Today, Dell’s Technology Strategist, Doug Anson announced that a Chromium OS build for the Mini 10v netbook is available for download from their website.

Chromium OS is the open source version of Google’s Chrome OS. Like Chrome OS, it is a minimalist operating system with just a browser – Chromium browser. Chrome OS and Chromium OS are quite similar to each other except for a few things like verified boot.

The only known problem with the Chromium OS build for the Mini 10v is that sound is broken. Dell, with the help of Broadcom, has managed to get the Wi-Fi on the Mini 10v working, though.

So, if you own a Dell Mini 10v and want to get a feel of Chrome OS, you should consider installing this build that Dell has released. First you will need to download the image file from Dell’s server.

Download Chromium OS for Dell Mini 10v

Notes:

1. Installing Chromium OS will wipe out your hard drive.
2. Dell does not provide support for Chromium OS.

After downloading the file, extract the file. If you are on Linux you can do it with the command,

$ gunzip ChromiumOS_x86_May13.img.gz

If you are on Windows, you can extract it using applications such as WinZip and 7-zip.

After extracting, you will get an IMG file. Make a bootable flash drive with the ISO file. Boot the Mini 10v from the flash drive and login using the username dell and password dell1234.

Once logged in, press ALT+CTRL+L to bring up the Terminal. In the terminal, type

$ install

Once that is done, type

$ exit

The terminal will close. Reboot and you should have Chromium OS on your Mini 10v.

[source: H-Online]

Yes, there’s a new web browser designed around the idea that you can share more, and share more quickly on Facebook and Twitter. That alone may turn some people away, depending on how much they value their privacy. However, after trying it for a short time, I can see how this browser could easily turn normal Facebook users into hyped up Uber-Facebook users.

RockMelt was founded by Eric Vishria and Tim Howes, and is backed by Netscape developer Marc Andreessen.   It was released yesterday, mostly by invitation only. You can get a copy of this browser by visiting RockMelt.com and signing up via your Facebook ID.

After signing up late last night I received my invite and downloaded it. The install went fairly quick and here’s the first thing I saw … a Facebook login.

Yes, that’s right, it seems to be required. However, that makes sense.

It took me quite awhile to figure out most of the actions I could perform. If you open the RockMeltmenu at the top right corner of the browser, and click the Helpitem, you’ll find help for a few basic tasks. Here’s the first thing you see there.

As some of you have already noticed, RockMelt is built on top of Chromium, which is the basis for Google’s Chrome web browser. Those using Chrome now won’t have a hard time getting around in the browser.

Rather than go into too many details, I’ll show you the RockMelt video preview. It’s very well done.

Techie Buzz Verdict:

I tried it, I like it, and haven’t found any major bugs yet. If you are already using Google Chrome, and you’re in Facebook often, there’s no reason not to give RockMelt a try. You don’t have to make it your default browser, and it won’t do anything to your current web browsers.   My wife reports that Farmville works very well in Chrome and RockMelt.

Download: http://www.rockmelt.com/

If you are not fond of the iOS running on the iPad, here is some good news. The folks from Hexxeh have been able to port the Chromium OS to the iPad.

The above screenshot was posted on Hexxeh’s blog. Excited? Hang on for more on this topic, we can wait to see a video of the Chromium OS in action on the iPad and post it as soon as we get to see it ourselves.

In the last Ubuntu Developer Summit, it was decided that Chromiun will be the default web-browser in Ubuntu Netbook Edition 10.10. It was not the final decision, the final decision was left till Alpha 3 and they started shipping Ubuntu Netbook Edition with Chromium as the default browser in the Alpha 1 and Alpha 2.

Now that the Alpha 3 is approaching, Jorge Castro has confirmed that Chromium will not be used as the default web-browser in Ubuntu Netbook Edition 10.10. They have decided to stick with Firefox for Maverick,  at-least.

This is what Jorge wrote to the Ubuntu Mailing List:

This is a follow up status report from the Chromium-by-default-on-UNE discussion at UDS. The desktop team have decided to stick with Firefox for UNE for 10.10, however Chromium is moving into main. Here are the critical blockers:

• We don’t have a plugin installer, ie. if you go to a Flash site it sends you to Adobe’s webpage instead of just installing the plugin.
• No langpacks or translations support in lp so we can’t translate Chromium, we have to depend on upstream to do it in one huge thing. :(
• Doing all the xulrunner packaging changes in order to get the CD size down AND switching to chromium in one cycle is currently not feasible with the people we currently have.

Jorge says that they want to switch to Chromium but right now there are simply too many issues with having Chromium by default. One problem is the disk space – Chromium is about twice the size of Firefox. Another problem is the release of security updates. With Firefox, the Ubuntu developers get around 1-2 weeks to test new security updates. However, with Chromium it is a bit different – they just release them once they have fixed it without giving the Ubuntu developers time to test it.

Chromium will still be available in the repository though.

I’ve seen lots of other people do this. Now it’s my turn. Below are my top 5 favorite extensions for the Google Chrome web browser, in no particular order.

1. After the Deadline

With a name like that, it’s surprising that anyone uses it. It doesn’t give you any clue as to what it really does. Here’s a quote from the gallery:

After the Deadline uses artificial intelligence to check spelling, style, and grammar. Use it to check your tweets, find mistakes in your email, and socialize with confidence. Click the ABC icon in the lower-right corner of an editable area to proofread your writing.

2. Chromed Bird

Ok, another unusual name. If you use Twitter, this is very handy. I haven’t used many of the features, but you might. Quote from the gallery:

Chromed Bird is an awesome Twitter client extension for Google Chrome with lots of features.

Some of the most important features are:
* Add and remove timeline tabs “on the fly” using the new right-click context menu
* Create custom search queries that will update automatically
* Preview image links by hovering them
* See all your tweets in an unified timeline
* Follow your timelines, @mentions, lists, DMs and favorites
* Compose, reply, RT, share, favorite and delete tweets
* Create short URLs within the extension
* Preview shortened URLs before clicking them
* Track read / unread tweets
* Notify user whenever new tweets arrive

3. Cooliris

Another name that doesn’t mean much, but has to be seen to be believed. This awesome extension brings 3D image browsing into your browser. Here’s a quote and a video to follow:

Meet Cooliris, the 3D Wall that speeds up search on Google Images, YouTube, Flickr, and more. Enjoy the richest way to view photos from Facebook, Picasa, and even your own computer. On our infinite 3D Wall, you can effortlessly scroll though thousands of images and videos in seconds without having to click from page to page.

Click here if you can’t see the video.

4. Facebook for Google Chrome

Finally a clearly named extension. Yes, it’s an extension that lets you very quickly view, post and comment on your Facebook pages. I have come to depend on it. Here’s a quote from the gallery:

This unofficial extension lets you check your Facebook news feed, wall, inbox and notifications.

Version 2.0 will now indicate when you have new notifications or unread messages. Additionally, the extension now uses Facebook Connect as a more reliable way to retrieve your information. Also, the extension now supports English, Spanish and French.

5. Google Talk Gadget

If you have Gmail, you are very likely also using the G-Chat that’s built in. This extension allows you to pop it out into it’s own little window. It simply works great. Here’s a quote:

This is a very simple extension that allows to use Google Talk Gadget with Google Apps.
Please note that the chat session will not run in the background unless you click the ‘pop out’ link in the top left corner.

That’s all for now. I hope you see something here that you haven’t seen before. Be sure to comment below and tell us about your favorite Chrome extensions.

Flock the popular social browser which earlier ran on the Firefox Gecko engine has dumped Mozilla for Chromium, the popular new browser which also powers Google Chrome.

The new Flock beta browser now runs on Webkit which is also part of Safari and Google Chrome. Flock which has about 8 million users has also landed a new feature where you can create a Flock account and sync your settings to the "cloud".

Users can use the cloud feature to take their accounts to any Flock browser without having to reset it again and again. Considering that most of the other browsers too have an option to sync profiles or at-least bookmarks, it made more sense to have it in the newest Flock beta too. Apart from that Flock almost remains the social browser people have known it to be.

The switch from Firefox code to Chromium will come as a big jolt for Mozilla whose internet browser Firefox’s popularity has been going down since the launch of Google Chrome. Also the team at Flock had initially worked with the Mozilla team on the Netscape project before moving towards creating Flock, so their decision to branch out Flock to Chromium will be even more bitter.

You can download the latest beta of Flock by visiting this page, more info and details are available at the official Flock blog here.

(Source)

Google has just released its VP8 video codec it acquired a few days back as WebM. This acquisition came with the acquisition of On2, which was an expert in video compression technology.

As expected, the Chromium browser on Ubuntu now supports this new video codec. To try a WebM video, you will need to install the latest daily build from the Chromium daily build PPA at launchpad. The fastest rising Opera web browser also introduced support for WebM videos recently.

The added advantage in WebM videos, as spotted by d00d @OMG!Ubuntu is that the CPU usage for WebM decoding is minimal compared to Adobe Flash. This would make it ideal for mobile devices as well. He has also provided a link for you to try out some WebM videos on YouTube.

Now that a proper video converter is out with support for WebM videos, we expect to see this video format take over the world of online videos, in the next few months.

Word have been spreading around that Ubuntu is replacing Firefox with Google Chrome for Ubuntu Netbook Edition 10.10 Maverick Meerkat. This “news” seem to have started out with a post at ubergizmo, which TechCrunch picked up and then posted (refering to Ubuntu Netbook Edition with the no-longer-in-use name Ubuntu Netbook Remix). With Neowin too joining in with a post today, it is spreading like wildfire.

However the truth is that it is not Google Chrome which may replace Firefox; it is Chromium. (We wrote about it four days ago.)While Google has released most of the Chrome code to the Chromium Project, Chrome still has some closed-source codes and come packaged with proprietary software (Flash). Anyone with even a slight understanding of the Ubuntu Philosophy (and Licensing) would understand that Ubuntu can never have Google Chrome as a default application.

Two days ago, when this misinformation has just started spreading, Ubuntu Developer Jorge Castro wrote a blog post clarifying that it is not Chrome but Chromium that they are considering as a replacement for Firefox in UNE 10.10. Unfortunately his message did not go through. This is what he wrote:

I’d like to clarify some things about our session on default applications and Chromium.

• Chrome and Chromium are not the same thing. Chrome is a non-free build of the Chromium project.
• It is impossible for us to ship Google Chrome as a default web browser without compromising  our beliefs. You can read more about our licensing and how that relates  here.

I hope that clears things up, you’ll be hearing more updates in the usual development channels from the Desktop team as the cycle progresses.

Hopefully, this post in clears things up. :)

One of the most recent builds of the Chromium web browser is drawing some criticism. As you may know, Chromium is the open source browser project that Google’s Chrome web browser is based on. In the Chromium version 5.0.375.3, something new showed up. The address bar was not displaying the normal http://in front of addresses. It was reported in the issues at Chromium’s code site as a possible bug.

However, it turns out that this is an intentional move, and it’s started a fairly heated debate there. Some of the people posting there do not want to have the http prefix removed. Some people argue that it’s a feature that everyone will eventually want.

Apparently, if you need to copy and paste the address from the Chromium address bar, it will automatically add the httpprefix, even though you don’t see it. This will need to happen in order to use copied URLs in other applications.

In my opinion, I don’t think it’s going to be a problem as long as the feature works as they say it will. I sometimes wonder why we even need to type the wwwin the address. It’s a waste of time and I’ll be happy if it goes away for good.

What do you think? Be sure to comment below.

Jolicloud is one of the most popular cloud-based netbook OS based on Linux. It has been quite popular with the masses for the lightweight and web-centric interface.

The Jolicloud team has been working on underlying changes to their web app platform to make it more faster and consume less memory. For these reasons, they have switched from the Mozilla driven Prism platform to a Chrome-based web app platform, which is similar to the Google Chrome OS.

You can now enjoy the 600+ web apps available in our App Center with a faster, low memory footprint, and HTML5 ready browsing experience.

The latest update from Jolicloud will replace the Prism web-app platform with the Chrome-based web-app platform which was rewritten by the Jolicloud team to provide the same visual experience as Prism.

The customized platform is open source and is named Nickel Chromium for fullscreen web apps, which can be downloaded from here. Another major change with the new update is that Jolicloud now fully supports HTML5, so you can watch HTML5 videos on YouTube and more.