Here's an example of where it is useful: keeping track of debts between people. For that, everyone needs read and write access.
That seems pretty trivial to me. I'd actually consider something more general purpose like a wiki to keep track of such things. That way you could more easily create text and track revisions. You could document policies, spread rumors, leave notes for people, etc.
I don't own any MS Office licenses, by the way, and I don't have Office installed. Neither do my roomates. It's expensive and buggy.
Buggy? Excel works just fine. I've heard of people developing whole applications in an Excel spreadsheet. Besides, there are plenty of free/cheap minimal spreadsheet programs out there.
The great thing about web browsers is that they're cross platform, and everyone has one.
"Cross platform" sounds great to geeks who like to tinker with different systems, but when you consider that the vast majority of users are running some Win32 variant with a huge array of native appliations available to them, it sorta seems insignificant. And it isn't like Mac users are hurting for applications either. If "cross platform" were really that important to people in general, Java would have made a much bigger impact on the desktop than it has.
If you can't see the potential in that, it's probably futile to keep arguing with you.
But I CAN see the potential in the browser. I'm just a lot more realistic (or conservative) about it than you are, apparently.
Do you agree that the WebOS idea is dumb? Or do you think it is a great idea?
You're like that guy who can't understand why anyone would ever need or want a credit card.
Well, you've got to run Opera on SOMETHING, don't you? Once you get to the point of running somehting like Opera, you're just a small step away from having a full fledged desktop. But I guess if Nintendo never bothers with a desktop beyond running Opera, WebOS might be all you have. Although the chances of something like WebOS being usable on such a device seems... unlikely.
Well, Gmail wouldn't be as useful to me (though you could do webmail other ways, they wouldn't be as good). Oh, and the application I'm currently assigned to at work (which is popular where I work, I suppose)
Webmail has been around, like, forever. In that sense, gmail is nothing special as a web app. What makes gmail so special is the novel features and not so much the fact that it uses ajax. And for as much as I like gmail on the road, I always prefer a desktop app for email access when it is available, which is most of the time. But maybe that is just me.
Yeah, as I said in an earlier post in this thread, the solutions suck. Which is *why* we need new standards.
What do you propose?
So they lack 'collaboration" features. Who cares?
People who need to get work done. My current work project, for example, is all about collaboration.
I was specifically refering to collaboration in spreadsheets. For the vast majority it is enough to simply have a spreadsheet on a file server available ot everyone to read. But if you need more, I hear Microsoft has realtime collaboriation as an optional part of MS Office.
I don't think you really understand how people intend to use these kinds of tools. If you would, please discribe to me how you think people intend to use web-applications.
I see a continued expansion of self-publishing (blogs, wikis, etc), email, ecommerce, etc. I see NEW applications opening up that can only effectively be done within a browser. What I don't see are traditional desktop applications moving into the browser. I certainly don't see the whole desktop moving into the browser ala WebOS.
Accessing local files" isn't a problem (saving or transmitting, I do it all the time). It's trivial to sandbox local disk writes -- even with tight security (though at present, there is no facility for sandboxing local disk writes). I'm not sure what the other resources you're refering to are, but all the ones I can imagine you'd need are already easily exposed to a web application.
Not compared to what a desktop applicaiton can do. Plug in a USB camera to your computer and try to write a web app that can seemlessly pull images off of it without having clumsy HTML upload dialogs. Try ripping a CD from a web app or reading the TOC of the CD. Try writing local files without user intervention (no "download" dialogs from the browser).
I'm also not too sure what you mean by "directly tied to a network service" -- do you think people indend to use web applications the same way they use local desktop applications? More imporantly, do you think they'll even WANT to use these kinds of applications 'off-line'?
My point is that the types of web applicaitons people are going to want to use should not try to emulate desktop applications (email is the one exception that I can think of). That is why this whole "WebOS" thing is so ridiculous. Microsoft and Apple have spent a LOT of resources making the desktop fast, efficient, and powerful. Trying to reinvent it in the browser is just a waste of time.
I think, in all honesty, it is a great idea/alternative for situations where a WAN is deployted for workgroups. It would be a nice alternative for situations where a VPN, Remote Access, or other Terminal Services/VNC/Remote Desktop deployments are in use.
But why? VPN and Terminal Services work great. Citrix runs fine over a WAN. It certainly runs better than anything you could deliver in a web browser with Javascript. Also, every application you run would have to be completely rewritten in an extremely limited "WebOS" development environment. Ain't gonna happen.
Consider web-based office applications [slashdot.org] Without Ajax, these kinds of applications wouldn't be practical. Sure, you could make a web-based spreadsheet app without javascript and XMLhttpRequest, but it would be very unusable. (If you aren't specificly refering to web development styles when you say 'development styles' then my answer is 'nothing'.)
I said "popular" applications done in Ajax. Almost all the things listed fall under the 'prototype' category. And they are generally crap compared to their desktop equivenents. Google Spreadsheets? Hmm, I can download a dozen free/shareware spreadsheet programs which will all peform better than whatever Google can hack together in a web browser. So they lack 'collaboration" features. Who cares? 99.9% of spreadsheets will never need that feature. Seems like the only real justification for these online desktop app imitations is "because we can."
One of the biggest problem you're going to have with any web application is accessing local files and other resources. The only thing that makes the web even marginally secure is the sandboxed nature of whatever you are viewing... which serves as its greatest weakness when it comes to generalized application development. So for any applicaiton that isn't directly tied to a network service such as email or a blog, you're going to have problems.... no matter what standards you adopt.
-matthew
Re:All new 3D Shooters are missing one thing...
on
Prey Review
·
· Score: 1
Wow, you mean you coudl actually cooperate with your friends without temptation to blow them away? I couldn't do it. Maybe I just didn't llike them as much as I thought I did.;-)
1) I did not imply that internet=web (that was your random interpretation)
You did. Every sentences referenced teh "web" as if it IS the internet.
2) I never said ajax was 'unique' (read the sentence again)
And I never said you said AJAX was unique. I challenged the idea that "permission" to use AJAX has allowed people to make unique applications. What popular AJAX applicaiton out there couldn't be done with more traditional development styles? Sure, AJAX makes some things better and perhaps easier, but what is fundamentally unique about them?
3) 'look beyond the browser' is exactly what I'm doing!
Then how come every single suggestion involves new "web" standards? Do you have some loose defintion of "web" that I am not aware of? To me, web = HTML rendered inside a browser.
VNC - bandwidth issues, and this is largely what I do anyway currently. It's the potential I'm talking about, not what is best currently.
Sure, but bandwidth is becoming less and less of an issue. We'll have better bandwidth long before we have web standards suitable for a usable "web desktop." Besides, I'd much rather have access to my real home desktop anyway vs. some lame browser based imitation of a desktop. And quite frankly, that is all WebOS is.
The users who would be using this as a "thin client" approach to get tech support wouldn't know what a "shitty JS/HTML" app is if it hit them in the face.
Wanna bet?
They just want to know if it works.
And it won't work. A desktop sandboxed in a browser will NEVER work like a real desktop that integrates with the computer. What happens when a user does something simple like plug in a USB camera to download pictures? What if they want to rip/copy a CD? What about viewing DVDs? I can list dozens of things that simply won't work under a "thin client" approach. It is a joke. A sick joke.
Not to mention addressing the potential here, not the current state: shitty Java apps used to be the norm, but you've just suggested I use one in you VNC suggestion.
I dislike Java apps as much as the next guy, but in this case it works far better than any "WebOS" would. Besides, how often do people really need to access their home desktop from anywhere? I can see putting some files up on a G-Drive or carrying around a USB stick, but most people get by just fine leaving their desktop at home. Heck, you can even inastall Linux on a USB stick and carry your desktop around with you on your keychain. All of these solutions are better than some lame WebOS that doesn't even have a communications API for developers yet.
wouldn't be surpised if it was JS/UIX [masswerk.at]. Trying that and TiddlyWiki [tiddlywiki.com] solidified my concept of how to resolve my UI issues as a web developer.
I dont' get it. JS/UIX is just a similated unix shell with no real utility and TiddlyWiki looks like a regular Wiki with inplace editting and some interesting but superfluous effect when you click on new sections. Actually, the effect is somewhat annoying because it is delayed. The new section appears first and the "window" slowly expands afterwards to match it. That effect really needs to go away. What am I missing here?
Yeah, something like X11, I suppose, but make the application run on the client and store the state on the server. Problem with X11 is that a server (I guess it would actually be the X client) could never support internet style loads. Also, there are problems with utilizing local resources like printers and files.
I'm not suggesting we limit ourselves to the "web browser" that relies on a "on a stateless protocol". I was suggesting that as the needs of web users have changed, so NEW standards need to be developed -- this includes protocols, formats, languages, even the "application player" you mention (which, BTW, could easily be launched by a brower, inside a browser, or implemented as part of a native format). That is, it's time we begin to abandon the old web and start BUILDING the new web!
If you are not attached on the web browser as a solution to everything, why do you keep inserting the word "web" into each sentence... sometimes twice? Do you not understand that internet != web?
Most people already KNOW that these "shitty Javascript/HTML" apps are a terrible solution -- but, as I pointed out in my earlier post -- they were developed because these are the kinds of things people want to happen on the web. People want to access their documents and applications from anywhere -- That's part of what the so-called "web 2.0" is all about. Right now, we don't have the necessary standards to realize those applications.
Again, I ask you why you (and so many others apparently) are fixated on the browser (with more/better web standards) as the solution? Why not have a new "Internet Application Browser". Why is the web browser the end all, be all of the internet?
Ajax is exciting to a good number of developers not because it's a new and cool idea, but because they've finally been given "permission" to do some of the things they've been wanting to do all along (the rule before, iirc, was to use as little or no js if at all possible). Ajax means that it's finally okay to develop unique, rich, interactive applications for the web.
*yawn*. Unique? What has AJAX deliverd that is truely unique? Certainly it has spiced up some things that were previously a little awkward like web mail and Google maps, but unique? I don't think so. It is essentially the same ol' document centric stuff that was done 5 years ago. Local desktop applications remain lightyears ahead in overall functionality and capabilty.
Existing web standards are inadequate -- there is no disagreement here! New, simple/clean, easy-to-implement standards can really change the way we work with the web and consider the browser.
Web, web, web web, web... ad nauseum. Face it, web browsers have way too much intertia. They are simply not agile enough to do what you are talking about. You have to be willign to look beyond the web browser. Not just web browser + new standards.
Slowness of javascript is right -- but let's attack it for its many other more serious flaws:)
I was specificly refering to slowness wrt to CPU bound applications such as SETI.
More seriously, YouOS is important for reasons that aren't necessarily apparent at first. The demo on the site and the interest in the project leads me to believe two things: 1) People want a simple open application development platform for the web and 2) We need NEW and BETTER web standards!
Why limit oneself to the web browser? What if someone came up with an open, client/server oriented application "player" that was cross platform? You know, something that DOESN'T rely on a stateless protocol which was originally designed to deliver documents and maybe process a form or two. What I detect is an unhealthy attachment to the web browser. People these days think that the web browser is the end all, be all of the internet. They take for granted all the other network based appliations they use every day. As we speak, I have 4 other internet applications open besides a web browser: iTunes, Usenet reader, an IM client, and an email reader... none of which would be better off running inside of a web browser sandbox, IMO.
There will always be a need for native code -- that is obvious. However, the need for truly cross-platform network accessable applications is growing and growing quickly. Yes, Sun had the right idea when they created Java, but the language and platform just don't fit this need very well.
Well keep looking then, because the solution isn't in the web browser. Browsers can barely agree on 10 year old standards. Don't expect anything novel out of them any time soon. We're goign to be putting up with shitty Javascript/HTML desktop application wannabes for a few years until people figures out what a terrible idea it is.
Ever use an old computer to do something useful? Every want *your* OS on a live CD? Ever want to your own OS at a public computer? Keep thinking and the possibilities are there. I'm looking at it for something I can run on a central server (preferably that I control) and still get to my own setup easily. In that vein, it's a powerful idea.
Couldn't you just install VNC on your home PC and use the Java applet client to access it whereever you go? That way you would hve EVERYTHING available to you from your home PC. NOt just whatever you happened to put in your Web Desktop.
Also, similar to a thin client, ever want to not have to support your family/friends/not-even-working-with-you-coworkers ? Tell them to wipe their browser host OS then reinstall about anything they want with a browser. More apps and the power increases.
Oh yeah, right. LIke anyone is going to boot their computer directly into a browser and forsake all games and general usefulness of a local desktop and run shitty Javascript/HTML apps 24/7 just to make YOUR life easier as their defacto tech support guy. Remember, we're not talking about just any "thin client" solution here. We're talking about Javascript + HTML + HTTP. It would be a giant leap backwards in usability and functionality.
think being able to do stuff on "your computer" even if you just happen to be pearched on top of a hunk of rock in the middle of nowhere (assumes you have some sort of device and a netconnection)
That would be pretty pathetic, but if I really want to do it, I'd just install VNC on my home PC.
or have thing set up in your company so that most of your users are using a kiosk mode browser and a WebTop to do work. (the idea is to lock them out of doing anything outside the browser lock the browser down hard.... Profit!!
Yeah, I think Citrix is already making some profit off of this general concept. It is certainly 100x better than anything a "WebTop" could ever deliver.
LOL. I saw a similar Javascript terminal app that ran in the browser and sorta simulated an actual unix OS, but I thought it was just a sort of joke. Did you really think that such an idea would actually be useful?
That may be the case now, but give a few years or so (3-7 years maybe), and high speed wireless internet will be ubiquitous. Also, the final forms of these applications will probably involve some kind a hybrid between desktop and web applications, with some kind of caching mechanism for when no connectivity is available.
Hybrid between desktop and web applications is just begging for security problems. The only reason the web is as secure as it is (and that isn't saying very much) is because the browser is (or should be) a sandbox with very little interaction with the desktop.
b.) Will always offer less features and a bad UI compared to classical desktop applications, because restricted by web browser capablilites
Current browser companies/groups, standards organizations, and OS vendors are all well aware of the current browser's limitations and are working feverishly to create full-fledged networked baeed application frameworks. You can already see bits and pieces with XAML, XUL, SVG, AJAX, etc. Yes, we're not there yet, but it's inevitable.
You say that, but you don't even know what it is, exactly, that is inveitable. The bottom line is that the browser is a TERRIBLE place to base a "full-fleged networked based application framework." What likely will happen is that all these people "feverishly" working to create browser based frameworks will wake up and say "WTF were we thinking?" and start work on somethoing outside of the browser that can accomplish the same thign with a much better better tools and protocols. Browsers can barely agree on the very basics of HTML, CSS, and Javascript which have been around for a decade. And you think they are going to pull together on more obscure protocols and standards? Don't hold your breath.
The web browser is not the end all, be all of hte internet. Get over it.
long-lasting GET requests? I'm not sure what you are talking about here - is this something that is utilized with AJAX? Regarding the rest of this bulletpoint, see my response to (b). Also, I'm sure as web apps become more critical to businesses, firewall software as well as their admistrators' configuration preferences will adapt.
The point is that HTTP is slow and inefficient for the things that some people are trying to do with it.
You are kidding right? This is the big *advantage* of web-based apps. Have you tried using Google's spreadsheets yet? Contacting a user through g-mail and sharing the same spreadsheet... it doesn't get any more collaborative than that.
Yeah, too bad Google Spreadsheet (and every other desktop app mock-up done in HTML/JS/CSS) sucks. Be honest. If you had downloaded Google Spreadsheet as a desktop app it wouldn't even register on your radar. Nobody would care. There are dozens of better freeware/shareware spreadsheet programs out there. If collaborative spreadsheets were really that important, someone would figure out how to add the feature to a traditional spreadsheet app.
Still, I can see how it would appeal to non-geeks away from home - and it's not much different to placing your trust in online mail, online shopping or online tax return services - all of which have a healthy take up and get a splodge of your personal data.
And what do people do away from home? Check email? Practially all mail services have a web based client these days. What else? IM? Try http://www.meebo.com/ . And anyone with more elaborate needs will most likely have a notebook computer with them when traveling. So what is the point?
Could someone please explain to me why this is a great idea? Besides the novelty. What place does YouOS have in a world where people (well, geeks, actually) debate endlessly about which desktop is the fastest/full featured/whatever? Certainly YouOS would fail to meet most anyone's criteria for a generally useful desktop.
Come on people, this "web based OS" idea is stupid. Admit it. And it is not just because of fact that "Operating System" is a great misnomer in this case. From their FAQ:
"Need to send or receive email or text/instant messages? We're working on providing full communication APIs."
If that gets you excited, then I have a network stack written in BASIC to sell you. ANd it runs in a browser! Amazing, huh? Forget the fact that your current operating system already comes with a perfectly good network stack and running mine would be completely redundant and pointless.
And is there an SDK around? If so, it'd sound like the ideal computing slave. SETI here goes... (ok, maybe it has resource quotas, which would actually make it an interesting project...)
That might work, except that the applicaitons are not actually running on a server. They are running with javascript in your browser. They merely communicate with the server for data. You'd be using yoru own CPU... with the slowness of Javascript vs. compiled.
Wow, think back 6 years. Who ever thought anyone would be saying something like *that*? Next thing you know we'll be compaining that Microsoft Word is unable to open up the OpenOffice documents that everyone is passing around in email.
Slashdot Mirror
That seems pretty trivial to me. I'd actually consider something more general purpose like a wiki to keep track of such things. That way you could more easily create text and track revisions. You could document policies, spread rumors, leave notes for people, etc.
Buggy? Excel works just fine. I've heard of people developing whole applications in an Excel spreadsheet. Besides, there are plenty of free/cheap minimal spreadsheet programs out there.
"Cross platform" sounds great to geeks who like to tinker with different systems, but when you consider that the vast majority of users are running some Win32 variant with a huge array of native appliations available to them, it sorta seems insignificant. And it isn't like Mac users are hurting for applications either. If "cross platform" were really that important to people in general, Java would have made a much bigger impact on the desktop than it has.
But I CAN see the potential in the browser. I'm just a lot more realistic (or conservative) about it than you are, apparently.
Do you agree that the WebOS idea is dumb? Or do you think it is a great idea?
I'm no Luddite.
-matthew
I am absolutely certain that you may be correct.
Well, you've got to run Opera on SOMETHING, don't you? Once you get to the point of running somehting like Opera, you're just a small step away from having a full fledged desktop. But I guess if Nintendo never bothers with a desktop beyond running Opera, WebOS might be all you have. Although the chances of something like WebOS being usable on such a device seems... unlikely.
-matthew
Webmail has been around, like, forever. In that sense, gmail is nothing special as a web app. What makes gmail so special is the novel features and not so much the fact that it uses ajax. And for as much as I like gmail on the road, I always prefer a desktop app for email access when it is available, which is most of the time. But maybe that is just me.
What do you propose?
I was specifically refering to collaboration in spreadsheets. For the vast majority it is enough to simply have a spreadsheet on a file server available ot everyone to read. But if you need more, I hear Microsoft has realtime collaboriation as an optional part of MS Office.
I see a continued expansion of self-publishing (blogs, wikis, etc), email, ecommerce, etc. I see NEW applications opening up that can only effectively be done within a browser. What I don't see are traditional desktop applications moving into the browser. I certainly don't see the whole desktop moving into the browser ala WebOS.
Not compared to what a desktop applicaiton can do. Plug in a USB camera to your computer and try to write a web app that can seemlessly pull images off of it without having clumsy HTML upload dialogs. Try ripping a CD from a web app or reading the TOC of the CD. Try writing local files without user intervention (no "download" dialogs from the browser).
My point is that the types of web applicaitons people are going to want to use should not try to emulate desktop applications (email is the one exception that I can think of). That is why this whole "WebOS" thing is so ridiculous. Microsoft and Apple have spent a LOT of resources making the desktop fast, efficient, and powerful. Trying to reinvent it in the browser is just a waste of time.
-matthew
Which is exactly why they refused to separate the internet and phone bills. Stop paying The Bill... lose phone service.
-matthew
But why? VPN and Terminal Services work great. Citrix runs fine over a WAN. It certainly runs better than anything you could deliver in a web browser with Javascript. Also, every application you run would have to be completely rewritten in an extremely limited "WebOS" development environment. Ain't gonna happen.
-matthew
I said "popular" applications done in Ajax. Almost all the things listed fall under the 'prototype' category. And they are generally crap compared to their desktop equivenents. Google Spreadsheets? Hmm, I can download a dozen free/shareware spreadsheet programs which will all peform better than whatever Google can hack together in a web browser. So they lack 'collaboration" features. Who cares? 99.9% of spreadsheets will never need that feature. Seems like the only real justification for these online desktop app imitations is "because we can."
One of the biggest problem you're going to have with any web application is accessing local files and other resources. The only thing that makes the web even marginally secure is the sandboxed nature of whatever you are viewing... which serves as its greatest weakness when it comes to generalized application development. So for any applicaiton that isn't directly tied to a network service such as email or a blog, you're going to have problems.... no matter what standards you adopt.
-matthew
Wow, you mean you coudl actually cooperate with your friends without temptation to blow them away? I couldn't do it. Maybe I just didn't llike them as much as I thought I did. ;-)
-matthew
You did. Every sentences referenced teh "web" as if it IS the internet.
And I never said you said AJAX was unique. I challenged the idea that "permission" to use AJAX has allowed people to make unique applications. What popular AJAX applicaiton out there couldn't be done with more traditional development styles? Sure, AJAX makes some things better and perhaps easier, but what is fundamentally unique about them?
Then how come every single suggestion involves new "web" standards? Do you have some loose defintion of "web" that I am not aware of? To me, web = HTML rendered inside a browser.
-matthew
Sure, but bandwidth is becoming less and less of an issue. We'll have better bandwidth long before we have web standards suitable for a usable "web desktop." Besides, I'd much rather have access to my real home desktop anyway vs. some lame browser based imitation of a desktop. And quite frankly, that is all WebOS is.
Wanna bet?
And it won't work. A desktop sandboxed in a browser will NEVER work like a real desktop that integrates with the computer. What happens when a user does something simple like plug in a USB camera to download pictures? What if they want to rip/copy a CD? What about viewing DVDs? I can list dozens of things that simply won't work under a "thin client" approach. It is a joke. A sick joke.
I dislike Java apps as much as the next guy, but in this case it works far better than any "WebOS" would. Besides, how often do people really need to access their home desktop from anywhere? I can see putting some files up on a G-Drive or carrying around a USB stick, but most people get by just fine leaving their desktop at home. Heck, you can even inastall Linux on a USB stick and carry your desktop around with you on your keychain. All of these solutions are better than some lame WebOS that doesn't even have a communications API for developers yet.
-matthew
I dont' get it. JS/UIX is just a similated unix shell with no real utility and TiddlyWiki looks like a regular Wiki with inplace editting and some interesting but superfluous effect when you click on new sections. Actually, the effect is somewhat annoying because it is delayed. The new section appears first and the "window" slowly expands afterwards to match it. That effect really needs to go away. What am I missing here?
-matthew
Oh, go buy a WebTV or something.
Yeah, something like X11, I suppose, but make the application run on the client and store the state on the server. Problem with X11 is that a server (I guess it would actually be the X client) could never support internet style loads. Also, there are problems with utilizing local resources like printers and files.
-matthew
If you are not attached on the web browser as a solution to everything, why do you keep inserting the word "web" into each sentence... sometimes twice? Do you not understand that internet != web?
Again, I ask you why you (and so many others apparently) are fixated on the browser (with more/better web standards) as the solution? Why not have a new "Internet Application Browser". Why is the web browser the end all, be all of the internet?
*yawn*. Unique? What has AJAX deliverd that is truely unique? Certainly it has spiced up some things that were previously a little awkward like web mail and Google maps, but unique? I don't think so. It is essentially the same ol' document centric stuff that was done 5 years ago. Local desktop applications remain lightyears ahead in overall functionality and capabilty.
Web, web, web web, web... ad nauseum. Face it, web browsers have way too much intertia. They are simply not agile enough to do what you are talking about. You have to be willign to look beyond the web browser. Not just web browser + new standards.
-matthew
I'd hold out for a real loacal OS like DSLinux.
-matthew
I was specificly refering to slowness wrt to CPU bound applications such as SETI.
Why limit oneself to the web browser? What if someone came up with an open, client/server oriented application "player" that was cross platform? You know, something that DOESN'T rely on a stateless protocol which was originally designed to deliver documents and maybe process a form or two. What I detect is an unhealthy attachment to the web browser. People these days think that the web browser is the end all, be all of the internet. They take for granted all the other network based appliations they use every day. As we speak, I have 4 other internet applications open besides a web browser: iTunes, Usenet reader, an IM client, and an email reader... none of which would be better off running inside of a web browser sandbox, IMO.
Well keep looking then, because the solution isn't in the web browser. Browsers can barely agree on 10 year old standards. Don't expect anything novel out of them any time soon. We're goign to be putting up with shitty Javascript/HTML desktop application wannabes for a few years until people figures out what a terrible idea it is.
-matthew
Couldn't you just install VNC on your home PC and use the Java applet client to access it whereever you go? That way you would hve EVERYTHING available to you from your home PC. NOt just whatever you happened to put in your Web Desktop.
Oh yeah, right. LIke anyone is going to boot their computer directly into a browser and forsake all games and general usefulness of a local desktop and run shitty Javascript/HTML apps 24/7 just to make YOUR life easier as their defacto tech support guy. Remember, we're not talking about just any "thin client" solution here. We're talking about Javascript + HTML + HTTP. It would be a giant leap backwards in usability and functionality.
-matthew
That would be pretty pathetic, but if I really want to do it, I'd just install VNC on my home PC.
Yeah, I think Citrix is already making some profit off of this general concept. It is certainly 100x better than anything a "WebTop" could ever deliver.
-matthew
LOL. I saw a similar Javascript terminal app that ran in the browser and sorta simulated an actual unix OS, but I thought it was just a sort of joke. Did you really think that such an idea would actually be useful?
Anyway, don't worry about YouOS. It'll fail.
-matthew
Hybrid between desktop and web applications is just begging for security problems. The only reason the web is as secure as it is (and that isn't saying very much) is because the browser is (or should be) a sandbox with very little interaction with the desktop.
You say that, but you don't even know what it is, exactly, that is inveitable. The bottom line is that the browser is a TERRIBLE place to base a "full-fleged networked based application framework." What likely will happen is that all these people "feverishly" working to create browser based frameworks will wake up and say "WTF were we thinking?" and start work on somethoing outside of the browser that can accomplish the same thign with a much better better tools and protocols. Browsers can barely agree on the very basics of HTML, CSS, and Javascript which have been around for a decade. And you think they are going to pull together on more obscure protocols and standards? Don't hold your breath.
The web browser is not the end all, be all of hte internet. Get over it.
The point is that HTTP is slow and inefficient for the things that some people are trying to do with it.
Yeah, too bad Google Spreadsheet (and every other desktop app mock-up done in HTML/JS/CSS) sucks. Be honest. If you had downloaded Google Spreadsheet as a desktop app it wouldn't even register on your radar. Nobody would care. There are dozens of better freeware/shareware spreadsheet programs out there. If collaborative spreadsheets were really that important, someone would figure out how to add the feature to a traditional spreadsheet app.
-matthew
And what do people do away from home? Check email? Practially all mail services have a web based client these days. What else? IM? Try http://www.meebo.com/ . And anyone with more elaborate needs will most likely have a notebook computer with them when traveling. So what is the point?
-matthew
Could someone please explain to me why this is a great idea? Besides the novelty. What place does YouOS have in a world where people (well, geeks, actually) debate endlessly about which desktop is the fastest/full featured/whatever? Certainly YouOS would fail to meet most anyone's criteria for a generally useful desktop.
Come on people, this "web based OS" idea is stupid. Admit it. And it is not just because of fact that "Operating System" is a great misnomer in this case. From their FAQ:
"Need to send or receive email or text/instant messages? We're working on providing full communication APIs."
If that gets you excited, then I have a network stack written in BASIC to sell you. ANd it runs in a browser! Amazing, huh? Forget the fact that your current operating system already comes with a perfectly good network stack and running mine would be completely redundant and pointless.
-matthew
That might work, except that the applicaitons are not actually running on a server. They are running with javascript in your browser. They merely communicate with the server for data. You'd be using yoru own CPU... with the slowness of Javascript vs. compiled.
-matthew
Wow, think back 6 years. Who ever thought anyone would be saying something like *that*? Next thing you know we'll be compaining that Microsoft Word is unable to open up the OpenOffice documents that everyone is passing around in email.
-matthew
I would consider lack of 3D support "sucking." So if ATI's own drivers are WORSE than not having 3D support, wow!
-matthew