From: falseaddress@... (mr_scary)
Date: 2002-09-30T14:56:01+09:00
Subject: Re: idea for a much needed application

On 29 Sep 2002 15:10:59 -0700, rsrchstr@hotmail.com (mike henley) said
the following:

>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)

If you want replies please be concise.  I didn't read anything here.