Application System - Features

Global Authentication: Ulteo has implemented a global authentication service "Ulteo-aa" based on Kerberos. Ulteo-aa will run once when you login with on Ulteo AA. It will then associate your local account to your Ulteo Online Desktop Account.

Next, you can use your Ulteo Online password to authenticate locally on Ulteo AS. This enables data synchronization between the AS and the OD, so you can retrieve your data online, and your panel organization(*). You will also automatically be authenticated on www.ulteo.com.

Data synchronization: Ulteo has implemented a data synchronization service that can be used to both retrieve some documents online and have a backup of certain data. It also synchronize the Ulteo panel organization(*).

Just put any document/data you want to be synchronized in your "Autosync/" directory: any file that you add to this directory, either locally, or running the Ulteo Online Desktop, will be synchronized to your other instances of Ulteo (AS or OD)!

Right now, Ulteo offers the following for free:

• 1 GB maximum online storage
• Files up to 10MB
• Synchronization every 30 mins

If you need more, you can already extend these value by purchasing an Ulteo Premium, which is also a good way to fuel Ulteo development :)
Note: a data synchronization tool that can be used on Windows is under development and will follow soon.

Ulteo panel "MyDigitalLife"

The Ulteo panel is a kind of new "start menu" experience. It includes:

• a "MyDigitalLife" part where you can organize all your data and applications in custom categories. So if you want OpenOffice.org appear in your "Astronomy" category, you can!
• a "All Applications" part, where you can browse all applications that are available, and choose to add some of them to "MyDigitalLife".
• a filemanager and some web services for direct access to your documents and web search
• a "My settings" part where you can choose to remove or add some Ulteo "bricks" to your installed systems. For instance, choose to add a new language to your system, or a new category of applications (games...). Note: for now, you still have to reboot your system after a while to enable big system updates. You can manage several PCs from a single "MySettings" place.

Automatic upgrading

If you take some time to dive into your Ulteo system, you'll notice that all the Ulteo AS system is made of several files (squashfs files) that are assembled at boot time through a "union".

The Ulteo AS is totally unique, and has been inspired by how LiveCDs are built.

For instance, if you decide to add a new language to your Ulteo AS, you will notice that a new file called "language-LANG.squashfs" is downloaded to /boot/yuch/. Once downloaded, and once the system has been restarted (we're working on improving this part), the file will be unioned with other parts of the system.

One of the big benefits of this architecture, is that we can have any "layer" file upgraded very easily without entering into file details locally. The upgrade process is also incremental, so only the chunks that correspond to the "diff" between the new file and the old one are downloaded: no need to download again the whole file.