The End of .Mac and Google Apps?

mattnyc99 writes "In his weekly tech column for Popular Mechanics, Glenn Derene predicts that everyone will have a home server to network their house within 10 years—rendering Apple's .Mac accounts and Google's productivity software useless. As prices for products like HP's MediaSmart Server drop and as processing power becomes more pervasive, Derene says, 'you'll ultimately need a centralized server—that high-powered traffic cop—to coordinate the non-stop exchange of information between your new multitude of devices.'"

In the long run ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... we're all dead. -John Maynard Keynes

Re:Been there, done that

[MouseR]

Correct link [imdb.com]

From Popular Mechanics

[Chairboy]

I have old copies of Popular Mechanics going back twenty years, and let's discuss some of their predictions. According to them:

* I have a landing pad built into the roof of my house for my flying car.
* When I need to get to Europe from New York, I take the subway to a special terminal that connects me to a train that shoots under the Atlantic at thousands of miles per hour in a vacuum.
* On the rare instances I don't take the super train, I take a Bell Osprey derivative shuttle to the local airport where I don't even need to get out of my seat, because it follows a track built into the shuttle and the airport and automatically zips me into my waiting hypersonic sub-orbital jetliner (which, for some reason, seems to go nowhere but Tokyo).
* I can fix my hot water heater by removing the broken heating element and replacing it with a new one from the hardware store. Possibly the most ridiculous prediction/claim of all.

I like their enthusiasm, and the pictures and ads are great, but I'm not quite ready to start shorting stock in companies based on a Popular Mechanics prediction.

Re:that's moronic

[yada21]

That's because they haven't invented Googlepr0n. Yet.

Re:that's moronic

[LiquidCoooled]

Are you sure?

http://images.google.com/ [google.com]

All well and good

[Allicorn]

But what I'd like to know is how we're all going to be able to access these hundreds of Tbs of media from our ubiquitous home servers when we're out and about in our flying cars?

Re:Router/Server

[tomhudson]

easy to setup, small, cheap and is able to use storage spread over a numebr of PCs to share media and information.

It's called "Windows Botnet Home Server Edition"

Re:Not web based...

[LiquidCoooled]

You sound like you go through something similar.
I have to guide people through typing a colon key every couple of days and 99% don't know what I mean.

"OK, in the host name box, type our domain name followed by a colon, then the number 1"

"Yes, the colon key, hold down your shift key - thats the big key with the up arrows on it - then press the colon key, its the one with with the 2 dots, its next to the "L" key."

Invariably (after hearing them rustling to put the phone on their shoulder) they manage to type a semi colon.
I hope I never have to try anything more complex with my users.

Re:Router/Server

[Tim_UWA]

Someone needs to write a virus that silently installs a bit torrent client, uploads a whole bunch of torrents and lets me steal all of their media.

Re:that's moronic

[BorgCopyeditor]

I thought it was called "I'm Feeling Lucky."

Re:Not web based...

[Anonymous Coward]

"You need to login as root".

"root?"

"yes, the superuser account. Login as root.
The password is abc123."

"It says access denied."
"you must have typed the password wrong. Try again. abc123"
"Nope. Access denied."
  [repeat 5 times]

"Man. I don't get it. You're logging in as root right? r-o-o-t"

"No. I was putting r-u-t-e"

Re:Half-assed job, so to speak

[LiquidCoooled]

I didn't think you lot would be interested in my dwarf porn searches.

Oh shit, did I just post that out loud?

Re:From Popular Mechanics

[frankmu]

they had prior art for the internet! Prediction #22: Store Purchases by Tube. Pneumatic tubes, instead of store wagons, will deliver packages and bundles. These tubes will collect, deliver and transport mail over certain distances, perhaps for hundreds of miles. They will at first connect with the private houses of the wealthy; then with all homes. Great business establishments will extend them to stations, similar to our branch post-offices of today, whence fast automobile vehicles will distribute purchases from house to house. thanks for the link.