A pristine machine, remote desktop, and unity

I finally had to wipe clean my Windows XP 64-bit edition. I had no idea that Microsoft would orphan an OS to the extent that they have this one; so far as I can tell, the only way to "upgrade" is to do a complete install of a different OS. So that is what I did. I dreaded having to install all of the apps that I had before. Then I had an epipphany - why install anything other then a web browser? So I decided to do that and use Remote Desktop to access my e-mail from my main development machine in my office.

There is something quite lovely about this setup - e-mail is totally readable in this manner and I no longer have two Outlook in-boxes to cope with. There is a nice feeling about having a minimal machine - perhaps this feeling is really a response to the crufty state my machine had gotten into over a number of years. I'm sure that I will install more apps but for now, I am enjoying the simplicity.

I wish that Remote Desktop had a "unity mode" ala VMWare. This would allow a smooth integration of remote and local functions. Arguably, this should be easier then Unity if the local and remote desktops are the same OS - one can have a notion of local and remote apps and you simply launch them locally or remotely and that is that. You might want to merge the desktops.

The bliss of this situation will of course vanish as soon as I have to go out of town but perhaps I'll simply use web access to my e-mail. Alternately, I could screw around to make remote desktop accessible from the web - something that seems worriesome.

The main realization I have from this experience is that my laptop is for the most part an e-mail and browsing machine. And yet, it would not be adequate for it to be limited to these functions. Remote desktop gives me a window into a richer environment and that may be all I need - time will tell.

In contrast, my development machine, which has three screens that make it a much more "information expansive" machine then the laptop. The cheapness of LCD monitors has made this setup really very practical (I tend to by the monitor size that is just one or two steps below the "state of the art" and, as such, vastly cheaper). It is interesting to me that the many monitors environment really makes a laptop (even one with a large screen) seem ackward for any kind of serious development activity: I do mechanical, hardware, software, and some graphics design and it appears true for all of these scenarios.

I now have four major "computer-like" devices that are in different form factors:

iPhone
Kindle DX
Laptop
Desktop with many monitors

I can imagine the Kindle DX and the laptop merging in some way - particularly if remote desktop were sufficiently performant. The iPhone and desktop appear to hold useful niches - very compact and information rich. This makes me think that this "middle area" will be the most exciting one in the near future.