Webian OS: the future?

As you know, I like variety and also like trying out new operating systems, such as Jolicloud OS and Peppermint OS, both of which have been compared and reviewed on this blog before. My opinion was, and still is, that Jolicloud is perhaps the best bet for a netbook and Peppermint for an under-powered laptop. Well, now there's a proof-of-intent prototype, Webian OS, which is available as a live CD.

The live CD lets Webian piggy-back on top of your existing OS without modifying it, and also gives you the opportunity of doing a normal boot if you wish. What you get is a browser instead of a desktop-- i.e., your 'desktop' is now a full browser window: there are no icons, no menus, or anything else to click on.

Is it any good? Well, it's refreshingly different and it does force you to start thinking in a 'cloud' way. For me, that's a blessing since I'm not distracted by 'desktop' tasks while I'm doing 'cloud' stuff. It's also very fast (even running from a disc)-- it makes Joilcloud, for instance, seem like it's stuck in a jar of treacle or molasses.

But this is just an incomplete prototype at the moment, so it does lack necessary things. Just what is necessary is part of the reason for the shell being released right now-- the only add-on built into Webian at the moment is the ability to send feedback and suggestions to its creators. What is necessary for me is the ability to save bookmarks, the ability to save a page on the web (i.e., dropbox or Ubuntu One or 4shared etc), the ability to print a page or a document, and a proper exit from the shell rather than having to reboot to access the desktop (a logout perhaps).

Webian OS, I think, shows enough promise to excite.

Firefox 4 ppa

Firefox 4 ppa



I've been using the Firefox 4 beta for a while now and like it a lot--it's fast and a great improvement on Fox 3xxx although I won't say it's better than Chromium. It's now out of beta, so if you want to add the ppa to your system, fire up a terminal and type in the following:
   sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/firefox-stable
   sudo apt-get update
   sudo apt-get install firefox ubufox

and you'll be in business.
  
  

new Flock Beta released

The long-anticipated release of Firefox appeared recently (v3) and now the Flock version is out in Beta (v2).  It might still be a bit buggy (natch, that's why it's still a beta), but then again it might not; try it out and see how it works for you on your setup. The Firefox build is fast, so the new Flock should be a lot faster too. (I'm running Flock 2 Beta on an Apple Mac G5 laptop, OSX Tiger, and it's OK for me.)

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Flock is the new Dog

Back in the mid-1990s, Apple and IBM joined hands for an exciting new concept called OpenDoc. The idea was to focus on a task rather than on the applications etc needed to complete the task. It was a heady, radical, holistic kind of idea that brought integration centre-stage to the world of computing. Microsoft killed off OpenDoc by leaning heavily on both IBM and Apple, but not before Apple had shown what the concept could do by building an all-in-one Internet Suite called CyberDog. CyberDog was light-years ahead of anything else around at that time and in many ways we still haven't equalled it but Flock is coming close and is quickly reminding me of those exciting days. The way that Flock is personal and the ways in which so many things are integrated under the same hood was exactly the CyberDog way of doing things.  And that explains partly why I love Flock so much and how this one product has got me genuinely excited about the Web again.

Blogged with the Flock Browser