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years ago when I made the switch to
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becoming a full-time Chromebook user I
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had to find all kinds of loopholes to
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stay productive on my device to get my
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job done and back then my job had
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nothing to do with writing articles I
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had everything to do with building
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websites and being a front-end web
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designer these days my work tests are
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quite a bit different I do spend still a
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lot of time building and maintaining our
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website but I spent the majority of my
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time writing and part of that production
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process means I need to be able to deal
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with photos and edit graphics and make
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sure that all our stuff looks consistent
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across the board and it's now easier
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than ever to do those types of tasks on
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a Chromebook and I want to show you
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three of the tools that I use on a daily
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basis literally every single day to get
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first app I want to talk about is
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basically an experiment that Google did
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whenever they were talking about how to
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use progressive web apps and how to
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build them at i/o either last year or
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regardless it has become indispensable
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to everybody at the chrome unbox team
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it's called squash squ oosh and it is an
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app that is again built on the web that
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allows you to resize and compress images
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and I can't tell you how useful this
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thing is literally every time we put up
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a post or we put up a YouTube video I am
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using squash to bring down the size of
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our overall images if you know anything
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about web development or if you've
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messed with YouTube at all you know when
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you start uploading photos you want to
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make sure that they are small in size
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and that I'm not talking about pixel
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density I'm talking about the file size
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and sometimes it just depends on the
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picture how many colors are going on and
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how much shadow there is and all those
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kind of things you can have a photo that
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you don't think it's a big deal and it's
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one or two Meg's and while that doesn't
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sound massive when you start layering
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those on top of one another on a website
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it really decreases the load time and I
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don't think YouTube will allow an upload
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for a thumbnail of more than two
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megabytes so you really have to figure
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out how it is you're going to keep your
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picture size down and squoosh is an
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awesome tool for this we load the image
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in you decide what percentage you want
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to compress the image in and it's almost
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like magic in the background it has a
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slider that you can see on both sides
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what your image look like before and
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what it looks like after you can see
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exactly how big the image is and when
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you are satisfied with what you've got
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after you've resized and all that kind
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of stuff hit download you have your new
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compressed image that almost always
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looks as good as the original and it's
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way smaller and it's much better for web
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use so if you'd like to learn more about
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that app you can head over to squoosh
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again its squ oosh dot app AP p and you
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can use it on the web there's nothing to
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install it's a web app you know this is
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a Chromebook that's the
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awesomeness of all this stuff so any
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device you can get on the web with you
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can go to school and start using that
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right now the second app I want to talk
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about is one called gravity designer
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it's GRA vit designer it seems like
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paulie's have weird names but this one
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is a service that was bought up by Corel
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not too long ago but Gravatt has been
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around for a few years and it's one of
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those indispensable tools that I wish
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deeply was around when I first started
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using Chromebooks I used to have to jump
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through all these hoops and get Linux
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going so that I could have Inkscape so
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that I could do vector stuff and if
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you've ever messed with graphics you
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know the difference between vector art
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and you know pixels and dealing with
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photos if you really need to build
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graphics you need some sort of vector
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editor and used to that just wasn't a
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thing online but now there's quite a few
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and by faraway Gravette designer is the
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best version of this and it has almost
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every tool that you need it's not to say
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that there's not a learning curve just
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like any other piece of software but
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I've found over the last few years I've
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transitioned everything I do on a
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graphic basis over to gravity I do
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everything from a graphic perspective
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from this app and back when I was doing
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web development on a full-time basis I
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had to do graphic stuff a lot deal with
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logos build logos make different
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graphics for websites it can handle all
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of it it can handle all sorts of things
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I've done signage with it I've done
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print media with it and for Chrome
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unboxed on a daily basis I deal again
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with thumbnails for YouTube and and
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featured images for the website and
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graphics for the website and it is an
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indispensable tool and if you're looking
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for something that's robust easy to use
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and easy to start up with and you know
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again you don't need to really download
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anything you can use it right on the web
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it's just gravity oh it's called gravity
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seiner you can check them out online and
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I highly recommend it the third and
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final app I want to talk about is one
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that you're probably familiar with and
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if you're not you need to be using it
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it's Google Photos and specifically I'm
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talking about the web version of Google
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Photos because when you're on a
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Chromebook sure you can put the Android
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app on here if you want to and it works
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just fine and exactly like you would
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expect it to but again the web version
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is lighter it's easier to get to and if
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I don't have it installed or I don't
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have it pinned to my taskbar or
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something like that you just go to
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photos Google comm and boom there's your
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interface change the account to the one
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you need and you can jump into
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photos that for me that I've literally
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just taken on my phone by the time I get
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to photos at google.com they're already
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uploaded and what I use it for primarily
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is either cropping and getting a you
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know a shot just right that we've taken
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for again a thumbnail or a featured
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image but mainly it's for the auto color
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correction and if you know anything
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about Google in image processing I mean
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they're pixel phones are amazing not
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because they have the best hardware but
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because they have all kinds of AI and
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machine learning that makes their images
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look awesome and so any image you take
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and upload to Google photos you can go
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in and start messing with all the
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colorscience on it or you can just hit
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the auto button that's there and kind of
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allow Google to do the thing that Google
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is really good at and make your photo
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just look better I would say seven times
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out of ten I run my photos through that
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hit auto and to kind of just see where I
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get and if I want to make some slight
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adjustments I can but most times Google
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does an awesome job at fixing my photo
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for me making it look a lot more
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and then I can take it and I can squish
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it and I can take it into graphic
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designer and add some graphics to it and
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then upload it as a nice sized file that
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works for the web or works for YouTube
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and it's just an indispensable tool so
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that's it those are the three apps I
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probably use most on my Chromebook on a
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daily basis that's not to say those are
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the only things I use the only web
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services the only apps I install that's
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not true obviously I use lots of stuff
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but if we're talking the things I use
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literally on a daily basis every time I
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sit down at my Chromebook those three
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are the top of the list for sure so if
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you're looking for something to do some
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basic photo editing some basic graphic
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editing and some stuff that you can
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actually produce pro level stuff and get
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pro level results those are three apps I
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think you would do well to go ahead fine
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install and start using today but guys
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that's been it for this one if you like
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