Chromebooks: Expert Guides and Resources

The Chromebook is designed to rely heavily on the Internet for most of its functionality. Instead of a large hard drive, Chromebook relies primarily on cloud-based storage.In place of many resident applications, Chromebook uses web-based applications that you access through the Google Web Store and Google Play Store.

From time to time, Google releases software updates for the Chrome OS that runs your Chromebook. Sometimes these software updates are security related, installing these updates when they’re available is always a good idea.To check for updates, follow these steps: Go to Settings.If a software update is available for your Chromebook, you see a message like the one shown below.

Sometimes it’s nice to have a clean start. Your Chromebook makes it easy for you to wipe the slate clean and start over. On the Chromebook, this is known as powerwashing. You may find doing so useful when you have too much junk on your device.Or maybe you want to reset your Chromebook to its default settings because you’re giving your Chromebook to another person.

A Chromebook is made to be easy to use right out of the box. It’s not a self-driving car, but it’s almost as easy. Get it out, plug it in, turn it on, and follow the prompts: You’ll be up and running in minutes.Still, even though Chromebook is very usable, you may want to do some further customization. This article contains ten tips, tricks, and shortcuts to make your Chromebook experience more productive — or at least a little more fun.

Cybercriminals are making good money, but let’s make sure that they don’t get any of yours! Having a Chromebook is a great start because the design of Chrome OS — the heart and soul of a Chromebook — has security strongly in mind.The nature of cybercrime makes it necessary for you to be vigilant, even when using the most secure laptop available.

The world is not quite paperless; sometimes you need a hard copy. For example, you may need to print and sign a legal agreement, or you might want to print a recipe to jot notes on. Lucky for you, it’s easy to connect a printer to your Chromebook. ©Shutterstock/FabrikaSimfMany kinds of printers are available, and you have several ways to set them up.

The Google Play library accessed on your Chromebook is where all of your music uploads and music purchases reside. In the standard account, your Google Play view defaults to your music library. If you aren’t in your library, you can get there by locating and clicking the My Library link on the left side of the page.

The Chromebook video player is very barebones. There’s a window control bar across the top of the window where you can minimize, maximize, and close the video player window. Your video occupies the majority of the window space. If you move your pointer over the bottom of the video window, an overlay appears, containing the controls for the video player, which include Pause and Play buttons Status bar with time indicator Volume control Full Screen mode control By default, the Chromebook video player starts your video as soon as that video loads.