How much of one's work day can be handled by browser based software. Can we get it to 100% ?

[Arthur Pemberton]

On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 4:11 PM, Oren Beck <orenbeck at gmail.com> wrote:
> I wonder if the  path of moving everything to a server except for a
> local terminal browser is practical? As in having all the applications
> be web browser accessible which makes geographical location
> functionally irrelevant. All that matters is a net link from the Linux
> based browser to the server/s. Most of the hassles of local user
> support go away. Yes- we could argue about Dumb Terminals reincarnated
> or perhaps just examine the server concepts. The reason for my
> mentioning this comes from an observation on hardware already out in
> the wild. We have a deluge of computers being replaced largely because
> of gaming and bloatware. Arguing about the elements of a distro suited
> to lightly load hardware have been beaten beyond dead. The concept of
> what older hardware could serve as servers- pun potential eh? is the
> new question.  I see it as we take that 2ghz 2gig ram "last year's
> model" and stuff several 500 gb drives in it  for a family or small
> office server. Then the users take whatever suits their fancy for a
> terminal-from the 7K alienware gaming laptop down to a $5 from surplus
> exchange T30 thinterm. Thus whatever disaster befalls their "local
> hardware" the data is safely replicated on their server's drives and
> perhaps mirrored elsewhere. For a reason. It's how we can make the
> typical users have a bit more assurance that their sweated over data
> is safer than other ways we've been doing this. As  reassuring users
> that their "world" is safer being distributed so to speak gets easier
> if it's true...  The Long term path I see is colo's having a farm of
> replicant application web servers to mirror local servers.. With
> enough hot replication that the user's sessions etc are "safer" for
> it.


I hate this move to web based everything. It's a supposedly cheap way
to build software, where in fact way too much time is wasted on UIs.
There are way to many ways to build cross-platform client-server
software to have everything be web based.



-- 
Fedora 9 : sulphur is good for the skin
( www.pembo13.com )