Moonshots Beyond the Cloud

The Mercury Reader Chrome extension is a reader mode tool for cleaning off the clutter from web pages. It reformats the pages by removing distracting elements and leaving only text and images for a cleaner experience. Mercury Reader is one of my must-have extensions and I use it daily. A post of my blog reformatted with Mercury Reader. It’s installed on all my Chrome OS devices and it’s available whenever I need it. I can fire it up when visiting sites with tiny or illegible fonts, uncomfortable color combinations, pop-ups, excessively wide text margins, pages encrusted with ads, or with designs that interfere with reading. I don’t use a permanent ad-blocker , so Mercury Reader doubles as an on-demand ad blocker. The extension removes distracting features such as navigation elements, sidebars, headers, and ads . Besides the images, it leaves only the text and sets it with clean fonts and attributes that make reading more pleasing. Although it does a good job in most cases...

When saving an image on Chrome OS devices such as Chromebooks there’s a quick way of copying it to the clipboard for direct use. In the notification that appears when saving the image, click the button for copying to the clipboard. This way you can immediately use the image without reloading it from the local storage . For example, pasting the image into Gmail’s message composition window, in the post editor of an online discussion board, in a conversation of a messaging app, or in the content editor of nearly any platform that supports attaching images. The Chrome OS notification for saving an image with the option for copying it to the clipboard. I took the screenshot on my Chromebox, which I use in Italian. Chrome OS issues these notifications every time an app or extension saves an image. For example when saving images from the browser or a photo editor, or capturing and annotating screenshots . If you copy an image to the clipboard, the image file is still saved to the...

One reason I’m learning Python is its ecosystem. A culture of documentation and the countless learning and training resources create opportunities of growing as a developer. The table of contents of the Python documentation. There are all sorts of free and paid tutorials, books, videos, courses, and other materials on all aspects of the language, the tools, and the libraries. For example, I maintain a list of free Python books . Still, some important intermediate to advanced topics receive little or no attention. So, I’d like to offer some suggestions and feedback to Python authors and instructors on what may interest a hobbyist like me . Here are some ideas for topics to cover. Although I found something relevant, the material I’ve seen is still missing something. If you know of any such resources, please let me know. Not being a visual learner I’m more interested in text-based content than videos. I also prefer books to the more structured approach of courses. System...

The day I self-published my book Space Apps for Android I sent free coupons to 16 close friends. The Leanpub coupon generator. All of them share my interests and the topics the book covers. But none of the friends downloaded their free copy . Not a single one. Over the following days I sent free coupons to a few more friends who, again, didn’t download the book. It’s nothing personal. Aside from life and other distractions getting in the way, it’s just that my friends are likely not typical readers who actively seek content like my book. If you publish a book, don’t bother telling your friends and family. Aside from the lack of interest, there are other reasons not to have your friends download the book. If you publish on Amazon, your friend’s purchasing history may have a negative impact on the algorithmic recommendations and reduce the book’s visibility. Also, the feedback you can get from complete strangers is more candid than what friends or family will say not to sou...

The Nimbus Screenshot & Screen Video Recorder Chrome extension is my favorite screenshot capture and editing tool. A screenshot annotated with Nimbus Screenshot on my Chromebox. I love the extension for its variety of capture options and annotation tools . I use Nimbus Screenshot on Chrome OS and it integrates well with the Google cloud as it lets me save to Google Drive. I use it for all the Chromebox and Chromebook screenshots I post to my blog and elsewhere. I live in the browser and the Google cloud, so It’s a good fit for my workflow. Although the extension can also do screen recording, I don’t take advantage of these features. Nimbus Screenshot is so handy I often fire it up for quickly annotating arbitrary images other than screenshots. I can add arrows, text, and other editable vector shapes such as ellipses and rectangles. In a pinch it doubles as a basic drawing app , often faster than opening a dedicated app. To annotate an image, select the Blank Screen ...

Now that Android and Linux apps run on Chrome OS you can use pretty much any bitmap image editor, including the venerable GIMP. But, in the early days, the Pixlr cloud editor was the default recommendation — and the only practical choice. The cropping tool and options of Pixlr X running on my Chromebox. The original Pixlr and its related apps, such as the Pixlr Express lightweight editor, will be discontinued along with Flash on which they’re based. But the new Pixlr owner, the 123RF media company, rebuilt the toolset and developed Pixlr X as the heir of the Pixlr family of editors . Pixlr X has more robust foundations grounded in contemporary web technologies. I use Pixlr X on my Chrome OS devices and I like it for three reasons. The first is the app is fast and doesn’t get in the way of the work I want to do. Next, Pixlr X has a clean and modern design. The site is ad-supported but the few ads it serves blend with the site tastefully. Unlike the original Pixlr, Pixlr ...

Eyes on Exoplanets is a NASA web app for visualizing extrasolar planet systems. This simple app packs and organizes a lot of data on planetary systems of other stars in a series of clear visualizations. The Eyes on Exoplanets web app in Chrome on my Pixel 2 XL phone. The app is actually a website, so to open it visit exoplanets.nasa.gov/eyes-on-exoplanets from your browser. This responsive site works very well also on mobile devices. It runs smoothly in Chrome on my Android devices, a Pixel 2 XL phone and a Lenovo Tab E7 tablet.. Eyes on Exoplanets provides an interactive 3D model of the distribution of the known exoplanets, as well as the ability of viewing the systems on a sky map from a location on the Earth. Either way, you can select a stellar system and zoom into another visualization showing the orbits of its known exoplanets, along with the highlighted habitable zone. You can further zoom in on individual planets or their star to view artist depictions of what the bo...