To understand where Google is coming from, let's grab this bit of text from their post explaining the WHY of cloud printing...

While the emergence of cloud and mobile computing has provided users with access to information and personal documents from virtually any device, today’s printers still require installing drivers which makes printing impossible from most of these new devices. Developing and maintaining print subsystems for every combination of hardware and operating system-- from desktops to netbooks to mobile devices -- simply isn't feasible.

- Chromium blog, A New Approach to Printing
April 15, 2010

So the main point Google is emphasizing is that due to the fact that all Chrome OS  application are web-based, and they evidently don't feel like porting like a million different print drivers and thus bloating the OS, and since everything else is web-based anyway - why not run printing jobs through the web.

Well, here are my concerns...

• about to print an important document on your Chrome OS computer and Comcast (or whatever ISP) goes out, no printing!
• printing first thing in the AM when "everyone" is on the Internet
• printing @ lunch when "everyone" is on the Internet
• printing @ the end of the work day when "everyone" is on the Internet
• privacy concerns

I love Google, and I think Chrome OS would be pretty cool, but I just don't know about this cloud printing thing. What do you think, please drop a comment.

MORE ON CHROME OS

Video: What is Chrome OS?
Video: Chrome OS Demo
About Chrome OS (Chrome OS website)

The search engine & web applications giant has redirected visits at Google.cn (Google China) to Google.hk (Google Hong Kong). Google has tried it the Chinese government's way, now they are taking their new approach. Google says:

So earlier today we stopped censoring our search services—Google Search, Google News, and Google Images—on Google.cn. Users visiting Google.cn are now being redirected to Google.com.hk, where we are offering uncensored search in simplified Chinese, specifically designed for users in mainland China and delivered via our servers in Hong Kong.

- A new approach to China: an update (Google Blog)

Concerning the increased traffic at Google Hong Kong, Google says:

Due to the increased load on our Hong Kong servers and the complicated nature of these changes, users may see some slowdown in service or find some products temporarily inaccessible as we switch everything over.

- A new approach to China: an update (Google Blog)

GCalendar Smart Rescheduler

Google has added another new feature in Google Calendar labs called Smart Rescheduler. If you are a heavy user of Google Calendar and schedule your meetings with others who also use GCalendar than this nifty feature might be right up your alley.

Instead of spending time researching everyone's schedule manually Google says this new feature will:

apply some of Google's search experience to the problem of scheduling... Just like Google search ranks the web, our scheduling search algorithm returns a ranked set of the best candidate dates and times... You'll see ranked list of possible times for your meeting. By investigating the calendars others have shared with you, Google Calendar can make some educated guesses about how easy it might be to reschedule a conflicting meeting...

Sound worth a try? Go ahead and turn on Smart Rescheduler now!

Event Flair lets you assign an icon to events. At-a-glance you can see which events are more important than others, or other things limited only by your mind.  Gentle Reminders pops up less obtrusive reminders of your meetings, Automatically declining events and lets you automatically decline things at times like Vacation, or other times when they would conflict with your schedule.

More Details

In their "Better Buzz Controls" post Google posted this:

"When you participate in a conversation in Google Buzz, we bring that post to your inbox to make it easy to keep up with the discussion. But we’ve heard loud and clear that buzz in your inbox can get noisy — we feel it too..."

In the middle of last week, Gmail posted  Choose which messages get downloaded for offline use so I guess the theme for the week is CHOICE.

I am a fan of (FREE) OpenOffice, but I don't know if I'll be giving that mouse a shot or not. Of course, it could become the next hot PC accessory, who knows!? And about choosing which messages to download for offline, I may give that one a try.

So you are reading about this stuff, what do YOU think?

Additionally (as of WordPress 2.7), the child theme may contain template files, which can be selected in the admin panel as normal, and will override the parent's template files where those possess the same name.

For example, if you want to edit the header and you are using Thematic (folder = /thematic) and your Child Theme is called My Theme (folder = /mytheme) you can copy  /wp-content/themes/thematic/header.php to /wp-content/themes/mytheme/header.php and any edits you make will show up on your blog because Wordpress (as of v2.7) will check for template files in your Child Theme folder before looking for your Parent Theme's template files.

With Wordpress Child Themes you can...

• build websites more quickly with more flexibility than "traditional" sites
• use Wordpress as a CMS
• gives your clients the capability to edit their own sites
• more easily develop websites that are HTML and CSS compliant with less work than custom "traditional" sites
• re-design, skin or add different functionality to themes you like but are missing "something"
• make your own Wordpress theme without starting from scratch

Skinning WordPress, or using Child Themes is something I've just discovered at work, although its been a hot topic for some time now. I've kept a suspicious eye on using blogs to build websites because I didn't want to have to learn how to make a WordPress theme myself to avoid endlessly re-uploading updates after new WordPress releases. In the past if you made customization to a theme, when you upgrade the theme you would lose your work. Or, you had to make sure to keep local copies and upload them after upgrading the theme so your customization would be in tact. WordPress Child Themes does away with that, and two products I've read about help you  Skin your WordPress blog... safely.

The first is called Mimbo Pro which carries a price, although Mimbo is a free version. The second is Ian Stewart's Thematic - a WordPress Theme Framework that makes it easy to implement WordPress Child Themes.

The tech support operator ran me through their procedure on restoring a file or folder using the GoDaddy File Manager. I was able to select the day before I changed the file, and download it, back it up (this time), apply my edits and my blog was down for less than 20 minutes (about 10 minutes of that time was spent running around like a headless chicken while my wife and girls looked at me as if I had just landed on the planet).

So, if you delete a file or folder by accident, forget to download a file before editing it and permanently lose your work, remember GoDaddy's File Restore and get your stuff back. Thanks GoDaddy!

I am somewhat of a security freak (as those who know me will attest to) and I heartily recommend reading Google's post. Here are some bad password practices Gmail's Michael Santerre, Consumer Operations Associate points out that his original post lists solutions to:

1. Re-using passwords is a bad practice (using the same password for more than one website)
2. Using dictionary words, common passwords, and letters in sequence on the keyboard (like "pass", "password", "logmein", "start", and "zxcvb")
3. Using passwords based on personal data (like spouse's name or birthdate)
4. Storing your password in an unsecure place (like a sticky note on your monitor)
5. Poor Password Recovery (hard passwords may be forgotten/lost, how will you find them if this happens?)