Deskcloud

tags: devlog virtual desktop remote work

What if you could connect into your ideal workspace from anywhere and be as productive with your team as when you're sharing physical office space?

Originally published January 2019

"Average time spent by users in Virtual Desktop is now 106 minutes (according to the stats in Oculus’ Dashboard)" - Guy Godin, Creator of Virtual Desktop

Desks

The models are pulled from a company that builds products for industrial control centers that has made the 3d files free to download.

They went even further by leaving instructions for users to design their control room using Sketchup. Since there's also dae exports for every model, we can use janus to quickly start using these files for planning and prototyping battlestations.

If you are familiar with Sketchup then I recommend importing the files to Sketchup first so you can clean up the model before importing to your scenes. Here are the ones that have been optimized already by a Sketchup pro:

Cloud

What's included in the Suite?

• File Storage, Sync, Share
• Secure Audio/Video calls with Screensharing
• Communication and Collaboration applications
• Remote Virtual Desktops and Cloud Computing
• Synced whiteboard and document editing
• Wiki software
• Customized startpages (Coming soon)

The current Deskcloud stack is composed of the following open source projects:

• Nextcloud
  Encrypted file sharing on self hosted infrastructure. GDPR and HIPAA compliant. Recently introduced a video conferencing feature
  which puts video calls through your own servers. Analogous to popular "box"
  cloud services that allow you to access your files across all of your computers (and on the web).
• xrdp
  Screen sharing software based on the RDP protocol
• Guacamole
  HTML5 / Websocket interface that allows us to access our desktops remotely through the browser, ensuring that in a 24/7 connected world we have the ability to be 24/7 connected.
• Etherdraw
  Virtual synced whiteboard in the browser. Draw with friends from any device, share with url.
• Etherpad
  Collaborative text editing software and real time communications platform.
• Dokuwiki
  This serves as a knowledge base and wiki that supports html.

Virtual Desktop

This is arguably the meat and bones of Deskcloud right now. The first tests were made with shellinabox and xpra which has HTML5 support for individual X applications!

Now the current stack is using Guacamole™, an official project from The Apache Software Foundation.

• Access your computers (PC/Mac/Linux) securely from anywhere
• HTML5 Web application for managing virtual desktops from standard web browsers
• Built on a set of APIs maintained independently from the web application
• 2FA: LDAP, CAS, OpenID, Custom, SQL, DUO
• Official Apache project, well documented.

Digital Workplace

In order to be more productive people share physical space to work together. The concept of workplaces can empower individuals, teams, colleagues, clients and partners to share, communicate and collaborate with little to no friction, delay or challenge; allowing all these stakeholders to perform their jobs more effectively.

The concept of an office is obvious to many but how has the technology kept up with the evolution of work we're doing, especially in creative industries? For one, as a creative person I wouldn't see myself shelling out $600 a month for a deesk at a space like this when a hackerspace membership is usually 1/10th the price and offers access to more tools, classes, and creative people.

Right now there is a revolution going on with remote workers. We are seeing more talented people assert their preference to work from home instead of commuting to offices in urban cities. The increasingly high cost of real estate in urban areas making it harder for companies and people to commute into a physical office. Deskcloud develops a suite of open source solutions for remote teams to become as productive as those whom work together in physical spaces.

WebVR [Experimental]

Software alone cannot solve our limited screen space issues and the friction caused by being on different operating systems and platforms. That is why are combining the desk (biggest productivity boosting invention) and the cloud (game changer in computing) to think beyond flatland in building a long term vision.

One of the features that makes Deskcloud unique in the competition are the customizable multi-user WebVR environments, and it can take your meetings and workshops to the next level.

In 2018 I started integrating deskcloud services into photogrammetry scans of hackerspaces, community ran workspaces where DIY people can teach, learn, and build anything.

Quickly adding functionality into virtual spaces with computing. In these screenshots, 3D scans of physical coworking locations such as Noisebridge, a hackerspace located in the mission district of San Francisco and HacklabTO are retrofitted with collaborative open source web apps.

This screenshot of a virtual hackerspace is taken from Hacklab.To, notice how the whiteboard is the same as the whiteboard in SF. Multiple groups can be working off the same synchronized whiteboard from any device (such as an Ipad!) as its just a web app.

This is the part that glues all the other components together to feel like you're in a real life coworking space. We're using JanusWeb because it works excellently in the browser, has superb support for 2D mode with customizable UI, and comes with sensible default addons out of the box like:

• Avatars
• Chat
• Drag n Drop / Inventory
• Leap Motion Support
• Import/export tools from other engines (Blender, Unity, Unreal, Sketchup)

Added bonus, native users can also interact freely with the WebVR users since they're both reading the same markup and presence server. A person using the native client has much better built in editing functions and VOIP, very effective for meetings where you're presenting or brainstorming ideas.

Custom plugin [Experimental]

Can upload folders to a new folder in deskcloud and then have automatic file listing when pointing to folder url. This feature is similar to ipfs add -w . which generates a hash for the root of the folder to display with as HTML. Right now we can direct link to the actual file or generate an index.html to preview assets in a directory. Default folder translator can also be used here with the <Layout> component.

Custom Livestreaming Server

• Host private streams on your own infrastructure
• Low (5 second) latency with audio output
• Compiled from source based on Nginx
• Use OBS or Xsplit to broadcast desktop / apps
• Live Video works on JanusWeb, Native, and Mobile
• Compatible with ambient lighting component

Startpage [Experimental]

Whenever you open your browser you're usually greeted by your homepage. Typically in the past these pages have been offline HTML perhaps containing links to your favourite sites and maybe a search box for your favourite search engine. Frontend prototypes of the Deskcloud Startpage were inspired by a mashup of popular PC/Mac/Linux desktop environments.

Version 2 has nav bar, search, bookmarks, and dock to launch apps.

Through all of this software we were able to build a fully open collaborative platform that we think can someday challenge giants such as WeWork, G Suite, Office 365, and Slack/Discord/Trello in productivity. We're very much in the beginning stages but our industry leading team is experienced enough to scale for as large as we need. Initial investment will allow us to create a small user test group that will be given access to the full stack and documentation for a few months where we can conduct bi-weekly meetups and surveys to identify pain points.

History

2017

Notes

• Dropbox shared data with researchers without expressed consent of 400,000 unique users

• German Government switches to Nextcloud!
  Nextcloud offers improved productivity without the loss of control over data location and access associated with public clouds, making it an attractive option for government use. About 300,000 people in different government agencies and ministries will use the Nextcloud-powered federal cloud, made completely compliant with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

“All our code is fully, certified (by OpenChain) open source and backed by a Security Bug Bounty Program paying security experts for any issues they find,” - Jos Poortvliet, Nextcloud executive

LINK

• A wave of cities all over Europe moving to Nextcloud
• Capital of Switzerland moves schools to Nextcloud