Re: Roaming profiles

as the folk(s) who run ZillaVilla.com, I can state that my desire is for 
it to work lke this:

all on the client side.


I think that sums it up pretty well.  for this to work well, I think 
things important are using the zlib component to compress profile data 
before uploading or backing up.  so instead of a folder with all kinds 
of files, you end up with one file, that's easily dropped onto a CDR or 
a USB keytag (or perhaps it'd just be easier to keep it on your 
ZillaVilla account ;-)  )
Also, The client needs to take care of securing the data before 
archiving it, Like the Master password works now, only for the whole 
profile, not just the 'sensitive data' .
users could hav an option on the profile selection screen for "get 
profile" and then enter zillavilla.com as the server, which would then 
prompt for the username and password for the ZillaVilla.com account.  at 
this point, the file (which Zillavilla.com would know only as a file but 
nothing about it's compressed and encrypted contents) would be 
downloaded to the local machine, when downloading completes, another 
password would be required to unencrypt the data, then when unlocked, it 
would be uncompressed and live in a temporary location on the local 
machine.  the user proceeds to use the profile as if it was local, and 
at the close of a session, would get 2 options, 1 to keep the data 
locally (say if it was a home computer and you didn't want to wait on 
downloading everything the next day)  and the other to upload any 
changes back to the original location (again, after being encrypted and 
then compressed)  in this manner, Zillavilla could also archive a few 
sessions, not overwriting data but keeping an extra file so if by chance 
you say..got a virus... after formatting your machine, you could select 
a profile that was archived before the infection. Users could archive as 
often as they want within the limits of thier ZillaVilla account.  For 
example, if you decided to buy an account with a 100MB space, you could 
store 5 files of 20MB in size, perhaps 5 days time apart or 5 weeks 
apart, it's all on the client as to how often they want to sync changes 
back and if they want to overwrite an old archive to create space for 
new data.

anyhow, the important part of all of this is, I don't want any marketing 
deals where I watch where you surf, I don't care who you get your mail 
from, what your cookies might reveal...and so on and so on.  This keeps 
security on the server simple, who wants to hack into a website to get 
profile data they cannot read without the password which will unlock 
such data?  Without compressing the data, upload/download times would be 
huge, so this must be client side.  If you're dumb enough to set your 
ZillaVilla acount password to password, and profile password to 
password, and sombody gueses your username and gets your data, it'd be 
your own fault.

For this to be really cool, profile data must be cross platform, so you 
could do this from a mac or a Linux box or ...even a Windows box. and 
beyond that, I'd also like to see an XPI software manager, if you go to 
another machine and get your profile from ZIllaVilla and it references 
add-ons that aren't part of the local Mozilla install, Mozilla should 
know to go and install the XPI files and add those applications on so 
you could use say, your calendar or Jabberzilla account automagically.
for this to work well, XPI's could live in the profile folders chrome 
director instead of the main Mozilla directory ( I think this already 
works but am not sure ) so when you leave a machine you've ZillaVilla'ed 
on, you won't leave behind any modification to the Mozilla install on 
that machine.  anyhow, I think this would be like AOL without all the BS 
that makes people hate AOL, log on from anywhere and get your mail and 
bookmarks and al that Jazz, without getting popupadded to death and 
being shuffled around a Marketing tailored version of the internet.

There should also be a mechanism for using the parts of your profile 
that can be used, say if Mozilla was running on your PDA or Cell Phone, 
you wouldn't have all the functionality that a full blown PC does and 
Mozilla should be able to pick and choose what it can do on that 
platform.  Like the plugin or helper settings would be different on a 
mac than on a Linux or..... a windows box.  some of these issues are 
easier than others, like handing the OS an MIME and letting it figure 
out what to do with it, others are not so simple.

This is how I would like it all to work.  Almost all of what I've 
descibed is already documented all over bugzilla in various forms as 
different related bugs, and it'll be ready "when it's done".  as to 
ZillaVilla contributing to this happening, I wish I had a Million 
dollars to find the right smart Mozilla hackers and pay them to make it 
happen sooner but alas, like most of us, I'm just an hourly wage chump 
and that kind of Money is a long ways away.  I have very little time to 
actually code but am trying to get a handle on creating applications 
with mozilla at http://books.mozdev.org and as slowly as I'm getting 
this information into my head, it would take awhile to do it all 
myself...and that's why Open source Rocks like it does.  I'm certain 
other see this as desireable like I do and that's what makes things like 
this happen, that's what's made Mozilla the best browser yet.

I think this client side approach, while it may have drawbacks (Like 
sync time on a slow connection) is better than leting someone else hold 
your data and also have acces to where your data goes and what your data 
is (Passport account anyone? no thanks here.)  Other "roaming" ideas 
take the incrimental approach like when you add a bookmark it's synced 
to the server right away, but how does a server add a bookmark to a 
bookmark file without being able to read the contents of the file 
(answer: you don't), even if you promise not to share that data with 
other parties, a compromised server could reveal it to whoever gets in 
in that type of situation, and I don't care to convert your pop accounts 
to IMAP for the purpose of quicker loading times. If incrimental roaming 
becomes available at a later time, I'd consider offering this as a 
service but keeping a complex server like that running would surely 
create such overhead that it'd cost lots more to offer this type of 
service. I'd likely create a completely different domain for that 
purpose but really have no desire to do it that way. so for the purposes 
and goals of ZillaVilla service it should be :

all on the client side.


If anyone has some type of roaming hacks that would compress and upload 
/ download and then decompress a profile folder, let me know.  trying to 
do this I feel is the first step in uncovering all the other issues that 
need to be worked out.  For those interested, thee's information at 
http://zillavilla.com on the development page about profile data and I 
think that the Mozilla components to get you/us started are zlib and 
netlib.  From what i understand about Mozilla (not enough yet)  this 
might even be doable on the Level of XUL and javascript by ading an XPI 
to default Mozilla without getting into writing C code but then again, 
my hacking skills are limited (HTML, PHP, and some javascript on a good 
day with the wind at my back going downhill) and I may be way off base 
on this.  I then need to use something to hear the request on 
ZillaVilla.com and fetch or store the file in MySQL.  Right now I have a 
rather Humble hosting account setup but I do have PHP/MySQL and CGI 
available to me on my host.  Later implimentations should be a real 
stripped down server without anything extra (no apache/FTP/fancy control 
panels and such) If you'd like to test your roaming hack out let me know 
if I can offer a server for you to play with.





Art Wildman wrote:
> Yes! Please post any links to profile solutions you may find. I'm very 
> interested & so would the folks running www.ZillaVilla.com and many 
> others who need to access email, bookmarks and stuff from more than one 
> machine on home or office networks and mobile devices. Haven't used 
> Novell since 3.1 or so, What is Zen? oh STW...