Dead Computer

Today my desktop computer at work died. My dad gave me this computer about 2.5 years ago because he bought a new one, I'm guessing it was only about 2 years old when he gave it me. I was very attached to it, but all good things must come to an end. I was constantly asked by my co-workers why I never upgraded to a new machine. Well, for one, I never really “needed” a new machine. I spend most of my day inside of an SSH session, so memory, CPU, etc isn't that necessary. I'm curious though how many Word documents I'll need to re-type because I saved them to my local hard drive instead of on the network. I usually back everything up to the network or have them somewhere in my email for safekeeping, but I'm sure I missed a few. I use webmail exclusively for email, contacts, calendar, and tasks, so nothing will be lost there. I'm going to try to put in a new hard drive into my old machine and re-install Windows. But this time I'm going to try hard to move everything onto the network, the way it should be stored. In fact, I'm going to try to find a solution that will allow me to store everything I need onto the Internet.

This thought has really made the wheels turn this morning. I really need the following:

1. A web-based central repository that I can put / get files (any file type).

2. It should work like any good version control system (subversion), meaning it keeps track automatically of revision numbers, and I can view old revisions easily.

3. It would be great if I could open the files using “File, Open” from any application such as Open Office, Photoshop, etc. I shouldn't need to download the file first locally. I imagine this would require some sort of add-on to Windows Explorer. It needs to be fast though, so the plug-in should pull it down to a local temporary location, but automatically save it on the Internet when I click “File, Save”.

4. It should support sharing, so instead of having to email a document to everyone, I could simply email a note to everyone I want to share the document with and they can pull it down after entering an email / password. The link should always point to the latest revision so that timing isn't an issue. You should also be able to setup who can make modifications to the document.

5. You should have the ability to setup notifications so that you know when the document has been changed / modified.

6. It should be integrated inside of webmail.

For now, all I really need is #1. I think to solve that I'll setup a subversion server for myself and put all of my documents into subversion. I will be able to access it from home and work, the only downside is that I won't be able to open / save documents without the help of a subversion client. But at least everything will be backed up automatically and all of my documents will be accessible from the Internet.

If anyone knows of a solution that will meet the first five requirements above please let me know. I honestly haven't researched it yet.