Online services for Linux, Similar to MobileMe and Live?

[Dekkon]

Why isn't there any of these online web services designed to be catered around every computer, including Linux. These services would be accesable from a Computer(Windows, Linux, Or Mac via Web Browser), Phone(Through Native app or Mobile Webbrowser), and Information Kiosk, Library, or other.

It would have:

Push Email, Contacts, Address, Gallery, Other.
Open Source APIs for use on any device.
Free

Is there any services like this that are tightly integrated into the OS and phones like MobileMe and Live?

[NovaAesa]

There's always IRC and Jabber (they are available on all 3 major OSs). They aren't exactly tightly integrated though...

[phrostbyte]

Well it's really only Apple that came out with this, Live Mesh (Microsoft's competitor) can't do anything but store data ATM.

To be fair to Apple on this one, I'm pretty sure all the services of MobileMe are accessible using open standards, IMAP for mail.. CalDAV for calender.. WebDAV for file storage.. (similar to .Mac before it)

I could be wrong though. :)

[joninkrakow]

Well it's really only Apple that came out with this, Live Mesh (Microsoft's competitor) can't do anything but store data ATM.

To be fair to Apple on this one, I'm pretty sure all the services of MobileMe are accessible using open standards, IMAP for mail.. CalDAV for calender.. WebDAV for file storage.. (similar to .Mac before it)

I could be wrong though. :)

Yeah, well, I just tried to access my MobileMe account just now, and MM tells me I need to upgrade my browser to either Safari 3 or Firefox 2 or greater. I'm running FF3 on Ubuntu, and there's nothing I can do to get it to let me sign in. I don't know how to change user agents in FF, so until I figure it out, I'm sunk... So much for open standards... for now, at least. Apple _will_ be hearing from me on this, and I hope others will be voicing their complaints about not being able to access MM from non-Windows and non-Mac computers.

-Jon

[DigitalDuality]

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[jpeddicord]

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/59

And if you switch it to the Googlebot you can get access to certain paid help sites, such as experts exchange.

You can see the EE answers without paying in the first place, no UA change needed. Just scroll to the *very* bottom of the page. After the hidden answers and the massive category listing will be the real human-readable answers. EE used to do this with Googlebot, but since that is against Google's TOS they do this now. Lets them get into search results while still confusing the heck out of everyone.

[tondunn]

You can activate the online mobileme service via Konqueror

[keyrunner]

MobileMe will also work with Prism (the stripped down Gecko browser intended for dedicated Web 2.0 Apps) on Ubuntu.

[geoken]

Isn't that what Gmail and google apps do?

Gmail+imap = perfect integration with any email app. Based on standard API's (IMAP)

Google Calendar + Sunbird(Lightning calendar addon) = perfect integration with google calendar (which is based on the standardized iCalendar format) http://www.linux.com/feature/118068

You can also sync your Gmail contacts with various apps.

You can also use Google Picasa and upload pics to your picasa web album (you can also do this from within other photo management apps).

You can also use google docs, spreadsheet and page creator (free web space).

All this stuff is free and based on open standards so your data isn't locked in. It can also all be accessed via your browser.

[geoken]

On a side note, regarding the MobileMe + Firefox 3 issue, Apple is pretty famous now for intentionally crippling their apps to stifle competition. When Vista was first released iTunes contained several bugs that could have easily been fixed much before the release but Apple decided it would be better to put a big note on their website encouraging people not to upgrade to Vista. This is the same thing with Mobil Me and FF3