Medicare Cost Data and the Pixel

Extensive cost data for medical procedures has recently been released. I thought it might be interesting to explore it, and out of curiosity try to do so on the Pixel. Unfortunately, this highlights why ChromeOS still needs some work.

The spreadsheet cannot be uploaded to a Google Sheet, because it has more than 400 thousand cells. Oops. A second option was fusion tables, but fusion tables is unable to geocode addresses split into multiple columns. In fact, Google's recommended solution is to download and modify the file on something other than a Chromebook using Excel.

I was expecting problems with programming given the lack of editors, IDEs and build tools, but not basic spreadsheet tasks!

More Pixel

After more Pixel use, I have encountered two minor issues with easy solutions to share.

Firstly, the clock was off by two hours this morning. Since it was previously correct, and the timezone was set properly, I suspected an underlying NTP problem. But I found this thread suggesting that the timezone setting is ignored in favor of the (unset) apps domain timezone setting. After setting the domain timezone, the time was correct again.

Secondly, hiding Gmail labels by dragging them into the "More Labels" section doesn't work. I found this thread explaining that the cause is the new "Touch-enabled" inbox view, and switching back to "Comfortable" returns the familiar behavior.

Pixel Suggestions

So I've been playing with my new toy, the Chromebook Pixel. Everyone knows ChromeOS as the OS which is only a browser, but it is surprisingly capable. Of course, everything which works in Chrome, works well on the Pixel. This includes many Chrome apps, a few of which Google suggests upon the first use. (Hint to Google: Fix all those broken links!)

As a developer though, I spend most of my time either in a browser or in a shell. And on my laptops, most of the shell time is spent in ssh. ChromeOS works reasonably well for this. There are two apps I want to highlight for users like me. There are Chrome apps for secure shell and VNC. So far, I have been able to live completely inside ChromeOS without resorting to developer mode. I will blog more tips as I find them.

I've found myself recommending the Pixel quite a bit. The free Drive storage offer is worth more than the cost of the machine. And ChromeOS can be replaced with your favorite Linux distribution. The screen is great, with more pixels per inch than Apple's "retina" MacBooks, and with a better aspect ratio too! A better machine, with Drive storage, without the Apple tax, and without OS/X's many flaws (window management???)... How could you pass it up?