Kevin Wilson (8)

This is a very basic guide to using a Chromebook. Mostly, it focuses on the apps available, rather than the Chromebook operating system. For novice users, the fairly extensive step-by-step instructions, very well illustrated, of how to use the basic Google Apps (Chrome, Gmail, Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides, etc.) should resolve any questions. The book does have a few glaring problems, however. First off, it assumes all Chromebooks are the same. My Acer Spin 11, for instance, doesn’t have a power key on the keyboard, but rather on the side of the computer. It also doesn’t have an HDMI port, but rather uses USB-C for hooking up external monitors. And it uses a MicroSD card, not a regular SD card. These are minor issues for any experienced user, but given that the copyright on the book is 2019, it shouldn’t already be out of date--or perhaps the author doesn’t know as much about Chromebook hardware as he thinks. The instructions on adding a printer also don’t reflect how it works on my Chromebook, which didn’t bring up an option for Google Cloud Print, but simply found the WiFi printer and let me easily install it.

Given that my Acer came with very little in the way of operating instructions, however, this book did point me to a few things that weren’t intuitive. There is a Task Manager, for instance, where you can see the incredible number of processes (Linux) that are running along with your open apps, and you can kill any that are hung up. I would have liked to see more about file management, for instance checking how much free space you have left on your internal storage and SD/MicroSD card.… (mehr)