We put the paper back into a ChromeOS paperless office

Enlarge / A little less than $350 buys you a solid color laser printer, scanner, and fax machine that works flawlessly with Android and ChromeOS devices. (credit: Jim Salter)

With social distancing and isolation, many of us are having to find ways to do more with less-in terms of equipment and technical support, as much as anything else. Today, we're going to take a look at one success story in a less-traveled but suddenly very relevant workflow-scanning and printing with a ChromeOS device.

Enter the Chromebox

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  We chose Chromeboxes instead of Chromebooks for our kids at home to give them access to a full-size monitor, keyboard, and mouse. [credit: Jim Salter ]

Chromeboxes are just like the Chromebooks that American schools have almost unanimously adopted as student computers. They're simple low-powered devices that run ChromeOS-which doesn't look much like an "operating system" at all to the user. The only difference is that, while a Chromebook is a laptop form factor, a Chromebox is a tiny standalone PC that can be bolted right to the back of a standard monitor.

For people who do most of their work online, ChromeOS devices are great-they're inexpensive, they cold boot in seconds, and they manage all of their own software updates. They're also nearly impossible to get infested with malware. The worst "malware" problems I've ever seen on a ChromeOS device are spammy browser notifications, caused by a user clicking "allow" when some ad banner requests the privilege.

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