Begin thread drift:

That's one of the areas where I really start to take issue with the concept.

For starters, access isn't yet ubiquitous. Even in the upscale Carlsbad market, which is a high-tech hub, coverage is spotty. At my apartment, Sprint doesn't come through at all, and AT&T and T-Mobile are hit or miss at best.

But even when you have actual landline access, web-based computing isn't a substitute for the real thing. For instance, Harris (my former employer) bought into the hype and transitioned to browser-based operation for all of its back-office operations a few years ago. Oracle / Peoplesoft. Basically, all of the administrative folks (order admin, purchasing, etc) use IE to access pretty much all of their computing needs. And bear in mind, they're using local servers.

And it's pretty dreadful.

Now, the system that it replaced (Minx) got a lot of complaints. Minx was old-school- it ran on a big Unix machine, was accessed via Telnet and ran in 80x25. All input was by keyboard- no mousing around. And this was in the mid 2000s, mind you. Personally, I loved it. Once you learned the keyboard shortcuts, it was fast.

The new browser-based apps aren't.

Essentially, you click a button and then wait for the screen to redraw. It takes maybe 1-2 seconds before it's ready for input again. Doesn't sound like much, but multiply by, say, 100 clicks a day, by 250 workdays a year, and by 10,000 employees, and I figure Harris is pissing away about 52 man-years per year in wasted time spent waiting for screen redraws.


I've tried Google Apps from my reasonably fast internet connection at home, and I'd honestly rather be working on a '386 running WordPerfect under Windows 3.11.

Like I said, its a concept that could stand to be revisited, not that it would be the way to go just yet, but I like the idea that your data is safe and secure somewhere else and that your laptop could be stolen or your desktop could burn up, but you could just go buy a new one, log in and its the same as it ever was. It could work right now for casual users, but for guys like me who play more intense games (not the flash stuff) or experiment with different operating systems.

OTOH, disk space these days is incredibly cheap, who really has access to all of your data in the cloud? and, the big one for me is no internet=SOL.

its easy to see the benefits of either side, but it will be awhile before the cloud stuff is really ready for the masses... like you said with the click, refresh, wait stuff...

Yeah, there are advantages and disadvantages.

On the plus side, if you assume that the "cloud" is both secure and reliable, then it's nice to have access to all of your data all of the time, regardless of which computer you're sitting at or where. With my new Android phone, for instance, I found it nice that it automagically sucked down all the contact info from my gmail account without my even having to ask for it.

On the downside, we moved away from this topology for a number of very good reasons back in the 1980s, some of which are no longer valid, but others of which, IMO, remain so. I just don't think you will ever realize equivalent performance in a server-hosted environment compared to running applications locally at the point of use. And like you said, what with memory, storage and processor power being all but free these days, there just don't exist the sort of restrictions on what you are able to run on a "small computer" vs what required heavy iron. Granted, AutoCAD sucks on an Atom, but it sucks far worse through VNC.

There are some applications which legitimately require (or heavily benefit) from cloud interaction. Systems where several (or hundreds) of people need to simultaneously interact with a single chuck of data, for instance. I wouldn't be able to select my own seat on an airplane without interacting with an application hosted on a remote server, for instance.

Trouble is that the big G and others are pushing this collaborative aspect way too far. They're not being evil, just stupid. I mean, how often do I find myself using a word processor or a spreadsheet and say "gee, I wish that someone else could also be editing this document at the same time as me." Pretty much never, so far as I can recall.

You can install and run TunerStudio through the terminal (in Jolicloud: Alt-F1). If you must have Megatune, you can run it through Wine, which is an app you can find in the repository.

Which EEE PC? The 700 series, I got from Stealth running ubuntu is working great. Took a few mins to get use to it, but I give it a look at Sean.

Should be a similar instal as ubuntu, you'll need to install sun java first though. just extract it to your home folder and run the ./TunerStudo.sh as sudo or root.

I chose Ubuntu because its awesome. A touch over 2 gigs for a basic install, there is a ton of software out there, community support, and it will run on damn near anything... and if you have a machine with less than say 512mb ram there is always Xubuntu :)

the eee is far from a POS if you get the pig that is microsoft out of it.

I'm getting a cheap copy from my college, but you have to be a student and you can only get one. If I where you I'd ask somebody in college to pick you up a copy, many colleges sell software cheap in their bookstore. Or maybe Craigslist?
If you need a OS free, you can download a bootable version of Ubuntu Linux on a thumb drive and boot from there