G.ho.st.

I was talking to my brother today, and I mention this because he works with some really smart people down at CMU and is daily living and breathing not only today's new technology but tomorrows. When I mentioned my g.ho.st. idea and asked his opinion he said it would NEVER happen and for two very specific reasons: security and privacy. And I agree with him, but I will never make the money he will and I work in a library where I see people who make even less and that changes my viewpoint. In the days where library demand is up and budgets down because of an ailing economy we librarians have to think of ways to save money AND meet patron demands and I still think that my idea has value for these individuals and for libraries.
Yes, in an ideal world we would never want to put our files and history in the hands of an outside source and severs, but this is not utopia and we cannot all afford that privledge. Lets be honest, there are patrons who do not have their own computers and they are saving their files to either a remote device, like a USB disk, or to a remote server, like google documents or e-mail attachments. All of these are ok options for those that use library computers but I am sure many would PREFER my option, where they just log-in and pull up their completely customized desktop with remotly saved files.
There are also those of us in the middle class, who can afford our own computers but cannot afford laptops and do not work for huge corporations that provide them. So we jump from our home computer, to the computer at work (at least one), maybe to the library or other computers during meetings, and to a family, friends or even hotel computer when we are traveling. Wouldn't it be nice just to log-in once and pull up YOUR DESKTOP at every computer you visit and not have to deal with multiple log-ins and multiple copies and versions of files, or leaving something behind on the wrong computer just when you need it or completely losing your files because you can't find them on the right computer. I think for these people we should argue and praise programs like g.ho.st. Still, my little brother is right. Privacy and Security have become privledges in this digital world and we need to think about that and how far we are willing to bend for a little convinience.......