Unknown: so you've decided to switch from windows or mac to
chrome os and you're gonna make the big jump and from here
you're asking where do i go if you're a business owner or a
consumer and you're wondering what's the steps to make the
switch between these different computers and you're used to
getting something like a usb or a backup drive and moving all of
your stuff over well i'm going to give you the lowdown on how
to make the switch now if you decided to move to chrome or
west maybe you've got a chrome box or a chromebook maybe it's a
work device maybe it's a home device we've seen these people
buy them for their families we have customers who buy them for
their staff obviously and we use these inside and internal app it
genius as well and so let's take a look at what you need to do
before you start now number one before i do any kind of file
operations or computer operations is i make sure i've
got a backup if i'm on if i'm on a mac i make sure that i've got
time machine done and if i'm on a windows computer i'll use
backup software to actually back up that machine now what most
people do then is when they're moving to a new computer is they
put all this stuff on a usb drive and then they do a big
copy over but i'm going to tell you not to do that and consider
doing something differently what i suggest is you go to your
chromebook you sign in with your google account and you log into
your desktop and get access to everything in the google world
and they're just see how you can work what i find is for most
people who have already signed into chrome on their old
computer all their bookmarks and their history and everything
else will come across or the chrome plugins that they've set
up will automatically be downloaded you've already got
access to your google drive for all the files that you have
stored online and it's only the things that are left lingering
on your old computer that you need to actually then move
manually now again what most people do is they reach for the
usb stick at this point but i'm gonna say let's do something
different instead why don't you start uploading all of your
stuff to your google drive and this is kind of part of pete's
maintenance checklist on making sure that your digital life is
clean and tidy and organized have everything in your google
drive and use google backup and sync to backup your desktop and
backup your documents folder on your local computer so you'll
have access to it right across everywhere that you go that's
the easiest way to then get all of your files and all of your
information available on your chrome device remember that
chrome devices are less about working on the local desktop and
more about working online and so they're not the kind of thing
where you would have all of your files stored locally on the
machine and then try and back it up to like a backup hard drive
or something like that the philosophy and the principle of
working with chrome os is that i store everything in google drive
and so it's always available across all of my devices and if
something happens to my chrome device if i need to wipe it if i
lose it if it gets stolen and i've had all of those things
happen to my computers in the past then i don't have to worry
about it because everything is stored in the cloud in the cloud
so what can you do after you've switched over to chrome os well
first things first is to get used to the file browser it's a
little bit different to working on a mac or working on a windows
machine and then you've got your google drive right there and you
can even set your something like your downloads folder to
automatically update all of your files into google drive and so
anytime you download a file from the internet it's going to be
available in google drive next up the next place that i suggest
you go into the google play store and see if there's any
apps or extensions that you're interested in downloading and
installing some of my favorites are google play movies and
netflix because that means that when i'm traveling and i'm
offline i can take those with me there's also a number of great
games that come with the google play store and if you're someone
who still wants to use microsoft word or excel you can download
the microsoft versions on the android app store which is part
of google play so you can still access those applications as
well now finally preparing for working offline if you head to
your google drive settings this should be enabled automatically
by default but just in case you can go and switch on offline
working for your google files and what that means is when
you're ready to start working offline you'll be able to access
all of your files from wherever you are make changes and then
they'll be uploaded as soon as you connect to the internet one
is the chrome has typically less storage on their devices and so
you want to get in the habit of doing more things online what
that means is that you're more likely going to be working with
cloud and online applications than you are with local
applications if you've got that one windows application or that
one mac application that you just can't live without in your
business well you might consider using an emulator or using
something like remote desktop to access those applications all
are great options if you really need to and if you're rolling
out a fleet of chrome devices to a number of staff in your
business then you might consider setting up a remote desktop
arrangement it is worth the hassle of setting the upload
those little things to get all of the other advantages of
chrome and the heightened security of working with chrome
os next up battery life they've got amazing battery life
but there's things like heavy duty apps if you run them on a
chromebook they can start to wear down the battery
They're pretty good for things like watching movies all day
long working in Chrome working online in the browser all day
long. But if you start doing things like, you know, heavy
file crunching, or, you know, lots and lots of file transfers
over Wi Fi, and you can start to wear the batteries down on them,
it's not a major issue, be mindful that the game selection
is going to be different. If you're someone who's into
gaming, most of our audience here are business owners, and
interested in Rolling these out for business. So that makes it
pretty, okay. Finally, if you're a business owner, and you want
to roll these out for yourself or for your team, there's going
to be, you know, a small amount of user training required to get
people used to Chrome OS, although we've put 1000s of
Chromebooks into businesses all around Australia and around the
world as well. And we've had many people who are thrilled
with the experience of using Chrome, we actually have a
program if you chat to our team called the Chromebook challenge,
where we will actually send you a Chromebook to test out within
your business if you qualify. And you get to test that for
free for a week, see if you like it, and then send it back to us.
If it doesn't work for you. No cost for that program, if you
qualify, get in touch with our team, and we will be able to
help out jump on the links below. And we'll sort you out
with that. So I've been asking Chromebooks work offline. And
for the most part, the answer is yes. Even though chrome relies a
lot on working with the internet. And with services that
connect to the internet, you do have plenty of options for
working offline. Number one, your Google Drive, and your file
system that sits on a Chromebook automatically links up to your
Google Drive online. And it works just like what was called
Google File Stream on a Windows or a Mac machine, where that you
get a portal into the online files, where you can synchronize
from Google Drive online, down to your local machine. Now in
any of those folders, you can right click and choose to keep
files available offline. And what that means is they'll
always be synchronized and available offline for you.
Anytime that you need to access the files offline. Now, if
you're working with a Google document, Google spreadsheet,
Google Slides presentation, they all automatically work offline.
And so once you're signed into a Chromebook, it's going to keep a
copy of each one of your Google Docs available for offline work.
As you work on them without an internet connection, you can get
all your work done. And then as soon as you connect, it's going
to synchronize those changes up there as well. Even if you're
doing things like editing images, or you're working with
any of the local Chrome apps, like maybe you've downloaded the
Netflix app, and you want to watch some movies, all of those
things work offline on a Chromebook, you're not streaming
the desktop to a Chromebook overall, like it is an operating
system, it's a full desktop operating system. Most services
need to be online because most of what we do is online these
days. But there's plenty of options for working offline when
you do need. So we've been asked about the different tiers of
Chromebooks and different specifications with them.
Basically, the main differences, a Chromebook that is the lowest
cost bracket is more aimed at the education market. And that's
designed for students to be able to get one or two things done at
a time, and for schools to be able to purchase them cheaply to
be able to roll them out to hundreds or even 1000s of
students. Now, the Chromebooks that are designed for business
use, and chrome boxes, which are designed to be used by a person
sitting in a desk with one or maybe two monitors, those
devices are higher SPECT, so you can literally open more tabs at
the same time that's about it, you get a better processor, and
you get more RAM in the highest spec devices. And that just lets
you do more at the same time. There's no such thing as
multitasking. But many people do like to switch between multiple
tasks at a time. And having a Chromebook or chrome box with
more off is going to give you the ability to do more work
there. We have a question whether or not Microsoft Office
365 will work with Chromebooks and office 365 has online
versions of most of their apps, and they will work in Chrome.
But they're not the full fledged versions of Microsoft
applications. There are a number of other options to get
Microsoft apps working on your Chromebook. One of those is to
download the Android apps for both Word and Excel and anything
else that you'd like to access. Again, they're not exactly the
same as the Windows based desktop versions of office, but
they get you pretty close there. The last option is there is now
windows support on Chromebooks for companies through a company
called parallels. And so you can actually spin up a virtual
machine on your Chromebook, running Windows to run just one
app or a number of apps. And if you really need to access a
Windows version of Office, then you can access that using the
windows emulator. If you're a business owner, and you've not
yet been taken through our growth roadmap, then you may be
interested in a free consultation with our team. If
you qualify. Our team will take you through the growth roadmap
and see where the gaps are if there's any way where you might
need help on your business journey with your technology
strategy. Now, if you are an existing Google workspace user
for your business, we have an amazing transfer in offer where
you basically get access to a google classroom with
professional training for you and your team to use Google
Classroom to the best of its ability. We envisage this to be
part of your HR onboarding process. So when you hire a new
employee, you put them in a classroom and they go and
receive a certificate once they've completed the class and
the quizzes, so you know, they know how to use Google
workspace. And so in here, each lesson has module by module, an
easy way for everyone to get
through the different stages of learning all about workspace,
and that makes you sure that your team have all of the skills
and all of the competency required to be productive in
your business. Now, to get access to the transferring
offer, not only do you get access to the classroom, get
free limited access to our support team, you get a free
check of your DNS records just to make sure that you've set up
all of the records correctly in your workspace account.
Sometimes people miss the SPF or DKM or demark Records and emails
can end up in spam and that kind of thing. So we just do a little
check there. And then finally, if there's ever an issue there,
then you actually have emergency access from our team. We have
backup access to your account, if you're interested in that
offer headlong it genius.com forward slash transfer and get
access to that. Thanks for being here guys. And we will catch in
the next one. If you have questions, drop them below and
we will see you soon. Cheers.