Nels Lindahl — Functional Journal

A weblog created by Dr. Nels Lindahl featuring writings and thoughts…

Tag: Pixelbook

  • Thinking about my 2019 Pixelbook Go

    I just moved my Pixelbook Go back to the stable channel from the beta. Something was going on where the device got pretty hot right under the top of the keyboard where the Pixelbook logo is stamped. Sort of right by the middle of the keyboard up toward the display. Most of the time this Pixelbook is just rock solid. It arrived back on October 29, 2019. The only thing I have considered doing to it is moving off the native operating system from Google and installing some flavor of Linux instead. Right now I’m curious about the Pop!_OS operating system. I really have not had any trouble with the device so I have not had any reason to make the change. 

    When Google decided to shelve any future Pixelbooks it was rather disappointing. At this point, I probably would have upgraded at some point. When this device breaks down I’m going to move to a System76 laptop. The process of researching which one to pick is already under way. They sell systems with Pop!_OS so that should be an interesting way to go. Having a very mobile laptop with really good battery life for writing is really my primary use case. It does not have to be super powerful, but it does have to last all day when that type of writing is on the docket.

  • Welcome to some October posting

    Yesterday, I used Google Docs to write a post. That habit is apparently very hard to break. It was in the evening after dinner, and I was working on my Google Pixelbook Go Chromebook and it just happened. A Google Doc got opened pretty quickly and a short post was crafted. Today I’m back in my trusty Microsoft Word document, but I’m going to have to go copy and paste that content right above this post. I was in one of those modes where I just deleted my entire Tumblr account on a whim. That should give you some idea of what carried all of that action to resolution.

    I’m currently curious if Google will send me a refund from my Stadia founder’s edition bundle (night blue). I had purchased a couple of games as well. To be honest on this one. I only played this thing the day it arrived and then I gave up on it in total. It turned out I was way more likely to hook up an Xbox controller to my computer and play games that way.

    For the last few days, I have been testing out leaving my phone in do not disturb mode with an exception for repeat callers or contacts. Only phone calls from my contacts are disrupting my workflows. So far I have to report that it is working out much better than I expected. Right now the only way any of those extremely aggressive notifications get my attention is when I pick up my phone by choice. I’m sure it has slowed down my mean time to respond to application alerts and text messages. 

    Functionally it has not changed my response time to phone calls as that remains the same. Seriously, I did not realize how many times a day some ping, alert, notification, or other push method informational notice was pulling my attention from other things. To really sit down and work deeply on things not having all those alerts works much better. Overall, I’m coming up with more notes and observations about things. I guess the relevant note on this one is that my overall focus on things improved. 

    For the second day in a row sitting on the sofa watching a bit of television I broke down and worked out of Google Docs again. Maybe when left to my own devices and during periods when I’m just generating prose for my own personal amusement, that is the word processing document application that best meets my needs. It is certainly the application I open from my browser without thinking about it.

  • It seems a new Pixelbook is really coming

    The new Pixelbook 2 seems to be going through FCC review under the codename Atlas. It might even be a more affordable version of the device. I’m buying it either way. The build could be affordable or super premium. Either way works for me. My ASUS Chromebook is missing some keys and needs to be replaced. Writing on my Pixel 3 XL is challenging. Typing is different than working with an on-screen keyboard. It might be the rate of input or perhaps the thought required that makes the difference.