Exploring Chromebook - 2023 Edition: The Illustrated, Practical Guide to using Chromebook

Exploring Chromebook

2023 Edition

Kevin Wilson

Exploring Chromebook: 2023 Ed

Copyright © 2023 Elluminet Press

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Publisher: Elluminet Press

Director: Kevin Wilson

Lead Editor: Steven Ashmore

Technical Reviewer: Mike Taylor, Robert Ashcroft

Copy Editors: Joanne Taylor, James Marsh

Proof Reader: Steven Ashmore

Indexer: James Marsh

Cover Designer: Kevin Wilson

For detailed information about how to locate your book’s resources, go to

www.elluminetpress.com/resources

About the Author

With over 20 years’ experience in the computer industry, Kevin Wilson has made a career out of technology and showing others how to use it. After earning a master’s degree in computer science, software engineering, and multimedia systems, Kevin has held various positions in the IT industry including graphic & web design, programming, building & managing corporate networks, and IT support.

He serves as senior writer and director at Elluminet Press Ltd, he periodically teaches computer science at college, and works as an IT trainer in England while researching for his PhD. His books have become a valuable resource among the students in England, South Africa, Canada, and in the United States.

Kevin’s motto is clear: If you can’t explain something simply, then you haven’t understood it well enough. To that end, he has created the Exploring Tech Computing series, in which he breaks down complex technological subjects into smaller, easy-to-follow steps that students and ordinary computer users can put into practice.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to all the staff at Luminescent Media & Elluminet Press for their passion, dedication and hard work in the preparation and production of this book.

To all my friends and family for their continued support and encouragement in all my writing projects.

To all my colleagues, students and testers who took the time to test procedures and offer feedback on the book

Finally thanks to you the reader for choosing this book. I hope it helps you to use your Chromebook with greater understanding.

Have fun!

Introducing Chromebook

What is a Chromebook? A Chromebook is a laptop or tablet computer that runs Chrome OS, an operating system developed by Google that originally shipped on June 15, 2011. Since then, the Chromebook has continued to develop and improve.

In this section, we’ll take a look at:

New features

What can a Chromebook do?

Chromebook Hardware

Chrome OS

Chromebook Apps & Software

To help you understand this section, open your web browser and navigate to the following website.

elluminetpress.com/chromebook

What’s New?

Chrome OS looks similar to its predecessor and introduces some new features. Lets take a look at the main updates.

A new and improved app launcher now appears as a popup on the left hand side of the screen. Here you can use Google Assistant at the top to search your Chromebook and the web, as well as select from various icons for each app you have installed.

Virtual Desks now allow you to save a desk for later allowing you to save various open windows and apps and reopen them later.

You can personalize your Chromebook as well as use Light & Dark Themes as you can see below - light on the left, dark on the right.

Calendar now appears on the shelf for easier access.

When you link your phone with your chromebook, you’ll see Phone Hub appear on your shelf.

You’ll also find various other tweaks, features and improvements. You’ll find a full list here

google.com/chromebook/whatsnew/

What can a Chromebook do?

It’s worth noting what a Chromebook can do and what it can’t do. Chromebooks are great for online collaboration - creating and sharing documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Using the web, checking your email/social media, posting photographs and videos. Video chatting with friends as well as streaming music, TV programmes and films directly to your Chromebook. On later Chromebook devices, you can also run Android and Linux apps.

A Chromebook on the other hand would be a bad choice if you needed a laptop/device to edit video, make music, manipulate photographs, or anything that requires a lot of data storage and processing speed. Chromebooks are not designed for this.

Hardware

Chromebooks look very similar to traditional style windows or mac laptops. The main difference is Chromebooks are a lot more light weight, usually smaller, have less built in storage space and have no DVD/CD drives.

Let’s take a closer look. Along the sides of your Chromebook you’ll find some ports. Not all manufacturers put the same ports on their devices or put them in the same place however, you’ll find the most common ones on all devices.

Your power port is either along the side or the rear panel. This is usually a standard power connector or on some models a USB-C port.

or

Along the side you’ll find your USB ports. How many you have will depend on the model but you’ll usually find at least two. You’ll find USB 2 or USB 3 ports.

On some of the newer models, you’ll find USB C ports.

One some models, you’ll also find an HDMI port either on the rear or along the side.

Also included is a 1/8th inch (3.5mm) headphone jack and will usually be located along the side.

You can plug in headphones or speakers.

Some models include a built in card reader for SD cards. You’ll either find a full size SD card reader:

Or a microSD card reader:

SD Cards can be full sized card or Micro.

You can get an SD Card adapter if your SD card reader does not read Micro SD cards.

New style Chromebooks also feature touch screens, with some being hybrid devices that you can use in the form of a laptop or a tablet.

With these types of devices, you can fold the screen all the way back tucking the keyboard behind the device turning it into a tablet.

Other Chromebooks come in tablet form, called Chromebook Tablets such as the Google Pixel Slate.

With these devices, you can use a touchscreen, a pen on some models, and add detachable keyboards.

Chrome OS

Chromebooks run Chrome OS which is a fast, stripped down operating system meaning many of the non-web features have been removed, such as bulk storage for software applications, user’s data, and various device drivers you’d find on traditional operating systems such as Windows 10 and MacOS.

Because of this, Chrome OS will run on a more modest hardware specification, eg: 2GB of RAM, 1.6 GHz processor, and a 32GB solid state drive to store Chrome OS itself plus any locally stored files or apps for offline use. This makes Chromebooks more light weight, and cheaper to buy.

At its core, Chrome OS is a linux based operating system and will run on hardware with either intel/amd x86/64 or ARM processors.

Apps & Software

You don’t install software on a Chromebook in the traditional sense. Instead, you run apps over the internet. These are called web apps or hosted apps, and they run within the Chrome Web Browser. Some apps are self contained which are not confined to the Chrome Browser. These are called packaged apps and install themselves onto your Chromebook, so they are available offline if needed and have access to local storage.

You can use Gmail for your email, files app to access your files on Google Drive or local storage, and apps for entertainment.

You’ll find countless apps for your Chromebook in the Chrome Web Store.

You can write and edit documents using Google Docs, analyse numbers with Google Sheets SpreadSheet, and create presentations using Google Slides. These work in a similar fashion to Microsoft Office.

A Chromebook is known as a ‘cloud device’, meaning all your files, photographs and work are stored in the cloud, and you edit your files online. All your files are stored on Google Drive.

This is called cloud computing and allows on-demand access to a pool of computing resources such as apps, file storage, email, social media and other services not stored locally on your device.

In the illustration below, the lightning bolts represent a WiFi or cellular internet connection, and the cloud represents the cloud platform, where all your email, photos, music, documents and apps are stored.

The cloud platform is hosted on a large server farm like the one pictured below and is managed by the cloud service.

This means you can access your email, photos or do your work anywhere with an internet connection.

Setting up your Chromebook

Chromebooks are very easy to set up. They come pre-installed with Chrome OS. All you need to do is go through the initial setup, sign in with your Google Account and you’re pretty much ready to go.

In this chapter, we’ll take a look at getting your Chromebook set up.

We’ll go through the initial setup when you turn your Chromebook on for the first time. As well as personalisation, transferring your files from an old computer, setting up a printer, and connecting bluetooth devices.

For this chapter, take a look at the video resources section. Open your browser and navigate to the following website

elluminetpress.com/using-chromebook

Creating a Google Account

If you use Gmail you will already have a Google Account. If this is the case, you don’t need to create a new Google Account so you can