Comments on: Five Webtop Alternatives For Cloud Computing

By: Install An Open-Source Cloud Operating System On Your Server | MakeUseOf.com

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 17:02:25 +0000

[...] was mentioned in Jeffry’s article, Five Webtop Alternatives For Cloud Computing. That too is well worth a [...]

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Build & Show Presentations Online With 280 Slides | MakeUseOf.com — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 23:01:48 +0000

[...] MakeUseOf writers have reviewed similar web applications. Check out articles by Tina and Jeffry. You can read Varun’s review of SlideRocket here. More about: 280 slides, beta, cloud [...]

By: Cloudo: Your Entire Operating System In The Cloud | MakeUseOf.com

Cloudo: Your Entire Operating System In The Cloud | MakeUseOf.com — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 00:29:17 +0000

[...] more examples of cloud computing, check out these articles by Tina, Jeffry and Karl. More about: cloud, cloud computing, operating system, review, web 2.0 View all tags [...]

By: Ron

Ron — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 04:49:03 +0000

I personally recommend trying out Deskie, the web desktop, if you like the idea of webtops. The idea behind Deskie is that it acts only as the desktop, while the webpages/applications remain independent, as they were designed to be. You can share your web desktop with others on Deskie too, kind of like the social bookmaking sites.

By: Maisa

Maisa — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 12:35:01 +0000

Nice list and great topic!
Lately much is being talked about Cloud Computing and it’s always good to share tips on how the users can benefit from it, having control of content and security!

I personally recommend icloud, which unfortunately was not listed in here!
had anyone tried yet?

Here’s a link if you’d like to try it:
http://icloud.com/maisa/

By: Cloudy Thinking » Blog Archive » Jeffry Thurana on webtops for the cloud

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 16:37:33 +0000

[...] Thurana writes about webtop alternatives for cloud computing. This is an area I need to study. If you are using one of these, or know of another pls email me [...]

By: Solmn

Solmn — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 04:41:36 +0000

Hi Tross, appreciate the encouragement! I’m expecting my own CherryPal C114 end of November, so then I’ll be blogging about the user experience because I don’t yet know what the cloud experience will be either.

By: tross

tross — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 16:40:04 +0000

Hey Solmn,
Glad you mentioned CherryPal – I forgot to mention them in my comments. I’ve been watching you guys since your announce and saw there were delays getting to market and that you added more SSD. When I first saw CherryPal’s reference to “cloud computer”, I almost assumed you’d have a built-in webtop. From my reading it seems the CherryPalCloud is not as integrated into the user experience than I’d hoped. I’d love to see where you guys take this – lots of luck!

Tross

By: Solmn

Solmn — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 16:06:51 +0000

Thanks for this informative article! I wanted to add another entry to the netbooks you identify besides the OLPC – the CherryPal C114, a cloud computer. The CherryPal™ C114 desktop is about the size of a paperback book, but has the performance you would expect from a full-size desktop computer. Freescale’s fast triple-core mobileGT processor delivers exceptional multimedia performance and feature-rich user interfaces, while only consuming as much power as a clock radio. CherryPal uses 80 percent fewer components than a traditional PC, and because it has no moving parts, it operates without making a sound and will last 10 years or more. “The first CherryPals will get shipped on US election day, November 4th, guaranteed. We were able to upgrade the C100 to the C114 for the same low price. We increased the local Solid State Disk Drive from 4GB to 8GB and slightly changed the casing, lighter and slimmer, very cool. I am sure you will like it.” Please visit CherryPal 4Every1 (CPFE) http://cherrypal.blogspot.com the number one CherryPal fan site with info on CP discounts, gigs, sitings, buyings and cloud computing and green computing raves…Use CODE CPP206 for $10 off a CherryPal C114 desktop at http://cherrypal.com/SHOP.html

By: Kris @ Fresh Focus

Kris @ Fresh Focus — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 10:55:17 +0000

They do look really cool, but I guess I’m like you in the fact that I don’t see a real use to them yet. Sure, it’s nice to have a desktop but I don’t see a real benefit as of yet.

By: Kris @ Fresh Focus

Kris @ Fresh Focus — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 10:54:07 +0000

Thanks – I am behind a proxy so just about nothing will allow me to get past it, unless I bribe the corp IT gods, unfortunately…….

By: Paul Stamatiou

Paul Stamatiou — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 02:18:15 +0000

Take a look at http://jooce.com/

I heard one of their founders speak at a conference.. pretty neat stuff albeit geared much more towards an internet cafe oriented culture.

By: Jeffry Thurana

Jeffry Thurana — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 23:39:34 +0000

@tross

I also think that the real value of webtops is the concept of the integration of everything in one place and the ability to access all from any gadget anywhere.

What we have today is no there yet but on the way. The challenge are getting good and fast internet connection and a machine with enough power to run flash/java/ajax flawlessly.

From my experience, the webtops are useless if you use slow connection and/or old computer.

By: Jeffry Thurana

Jeffry Thurana — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 22:48:35 +0000

As I’ve mentioned in my answer to Kris, I think not. You’d have to use US-based anonymous proxy so that any service you access would think that you access them from US.

Does anybody else know another ‘bypassing’ method?

By: Jeffry Thurana

Jeffry Thurana — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 22:39:37 +0000

Well, AFAIK, since you would use whatever connection you've already used to acces the webtop, no. You can not bypass blocked websites. This one is your admin's privilege and not the function nor the purpose of webtops. However, it is possible to 'redirect' your connection to be able to access admin-blacklisted sites using anonymous proxy services. That would be another long story but for now maybe you could try Toonel.

By: tross

tross — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 17:43:01 +0000

Kris,
Unfortunately, since most of these webtops are actually running either ajax or flash on _your_ computer, when you open a browser window even from within the webtop, it’s actually launching and running from within _your_ browser on _your_ computer on _your_ network.

eyeOS is a bit different than most since server side processing is a key part of the design – which is public info since it’s open source. However, even eyeOS implemented the browser feature as ajax using your local browser.

I dig the article and have been a fan of webtops for a while. However, I don’t think anyone has really figured out the real utility of them. IMHO, they’re really about reusing an old tired metaphor from the traditional desktop software days. It’s certainly an improvement over the traditional since it is now up in the cloud so you can (potentially) have consistent access and user experience from a range of different devices – e.g. office computer, home computer, laptop, netbook, MID, iPhone, Android phone etc.

However, aside from central storage in the cloud, what do these really offer? How different is Apple’s MobileMe or Microsoft’s “LiveMesh”? The desktop metaphor was never all that good at helping users organize their data anyway – so why should we stick with it here? How often do you lose things on your hard drive? Or realize something is on another PC’s hard disk? Google desktop shows how ineffective the metaphor is for much of what we do anyway. IMHO, smart search is a critical piece of what we _really_ need as our desktop. What’s chrome got to say about that?

I do like the concept of combining openID, single sign-on, and central storage – good stuff G.ho.st! All we’re missing is kick-ass search integrated with your personal storage. Well, and of course a means for your various web applications to access your personal storage – e.g. zoho or google docs. Great I can authenticate and navigate between these services, but what integrates the data? Not sure if this is already working with G.ho.st, but I assume they’ll get there.

Now, how about a standard interchange for the web-equivalent for OLE (Object Linking and Embedding from MSFT) or OpenDoc (aka Broken Doc ? Can I embed a spreadsheet, charts, drawings and photos into my documents? Again I assume if Google, Zoho, et al are headed that way. Of course, to cut across vendors, like a google spreadsheet and a zoho document would require standards.

By: Jeffry Thurana

Jeffry Thurana — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 16:54:12 +0000

Why, thank you very much.

By: Huluman

Huluman — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 13:02:53 +0000

that’s a good question, is it possible to use this online OS to access hulu outside of the US?
Anyone?

By: Kris @ Fresh Focus

Kris @ Fresh Focus — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 11:29:54 +0000

Is it possible to use any of these as a way to bypass blocked websites at a place of employment? I tried ajaxWindows and it didn’t work through them.

By: Dave Drager

Dave Drager — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 10:39:34 +0000

As much as I like the idea of a web/cloud/internet OS, I’ve never actually found them usable. They all rely on the web browser and are still web pages – they can’t interact with hardware like a real OS. The OS interface, with its desktop, ’start’ menu, windows and such is only useful (for me) as a starting point, most of my other applications reside in browser windows.

Therefore having an extra OS, where you can directly visit the webpage of an app that does the same thing, is just an extra layer of complexity.

By: omtv

omtv — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 03:48:03 +0000

These web apps look so great!
But are they really useful?

By: Zvi Schriber, CEO, G.ho.st

Zvi Schriber, CEO, G.ho.st — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 02:20:57 +0000

Thanks for reviewing G.ho.st, pronounced “ghost” – an acronym of Global Hosted Operating SysTem at http://G.ho.st.

In addition to the features you kindly mentioned I would like to mention that G.ho.st has an extensive list of third party apps integrated in your Virtual Computer including
- Zoho office suite
- Google Docs office suite
- Yahoo! Zimbra email/collaboration suite
- ILoveIM instant messenger (works with GTalk, Yahoo!, AOL, MSN)
-…

G.ho.st provides single sign-on to third party web services and tagging for resources across many services like YouTube, Amazon, Flickr, GoogleDocs,…

G.ho.st also provides bulk uploading of files and 2-way synching of files between your PC and the G.ho.st Drive file storage.

G.ho.st also works in your mobile phone browser at http://G.ho.st/m

We’re improving it the whole time so would love to have feedback at http://forums.g.ho.st. Good luck to the other players as well – we all have the same aim which is to free people from being tied to one device and from the burdens of administration (no more worrying about backup, anti-virus, updating software, etc.).

Zvi

By: imdragon

imdragon — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 00:48:39 +0000

Went ahead and signed on for g.ho.st and put in Thurana for the referral.

By: imdragon

imdragon — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 00:45:27 +0000

I went ahead and signed up for g.ho.st and put in Thurana for the referral.