I've been playing with a concept off and on, but have been too busy paying bills to move ahead with it. TechCrunch's 'We Want A Dead Simple Web Tablet' comes close, but isn't exactly what I want. What I want is actually something that I play with off and on, and would be based off of a lightweight Linux distribution that would be in the background - only to be seen if someone actually wants to. As Torvalds said, the operating system shouldn't matter to the user. I tend to agree.

My plan, which has been delayed for years, is to take the muscle of FireFox's big and more worthwhile brother, SeaMonkey, combine it with a solid Content Management System such as Drupal, OpenOffice.org or Google Docs (likely both) - and let it fly from there. So what do we have then? We have my old dream: Getting away from all the desktop nonsense and getting to what I want. All of this would be able to run on desktop machines, laptops and tablets - and perhaps in the future, mobile phones (using the .mob CSS).

What features would it have? Seamonkey gives it this:

• Tabbed browser with the Mozilla engine - the same one that the unruly mob uses in Firefox and insists is better than Internet Explorer.
• Integrated email with address book capability - something you could get with Thunderbird, but if it is integrated already, what do you need Thunderbird for?
• IRC client built in - Chatzilla.
• HTML editor for what would be 'skinning', as well as mundane HTML editing.

OpenOffice.org gives it a fully functional office document system for dealing with all the stuff that people keep saying that they won't kill trees to print, but they do. GoogleDocs does the same, but let's face facts: You can't always get an internet connection. Remember, only 20% of the world is online, which means 80% of the 'market' isn't.

Drupal comes in, running off a local MySQL or PostGreSQL server with PHP and allows the user to do all sorts of things that I have set up in various ways for clients.

• Attach a document to a node (Drupal page), write a few notes, comment on it later, whatever - and be able to search for it without having to spelunk all manner of file folders. Sure, searching hard drives is getting better, but let's be serious - you can tag documents when you attach them to a system. Searching text on larger and larger drives is simply insane - and it will only get worse. Drupal's system isn't perfect, but at least it's open source and we can adjust it as we wish.
• Like documents, images and videos can also be saved locally and submitted to the database.
• Allow users to change the look and feel of how their data is represented - even pulling content from the web as the user may wish. 'Live Desktop'? Sure, you got it.
• Scalability: OpenID logins across an enterprise can allow content management systems to talk to each other across a network - much as they do now. Someone looks at a document or references it? A trackback tells you if you are on the network (which they would have to be to reference). Authorized users can comment, and if you permit it with multiple level security logins available in Drupal, they can also upload and edit.

Linux? Linux isn't really necessary, I suppose, but it does have a smaller footprint and works better with these sort of applications - no disk defragmentation, etc. Linux, quite simply, works - but everything described above could work on Mac OSX, Microsoft Windows and Linux. *ahem*. Hello?

The downside to all of this would be the vast ability to configure the systems. All users are created equal, but their needs and technical ability are not. A few different methods of installation for different sorts of users, and you have a download/install that simply works. How do I know? I've set up Drupal for just this sort of thing in the past, and have been playing with the ideas on what other people want... but honestly, this was only something for me.

You can keep your Firefox tablet. I want something more. I want something that separates me from the technology and allows me to focus on the rest of my life. Maybe I'm getting old.

Why? Well, honestly - what do you think KnowProSE.com is? It's my open desktop - and for anything I wish to make public, I have my backup right here. Please note that until now I have not used the phrases 'Free Software' or 'Open Source'. ;-)

Technorati Tags: Automation Business Content Management System Drupal ICT Linux Media Open Source People and Communications Realist Cult Technology Technology & Communications Technology and Society Technology Observations TechCrunch Linux Open Source Free Software Drupal OpenOffice OpenOffice.org tablet PC laptop