Is there any difference between the two methods of putting the CR48 into DEV mode? Those two being the About tab dropdown, and of course the switch under the battery...

Just wondering as I used the "About" method vs. actually flipping the switch...

Help is greatly appreciated!

There sure is.

By going to About Chrome OS and changing to Development mode you are telling it to send you the newest, sometimes broken, updates. You will get new features with these updates sooner than being in the Beta channel, but it is likely to break things as well. This is for people who like testing out new features, finding problems, and submitting but reports to help Google make things better. If you want a more stable and usable experience, stay in the Beta channel.

By flipping the switch under the battery you are actually putting the device into a true development mode. When you boot it will load up to a sad face recovery screen, and you will need to push ctrl-d to continue. It will wipe your drive and then let you boot. This allows you to have full access to the system terminal by pushing ctrl-alt-t and then typing "shell".

Gotcha...so one is a software based DEV and the other is both software and hardware DEV. I'm all about DEV mode...have been on it with Chrome forever, so I'm definitely not scared about the things that break - after all, that's why we have these machines, isn't it?

Another question, can you point me in a direction where I can start learning a little more about the underlying OS behind the scenes of the browser? Any good books or sites I should check out?

Thanks for the quick reply!