Topic: Thoughts on Zurk's Firmware II: Electric Boogaloo
After I saw richteel's post about the Zurk's firmware tutorials, I have wanted to try it again. After getting the opportunity to customize it to the way I see fit, I have decided that it's better for a lot of tasks than my firmware (Really Christian's, with a few widgets I downloaded). First, I downloaded the (rather large) zip file and extracted it to a flash drive. I plugged it in and after Zurk's TalkingChumby script said that it was safe to unplug the flash drive and reboot, I did. I then set the Chumby up and went to its IP in my web browser. Now, last time I said that I had connection problems with it, but I have a Netgear plug that extends the WiFi so devices that don't support WPA can connect to the Internet. I simply connect to this whenever I want to change something, before changing it back after the changes have been made. Now, Zurk has made a web-based file manager for his firmware, but it's slow and you can't batch upload files, so I opted to use WinSCP instead. I put the widgets I wanted to have into a folder at /mnt/storage and added them one-by-one through the Widget Editor. This was a pain to use, but eventually I got all the clocks I wanted onto the device. I also made a Morning channel, consisting of a simple clock and AccuWeather with fast rotation to wake up with (For anyone that wants to know, the Chumby wakes up from night mode and switches to said channel five minutes before I wake up). Meanwhile, my main channel is just a bunch of clocks I like on 1-minute rotation. Overall, I think that armed with chumbydev.blogspot.com and a few free tools (and patience), this firmware is well worth using, but I wouldn't use it if you have no technical knowledge whatsoever.