idea for a much needed application

[R.D.Findlay]

You might want to check http://www.01com.com/


mike henley wrote:

> I remember a while ago reading about tim burners-lee and how his
> vision of the WorldWideWeb as a medium where all can freely and easily
> publish information has not materialized properly, and i felt it so
> strongly over the past week when trying to look at options for hosting
> a website. Hosts are either expensive or limit you in terms of what
> languages, modules, applications, and OSs you can use. They also limit
> you in terms of space, bandwidth used per period, number of executions
> of CGIs... etc. Some of those who give good deals, seem difficult to
> trust with either your credit card number or your content.
>
> I wish i can just use my own computer, with whatever technologies I
> choose, keeping my content that i build up over time safe here on my
> own machine, but unless you have a broadband connection this is not
> possible. It may be possible using a dynamic DNS provider, but then
> again either they add cost, end up with an ugly URL, and, most
> importantly, there's no way for others to know when you get online. So
> here comes the idea that occured to me, and i post it here to ask if
> you know of an application that already provides this functionality,
> then please tell me what it is, or if you think it is worth doing on
> an open source basis, or even proprietary, in which case i invite
> anyone to do so, or if you think it's a completely stupid and
> impossible idea, then perhaps you can please tell me why.
>
> You probably guessed if you read as far as the second paragraph that
> what i'm thinking about is an application functionality that enables
> instant messaging to provide the dynamic DNS functionality. So instead
> of giving others a URL I can just give them an IM username they can
> add to their client, and when i go online, through my humble dial-up
> connection that changes IP whenever i log in, they'll be aware of my
> presence, and be able to connect to a server i host on my machine.
>
> It sounds like a simple thing; IM presence, automatic IP query of my
> username, click on my username and or use a contextual menu option or
> whatever and a browser launches to go to the site i'm hosting on my
> machine. Perhaps it can use existing open-source platforms, such as
> jabber or gnutella, or as an add-on to existing open-source
> applications/clients. Basically what i'm suggesting is a little tool
> to enable a server such as apache to join the whole IM/p2p thing and
> have "presence". The more automated it is, and the easier it is, the
> better. I think such a functionality will be especially useful for
> certain uses, in my case it will be hosting a wiki, as i leave my
> machine online a lot through my dial-up, can't predict the number of
> executions of CGI or the amount of space needed, wish to be free to
> use whatever wiki application is best for my needs and in whatever
> language regardless of what a host will support, and do not wish to
> pay a monthly fee, extra charges, setup fee or a domain registration.
> Perhaps there can be other areas where it is useful, and i'm sure
> there are other areas where it will not be suitable. Perhaps there can
> also be a simple way to enable a page hosted in such a way to be
> submitted to search engines, i haven't thought about that yet, but
> tell me if u see any.
>
> What do you think? already done, worth doing, stupid, or impossible?
> (p.s. please also let me know if there are other newsgroup to which
> posting this will be a good idea)