desktop

["Adalbert Goertz" <goertza@fatalerr.com>]

Is this of interest to WebworksGS and //GS owners? 
 
 
============= 
 DESKTOP.COM 
============= 
 
Desktop.com is a free service that provides a Web-based graphical 
desktop.  Imagine your existing desktop inside a browser window, and 
that's what Desktop.com is like.  You can design your own web-based 
desktop with launchers for all your favorite websites, manage or 
share your personal files, even play games. 
 
Desktop.com was designed to be similar to a desktop you would see on 
a Windows or Mac today.  You can create icons that link you directly 
to your favorite websites or Desktop.com applications.  There's also 
a menu bar at the top of the screen giving you access any feature on 
your desktop, and a utility bar at the bottom that lets you search 
the web, visit another website, or get stock quotes.  You can point, 
click, drag, and drop just like you'd expect. 
 
Desktop.com comes with a basic FileManager, a text editor called 
Deskpad, a ToDo list manager, a calculator, some games and a few 
other applications.  You can upload files from your hard drive into 
Desktop folders, and optionally share them with other users. 
 
The most notably lacking features are the "office suite" type of 
applications, such as a full-featured word processor, spreadsheet, 
etc.  But Desktop.com is still under construction, and they have 
published a programming interface that allows anyone to develop 
applications for the Desktop.com environment.  Try it out here: 
 
   <A href="http://www.desktop.com";> 
   http://www.desktop.com </A> 
 
Is This The Future? 
------------------- 
 
Although Desktop.com is still in a beta-test mode, I was impressed by 
this look at what many consider to be the user interface paradigm of 
the future.  Files and applications move from your hard drive to the 
network, and your PC is replaced by an Internet appliance that's 
little more than a monitor and a modem. 
 
The question of what operating system you use becomes moot.  And you 
don't need to worry about the size of your hard drive, because you 
don't have one.  To some that's a scary thought.  If you're thinking 
"Just try to pry this 12 gigabyte drive from my cold dead fingers", 
you're not alone.  There are plenty of privacy and security issues 
that need to be hashed out before network computing becomes viable. 
 
Not to mention speed.  In order to make it feasible to manipulate 
large files and run complex software over the Internet, the masses 
will need something much faster than a 56K modem.  Cable modems or 
ADSL might be the answer, but neither is widely available today. 
 
Nobody's going to ask you to surrender your hard drive just yet, but 
I think that computing (and computers) as we know them will be 
radically different 3-5 years down the road. 
 
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