My Uninstalled Life Can You Have Everything Online?

Browser Appliance - you never have to re-install your PC

July 8, 2007 at 10:09 pm

I’ve talked about having some kind of “browser appliance” to replace your desktop computer. So far - not that many hardware appliances seems to fit my needs. But here’s an interesting alternative. I run VMware (either Player or Server which are free or Workstation) and I have several virtual machines running, either Windows or some distribution of Linux.

To get you started on VMware and such appliances, here’s a quick guide to get you startedin just a few minutes.

The quickest way is to get the Browser Appliance which is the Ubuntu distribution running Firefox. Just download the appliance, open it up in VMware and start it. When it boots up you get a Firefox icon and off you go.

So now you got yourself a “surf station”. No need to re-install. If you make a mistake and crash the virtual machine, simply download the VMware image again and replace the one you have. Now wouldn’t it be good to have this functionality in a hardware appliance?

Another good thing is that you don’t have to worry that much about malware, spyware or viruses. First off - it’s Linux. And secondly, even though the virtual computer gets infected, it won’t spread to your host system!

University Update - Firefox - Browser Appliance - you never have to re-install your PC

Sunday, July 8th, 2007 at 10:55 pm

[...] Link to Article firefox Browser Appliance - you never have to re-install your PC » Posted at [...]

University Update - Linux - Browser Appliance - you never have to re-install your PC

Monday, July 9th, 2007 at 12:56 am

[...] Link to Article linux Browser Appliance - you never have to re-install your PC » Posted at My [...]

Dennis

Friday, August 15th, 2008 at 3:41 am

Have you seen the “pocketsurfer”. I think it is only available in the UK right now.

http://www.datawind.com/html/Pocketsurfer2.htm

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Sunday, August 31st, 2008 at 7:09 am

Web Hosting Free Forum Hosting Dedicated Server Web Hosting…

I didn’t agree with you first, but last paragraph makes sense for me…

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Online PDF Converter convert MS Office, Images, Web Pages, Vector Graphic Formats, CHM and HLP files to PDF. They also have tools for PDF -> Word/Excel.

Ok, I confess, not totally uninstalled but Sharpcast is still a pretty cool tool on the web. Most of us have hundreds of pictures stored on the local harddrive. What if it breaks. You have backups? Do you backup it up every day? Well, most of us don’t.

Sharpcast is a service that lets you have your pictures online. It makes sure to synchronize all your local pictures with the online store and whenever you make any changes, the changed photo will be uploaded automatically in the background.

You can create albums for you and your friends to look at and you can even send the pictures from your windows mobile to their site.

Anyway, if you’re into photos and have problems organizing them and want to have them backed up - check it out!

Have you ever re-installed your PC just because you had “too much stuff installed”. You simply wanted a clean desktop as it looked from day 1. Well, the whole thought of my site is to uninstall everything and keep everything online so why do I need to bother with my local desktop computer? All I actually want is an web browser and an Internet connection.

I was inspired by the following post by Max Limpag where he gives you an overview of the web desktops out there.

So maybe now I need is just some minimal thin client with a webbrowser and if I need a complete “desktop” with all my applications - no need to mix Google Apps, Windows Live Apps and so on. Check my web desktops for more articles on the subject.

Have you ever got the question from a non-technical friend if you thought he/she would manage to create a website for themselves? And you knew “no way” since the person didn’t know much about HTML nor how to upload the site using FTP once it was done in some HTML editor?

Office Live could be an alternative for them. No need for HTML or hosting plans or uploading via FTP - easy! Best of it all - it’s free, even with the domain name. Of course, the free package is limited but…

Want to see more? Check the demos out - links are available here.

While living more online and uninstalled, you have to register at more and more websites. I suggest you get two e-mail addresses, one that you use for registering at sites, mailinglists, forums and so on. This will probably end up on in a spamdatabase in the end antway. Then get annother one for personal e-mails.

One suggestion could be to use the bugmenot.com, mytrashmail.com  or spambox online services. They offer you to get a temporary e-mail address - completely free and no registration required. Just enter the e-mail address of your choice and it will show you the e-mails send to that address. Perfect for temporary e-mails and you don’t really care about the privacy - you just want that e-mail without giving out your real one or register for a new e-mail account.

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