MacBook Air

Chrome OS Flex

April 20, 2022 Patrick Cauley4 Comments

Chrome OS on a MacBook? You better believe it!

Here is how this happened.

It is the end of the year and a teacher wanted an extra Chromebook on hand for her student to do some work in Google Docs. Since it is the end of the year, our supply of Chromebook loaners is really dwindling, so the Tech Department didn’t have any to spare.

The solution was Chrome OS Flex. It allows you to put a Chrome OS installer on a USB and then to use that installer on older Mac or Window laptops, which is the case we have here. This MacBook is around 8 years old, has a battery that only lasts around 90 minutes (more than enough for this situation), so we thought we would give Chrome OS Flex a try.

One thing to note – this is not intended for widespread deployment yet (according to Google).

Getting started

Google wants you to head over to this website and give them your name, organization name, size, etc. Then you can head over to this website and start deciding if this is right for your device. On the support page it has a list of Mac and Windows laptops that are “compatible.”

One thing to know is that “compatible” does not mean stable.

Most of the laptops we had fell in the “Mino issues expected” category. There were some (such as the 11.6″ MacBook Airs) that were not listed at all. I think we’ll play around with those this summer.

At any rate, you will need a USB with at least 8GB of space on it. This USB will be wiped and reformatted so make sure you backup whatever information is on it. This USB will be the installer.

As you work your way through the support pages you will find yourself here where they ask you to plug in said USB and get going.

You need to make sure you are using the Chrome browser and you will need to install a Google Extension that acutally creates the installer USB.

This process took around 15 minutes to make the installer. Once it is done go to the laptop you wish to convert to a Chromebook. Power it down, plug in the USB installer and then power up to boot to the USB instead of its hard drive.

From there it is very straight forward. One thing you need to know is that this is wiping the computer and replacing its original operating system with Google Chrome. There is no undoing this (at least that is my understanding). This is not installing Chrome OS to run side by side with the original or putting Chrome OS in a virtual machine. This replaces the current operating system with Chrome OS. Just so you know.

The installation was . . . fast. I think it only took 2-3 minutes for the installer to do what it needed to be done. At the end of the process, we removed the USB and it rebooted into Chrome OS – wow!

Super easy!

Here are some questions that we had (have):

Can we enroll it into our Google Admin Control Panel to manage it remotely? – YES! You obviously need a license, but you definitely can do that
Will it run all extensions? – We are not sure. The student using this is using it very sparingly and for a specific purpose. We need to test more thoroughly.
Will it run Android apps? – I have no idea whatsoever. I guess it probably matters what kind of laptop you are using. My gut reaction wants to say yes – but I’d be very cautious
Can multiple people log into it like a Chromebook? – You betcha! When it boots up there is the option to add another user, just like a Chromebook
How is the performance? – It’s fast. It boots up very fast and it has no issues loading basic websites and getting to Google Docs/Gmail/Drive.
Will there be future updates? – I would be shocked if there were not! This is in its early days and it is already created a bit of buzz throughout the educational community. Then again, it’s Google and they are known for killing off services rather suddenly and with little explanation.

So there you have it – we have always wondered what to do with our aging computers and now we have a path going forward. We will be cautious and won’t start converting MacBook carts entirely but the odd MacBook may find itself becoming a Chromebook and I hope Google continues to develop this program.

Episode 186 – Impressive – most impressive

December 16, 2020December 16, 2020 Patrick CauleyLeave a comment

Tony and Patrick are back at it again for the last episode before our winter breaks. Check out all the goodness below and if you’re worthy enough. You will learn the true power of streaming (that’s a bad Star Wars joke) 🙂

As always you can find us on Apple Music or your favorite podcasting app.

Happy holidays
1. Tony’s advice – Unplug from the media/social networks
2. Read eBooks on your smartphone
Covid updates
1. Back to SCHOOL in Indy!
Adios Adobe Flash by Patrick Cauley
1. https://itbabble.com/2020/12/07/adios-adobe-flash/
2. Patrick’s trip into Flash gaming
Apple’s new MacBooks with the M1
1. Why shouldn’t schools go this route?
2. Apple has better updates
Streaming to the next level!
1. Klips

You can download the episode here

Episode 159 – Virtual Nope!

November 21, 2018 Patrick CauleyLeave a comment

Tony and Patrick are back and right before the US Thanksgiving holiday. It is another great show where we talk about the confusing Apple hardware lineup, a virtual reality headset and Google’s news of getting into the LDAP game. Check out the talking points below and as always be sure to subscribe to us on your favorite podcasting app or on iTunes.

Apple’s New Hardware
1. MacBook Air – https://www.apple.com/macbook-air/
2. Mac Mini – https://www.apple.com/mac-mini/
3. iPad Pro – https://www.apple.com/ipad-pro/
VR Headset
1. My Hands On Experience
2. Lenovo Mirage Solo – https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/virtual-reality-and-smart-devices/virtual-and-augmented-reality/lenovo-mirage-solo/Mirage-Solo/p/ZZIRZRHVR01
3. Not ready for mainstream anything
Google and LDAP

You can listen to this show here or download it HERE!

Apple products in schools? It’s complicated

November 15, 2018 Patrick Cauley2 Comments

Apple just unveiled a new MacBook Air, Mac Mini and iPad Pro. Much of this news should get schools excited. I want to be excited so why am I not excited? To oversimplify my issue is price. I am not sure the new MacBook Air is worth $1200 and I am not sure the Mac Mini is worth $800 and then to have Apple compare its iPads to laptops (kind of undercutting the MacBook Air a little) it makes me a little worried. So let me ramble a bit more below.

This MacBook Air at one point was arguably the best laptop period. It didn’t matter if you were comparing it to a Windows device or not. It had incredible battery, pretty powerful and for the price probably the best laptop you could buy. That was 7 years ago.

Now they have a new MacBook Air starting at $1200. It has a much better display, a fair amount of RAM, a new Intel Y processor, a fingerprint sensor for easy logging in and some others bells and whistles. Sounds good but the problem is that Windows laptops have come a long way since then and if you’re spending $1200 on a laptop and you decide to look across the aisle at Windows, well you can see some compelling arguments to switch over.

A Dell XPS 13″ is a great computer to compare it with. You can find almost the same specs for $200 cheaper. When you’re buying 13–20 laptops at a time – that $200 is nothing to sneeze at. I’ve played around with one and it is a really nice laptop. Also, when most of our work is in the cloud (including our SIS) it makes one wonder why stick with Apple?

I do like Mac OS and I do find it easier to work with but we’re talking a lot of money that could go back into the budget every year. Do we stick with Mac because that is what everyone else uses? How would the staff react? Those are questions for another time.

The OLD MacBook Air

Apple is still selling the old MacBook Air and I would be fine with that if they dropped the price since we are talking about a computer that is still using a processor three generations so it’s not nearly as powerful and they are still selling it for $999. At the price point it is a poor investment for schools. We try to get to four years out of our laptops and while we probably could get four years from the old Airs I wonder how it will be performing for our teachers and staff in four years? It seems like a bad investment.

Mac Mini

I really like it except it is very expensive for a $800 desktop. Still it is a good computer for running a small server (which we do) and will probably pick one up and then manually upgrade the RAM. You cannot upgrade the storage or processor as both are still soldered to the board.

iPad Pro confusion

OK – here is what worries me. Apple is clearly stacking the iPad Pro up against traditional laptops (including their own). It’s priced like a laptop. It is more powerful than most laptops. To me, Apple is clearly telling us to ditch our laptops for the iPad Pro. This only reinforces my opinion that iOS and Mac OS are going to merge one day and the device Apple would like to see that happen is with its own iPad. I have no idea what this would look like and if any company can pull it off it will be Apple.

I’ve talked with a couple of people in various different professions who use the iPad Pro as their daily device. They all said the same thing. It’s great but it takes time to figure out how to do some tasks that are pretty basic with my laptop. Such as finding and organizing files, not using a mouse, etc. This is not a good future in my opinion and I worry that Apple will continue to let its laptop line become more and more mediocre.

Right now we are budgeting to purchase the new 13″ Retina MacBook Air but it doesn’t sit well with me and we won’t make the purchase till the summer so we will see how it turns out.