Markus sent me this link:
http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/directory/154

<<GVM is an extensible and easy-to-use communications center and portal of Google web-based applications. GVM is a "Google Virtual Machine", in particular, it is a virtual appliance that contains all of the current Google web applications (that we know of) in one convenient location, that is, in the browser itself. Each Google application is listed in one of the menus on the webpage and will load in a new window, just like a regular application does on your computer. Each application's window stays inside of the main webpage and can be minimized, maximized, and closed. GVM can be pictured as either a very simplified, web-based Google OS or as a Google portal, which is a main website that leads to all other relevant websites.>>

Hmmm...

Be careful, there are many fake news and fake screenshots on Internet theses days...

This sounds like what they used to implement Google Notebook, in the sense that you can open, close, minimise and maximise Notebook within your browser window.

I think its more of a Google Portal.

mho, VM techniques are still on the distant horizon..!!

web-based Google OS?

Has someone tried this out?

hehehe.. no! ...

Art... you go first :)_

I don not find the config file...

I'm in the process of downloading it, I'll see what it is :)

I got it downloaded and am starting it up. First screenshot:
http://cowza.com/gvm1.jpg

Here are the rest of the screenshots. http://cowza.com/gvm/

Once GVM loads up you are able to somewhat load up different modules all on a single screen as seen in the last screenshot. While it does seem pretty cool to an extent, it has some drawbacks as some of the links load in the full window and you lose the bar that allows you to access the different Google products. All you have to do is alt-left arrow back out of it like you would in Firefox. Seems fairly interesting.

I don't see any difference between that and a menu that groups links to different Google services. And it couldn't be, as long as Google doesn't offer a big API for all their services.

Well, I am guessing that the main difference from their perspective is that they are able to drop this onto any type of machine and it could become a Google "machine" in the sense that this machine could be used to access any google resource possible all right in one area. And thats all it would let you do. It actually is a virtual machine in the sense that it requires boot up time and is more then just a webpage with abunch of links on it. Though I am not denying that isnt part of it. I'm just saying that there is more to it then just that. There is a complete backend. You could be looking at what a Google OS could be like. Though, I am not saying thats what I would want it to look like nor what I would hope it would look like, but to an extent that is waht they have developed. It runs on a linux OS and is coded to solely use Google services.

Dan: thanks for posting those screen shots. It is interesting. Can you post the gvm.vmx somewhere?

Thanks for the screenshots. I don't really yet understand the problem GVM is trying to solve.

I dont understand too.. was there a problem at all ??

It is just a show case of their virtualisation software. But I'd like to try it out myself...

Surely, I'll throw it on my server. Its a fairly big file though and my upload speeds aren't the best. :/ But I'll post a link up in a few minutes.

http://cowza.com/gvm/gvm.zip Theres the link to download it.

Dan: I'm downloading it. Thx for the post!

yeah... me too :)
thanks Dan!

| I'm downloading it.

Me too!... How can't you resist the temptation ?!

PS: Dan, I hope you don't get GB-ed ;-)

Dan, I've sent you an email... just need to know what that ZIP is. :)

Trying the GVM out now. This post is made from within it, Works smoothly. Only problem until now. Keyboard is qwerty while mine is azerty. If I have some usefull experiences with I ll post it here...

Well, I've tried it out besides of the Azerty problem there were also some window sizing problems, but that's maybe me that is not good in Linux & VMWare configuring...

There also where some firefox crashes, maybe that's because of the Kiosk extension?

At the moment it's nothing more than a bunch of links offered in a Firefox browser on a Linux OS offered in a VMWare environment. By doing this it can run on a lot of platforms, but it's also quite heavy to install and to start up.

For future they have bigger plans as of integration of all the tools and even an integration with the desktop tools Google is offering. If they can realise this, then it could be something like the Google OS described in http://blogoscoped.com/forum/38329.html, but then offered from a third party in GPL .

But for now it's a nicy idea, but sorry not good enough to be usefull at the moment...

I would have to agree with Art-One that really this is a nice idea, and I can see the direction they want to go in with it though right now it is too much work for not much gain.