I was a member of GHOST.CC, a cloud computing site which enabled you to login from their website and access a web-based desktop service.

It was really straightforward. You log in with your username and password…

Ghost.CC 01

..and in a few moments a workspace would appear.

Ghost.CC 02

You could customize it, use it as a web browser, create and work on documents… just like you were connecting an working on another PC.

Ghost.CC was fun, but I just didn’t use it that often. Not when I could connect to my personal PCs and Macs just as easily as I could this service, and retrieve my own documents from my own trusted domains and servers. It was also easier and faster to use a proxy site (or my own proxy server) when I needed to bypass any firewalls.

Last night I finally had a chance to sift through one of my older email accounts and found a notice from GHOST.CC that they are closing down for good March 15th.

From their March 3rd email…

“We hope you have been enjoying our free Ghost service. Regrettably changes in the marketplace mean that it is no longer economical for us to host the Ghost service and we will be closing down the service on or around March 15. We will instead be focusing on licensing or selling our technology to larger companies.

We advise you to migrate ALL important folders, files and emails to another secure place before March 15. You might like to consider Google Docs or Microsoft SkyDrive for files and services such as Gmail or Yahoo! Mail for email. Some instructions for migrating data are included below.

We are really sorry for any inconvenience this may cause you and are very grateful for the fantastic support we had from our community.”

Ghost.CC was a great idea, and I did get some good use of it here and there. This was an outstanding technical achievement, and it was integrated very well with every web browser I tried it in. I guess it just wasn’t the time for it. Best of luck in your next endeavor, guys.