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I haven't tried snowl, but I think this type of effort has promise. I believe we have already surrendered too much control to the convenience of web-based interfaces for social networking. (Think web-based email.) Snowl's approach is more end-to-end.

Every web property owner will, at the end of the day, protect their own turf--at the possible expense of the user. So, for example, I can't expect facebook to play nice with say a competitor like Plaxo. I'd like them to--because I have accounts at both, and find duplicating my personal information at both places, among other things, really tedious. And it's only getting worse with time.

The solution to this is not yet another web-based aggregator. No, all that does is set up yet another middleman whose business model will be to eventually screw you. Much better to put all the smart at your end. That'll keep us, the end users, in control.

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Have USB, Will Travel

It makes me think of this arch-based distro FaunOS which runs completely from USB flash.

The idea is that computers will become more and more ubiquitous. As folks upgrade, they will have more and more cast-off PCs/Laptops. For most people (non video/game enthusiasts), the minimum system requirements are not very high- meaning that all of those old systems can fulfill their needs. BUT, the time it takes to maintain each old computer will keep people from using them. The solution is that each person maintains their personal operating environment then carry it from computer to computer as necessary. All the computer needs to do is boot from USB (which is becoming more and more common)

Forget this specialized laptop idea- polish up a good general-purpose hardware-sensing environment that survives on USB flash drives and market that instead.

The rate at which hardware prices are dropping is simply breathtaking. Consider it from the seller's angle: a $500 drop in price from say $1500 represents a 33% drop in revenue; a $500 drop in price from $1000, on the other hand, represents a 50% drop in revenue. This wreaks havoc on a lot of business models--and of course, creates a lot of new ones.

Looking at this price trend, it seems like every home will soon be littered with a lot of portables--some fairly new, others, say, one or two years old. There might be one on every coffee table, you might throw one in the bathroom, as well as the one in the bedroom, and so on. Managing and maintaining the software on all these devices will be a chore.

In an article I co-wrote for the FaunOS project project, we argue that making the boot device detachable and largely hardware agnostic is an attractive solution. The idea is that users carry and maintain only a single copy of an operating environment which they can run on pretty much any device of their choosing. That way, the user accumulates and maintains know-how on a single evolving operating environment rather than having to duplicate that effort across multiple machines. Does this makes sense?

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Have USB, Will Travel - http://www.faunos.com/

I've been booting from USB for the better part of a year now. (I'm on such a system as I type this.) It's a lot easier to manage an operating environment on a USB than one on an internal HD. Especially, if you're in the habit of switching machines frequently. The OS I use is FaunOS. As the price of this kind of hardware drops, it's easier to buy into the vision of portable environments.

Portable environments have to be "live" systems. They present interesting, unique challenges, but as FaunOS and a number of other distros show, portable systems are increasingly becoming quite usable. It'll be interesting to see whether a new ecosystem builds around their use.

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Have USB will travel - http://www.faunos.com/

I've been booting from USB for the better part of a year now. (I'm on such a system as I type this.) It's a lot easier to manage an operating environment on a USB than one on an internal HD. Especially, if you're in the habit of switching machines frequently. The OS I use is FaunOS. As the price of this kind of hardware drops, it's easier to buy into the vision of portable environments.

Portable environments have to be "live" systems. They present interesting, unique challenges, but as FaunOS and a number of other distros show, portable systems are increasingly becoming quite usable. It'll be interesting to see whether a new ecosystem builds around their use.

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Have USB will travel - http://www.faunos.com/

I've been booting from USB for the better part of a year now. (I'm on such a system as I type this.) It's a lot easier to manage an operating environment on a USB than one on an internal HD. Especially, if you're in the habit of switching machines frequently. The OS I use is FaunOS. As the price of this kind of hardware drops, it's easier to buy into the vision of portable environments.

Portable environments have to be "live" systems. They present interesting, unique challenges, but as FaunOS and a number of other distros show, portable systems are increasingly becoming quite usable. It'll be interesting to see whether a new ecosystem builds around their use.

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Have USB will travel - http://www.faunos.com/

No, it would be silly to put up a sourceforge project for a candidate. Better concentrate on how best to use existing tools.

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Have USB will travel - http://www.faunos.com/

You do realize, though, that if the solar generated electricity is consumed inside the building, the laws of thermodynamics dictate that the electrical power consumed eventually dissipates as heat inside the building. I have nothing against skylights, per se, but this is the same heat you're worried about letting in through the skylight. And besides, what are you proposing here? steam powered laptops?

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[FaunOS]

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the glass is half broken

I haven't tried this distro, but will give it a shot. Talking new distros, especially live ones, I've been playing with FaunOS, a Linux-based live system for USBs. It's based on Arch, and its pretty damn fast. The other USB based distro that I've tried Puppy Linux is better if you want to run old hardware, or don't have enough RAM; but I find FaunOS just more complete. Anyone else out there booting from USB?

We have this article on why USB-based distos might be wave of the future.

We have this article on why USB-based distos might be wave of the future.

You can in fact run most any notebook off a USB key. FaunOS is a Linux distro specifically designed to run off a USB. In fact, I am using it as I write this now. I am using an Acer Aspire 5630: it worked with FaunOS out of the box. There are others (e.g. Mandriva), but my experience with FaunOS has been the best, so far.

It's interesting to note that the XO is diskless. The idea of putting the OS on a solid state device is catching on. If the XO allowed a USB-like boot, I think that would be even more useful. A number of distros support just this type of boot (see for example http://www.mandriva.com/ or http://www.faunos.com/ ). Here's an article from the second of those distros that argues why its useful for the user to be able to physically detach the memory device (USB) from the rest of the computing hardware: http://www.faunos.com/articles/article-01.html

It's interesting to note that the XO is diskless. The idea of putting the OS on a solid state device is catching on. If the XO allowed a USB-like boot, I think that would be even more useful. A number of distros support just this type of boot (see for example http://www.mandriva.com/ or http://www.faunos.com/ ). Here's an article from the second of those distros that argues why its useful for the user to be able to physically detach the memory device (USB) from the rest of the computing hardware: http://www.faunos.com/articles/article-01.html