On 5 Oct 2001, at 16:38, PAUL PAVLIK wrote: >A canadian company devised a system reported on ROBTV that goes one >better than this. > >You go to a 'data booth' (or even a computer anywhere on the internet or >a private network, wan, etc) log in , and you get your own desktop, apps >and data. > >Actually are we all that far away if we left our home computer on and >used a VPN?? > >Paul
Yes, this can be done today, within certain limitations. For example, Excite.com and other web-based portals let you customize your settings, so that their pages are displayed how you want them (within some limitations). On LANs, it is possible to set up Windows NT/2000 or Novell Netware to offer this kind of functionality - log in at any terminal, and you get your own customized desktop. However, most places choose not to implement it, as it is a bit of a pain to set up properly, and it does tend to chew up fairly large amounts of storage to save the settings. Most mainframes have offered services of this type for decades. When you logged into the mainframe, you got your own data, and "desktop". I think the only thing limiting a wide-scale deployment of this is a lack of percieved demand, and someone to do become an entrepeneur to implement it. Hope this helps, Anthony J. Albert =========================================================== Anthony J. Albert [EMAIL PROTECTED] Systems and Software Support Specialist Postmaster Computer Services - University of Maine, Presque Isle "Civilization is just a slow process of learning to be kind." - Charles L. Lucas To unsubscribe from SURVPC send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe SURVPC in the body of the message. Also, trim this footer from any quoted replies. More info can be found at; http://www.softcon.com/archives/SURVPC.html
