Envision a Linux-based iMac. Call it an iGuin*. Dress it up in those handsome penguin colors (or lack of them), rather than those silly iMac "flavors." Use nothing but end-of-life components. Dirt cheap. No fan if we can avoid one, and certainly no floppy. Boot from the CD-ROM drive. Solder everything to the boards, including memory (with the possible exception of a comms slot). Voila: a nice black (& white) box, simple and reliable as an old phone — and maybe, someday soon, just as standard.
Shoot for a $500 price point, complete with all network connections, OS, and software including management agents. Put the money in memory and display, which ought to be active matrix (if there's any way). Two classes: corporate and home. Skew cute for the home version, and add a slot for a Sony Playstation module. Message: for the price of a Playstation, get a computer too.
*Nope, the domain isn't taken (as of 22 May 1999).
FTP and email killed the floppy. Now it's time to unburden those increasingly antique (social as well as technical) protocols by moving the virtual floppy over to the Net. It shouldn't be too hard to design easily-understood ways to create, share, and manage virtual Internet file servers of 10-100mb (or larger) — and eliminate the need for virtual private networks, e-mail attachments and complicated remote access routines. Any user should be able to sign up for one with his or her ISP, and then decide who else can use it. True: versions of this exist at dedicated sites (such as NetFloppy, at http://www.NetFloppy.com/). But why not at any site, any ISP, any business, using free and open software?
ISPs would get stickier sites and happier customers. Businesses would get turnkey field file service solutions for maybe $2 per user, instead of the $50-75 that it might cost from file service vendors. End users would get easy ways to pass files around and back up hunks of their local directories.
Are you ready to hack either idea (or bet when somebody else will)? Write to [email protected]. Or watch the Free Thinking section in Linux Resources.
— Bruce Fryer