My Perfect Desktop (part 1 - documents)

Over the last few month I though a lot about the future of desktop operating systems and how a perfect desktop operating should look like in my opinion.

After discussing this stuff with friends I decided to blog about the ideas. Please post your comments and ideas.

This is strictly from a user point of view. So this is not about technologies but about user experience.

Lots of this stuff is already possible in recent linux distributions. But it is not enabled by default, requires a lot of technical understanding or even custom scripting. I think all this functionality should be available and enabled by default so that an average user can use this without much learning. No difficult system administration should be needed.


Part 1 - Documents


Document and file handling is more or less the same as 25 years ago.

I store my personal documents and files on my pc in a document folder. Organized in subfolders.

What I expect from a 2008 desktop operating system is:

• document folder in my home directory. Not readable for other users.
  

• fulltext search on all documents
  

• tagging, rating, commenting of the documents
  

• different semantic views on the file. For example show all files of project X
  

• export. It should be possible to export and archive specific tagged files to a dvd with on click. for example all holiday pictures.
  

• encrypted. the document folder should be encrypted by default
  

• very sensible files should additionally encrypt-able. This should work easy without complicated key management.
  

• compression. rarely used files should be compressed automatically to safe storage. decompress should work transparently. The user don´t have to care. 
  

• accessible from remote. If I have only my mobile phone with me I still want to access all my documents. Access should also be possible from an internet cafe from the other side of the world. Strong encryption and authentication, of course.

•  backup. automatic backups to a different harddisk, fileserver or webservice. No setup or configuration of backup software should be needed. Old backups are automatically deleted if the harddisc gets full.
  

• versioned - all files are revision controlled. I can always go back to an older version of a document. Old revisions are automatically deleted if the harddisc gets full. So no system administration is needed. Accessible view a user friendly GUI and the filedialog. So now svn commands please.
  

• sync with other computers - I want to sync all files or a part of the files to a second pc or a notebook. The files a synchronized automatically later if the pc are in the same network again.
  

• share with other people - I can mark files or folders and share them with specific friends. This should be easy. Without knowledge of network infrastructure.
  

• extensible - if the harddisk is full you can buy an additional one and have a more space without much configuration.
  

Enough daydreaming for now. :-)

What do you think?

free job board, redesign and open collaboration services.

At the end of October we launched a free job board on the openDesktop.org websites.

I know quite a few people who found a nice full time or freelance job by showing their work on our websites. I also know a few free software projects and companies who are looking for new projects members or employees.

So I had the idea to build a job board where companies, projects, developers and artist can get in contact. Specialized for open source and IT jobs.

Unlike other job boards the openDesktop.org job board is completely free - both to those listing jobs and those looking for jobs. We will finance the hosting with advertising and sponsorships.

The job board is visible on all websites in the network, meaning a job listed on one, is automatically and immediately displayed on all the other sites in the network.   

The main feature of the job board is its simplicity - jobs are listed with a few clicks and jobseekers search the available jobs per country and category. All registered users can publish their CV with two click. 

So if you are looking for a nice Linux Job, an Internship, a new logo for your application, or a freelance job as an icon designer post your data. It´s free.

I hope, this feature is usefull for you.

www.opendesktop.org/jobs

What do you think?

Redesign:

Last week I also launched a new design of the websites.

I thought a lot about a way to redesign the websites to make it easier to understand and use. The plan is to make the website layout as light as possible so that the actual content is in the focus and more visible.

Another goal was to introduce a real navigation where you can see what kind of functionality the websites provides and you see where you are, at the moment. 

The current design is not finished yet. This is in beta stage, at the moment. I would like to hear feedback from you.

I also have news regarding the Social Desktop and the Open Collaboration Services:

Version 1 of the specification is final now. Draft 3 was online for several weeks now and is now declared final.    

http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/open-collaboration-services

We also have SSL support now. You can access the api encrypted via https://api.opendesktop.org/v1

At the moment I am working on OpenID support. So you can access the website and the api with your OpenID account in the future.

Cheers

Frank