Another web desktop (webtop), AjaxWindows, launched and I’m left scratching my head. The site and service is allegedly from the creators of Linspire and is a lot like DesktopTwo, which mimics a desktop environment within your browser, taskbar and all. AjaxWindows even comes with a syncing client to help mirror all your desktop data to their servers. The major value proposition for these sites is to let you access your desktop anywhere, but I think they’ve gotten the user interface metaphor all wrong.
Desktops function as ways to organize and manage applications on our operating system. Browsers serve this function for web applications. If I want to check my email, I go to Gmail. If I want to check my finances, I check out my bank’s web page. Managing these applications is best done within the tabs of my browser, not a processor intensive ajax webtop. Ironically it also has a web browser.
There’s no value added by being able to overlay my web applications in ajax windows. Moreover, any platform’s utility is linked to the quality and number of applications developed on it. In the best case scenario, AjaxWindows has to mimic the best web applications on the net within their own service. In the worst case, it simply becomes an elaborate ajax wrapper for those applications.
There have been several other takes on bringing desktop functionality to the web. EyeOS takes an open source approach, YouOS is in alpha, and DesktopTwo is aiming at enterprise clients. Other variants of interfaces for accessing your online life anywhere include start pages like Netvibes, Pageflakes, and Goowy. Further blending the line between the web and your desktop are Adobe AIR, Silverlight, Dekoh, and Mozilla’s yet-to-be-released Parakey.
wow, so many companies would love to get a mention on TC, and you decide to promote this ? even though you ding it, it is indeed a promotion as at least now about of people have heard of this useless app
“Ironically it also has a web browser.”
Kind of stupid, isn’t it? Goowy also had the same stupidity. (It still is.)
Hey MajorNetworkNews – I’m totally supportive of off-the-cuff articles like this one. Its nice to see TC not taking itself seriously all the time and giving some space to the goofy weird stuff out there that makes technology so entertaining. And, the linspire connection is legitimately interesting.
On the topic of ajaxwindows – strange to be sure. A nice design challenge if nothing else.
i still don’t understand the AJAX, ansyc (when it really is not) javascript, fad.
“lets program the browser’s dom tree and call it new technology dude”.
Yeah, I like the off ball posts sometimes, just had a long day, and like nothing more than a good TC post about some great new thing, just been waiting all day for my fix today.
ok, I tried it…
no better way to peg your CPU for no useful purpose
Since the first “web operating systems” started late last year, I’ve been interested and intrigued. The major ones looked as if, with time, they could theoretically mimic the desktop operating system.
A lot of the major blogs have criticized the webtops not because of how good or bad they are, but because of the idea they’re going after.
And a lot of the major attempts are somewhat useful, considering they’ve opened their APIs for anyone to create all kinds of programs that makes the idea of having all of your information available to you anywhere seem useful.
Take eyeOS and YouOS, for example. Combined, the two have over a thousand individual programs written for them.
Then I saw ajaxWindows. This *is* purely useless, and provides mere browser-in-browser functionality with some of the company’s web office (ajax13.com) products embedded… ugh.
You can’t seriously compare this with Desktoptwo. First, this is builit in Ajax whereas the Desktoptwo GUI is built in Flash. Second, this is extremely slow and demands a great deal from the local machine (it took over 40 seconds to load) while Desktoptwo launches immediately and places no demands on the end user. And, last but not least, this is unattractive whereas Desktoptwo is extremely attractive and user-friendly. I recognize why some people would doubt these services b/c many are clunky and seem superfluous, but Desktoptwo has made me a believer b/c of its ease of use and funtionality. I use a computer at home and one in the office and I find that Desktoptwo is of great help when I travel or when I’m out of the office. It’s a great service and I’ve been using it for nearly 3 months. This service is unworthy of your time and effort and the comparison you draw between this service and Desktoptwo demonstrates a profoud myopia, not to mention ignorance, with regard to this evolving space.
I agree that mimicking the desktop OS on a website is not the optimal UI but it makes users, especially the less tech savvy ones, feel comfortable with such “OS anywhere” web apps.
DON’T WRITE ARTICLES ABOUT BAD COMPANIES.
(UNLESS THEY ARE REALLY, REALLY HILARIOUSLY BAD.)
THIS ONE IS JUST LAME.
GIVE THE SPACE TO A COMPANY WORTH WRITING ABOUT.
LOL! ditto noah
i find that comment hilariously genuine
Why not let readers vote on which companies to cover?
The cool thing about AjaxWindows is you can start the browser app and then run AjaxWindows inside of it.
Yair;
TechCrunch already does that… it operates under code name “Digg”
Anyway, these webtop startups have it all wrong. Ubiquitous data is more important than a ubiquitous interface. Having all of your content in the cloud, from which it can be pulled by multiple devices, is far more important than an eye-candy webtop.
Your desktop everywhere? Useless. How about my native data everywhere.
You can visit http://www.widgetplus.com for the same thing, only better.
The above mentioned widgetplus.com is only a widget framework by the way, and a small part of the vastly more sophisticated http://www.xindesk.com – which is going the full distance.
Using inner Windows, windows, windows is bunch of waste of time.
and how long does it take you to open Calulator program?
click open, click, click, click, and there you go.
You have cal on Windows XP too.
Whether you guys like it or not, a lot of time and effort was put into building this. Do these guys have funding?
Totally agree. Sometimes people are so stupid to carry out ideas literally. Like backpacking a desktop for ubiquitous computing, drawing a classroom on screen even with a teacher for virtual learning.
The most useful thing I found in Web Desktops is bookmark and RSS. To me, a Google search box appears in every Web Desktop stupid enough. Can they manage the search result, no one can.
“Anyway, these webtop startups have it all wrong. Ubiquitous data is more important than a ubiquitous interface. Having all of your content in the cloud, from which it can be pulled by multiple devices, is far more important than an eye-candy webtop.”
Great comment Robert, I couldn’t agree more. That is our intention with WebFS and Omnidrive
is the voice in the demo video computer generated? sounds pretty good.
“Sorry, I couldn’t hear you… Why should I use ‘AjaxWindow’ again?”
If it works just like Windows, what’s the point?
this isn’t Linspires work
this is the work of…..gasp AJAX13
you want proof the full proof and nothing but the proof
http://ajaxwind...basic_info.html
half of my life just died from watching that video.
personally I think its pretty cool and think its great company’s like this are looking to perfect a virtual desktop… I travel a lot and hate lugging around my laptop through the airport security check. Would be nice to log in to one site from any computer and have access to all my apps and files anywhere in the world.
@21, Nik:
Quit stealing my name! I used to be the most popular result for “Nik” on search..now..ah, I don’t want to talk about it!
Hate to break it you all, but your geeks.
And if geeks were always right on the money al the time we’d all be driving around Segways. We aren’t. I see these type of systems having a broader appeal, outside the geek community. We as geeks love to lug around our laptops as badges of honor, love to tinker with the inner workings of the OS ( can anyone say linux ). But the average users are often looking for something differnt. I wouldn’t be so quick to bash simply bc you wouldn’t use it ( yet ). BTW how many of you all have MySpace pages? Just a thought
Step 1: What do you do when you create a layer of proprietary ugliness on top of Debian that nobody want to buy?
Call it Lindows – at least that way you might be in a position to extort money from Microsoft in the courts.
Step 2: Okay, so why isn’t anyone buying our desktop? It’s got an inspiration new name afterall.
Do a deal with Microsoft to promote interoperability with Windows. After all it saved Novell from the bankruptcy.
Step 3: Now we’ve got a few million Microsoft dollars burning a hole in our pocket, what do I do now? Lets build another pointless desktop in Ajax!
Profit?… I hope not
Imagine popping a 10mb usb stick and it loads your desktop from the internet. You can then play dvds, listen to your music collection, or use Blender all on your desktop right there. I can see your point, but I think once super speedy internet is ubiquitous, this is definitely the way of the future.
Who was it that said it is alright to be early but not late? Gates?
eyeOS just launched 1.0. I think that is the future of web Oses: It’s Open Source, so I can install it in my company, and not just trust someone else’s servers. Everyone should try it ( demo.eyeos.org ).
I think that is not completely useless.I’ve always wanted my specific browser everywhere,with my bookmarks and the history all there.Now it isn’t useful but in the future and with little more support i think it will be interesting.
Trillian on Crack?
I agree with the comments about how this new site should not be featured on TC. Honesty is a good thing, but maybe it’s best to have the policy “if you don’t have something nice to say, then don’t say anything at all”.
If I spent many hours working on a new project, and then had TC totally insult the project, I’d be devastated. It would be better to get no attention, instead of being publicly insulted (ex: “they’ve gotten the user interface metaphor all wrong”).
Just my 2-cents.
Who test Mybooo.com ? Me i test….
Another Webos very Cute and fast !
http://tobluesk...-system-so-far/
A worse version of windows that’s also slower? Did they think before they made this product, maybe look at how competitors products sucked as well? It’s a shame all this time energy and money wasted. they seem like talented AJAX developers. They could be doing so much more.
Honestly, the amount of time you people waste on navel gazing is frankly mind-boggling.
While you sit here and debate the relative merits and philosophies behind internet applications – specifically whether they satisfy a need in your incredibly small demographic sample space (yes, hate to break it to you, but geeks are still in the minority – how many pocket protector millionaires do you see?) – there are millions of internet users out there making up their own minds about which applications are useful or not to their lives.
Get with the program. Try to look beyond your own navels. Yes, it might mean you would have to start speaking to normal people — some of them are even girls — eeek! But you’d be amazed at the wide world of disparate opinions, needs and wants out there.
yeah waste of development /
– Also I am happy I can surf the web within the web (AOL?)
-RB
Anyone remember WebOS from back in the day? It was *still* a dumb idea back then, but their implementation was much better than any of the modern ones. They had some “apps” that felt a bit like real apps (mail client, calendar, address book, etc). It was actually a pretty impressive and rather expensive and useless venture.
And for all the people bashing Ajax, I think I figured out its allure: Its not that Ajax is this grand new technology, its that its so hard to get something done well in it that when you do, everyone goes “wow, cool”
Seems if this subject is a hot potato. Go figure this concept seems to be the Britaney Spears of the computer world, some people love it some hate it. I guess time will tell where it goes. It is interesting to note though this subject has gotten the most amount of comments about it for the day.
Wow watching that video gave me a headache, ajax ajax ajax. You can open your ajax in ajax and you can pull up documents in ajax write. How about we be a bit more creative.
Nik Cubrilovic
June 14th, 2007 at 10:10 pm
“”“Anyway, these webtop startups have it all wrong. Ubiquitous data is more important than a ubiquitous interface. Having all of your content in the cloud, from which it can be pulled by multiple devices, is far more important than an eye-candy webtop.”
Great comment Robert, I couldn’t agree more. That is our intention with WebFS and Omnidrive.”"”"
Sure thing Nick, but GUI has always been evolving on both computers and the Internet, it is as natural as having sex, so there is no need to be denying it. It is happening and will continue to happen. It just happens that noone has evolved the GUI (or you reference to eye-candy webtop) beyond a critical point for you geeks to appreciate it. But me thinks this will change in the very near future. Stay tuned…
I cant agree with Nik more on this. You’ll find out later that video will be the tipping point for what will eventually be a ubiquitous web OS, because soon, everyone is going to get blipd!
If this thing actually gets any users, it’ll be sued into the ground by Microsoft. The whole interface is a clone of Windows, the control panels and window styles, and it has Windows in the name. They’ll be hit with so many patent and trademark suits they won’t be able to hire enough lawyers to handle all the cases at once.
I noticed that Xindesk creators in http://www.widg...com/desktop.htm are using a wallpaper from their competitors, Eyeos.
They are breaking the GPL , since that wallpepr is gpl (because its included in eyeos). They should publish the code of xindesk or use their own wallpapers!
Anyone remember desktop.com from 1999 ?
http://web.arch...e/platform.html
About the wallpaper over at http://www.widgetplus.com , anyone can upload and change wallpapers in the demo, it’s under ’settings’, and we removed that image the second we learned that someone had added it there.
This company needs to get their act together. If you try to demo their product the link to the plugin is a broken link. I tried to sign up and it claimed my email address was taken, which to the best of my knowledge I have never registered for any product made by this company or any affiliates thereof that I can find. Regardless, I tried getting it to remind me of my password and it gives an error about sending an email out and asks me to return later. Nothing about this thing seems to work…
Linspire’s creator is behind this. Check out Wikipedia’s article on Michael Robertson:
“Founded in early 2006 by Michael Robertson (CEO) and Hisham El-Emam (CTO), Ajax 13 Inc. is a software development company that provides web-based applications written using AJAX. It was started to pursue the software-as-a-service vision that is gaining momentum in both the enterprise and small business / home office marketplaces. Among the Ajax 13 products is ajaxWrite, a web-based word processor.”
Ajax 13 is behind ajaxWindows.
Webos Wars : Eyeos Vs Mybooo (forgot Ajax window ?)
check
http://www.read...s_vs_mybooo.php