Here's an off topic WooHoo Moment

I got a beta CR-48, how cool is that. I came home from school and there it was.

Nice! Sounds cool. I signed up for one also, but no word yet.

Is it polite to drool?

Sounds awesome.

For those interested here's a link:
http://www.google.com/chromeos/pilot-program-cr48.html

Wow! You need to do a review. How do you sign up for goodies like that?

Originally Posted by borisb

Is it polite to drool?

As long as you don't get my new toy wet!

A review would be happily received here

Awsome, Thanks for the info.

Originally Posted by cheyennedonna

As long as you don't get my new toy wet!

So I am guessing Google is letting you keep it, or is this a loaner?

First thing you gotta do is hack in a caps-lock key. For tradition's sake.

Originally Posted by StevenP

So I am guessing Google is letting you keep it, or is this a loaner?

They are yours to keep if you have been chosen.

Originally Posted by gecko

First thing you gotta do is hack in a caps-lock key. For tradition's sake.

They put in a way to change that, although I kind of like the search key.

Mini review for those who asked -
It weighs about 3.6 pounds, about the same as the full size edge and you can hold it in one hand easily.
I love the matte, rubbery finish - no fingerprints and not slippery.
The screen is matte too, I opened it outdoors briefly and could see it fine, although it was a cloudy day. I'm going to test it in the sun tomorrow.
Lots of Keyboard shortcuts and a menu you can pull up - with a keyboard shortcut. The Fn keys at the top were replaced with a row of symbols, which is great.
It Boots instantly - 15 seconds from turned off and comes out of sleep in a second, before you even have the lid open all the way it's awake.
You sign in with your Google account and can add other Google logins on the login screen, there is also a guest account and all the info from that sign in disappears at log off.
I do a lot of cloud storage; so using Google everything is intuitive for me and the new Chrome web apps are great. Cloud printing is working - BTW it can be accessed from the edge as well if you set it up on your PC from chrome (it is limited to Gmail and Google Docs from mobiles for now though)
Battery life is terrific, I went from 8AM till 5PM with heavy use and still had 34% left. Plus, it does not get hot the way a laptop does.
Rumor has it that there is a GPS unit built in; although as yet it is not enabled.
Google threw in 2 years of Verizon 3G as well, so if I'm not near WiFi I have 100MB a month for whatever I may need. I wonder how much data using Google Maps and GPS would use if you needed it on the road? It would be way cool to have a 12 inch screen for directions.
It is definitely a work in progress, not much support for music sync yet and no Netflix. Hulu works, but flash streaming is a bit jerky; Adobe is supposed to be working on a version for Chrome OS.
I can see the potential;many people, like my husband, have no use for a traditional Windows machine. He just web browses and does the occasional chat, email, looks at my Picasa galleries etc.
Students can benefit, cloud apps mean no lost data if your system crashes.
In all, I love it and am using it more than my Windows machine.

Interesting. It sounds like it muddies the Android tablet waters...

Interesting. Thanks for the mini-review.

From what I've read Google plans to take the best of ChromeOS and eventually merge it in with the best of Android. How that's supposed to work, I have no idea. Ultimately, Google wants us using the cloud and through that all their web apps. They need this for their business model (mining as much data and personal information as possible.)