Finally got my turn to try out Jolicloud, a “cool new OS for your netbook“. I learned about it several weeks ago and it took quite a while for me to get a invite.

First off, I tried the live boot. I selected my native language etc. and while it was  booting, I stepped away for a few. Upon my return I glanced on the screen and much to my surprise, it seemed as if the netbook just loaded my regular system, Ubuntu Netbook Remix.

No – wait. It was the new OS, but with only subtle differences separating the initial state from its parent OS. A quick glance trough the installed applications revealed only “facebook” to be added initially – a shortcut to a prism application.

Ok, time to try out the jolicloud applications. When I logged into the application with my user name -  picked when I got the invite, I choose “MSI WIND 100″ as my notebook, as Medion Akoya e1210 was not on the list but afaik is just a re-brand of a WIND anyway.

The jolicloud application itself, as most of the applications it serves, is built upon Mozilla Prism. A “web OS” built upon the web itself – perfectly integrated in the social media system.
It synchronizes itself into your jolicloud profile – so couple that with a Dropbox and you have a notebook to carry around without having to think about the consequences of it being ( stolen or in any other way ) unrecoverable beyond losing a piece of hardware. No data or settings would be lost – or be easy to steal with some encryption.

One click is all it takes to install any application – native or web/prism. With my favorites like Google’s Picasa, Skype, Dropbox, Last.fm and Google Chrome already there – not to mention most of the biggest social media sites and web applications there as prism apps. Also there some Game and Education titles I have yet to see anywhere else. How to install the from the regular ubuntu stream – or adding more sources – is a mystery because no package manager is present. Besides that, system and application upgrades are fast – one click – operations.

Other changes might not be as apparent to the average user, but the kernel itself was – as I learned from one of the developers in #jolicloud – optimized for this specific use. Why this was needed and what this brings to the end user is – to me – unclear.

All in all, I can see a lot of this changes being up-streamed into Ubuntu Netbook Remix. The applications selection ( my personal favorite in jolicloud ) is something that could do Ubuntu (or Linux in general) a lot of good. Installing applications is easy in the Linux world but the hard part is actually finding a application to install. Did you know there are 5 excellent - insert appication type – to be installed on your system via the install system, but most actually just stick with the one that is already there and never even think there might be something out there that would suit them better ?

If you want to try it out yourself, you have to register for a invitation.

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• FxKeyboard: A Firefox keyboard for touchscreens (rawdev.net)

Finding a virtual keyboard that works good on any of those is a hard thing to find. I failed at finding it.So, how about a keyboard that works inside Firefox as a plugin ? Thats exactly what I imagined when i started on this project.

Here is a working plugin in my language and set for my specific needs.
FxKeyboard 1.1 – 3kb
fxkeyboard 1.1 English – Due to demand, a slightly more English version ( same layout as with the last one but English buttons, if someone makes a mockup for a real usable English layout, i will be glad to add it.)

GNU/GPL as usual, but i would like it if you ask for my permission before you use it in public accessible areas. If you are doing a kiosk system, you might also be interested in keeping firefox on the homepage using FxGrounded.

If you need customization, have a idea worth sharing or anything else, write me a email or comment this post.

Creating a kiosk environment.
The tools:

• Touchscreen Monitor

The requierments:

• Firefox 3
• Linux
• Non-exit-able
• Onscreen Keyboard

As you might expect, I tried everything.

R-Kiosk. Perfect.

A inline javascript Keyboard. While it did what was needed, it fails on forms that are on the bottom of the screen and in Iframes. Good side: Language was dependant on the page’s language. But Fail.

xvkbd. While I did manage to place it on top of Firefox and lock it so people cant close or edit it, and change their language.. it was annoying to do so. Moving it around the screen more so. Porting it to win32 impossible. Fail.

Ok, lets try a different aproach.
http://stlouis-shopper.com/~jtjsoftware/software/vkeyboard.xpi is a firefox Addon I found. A simple tweak made it work on Fx3. Here is what I made. The first step in porting the app, is thus in bad shape. ~Win.

If there is enough interest in such a plugin for Fx3, I myself and the original author will continue to work on it. A lot of things are already on my mind that I want to do with this project. Suggestions ?