How can I run a desktop in the cloud that I can remotely connect to?

Maybe a stupid question but is there any way to set up a cloud Ubuntu PC somewhere where I can install everything as usual and access it on several PC and OS?

For instance I want to continue my programming work with quickly+Glade on a windows XP PC at another place. I know there is VirtualBox but I don't want take care of files synchronization and VM is running very slow at my Windows PC.

Thanks for any suggestions!

There are several cloud images of Ubuntu running on Amazon EC2. They can be used by paying relevant costs on a per hour basis. This is the Public Cloud solution. The starting step-by-step instructions can be found in Ubuntu community wiki. You can then perform remote desktop operations on it by following this guide.

Another online solution will be installing Ubuntu cloud images in a cloud that you already own i.e. a Private Cloud. The cloud itself may be managed by a third party.

If you want to set up a cloud on your own hardware you can follow this guide in Ubuntu community wiki. But then you'll be responsible to keep your server(s) online.

These are some general pointers. I hope those who have more experience in this zone can provide you more specific answer.

I did this using FreeNX but do it a little different way:

Started with this:

http://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/locator/ec2/

I used Precise us-west 2 i386 ebs for the image.

Using the Micro Instance while being qualified for the Free Tier with the relatively new Billing Alerts they have, you can run Free for a year.

After you enable gnome, install FreeNX you can access the Virtual Desktop on AWS using the NX Local Client Free Download. If you add the NX web companion, you can use Java to access on any PC that allows Java to run that way without admin access on the host machine.

Runs like a champ and completely Free within the limits of AWS Free Tier. You can set up a different account if the Free Tier expires.