Tao of Mac

Oct 31st 2005 · 1 min read

Plug Me In

(Typical Monday. You don't want to know more about it, honest.)

Despite all the  goodness, I sometimes miss the old X11 days and complete location independence - hence my interest in Network Computing, but mostly in the niche.

And sometimes I wonder if I could do away with it all and just live inside Gnome and (a spot of weakness, I know, but it's there), simply because I spend so much time picking up where I left off that having the same desktop everywhere would be a tremendous productivity boost.

Not to mention that the less machines I deal with, the less time I waste re-wiring my /Windows/ keyboard reflexes.

Since far too much of my work is done on Windows machines, I've been replacing  with everywhere I can (and please don't mention NX again, it's so tiresome...).

It's not at all uncommon for me to go through periodic "one desktop" stints, where I leave my laptop at the office and simply my way in when I get home, lending it my 's 20" monitor. It works fine over UMTS, and I would love to have a permanent setup on a centralized server - all I really need to do my work is a laptop that I can use for drafts, tests of all sorts and run on occasion.

But since I like to plan ahead (I like to gauge my options months, if not years in the future), I periodically re-visit the notion of doing away with desktop computers at home and just have a couple of -like appliances somewhere, accessible via a couple of cheap, zero-footprint clients.

(The  performs wonderfully and I would not give up the 20" screen for anything, but sometimes I wish for something simpler.)

So it was with curiosity that I chanced upon WfD following a Technorati trail and hit upon the JackPC - a complete  client in a wall jack.

If these things take non-US keyboards (a common - if idiotic - limitation) and I find a way to get these easily in Portugal without paying through the nose, I might well swap my by an Intel clone (to run on Intel and xrdp) and a (for my photos).