[famousactress]

I did fail to mention I visit the office (a 2hr flight from home) for a week out of every six or so.. which helps me with some of the things you mentioned. I do have random conversations when I'm up there over beers or dinner that wouldn't likely happen via phone calls or on Skype. It's definitely nice.

Another downside that gets me sometimes is that I miss shared whiteboards. I'm a pretty visual/physical thinker. It's nice to have a whiteboard you can both see. We mostly supplement w/ screen sharing or SMSing iphone images of sketches. It works but it's not ideal. One of the things I'd love to work on someday is tools to make remote-work better/easier. For instance, I think it's rad that many of the 37signals folks work remotely and build tools that scratch that particular itch.

[DigitalJack]

I make extensive use of screen sharing, OneNote, and a wacom tablet. It works out pretty well, but you are right, it's not as nice as a whiteboard.

I've toyed around with the whole wiimote / projector idea as a cheap collaborative whiteboard. Sadly my company is not as open to "out of the box / off the wall" ideas as I am. It wouldn't be as useful if the other side didn't participate in the same way.

Perhaps there is a product / startup idea here. A projector with a camera built in, or something like that.

The HP Touchsmart computers would probably be an easier way to go. It would be nice if somebody marketed touch capabilities as an augmentation to traditional computer interaction rather than as a primary interface.