Deviant Abstraction

Find out which Transformer you are at LiquidGeneration!

Jealous? Take the test and enjoy the commercial for the US army (between they speak of army values… Where was the last time I heard the word value in France…).

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So if you want to meet me, just send me an email.

I have recently relocated from a big city to a small town in the countryside. This lifestyle change pointed out several limits of the web application paradigm since I have now only a very limited Internet connectivity.

At first I tried to use web applications extensively for my private life: agenda, text processor, todo and so on…. But it turns out this is a far from ideal situation.

For instance:

• No confidentiality. I don’t want to expose all my data to outsiders especially on a wifi network. I send and receive sensitive data like my credit card number.
• Only online access. OK this one is obvious but my Internet access is limited and irregular. This is is the first time in more than ten years. It is destabilizing. How do I access my calendar even when there is no Internet around? Web application do not provide this.
• Silo effect. I usually process subset of my data with custom made scripts. Those scripts are not web aware. There are as far as I know no find or grep for the Web. Not even a universal and easy way to parse any HTML page from any computer language.
• Lack of customization. I have tailored my desktop to my needs and this is a huge value add for me. For instance, Evolution, Skype and Gaim are automatically launched at startup times, my SVN repositories are updated… Web application does not offer any way to configure them this easily. What I need is kind of NetVibes on steroids
• Integration with current application. Desktop applications are heavily integrated. For instance, I can load with my desktop computer my Ipod. I can not from web applications.
• Interactivity. I need speed and efficiency. This is the basis of interactive applications. Web applications (even Gmail) are slow and clumsy for obvious latency reasons. This is OK for email not for code editing.

One silly example that happened yesterday. I need to fill online my tax declaration. For this French’s government is generating a certificate. But no web applications allow me to store this certificate for me (and for good reasons).

You might object that I could have built a web application to take care of those needs, this Netvibes on steroid. Actually I started but I found in between a much more elegant solution: the use of a remote desktop system. One issue remains though. Its cost: a dedicated server is expensive.

(USB systems have also their own limit mainly “no background mode”.)

A virtual machine paid by the hour such as EC2 is perfect and nearly free (it could even be financed by advertisement if a company wanted to operate such a service). It is my Personal Virtual Machine (PVM). Some companies have started offering them for free (ie Desktop On Demand) but their offer is unreliable, slow and you cannot run all the applications you want/need.

In the end I installed KDE and NXE on my dedicated server (NXE is a great WAN remote desktop tool. Truly impressive). It solved all my problems really fast although it is costly (more than 30 euros per month). Marketing hype is on web applications but now we should start to explore alternatives especially if they empower users and are a cheaper alternatives (I can demonstrate it if needed). I can access it from my corporate PC, my cellphone or a cybercafe.

As a final note I am not saying that WebApp are bad. Just that they are not the universal panacea. Especially for lonely, interactive and heavily used applications. I will discuss this in more depth later. The PVM vision is not either the perfect solution but for heavy computer users such as myself it offers real advantages: no need for backup ever,r power consumption alway the lowest possible, you access your machine at your will without leaving it on.

The next steps is to be able to tie a virtual machine to a physical computer and then sends it back in the cloud. VMware system allows such trick. I will discuss this later in more depth too and I will tell you how it was to use this prototype for a month.

What do you think of this idea? Would you like me to explore those ideas more in depth?

“Alors que les manifs anti-Sarko étaient ultra minimisées, on nous a abreuvés d’images de propagande sur la fête de la Concorde, s’indigne-t-elle. Avec Mireille Mathieu, Enrico Macias, Faudel, Clavier, Hallyday, Arthur et Bigard, on a eu droit à la totale, mais le sommet a été atteint avec le coup du Fouquet’s et la croisière sur un yacht prêté par un milliardaire. Et vous nous demandez pourquoi on est dans la rue ?”

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Also

I still use a lot my new camera, but I put its photos on a dedicated Gallery I just set up. I evaluated using Flickr but I discarded it for a variety of reasons.

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As I think you all know, I am now settled in Kufstein, Austria. This town is in the mountains and you can hike a lot on the week-end. Here are some of the pictures I took last week during a few hours walk. I think they are self explanatory. Of course the picture of me has not been taken by me.

I have spent the weekend in Münich. This was cool. Munich nightlife is interesting for the least.

This is a picture from Kufstein, trainstation.

I am now working at SmApper in Kufstein, Austria. It is my third days and I simply love my new job: great team, great product, a new language and a new town.

The picture below is the view from the hotel I am currently staying in. It is currently quite snowy and beautiful.

I don’t currently have Internet except at work.

Today is my last day at Buongiorno. It is sad since it is also one of my last days in France.

I worked as a Project Manager there for three years. Overall those were good years where I could study and work. The team was great: they let me work part time to study while financing my college. I have learnt a lot there and I wish them all the best.

Now a whole new life is starting. Cool.