.  It has a clean interface and works well enough on the CR-48 to be worth using.  Most critically, beyond the FTP retrieval of object files that other competitor products provide, ShiftEdit allows for SFTP and SVN.  

The SFTP access can be leveraged to obtain files from any server that you have SSH access to; read/write may be a little slow (depending on the server) but it works well enough.  The SVN access does not yet support SVN+SSH, but the developer assures me that this capability is in the works.

ShiftEdit is still very much in active development; the developer takes the time to respond to queries about the status of the project and to trace down any errors that may occur.  

Things I like: clean, useful interface; built-in versioning; under active development

Things I dislike: not enough documentation

Things I would change: adding SSH+SVN, perhaps adding a little storage on the server for small projects

Edit:  Ok, make that VERY active development.  It looks like SSH+SVN was added while I wasn’t looking.  Even more recommended now. :-)

It is perhaps a testament to the orderly and efficient working of the adblock extension that I only just noticed that I had not yet reviewed it.  Sitting quietly in a button up in the corner, Chrome Adblock filters out advertisements across the web quietly and efficiently.

The Adblock extension comes with a fairly useful set of configuration tools.  You can whitelist domains that you wish to support on the third tab of the settings page; you can select your preferred block lists on the second page; and on the first page you have the option to show google text ads–to be encouraged, given that they’re unobtrusive and not annoying–and to block ads within youtube videos.

This last is not fully functional-yet-but as the extension is under active development, that should move out of ‘beta’ status within a few versions.

Whitelisting is easy to accomplish; there’s the option to put in the filter by hand, using the same format as the popular firefox adblocker, as well as a ‘wizard’ interface to automatically generate the rules for individual domains or subdomains.  

Blacklist lists, on the second tab, are easily managed as well; a series of checkboxes allows them to be selected individually, and a button is provided to select all of them at once.  

The only other feature of note is an optional context menu entry, allowing specific blocking of an ad, of all ads on a site, or whitelisting of a site.  

All in all, this extension works quietly and effectively, and is nearly invisible to the user after some small initial setup.  It provides the option to enable ads for sites you wish to support quickly and easily while blocking most of the known annoyances, “weird old tip” or otherwise.  

Things I like:  It works, it’s unobtrusive, and it’s easy to set up and ignore.

Things I dislike:  It does not yet make toast.

Things I would change:  Frankly…nothing.  It does exactly what I asked for.  Send this guy a donation; he’s doing it right.

The history of the popup ad is fairly long, as far as the web goes, and closely mirrors the adoption of Javascript, which made them possible.  Given the extremely vocal nature of the objections to that sort of advertisement displayed by savvy web users, and given the nature of the Chrome browser as relying heavily on the use of Javascript in order to ensure consistent user experience, Google has wisely decided to ensure that most popups are blocked.

However, given that apparently some people must still actually click on the accursed things, it’s been in the best interest of marketing firms to innovate even more intrusive forms of advertising.  Adblock catches some of them, but there are still occasional popups that do show up; further, there are occasional legitimate uses of popup windows–for various application forms, or for opening video in a new window.

The “Better Pop Up Blocker” addresses these problems.  It sits resident in the omnibar, and when popup javascript is intercepted, it flashes–if the user wishes to open the popup, they can click the icon and receive a list of currently blocked popups, as well as the option to whitelist the domain or to temporarily turn off popup blocking.  

Opening the options for the plugin reveals some interesting other functions–besides the usual popup blocking methods, there’s methods to prevent some of the dirtier tricks (such as popups that spawn after you leave the page, or certain creative uses of otherwise legitimate functions) that the user can enable.  There’s also the ability to disable text selection intercept–one of the more annoying tricks used by some webpages with no respect for fair use to prevent any copying of their text.

Better Pop Up Blocker is better than stock and well worth the download.  It’s mostly invisible–the icon for it is unobtrusive and most of the time you won’t even notice that it’s there.  Highly recommended. 

Things I like:  It works.  It’s customizable, and it properly handles allowing an intercepted popup.

Things I dislike  Wood-grain border for the preferences page?  

Things I would change:  It’d be nice to be able to hide the icon entirely until it’s needed.  

An extension to leverage the use of URL shorteners, ViewThru allows the user the functionality of finding out where a short URL is pointing before following it.

URL shorteners have become popular more or less concurrent with the rise in popularity of Twitter:  the character limit that twitter imposes makes it a challenge to both tweet a meaningful URL and to provide some form of commentary upon it.  As such, services such as bit.ly have become popular, taking a short domain name and a bit of redirect scripting to develop a means of linking to content in as short a form as possible.

Unfortunately, this shortening obfuscates the destination URL, allowing for ‘Rickroll’ hijacking or potentially direction to other undesired–and potentially malicious–content.

ViewThru uses the API provided by most of the major URL shorteners, and provides an expanded view of where the URL is pointing.  It does this by, when the user hovers their mouse over the URL in question, showing a tooltip with the relevant information.  Conveniently, this not only works on websites but within other chrome apps–like, for instance, TweetDeck.

It’s a very simple functionality, but a very convenient one–not only does it enhance safety, but it saves the user from having to go through the redirect themselves to decide whether or not the URL is worth following.

Things I like:  Invisible operation except when needed; universal functionality within the browser

Things I don’t like: the hover window stays just a little shorter than I’d like

Things I’d like to change:  Longer hover window duration, slight delay before the window appears so I can mouse past a link without getting the popup

When you live in the cloud, it’s helpful to have a portion of cloud to stash your stuff.  Ge.tt will fill that niche, at least temporarily.  

Ge.tt provides a dropbox service where users can stick files for sharing to other users.  Much like other noted dropbox services (rapidshare, etc.) there is no official search engine nor any external search engine capability provided; the only way to find a file is when someone tells you it’s there.  The interface is clean and simple; the sharing function is usable, and there’s really not much more to be said about basic functionality.

Much like some pastebins, inactive files (those that aren’t accessed on a regular basis) will be removed and inaccessible after a certain period of inactivity.  Registering for an account–which is free–will lengthen this time.  

One of the features mentioned is the ability to count how popular your file has been by counting visits and downloads–which is as advertised: it counts visits and downloads, cumulatively, since the datestamp marking when you first uploaded it.  They also advertise being able to begin sharing the file before it has finished uploading; I was unable to coordinate both a large upload and some observers to verify how that works.

It’s a fairly simple way to temporarily store files; like everything else on the “web 2.0″ it’s prominently marked “Beta”, so the absence of any overt monetizing method should not be too terribly alarming.

Things I like:  free (as yet), clean interface, no overt filesize limit

Things I dislike: not much; there’s one function here and it’s being addressed

Things I would change: it’d be nice to see a little more breakdown of the stats–perhaps an option to view a raw list of access times or something?

Advertised on Twitter by Stephen Fry, Pushnote is a chrome (and firefox, and IE) extension along the same vein as the Google Sidewiki, providing users with another layer of information when browsing the web.  In this case, it’s a sort of meta-forum, with the ‘notes’ (of about 2x the length Twitter allows you) being attached to specific websites.  The notes are attached to other social media (twitter, facebook) and can derive their pictures from there; this leverages the existing social connections, in a way, by ensuring that if one of your connections has made notes on a website you’ll be able to recognize that it was they who made them.

The extension works in just the same way as all of them do; there’s a button that hangs out beside the omnibox and which lights up if something relevant happens–green, if there’s content attached to your current page, and red if there’s new content elsewhere that you may want to pay attention to.  Upon activating the button on a website where there is content, a box opens up where the comments–again, about twice the length of a twitter, maximum–can be read.  Interestingly enough, some attempt at organization has been made in that replies to comments are (by default) hidden beneath the parent comment, and accessed through a link beneath the parent comment.  

The extension appears to use a Digg paradigm of user-driven moderation; comments can be voted up or down, and comments which are offensive can be reported via a ‘report abuse’ button.  The content of the comments is limited to plain text; html tags (such as links) are stripped out, presumably to close the obvious spam hole that would otherwise exist.  Additionally, the option is given to CC the posts you make to twitter or to facebook, should you wish.

Besides the current page’s attached notes, the commentbox allows a look at the top-rated comments on the web (mostly enquiring of other users brought to a page by Stephen Fry) and a list (with appropriate links) to the sites with the most comments attached; currently, twitter is leading the pack.  

The concept of another layer to reality is not novel; AR apps for smartphones, at any rate, have been around for some time, and google maps also allows different layers of information to be presented.  As mentioned above, google sidewiki is another project with a similar concept, that of attaching metainformation to webpages accessible to those with the correct interface.  What appears to make this app different is the social nature of it–it appears purposely designed to emulate the experience of “bumping into people at places,” like fortuitously meeting a friend at a coffeeshop.

(Idle thought: there may well be enhanced geotagging apps that do a similar function to this, but geographically, by now…)

Pushnote is a fun extension, but does raise a few issues–the potential exists, for instance, for putting all manner of reputationally-impacting comments on the layer attached to various websites, e.g., tagging a business website with unflattering information about how they scammed you or some such.  Given that these apps that access enhanced information layers are bound to become more popular in the future, it would perhaps be wise for a business to keep track of these enhanced content accessors and the potential impact on the business’ reputation.  

Things I like: interesting concept, fascinating new level of social interaction opened, Stephen Fry is involved

Things I dislike:  no way to access content without the plugin–a big minus for the companies who may be commented on without being aware of it

Things I would change: spawning the interface across the bottom of the screen with a movie audience cutout with two robot heads and a geek showing ;-P

Distractions are the bane of anyone seeking to write significant amounts of text–the best productivity is achieved when the author has fifteen minutes or so to get ‘in the zone’ where they can let their words flow freely and their prose becomes much more natural.  Writespace seeks to assist the author in this endeavor with a clean and distraction-free interface–it presents the author with a blank black screen with a few basic statistics (words, lines, characters) at the bottom in low-impact white text and a cursor.

That’s it.

The app page recommends using it in a full-screen mode in order to further minimize distractions–your computer becomes, in essence, one of the old-fashioned word processors.  There’s no menus, no bells and whistles; just a tabula rasa for you to fill with whatever you need to fill it with.  It doesn’t even have its own ‘find’ function–chrome’s find function works, though.

For first drafts, for long novels, and for things like literary analysis where print resources rather than online resources are used, this is a good paradigm.  The lack of any bells and whistles acts very much like a feature here, in that many modern word-processing programs have remarkably cluttered interfaces with ‘helpful’ widgets that actively pop up trying to ‘assist’ the user.  The no-frills attitude is an encouraging one, and one which I hope will be maintained; Writespace is an open source program, meaning that anyone can contribute, and that means there may be feature creep–people contributing ‘helpful’ features which may somewhat miss the point.  

There are a few features that I do wish they would include, though.  The existing configuration page (accessed via the ‘wrench’ icon in the corner of the app’s entry on the start page) offers a few basic configuration options (mostly to do with text colors and vertical/horizontal alignment) and the option to import a file–however, there is no option to export the current buffer to a file, nor are any file imports save from the local disk supported.  For the CR-48, this isn’t entirely suitable; without the option to, for instance, sync to google docs, the user is limited to copy/paste transfers, which get a little clumsy for large (novel-size) works.  The ability to write while offline is nice, but the limit of -only- writing offline doesn’t quite sell me on the app.

Things I like: clean interface, customizable to user spec, no mandatory network sync–good for distraction-free writing

Things I don’t like: inability to sync to network resources (or from them), no obvious documentation pointing to the configuration page

Things I would like to change: stick a sync button in the configuration page to allow for (for instance) google docs send/receive, more documentation–perhaps a ‘default document’ loads on first use to point the user to where the configuration page hangs out.

Pastebin is a useful collaboration tool mostly frequented by programmers, allowing users to quickly share snippets of text data–they’ve been around with varying levels of sophistication throughout most of the past decade.  The pastebin extension brings this convenience to ChromeOS, allowing the user to quickly pop a bit of text into a popup and receive a link to the pastebin at pocoo.org.  This particular pastebin offers syntactical highlighting and diff comparison–that is, for pastes in the form of programming code, the various elements will be highlighted to make it easier to read, and two versions of the code can be compared to determine what the differences are between them.

Usage is quick and easy–copy your text, hit the extension button, paste your text, optionally select the highlighting style (sorted by programming language; most of the commonly used languages are there) and then select the ‘paste’ button.  After a consultation with the server, the extension returns a link to your pasted material and the option to paste another code.  

The website has a nice clean interface, and there are no logins to worry about; per the ‘about’ page, it sets a cookie to determine if you’re the user to paste a given snippet, but that’s only to provide a bit of functionality whereby it attempts to notify you of any replies (containing changes) to your paste.

Things I like:  clean, convenient interface, with good syntax highlighting

Things I dislike: clicking outside the popup closes it; the contents don’t persist–so one selection is all you get

Things I would change: Not a whole lot–allowing contents of the popup to persist for a few seconds to guard against accidental closure would be nice.

One of the highest-rated extensions in the Chrome market, Too Many Tabs is a tab manager for people who surf in parallel with themselves.  Too Many Tabs offers a way for people with large numbers of open tabs to organize and reference them more effectively than they otherwise would.  

Too Many Tabs resides, like all extensions, to the right of the omnibox.  Upon activating the button, it pops up a list of the currently open tabs (with a miniature image of the contents within), and provides an option to suspend certain tabs’ operations–freeing up their resources for the rest of the system.  The suspended taps are kept in a list on the right, and can be resurrected quickly and easily at any time.  The suspended tabs list also carries a list of recently closed tabs, allowing for quick recovery in cases of “Oops, my finger stuttered” situations.  

The extension supports custom color schemes (in all cases a simple gradient between two colors for the background), controls for the number of recently closed tabs to maintain, and the option for a custom hotkey to launch (which, sadly, does not appear to work on ChromeOS).  The list can be sorted by name, web address, or time of creation; there’s also an option to import or export tab lists.  There’s even a search box to find a particular tab.

The default popup takes up rather a lot of real estate, but there are two alternative options: a narrow view, and one which is significantly smaller.  The small one may require some scrolling, but does free up a significant chunk of screen area.  

On the whole, this is a strong extension that leverages certain Chrome resources (bookmarking and local storage, unless I miss my guess) into providing a well-thought-out and convenient service.  It does what it says it does on the installation page, and does it quickly and without any fuss.

Things I like:  clean, well-thought-out extension with good functionality

Things I dislike:  the default window takes up too much real estate on the CR-48 screen, but that’s fixable

Things that could change:  It might be nice to have the option to change the skinning of the button colors, or change the gradient orientation

While the GMail application provides support for AIM, and there is support both within GMail and separately for GTalk, the array of “built-in” (inasmuch as any options can be said to be built in to the chromebook) options for instant messaging is a little paltry.  Further, given the (current) instability of TLS/SSL connections on wifi on ChromeOS, other options may be required for instant messaging.  It supports MSN, Yahoo, Skype, Jabber, Facebook, and Myspace messaging in addition to GTalk and AIM.

Enter imo Instant Messenger.  Supporting a number of formats, imo nicely fills the non-critical instant-messaging hole quite nicely–it’s not suited at all, of course, for secure messages, given that it does not connect over SSL and as such is vulnerable to packet sniffing and the like.  However, it does open up a range of communication options that would not otherwise be supported.

imo is an application–that is, rather than building functionality into the ChromeOS browser itself, it’s a sort of glorified bookmark leading to an Adobe AIR application.  It has a nice, clean layout–buddy list on the right, with its functionalities; account list on the left, with the add/remove/link account functionality there.  The ‘link’ function is an interesting convenience; it allows multiple accounts to sign on simultaneously; when you activate one, you activate all of them.  This means, for example, if you have a unified web presence under a certain name and have registered that name with multiple instant messaging services, you can have your entire presence go live at once, rather than having to sign in to each one individually–and you can have that presence go off simultaneously as well, without affecting other handles that you may want to maintain.

Chat windows spawn in the middle.  While they feel a little cramped, especially for conversations with long-winded people, they are resizable and repositionable; much like traditional OS windows, you can stack, minimize, or otherwise manipulate them arbitrarily within the confines of the pseudo-desktop that imo presents you with within that view.  Alternatively, imo offers a ‘tab view’ where the whole of the window contains the chat, and different chats can be switched to by means of tabs, much like if a Pidgin chat window were maximized.  

imo offers file sending and vox/video call functionality, though I have not tested those offerings yet–that functionality may not be available across all protocols, despite the button offering such appearing in all chat windows regardless of protocol.  

Buddy sub-lists are supported as well, with the option to ‘favorite’ a contact and put them in a prioritized (read: at the top of the buddy list window) list marked “Favorites”, denoted by a star.

The application also supports searching chat histories, though that functionality did not appear to be entirely functional when I tested it–which is due to my not having given permission for imo to store said history.  That option can be found in the “preferences”, in a link hidden away in the bottom corner.

All in all, imo is a fairly solid multiplatform messaging client, and one which works well under ChromeOS.

Things I like:  Clean interface, option for arbitrary window sizes, multiple platform support.

Things I dislike: No options to enable TLS/SSL connections between their server and the client system; preferences menu hard to notice unless you look for it specifically

Things to change: Adjust button availability for vox/video to only those protocols that support it, if required.