Yesterday evening we presented the latest version of the itsme prototype to CSCW2010 participants. We think we captured their attention and got very interesting feedback, but I won't write about that. I think it's more interesting to write a brief report about what was new in our prototype, compared to the last we showed online and during other demos.
We have a brand new way to deal with email: beside the preview-based approach, allowing to send new messages very quickly, we have now integrated Mozilla Thunderbird, so that users can use it to access all system mail (the standard way to...
FSter is the first component we (itsme) are releasing to the development community, as an essential part of Guglielmo that might be reused by other projects and applications with similar needs: you can get it from here.
[caption id="attachment_3356" align="alignright" width="137" caption="FSter sample architecture"][/caption]
FSter is a virtual file system implementation based on Fuse technology and exploiting Tracker metadata technology to allow access to files according to the metadata they're associated to. Practically, FSter enables scenarios such as the following ones:
browsing the content of a drive (or simply of a folder) according to a user-defined hierarchy or progression of filters based on...
Again on Nepomuk (and therefore KDE), here's a (not so) brief overview of its features. Even if, as stated before, we are using another tool for our metadata management, it's worth keeping a discussion open on the topic. Just in case someone thinks we're not keeping an eye on what's happening around us ;)
[via Chimera &...
It's been a while since we defined the first prototype architecture for itsme OS, at the beginning of this year. Of course, implementing it whe found some ways to improve it, by using flexible solutions, better tools than the ones we first adopted, and by consolidating the elements providing us with ground for innovation. The following diagram shows what we have now in our latest prototype (which is actually quite different from the one we showed you in our latest video – as you can see from the post header... and maybe we'll do a new video soon).
[caption id="attachment_3333" align="aligncenter"...
It's been some months since we showed (on this site) our prototype. Of course, our code has evolved – both in its visible part and in what's running underneath (Guglielmo). In this video, you'll see the itsme graphical user interface as it is now (well, some days ago: October 2009) and a quick demo of the functions we have:
interaction with panels and venues: re-arranging them, filtering contents with channels and subvenues, drag and drop, and so forth. We omitted showing how to create a new venue and renaming it, but it is possible, of course :)
working with Linux applications:...
Just a quick note to tel you know that Michele and I will attend Maemo Summit this weekend, in Amsterdam. We are particularly interested in this event because of our recent involvement with the Tracker project – a specific post will follow. Unfortunately, we will not be having a talk or some dedicated space, but we will be around and always willing to talk with anyone who might be interested in our project. We'll wear itsme pins, so it shouldn't be hard to spot us in the crowd...
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_tq8OMIY7I]
A couple of days ago we had an internal demo of our software prototype: apart from minor problems with screen resolution on my virtual machine, it's been quite good. We showed how we are integrating the itsme front-end with Guglielmo, our meta/data management system. We presented two scenarios:
writing and saving a new document with gedit, from within the itsme UI;
composing and sending email, and getting replies into the right venue.
This means we have Guglielmo running and the itsme front-end exploiting its services, we are successfully integrating some simple Linux applications (text editing) and communicating via email. Moreover, we have the...
There's some truth in the Czechoslovakian proverb I used for the title of this post, as we've been recently discussing in designing how to deal with security issues in itsme OS. We realized there's a huge amount of possibilities and of different factors influencing strategies that can be adopted, and (in our case) they're multiplied by the fact that we're designing a complex system, with a lot of potentially vulnerable points. I won't go into technical details, but just present the main points our discussion started from. It seems that all existing operating systems are not entirely secure, and they're...
In the last days we exchanged some internal email about Google Chrome OS: we found some similarities with the basic ideas of itsme, and some radical differences. I'll try to summarize the discussion for your benefit, so you can tell us what you think about it.
A few highlights (from google chrome OS presentation) to start with:
the operating systems that browsers run on were designed in an era where there was no Web;
the software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel;
it is being designed to power computers ranging from small netbooks to...
Those following the news about linux developments on the desktop platform may wonder if the "semantic desktop" concept (i.e., the idea of sharing information among applications and the Web to enforce synergy and produce in-edit results) is going to become a reality in relatively short time or not: the discussion is lively, often with enthusiastic tone, and many people claim that the evolution is proceeding fast. However, the latest discussions on some of the developers' mailing lists, where the direction of the effective future of free-software has been taken in practise, shows us that we(developers) are just at the beginning...
