[dot] Free Remote KDE Desktops from CosmoPOD.com

[Dot Stories]

URL: http://dot.kde.org/1130593003/

From: Jonathan Riddell <>
Dept: something-for-nothing
Date: Saturday 29/Oct/2005, @08:36

Free Remote KDE Desktops from CosmoPOD.com
==========================================

   CosmoPOD.com [http://www.cosmopod.com] offers free remote KDE
desktops over NX [http://freenx.berlios.de/].  Anyone can sign up to
have their own desktop accessible from any computer with a network
connection.  CosmoPOP uses KDE's Kiosk
[http://extragear.kde.org/apps/kiosktool/] framework to ensure security
for their system.  To find out more about the service any why KDE was
the chosen desktop, KDE Dot News spoke to the man behind CosmoPOD,
Stephen Ensor.  Read on for the interview.
    The KDE desktop on CosmoPOD
     What services does cosmopod.com offer?

     CosmoPOD.com is a personal online desktop that offers 1GB of online
storage, one may run CosmoPOD.com on any computer that is connected to
the internet and may do all the common tasks a modern desktop has to
offer. My long term vision for CosmoPOD is: one day you will walk
through an airport or tube station and touch a public screen it will log
you in instantly via your fingerprints and in a wink you will be on your
full screen easy to use desktop, a little later your cell phone will
bling and you can call up a mobile version of your same desktop and
check your email IM etc. Users won't have a constant stream of popups
telling them to update their systems and applications and security will
be all there and up to date, if a next big thing app hits the market it
will already be there for the users.

     How did you get the idea for this?

     I was playing with many different Linux distros for a while and was
contracting at the time in London, I was e-mailing many documents
between work and home and I found myself duplicating a lot of work
because of the different versions. I thought a central remote desktop
that I could access from anywhere would be the answer. I also recalled
arriving in London and e-mailing files back and forth and trying to edit
them on the internet café's computers was a nightmare. So I really
wanted it for myself and thought it would be really cool if anyone in
the world could have one free too. I also thought with security becoming
such a big issue and most normal users just don't know how to keep their
systems secure, people would want a secure place to store and do their
office related work.

     How many people are currently using cosmopod on a frequent basis?

     Per day I get around 150 people coming on and off their desktops,
around 30 new registrations, about 300 visitors to my website and serve
up about 200,000 Google ads. All this has been gaining good speed and I
expect this to pick up quite a lot when I start a marketing drive.

     Why did you choose KDE?

     Funny you ask I was actually looking to use Gnome first but after
much reading and testing I found KDE to be snappier and have a smaller
memory footprint, the supporting applications were mature and well
integrated and Konqueror was great! But the tipping point came when I
started to look into lockdown features, KDE became the clear winner with
the Kiosk Admin Tool. There are a few things I would still like a fast
KDE start up and KOffice is not as feature full yet as OpenOffice (which
runs too slowly and takes up too much memory to be used) so that is the
trade off there.

     What applications does CosmoPOD's KDE offer?

     CosmoPOD offers all the applications a modern desktop required, a
MS compatible office suite, e-mail, browser, IM, html editors, games
etc. I generally install any applications I get e-mailed by users if
they are not the same as ones already installed. I don't want 5 IM
clients for example.

     What changes does cosmopod's set up have over a typical home user
KDE setup?

     The only difference is the lock down so that users cannot install
their own applications and move the menus around, they also cannot
access floppy and CD drives as this is now a networked desktop.

     How easy was it to lock down the KDE install?

     This was very easy once I discovered the Kiosk Admin Tool,
installed it and it makes it pretty clear what is going on in a nice
GUI, there are still a few problems with configuring the menus on
different distros but otherwise it makes things very easy especially the
way it handles users and groups.

     Have you had any feedback on experiences of non-KDE users on this
KDE desktop?

     Yes and no.  People are always very happy with the service and it's
been great having such keen feedback, I don't get much discussion from
the users regarding what technology is being used.  They are generally
non-techie and just use it and the applications on it. I think locking
stuff up helps so the users don't remove their taskbars, menus and
buttons, KDE is great in that the K applications are quick and well
integrated into the desktop. I try and keep application choice down to a
minimum so as not to confuse users and have a few ideas to simplify
things further in the future.

     How do you pay for the service?

     I keep a bit of real estate on the right hand side of the screen
where I serve up Google ads soon to be based on what the user is reading
similar to Gmail. Before I started with setting up the service i did
many spreadsheets and forecasts to see if the model held and it does
quite well, I don't yet have the contextual thing going yet but it is in
the pipe line. We are also exploring putting branding images inside
windows and menus.

     What sort of hardware does this run on?

     Very standard and cheap x86, we are looking into renting processing
power as there are certain times when we spike but that is a while away.