KDE's Aaron Seigo has published a blog post in which he details how Nepomuk and the semantic desktop can be beneficial to users. He introduces the concepts of "context" and "context switches" - possible states are "writing an OSNews news item", or "posting a blog entry", or "editing your MySpace page". When you switch from one of these contexts to another, it's called a context switch, according to Seigo. "What happens with the rest of the software running on your computer when you switch contexts?" Seigo answers his own question. "Pretty much nothing. At least not automatically."
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Member since:2005-07-09
The key question is, how many people are actually moded this way?
At work, I work on multiple projects. I suppose each project can be a mode, but since there's a huge amount of overlap between most projects, why bother?
I also notice that many people around me have their personal Gmails, Dilbert's, and IM's open at work, so the boundary between home and work isn't too clear here either.
The work-home also assumes that you're work computer and home computer are the same. That's a very small percentage of the people (people with laptops and home based entrepreneurs).
I guess I don't get the reason for the semantic desktop. Then again, I don't get the reason for being excited about "Desktop search" technologies like tracker. I rarely lose my files since they're mostly well organized, so searching is rarely needed. And for the people I've seen who put all their stuff on the desktop so that it's wall to wall icons, it really doesn't take that long to find a file since you can see it all.
Member since:
2006-01-04
Well .. you will need some imagination and bit of understanding.
With technolgies like this you will be able to adapt your whole desktop and all its apps to different needs.
Simple example:
Work mode: You only get IMs/emails/etc from coworkers and RSS feeds you need. Your desktop displays the files you work on.
Then you decide to take a break and switch off work mode and all the other IMs/emails/etc get displayed. And your desktop shows comics, twitter widgets .. whatever..
Not a very good example, but basically it boils down to: The desktop and all apps can adapt to you and change depending on the stuff you do.