Getting Started with Chrome Book

Getting Started with your Chromebook

BY ED HEWITT 

UNDER CHROMEOS, EDITORIAL 

Signing In, Updating Chromebook

When you first turn on your new Chromebook, it will require to first connect to the Internet. WiFi will be the preferred choice, but your Chromebook may have a Ethernet connectionOnce you are connected to the Internet, Chrome OS will start to look for the latest updates for your Chromebook. This is your first experience of why Chrome OS is excellent; automatic updates, bringing new features and improvements to your Chromebook every 6 weeks. If there is an update to download, the process will take around 10-15 minutes to complete.

Once updated, you will be next required to sign in with your Google account. This is the same account used for Gmail or you may have used it to enable Chrome sync on your computer. Once signed in, you will be required to select a profile picture; you can select your Google Account profile picture, or choose a Chrome OS profile picture or take a new picture of yourself using the built in web camera.

Thats it! You are all setup and ready to go. Chrome OS will take a few seconds to do the final setup. This is where Chrome OS really shines. If you currently use Google Chrome on your computer with Chrome Sync enabled, Chrome OS will now be downloading your Bookmarks, Extensions, History, Passwords and Web Apps from the cloud and applying them to your Chromebook.

Basically, you will be up and running within a few minutes, and you can start using your Chromebook without any other setup.

Learning the keys

Chrome OS itself uses similar keyboard commands as Google Chrome on your computer, however built into the OS itself, there is a handy keyboard commands reference, which lists all the available key commands.

Ctrl + Alt + ?

Chromebooks also has a different keyboard to what you may have seen on other laptops. For starters, there is no Caps Lock key. This has been replaced with a dedicated Search key which will launch the App Menu. The App Menu is a place where all your Web Apps are located, you can perform searches here; and soon it will be used to search Google Contacts. If you would rather have the Caps Lock key back, you can either use Alt + Search key which will act as the Caps Lock key; or to enable it permanently, you can change the Search key to the Caps Lock key under “Settings”. (chrome://chrome/settings/keyboard-overlay)

The Home, End, Page Up, Page Down and Delete keys are also missing, again there is a keyboard command to regain this function.

Ctrl + Alt + Up Arrow key – Home
Ctrl + Alt + Down Arrow key – End

Alt + Up Arrow key – Page Up
Alt + Down Arrow key – Page Down

Alt + Backspace  –  Delete the next letter (forward delete)
Ctrl + Backspace   – Delete the previous word

Finally, the Chromebook keyboard has replaced the function keys (F1, F2, F3, etc) with browser buttons.

Some of these browser buttons have secondary commands;

F4 + Shift – Full Screens the active window
Esc + Shift – Open Task Manager

Alt + F6 – Keyboard Brightness down
Alt + F7– Keyboard Brightness up

Ctrl + F4 – Mirror Monitor
Ctrl + F5 – Take Screenshot

Finally, the Power button has two modes. A short press will Lock the Chromebook, a large press will shut down the Chromebook.

Personalizing

Like many desktop operating systems, there are plenty of customization options. To change the desktop wallpaper, you can either right click on the desktop and select “Set Wallpaper” or access the option from Settings. You can select wallpapers which come part of Chrome OS, or select your own wallpaper.

Chrome OS has a “dock” for launch apps from and managing open windows. To add an app to the dock, open the “App Draw” and right click on the web app, select “Pin to Launcher”. Web Apps can also be managed to open in a certain way; either as a full screen app, a pin tab or its own dedicate windows. These options can also be selected by right clicking on the Web App.