Competition: Win one of three Google Chromebooks

Google give T3 readers to win the new Google Chromebooks

Last month at Google I/O Google officially unveiled the new Chromebooks from Acer and Samsung — the first of a totally new kind of device that will utilise the web-based Chrome OS in series of slim line stylish shells that will be available through online retails for the first time on June 24th.

To celebrate the arrival of the new Google Chromebooks we at T3 have teamed up with the folks at Google to give you the chance to win one of three Chromebooks. To stand a chance of winning one of these great new Chromebooks simply follow the link and solve Google’s craftily designed puzzle.

Google has worked with its expert puzzle master to design a puzzle that should keep you busy for a while.  If you’re up to the challenge and are one of the first three to come up with the correct solution, you can win a new Chromebook.

If you find the puzzle just a little too tasking fret not, we will be supplying you with three clues throughout the day so stay tuned to the T3 Twitter and Facebook feeds if in need of a helping hand.

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Offline Google Docs starts playing peek-a-boo

One of the big criticisms of Google's Chromebooks is that they're significantly less useful when you don't have an Internet connection or are paying by the megabyte for a wireless data plan. That drawback is particularly glaring when it comes to Google Docs.

And unfortunately for Google, the company missed the Chrome OS launch window with one important upgrade coming to Google Docs, the ability to use the word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation software while not connected to the Net.

Offline Google Docs was slated to arrive early this year, but Google pushed it back. In May, Google promised offline Google Docs this summer and said it's testing the feature internally.

And apparently, it's not just internal: the unofficial Google Operating System blog reported a case in which a reader saw a black status bar at the top of the browser window with the label "Offline Docs," the alert "network connection lost," and apparent links for "switch to online mode" and "switch to offline mode."

On Friday, I collaborated with several other writers collectively writing a single document--and we even used Google Docs' chat abilities when Yahoo Messenger's chat room faltered. Right now, I can see words I'm writing on my Mac appearing across the room on my Windows machine--a silly curiosity were it not for the fact that I need to use multiple computers. I've looked up needed information on Google Docs with my smartphone. The power of building the network into Google Docs is truly impressive.

But Google Docs' offline shortcomings afflict me me whenever I'm on a train going into London, vacationing in Cornwall, suffering a DSL outage at home, avoiding exorbitant data roaming fees abroad, or working at a tech conference with overwhelmed Wi-Fi.

Unlike Googlers, I'm not equipped with unlimited data plans. During these moments of unconnectedness, I crack open Microsoft Office again and afterward deal with the annoyance of mirroring the files back into my online archive.

So I for one would like to see offline Google Docs arrive as soon as possible--and offline Gmail, Calendar, and anything else in the Google Apps service, while we're at it.

In a Reddit discussion last week, Google Docs product manager Jeff Harris blamed the significant technical challenge of the task for the delays.

It should be noted that one of those offline technologies, IndexedDB, is still in somewhat early days of the standardization process and hasn't necessarily won over all the browser makers. Don't be surprised therefore if only early fans such as Mozilla's Firefox and Google's Chrome support offline Docs.

The Gears approach to offline Google Docs provided the feature earlier but with significant limits. For example, spreadsheets couldn't be edited offline.

Technical challenges arise when offline Docs go online again, particularly when multiple people are editing the same document.

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8 reasons why Chromebook OS is awkward

Google’s cloud-based Chromebook comes with a lot of promises as it has started to ship, but the Chrome OS vision leaves a lot to be desired in reality.

The Chrome OS web apps cannot boast of the same quality as that of the real apps, be it on a tablet or a computer. It’s built on the lines of your webmail. The Chromebook is not a success as is the foundational "Webtone" idea that Google got from Sun Microsystems.

Some of the reasons why Chromebook OS can be called awkward are:

If you are travelling you could have all your money wasted in paying the wi-fi charges at the airports, Starbucks coffee shops, and hotels. The free Verizon Wireless 3G data access that you can get with one of Samsung's Chromebooks is 100MB a month. You can lose a good amount of money to have access to 3Gdata.

With streaming music, videos and moving photos from the online photo service, you can imagine the shooting charges that will come along. You can only play a cached version of Angry Birds in Chromebook, without a connection.

Google was quoted as saying that the Chrome OS will only get faster as time goes by because it automatically updates itself. But even if the OS had the ability to update automatically in the cloud, the achilles heel in the Chrome OS is the Internet connection.

And with the OS running on computers that try to stay light in the hardware department, it leaves consumers at the mercy of unstable 3G connections or the fluctuation through the day in their broadband connections. Not to mention most of the cellular companies will probably be putting data caps on their consumers running 3G that may cripple the potential of the devices.

By storing all your data in cloud, it’s a waystation from all other computers, your Chromebook acts as a brick. If you use a Chromebook only in wi-fi hotspots, such as at home and at the office, the meter won't be running. So, the Chromebook is more plausible in terms of reliable connectivity.

Don’t try to sync to your iPod, because you cannot connect to iTunes then. Neither can you sync to BlackBerry, Droid, Zune, or other media devices, unless of course iOS 5 comes to the market. Ironically, they may be the only devices that Chromebook can connect to as iOS 5 allows its devices to work without a computer.

Chromebook was hyped after Google’s announcement that claimed that you could afford to lose your ’ thin client’ as your data would be lying safe as it functions on the cloud platform. Google also pitched for it saying that Chrome OS will never need virus protection and that your files will always be safe in the cloud.

Recently, Kaspersky Lab warned that Google’s Chromebook may still be used by cybercriminals to steal information by building new types of malicious software.

"Obviously, with all your data being available in the cloud, at one place, 24/7 through a fast Internet link, this will be a goldmine for cybercriminals. All that is necessary here is to get hold of the authentication tokens required to access the cloud account," Kaspersky Lab analyst Costin Raiu said in a statement.

If you don’t have an ePrint-capable wi-fi printer, you need a Windows PC on the network to act as a print server.

Chromebook, unlike iPads and other tablets, do not have Bluetooth, so you can’t get wireless peripherals.

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