http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/1880/
Say I'm sitting at home, small home network 4 pc's two wired, two wireless, one pc has printer attached, printer on wireless etc. I would like to be able to draw a visio diagram of what the network looks like and later on be able to check the diagram how it is functioning and if something changed.

So literally I would like to be able to draw a diagram showing my laptop, wireless link to wireless access point, access point wired via 100mbit ethernet to DSL modem. DSL modem is four port switch. Connects to 2 other pc's. One of these pc's is connected via USB to a printer. The wireless access point has a USB port, which has a USB storage attached. Than the system should just be able to figure out where I do my backups, where it can print, how it can connect to the internet etc.

This was something I discussed with Colleagues in an all windows environment this morning. One of my colleagues had trouble configuring the printer. He wanted to tell the computer to connect to "that" printer "there". This required a string like \\foo-bar-boo\baf\boom\bang-123. All he wanted to see was a diagram of the building we were in, go to the sixth floor, see the printers on the lay out and click the left printer on the east wall.

Oh yeah, not even Ubuntu user... just wished all networks could be configured like this.

[-29 votes] Solution #1: Auto-generated solution of idea #1880


]]> en-us Fri, 29 Feb 2008 22:11:07 +0000 Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 QAPoll module http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/1880/ Sun, 02 Mar 2008 14:04:28 +0000
A rendez vous / bonjour like service might help by already drawing the diagram for the user. It would tell the user: Your Computer can now see the following computers in its vicinity, connected to eachother in the following way. Computer X has a USB printer attached. Computer Y has a webserver on it. The DSL modem sits there and there is a separate wireless access point.

At this moment we're showing the user a list of icons and names of servers, pc's and printers, but that doesn't always mean anything to the user. Users think in physical systems, cables, wireless, DSL-modems, Cable modems etc.

Users also think in physical locations. For offices it would be handy if users could actually imagine their building and look at from the point of view: I want to print on the printer on the fifth floor in the office next to maria the secretary. Adding a little special sauce from an Active Directory and you know where the printers are on a floor in a large office building, helping you to navigate where the printed stuff should go to.


]]> Sun, 02 Mar 2008 22:12:58 +0000