Oblomovka

2002-08-26»

Recap: I’ve been looking for an all-in, no messing, Webmail app, file sharer, and Webserver that would run from my home machine – saving me from forking out on .NET, .mac, and .johncobblyandall services. Lots of people wrote in with partial suggestions. Nothing leapt out for me, although a couple of people wrote in to say that if I found what I was looking for, they’d buy a copy.

Barnaby James wrote to suggest Apache Tomcat with a fistful of java servlets. A nice, and integrated idea, but I’m not sure it’s the point-and-click solution I was looking for.

Dave, as you’d suspect, suggested 4Dmail Mail app.

Azeem suggested a cheapo NetApp style standalong box, perhaps integrated with your router. Bit pricey currently, and I think it’s the idea of linking directly to your desktop that makes this appealing. Still, it’d be nice if home routers let you set up at least a port 80 passthru to one machine on the home network.

Henry Minsky had a very profound suggestion, which he describes in detail on his Personal Virtual Server page. If I can horrifying cripple his thoughts by summary : your personal computer is boiled down to a portable state image, on which you can install different applications. You can move this image wherever you like. Keep it at home, or on a hosting service, or on your laptop or PDA. So you effectively run your PC and all its services wherever you go.

One thing I did thrash out over a few conversations was that you’d need at least one external Net service to get this working – DNS, probably with dyndns-like dynamic updating. Azeem also suggested an outgoing mail relay, but I’m not sure that’s necessary. Direct SMTP connections are hard, true – but sendmail and its simpler cousins, once configured, is a commodity. And this is a very trivial sendmail setup.

Does the need for dynamic DNS spoil the principle push of this idea? I’m not sure. I did originally conceive of this home-based server as a way of shaking off the shackle of unnecessary Web service subscriptions. With dynanamic DNS, we’re left with a single one-off sub. It’s less ideologically pure, but I still think it’s appealing. One of the things I dislike about all these other Web services is that while each of them is pretty cheap, it’d cost a huge amount to subscribe to all of them. And I hate the paying less for bundles when not everything in the bundle is the best in class. It’s an unnecessary compromise.

Oh, and Lloyd pointed out another advantage to working your Web services from home. When you don’t pay yours subs at a Webmail service, they suspend your access to your own e-mail.

I think there may be a market for a product here. That is, if Thomas C. Greene of the Register doesn’t convince us to turn off our broadband connections in terror.

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So I wrote a piece in this week’s Sunday Times about running services from your broadband-connected home computer: mainly, services that you’d otherwise have to pay for, like Webmail, online file space, and calendaring. It got a huge response, with dozens of people writing in asking how they could do this.

For most of them, I admit I have no idea – I’m a Linux guy, so all of these server-ish features come pretty easily to me. I feel a bit dumb replying to people with “Use SSH! And Debian!”, though. If anyone has any suggestions on how you could reasonably set up IMAP, Webmail, Web folders (WebDAV) and maybe even a calendar server on a home Windows install, I’d love to hear it.

The piece, incidentally, is currently here, but it’s registration-protected up the wazoo. Brits can log in as cypherpunk/cypherpunk. Anyone else has to pay. Also the link will die soon, as NewsCorp shovel the piece into their exclusively-priced archive, so what’s the point?

Hold on though: I do believe I own the copyright on this article. I’ll stick it here, and then when I’ve time, I’ll set up a proper archive. It’s all about DIY, after all.

This virtual life: Danny O’Brien: Why I am not paying

All over the web, companies are switching from offering free services to charging a fee. The latest to cross the line is Apple, who recently changed its @mac.com webmail and iDisk online file-storage service from zero to a £65 annual subscription. That has prompted many to ask whether others such as Hotmail or Geocities will follow.

I am always sceptical of paying for web stuff. Most of it is, frankly, ripping off the gullible. People are tempted to pay for these subscriptions because they appreciate not having to search high and low for freebies. But as the net improves at delivering what we want, finding the cheapest price grows simpler. And online, the cheapest price is almost always “free”.

And so it is with web e-mail and file space online. Checking e-mail on the move and dumping Word documents or photo albums where others can find them are, to me, indispensable. If Hotmail started charging a subscription, or Geocities refused to give away its precious web space, you would think I would be the first to pay up.

Think again. Because I have those services free – from my home computer. I have an always-on broadband connection, so I can check my mail from anywhere by logging in to my home computer from any net connection. And I do not need spare storage on someone else’s server as I have enough spare disk space at home, thanks very much.

There are other advantages to being able to connect to my own computer. I can grab a webcam snapshot of what is going on in my flat; I can print out documents ready for me to pick up when I arrive home. I even run a little website off my home machine to pick up important documents.

It is not difficult to do any of this – in theory, at least. The software is readily available, but advice on how to set it up is remarkably scarce. Even though connecting to your home computer from anywhere is a great feature, broadband providers, if they mention this at all, generally couch it in protective terms. “We’ll provide you with a firewall, so that nobody can get into your home PC,” they promise. What if I want to get in?

Software companies such as Microsoft and Apple seem very reluctant to write the software that would make setting up your home computer as a server a snap. Of course, Microsoft owns Hotmail, and Apple charges for all those .Mac services. Maybe they do not appreciate competition. Especially from the likes of you.

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