1 (edited by directive0 2014-03-12 16:28:59)

Topic: Better late than never?

So after 6 years of wanting one I finally pulled the trigger on a Chumby Classic, all black. It's used, but looks to be in great shape. I am soooo excited to finally get to mess around with one, but let's be honest

I have some noob questions I was hoping maybe you cats could answer. I'm excited to get my hands on the little dood.

-So we're all pretty confident that some kind of second Chumby app repo is coming? I hear great praise for this Duane fellow, and from what I've seen he is the saviour everyone says he is, but whats the business model to support something like this? I'm not complaining either way, to me the Chumby is a piece of internet history so I'm happy to have one even if it's just an LCARS clock.

-I have a classic coming. Was this foolish? Will I be able (assuming the forthcoming app stuff happens) to load it up with all the widgets? Are there specific things I should know about this model?

-I'm seeing lots of peeps with 9Volt batteries inside their classics, yet they don't seem to be designed to run long term on them; is this correct?

-My Chumby will come with a copy of Zurks offline firmware. Are there any things I should know before I try messing around with it?

-How do you install widgets?

Thanks in advance for any patience you show me, just trying to get up to speed! So EXCITED!

Re: Better late than never?

directive0 wrote:

So after 6 years of wanting one I finally pulled the trigger on a Chumby Classic, all black. It's used, but looks to be in great shape. I am soooo excited to finally get to mess around with one, but let's be honest

I have some noob questions I was hoping maybe you cats could answer. I'm excited to get my hands on the little dood.

Awesome to hear!  Welcome to our little community.

directive0 wrote:

-So we're all pretty confident that some kind of second Chumby app repo is coming? I hear great praise for this Duane fellow, and from what I've seen he is the saviour everyone says he is, but whats the business model to support something like this? I'm not complaining either way, to me the Chumby is a piece of internet history so I'm happy to have one even if it's just an LCARS clock.

Yes, Duane was a Chumby employee.  When they folded, he was able to acquire much of what was left including software, licenses, and hardware.  At the time he took over, the costs to run the service were huge because of certain features and requirements from vendors.  With the start of "Blue Octy LLC", he was able to keep things partially up using a "stub server" implementation.  It simply serves up the control panel and LCARS clock.  He's close to bringing most of the original end-user functionality back.

directive0 wrote:

-I have a classic coming. Was this foolish? Will I be able (assuming the forthcoming app stuff happens) to load it up with all the widgets? Are there specific things I should know about this model?

Not foolish at all.  The only reason I would say it *might* be is the fact that it uses internal flash and a cramfs filesystem.  If you're looking to "hack" things, that can prove to be more difficult, but not impossible.  If you're just running the widgets using the Blue Octy ecosystem, you should be fine.

directive0 wrote:

-I'm seeing lots of peeps with 9Volt batteries inside their classics, yet they don't seem to be designed to run long term on them; is this correct?

I'm not sure if it powers a RTC or what exactly, but it's not designed to run the device.  It is designed to keep the device "ready" in the event of a power failure, it will keep time (for a while).

directive0 wrote:

-My Chumby will come with a copy of Zurks offline firmware. Are there any things I should know before I try messing around with it?

I've never really played with Zurk's firmware much, but I heard that newer versions weren't as simple as "unplug USB" to get back to normal.  I'm guessing you're going to have to download the original Chumby firmware and use the update procedure to get your new buddy back to a normal state.  I'm sure others will chime in with details on this, if not and you run into bumps, ask away!

directive0 wrote:

-How do you install widgets?

Right now, it's using one of the alternative firmwares, or manually editing a local channels file.  There's Zurk's, Nathan's, and information on the manual editing can be found on the wiki.  You'd have to have the widgets already downloaded so you can serve them up for the manual method.  I believe both of the other two alternatives have a handful of widgets within them.

directive0 wrote:

Thanks in advance for any patience you show me, just trying to get up to speed! So EXCITED!

There's a lot of people here that are still passionate about these devices and all willing to help (myself included).  If you have questions, let us know!

Linux Guy - Occasional Chumby Hacker

Re: Better late than never?

First, welcome to the family.

second, we're a friendly bunch and are happy to help a new chum.

Duane is building an new sustainable system to support the chumbies, he's been keeping the temporary service going out of his pocket.  unless people buy a LOT of things from the cafe press chumby store, we'll probably end up with a subscription service to cover the ongoing costs.

there's a *ton* of information about the devices, including the Ironforge (the one you're getting), both on the forums, and the wiki.  I like the tricks and tips page a lot: http://wiki.chumby.com/index.php?title=Chumby_tricks

I just adopted a classic off ebay earlier this week,  beucase I'd been wanting one for some time.  I don't think you made a mistake.   

the 9v battery on the classic keeps some kind of memory during a power outage, but it does not power the unit.   the chumby one will accept a battery that allows battery operation for a while, but, as bunnie noted, people don't have the desire to carry the chumby one around like they did the classic, since it's not cuddly like the classic.

I'll let others comment on the zurk's question, I've never messed with it.

when the service comes back up, you'll be able to create an account on the web page, and then register your new chum to your account, and then you can add widgets from the web page.

Cleaning up any loose bits and bytes.

Re: Better late than never?

Well, I'll try to answer the questions that other users haven't, to avoid wasting space.
1. Business model: Duane has been selling products off of his store to help pay off some of the costs, and I expect that he will unveil whatever other solution to permanently pay for the service whenever that gets released.
2: Zurk's firmware: The firmware for the Chumby Classic comes on a USB drive. If you don't want the widgets that Zurk provided, you're going to have to source them from somewhere. You're also going to have to edit the XML files that link to the widgets. These can be found at /lighty/html/xml/profiles/. Alternatively, you can use my widget solution, which you can download here: http://forum.chumby.com/viewtopic.php?id=8867 . Information's provided on how to add widgets and the local weather report, and it comes by default with clocks, news, and "fun" widgets (Dog licking the screen, the Matrix, etc.).
3. Please note that the battery will only power the unit for about half an hour. If you have a "2009" chumby, it will wake up if there's a power loss, but the older units won't. The easiest way to tell is by going to the brightness option in the settings app. If there's a variable setting, than you have a 2009 chumby, but if there are only 3 options you have an older device.

Re: Better late than never?

I'm not impressed with zurk's firmware.  The interface is totally wonky and feels like it was made for his amusement.  It's terribly documented, tons of stuff either doesn't work or doesn't work well, it has bits and pieces sort of cobbled together that isn't obvious at all how it should work...here's a specific example.  At home, I own three chumbies, each of which I've ssh'ed into and written some small CGI scripts that had links to let me remote control them (to start certain internet radio stations, stop the radio, control volume and brightness) so I could control some functions on my chumby from the browser in my phone.  I described this on the wiki (http://wiki.chumby.com/index.php?title= … GI_Scripts) as an example for others.  After the general chumby infrastructure went down, I eventually flashed zurk's firmware to one of my C8's.  I was really confused because after poking around in the device, I started to notice that an older version of that web remote control I described from the wiki was live, running in my chumby (I knew it was older because e.g. I'd tweaked some of the static DHCP leases assigned to my chumbies since a router upgrade). 

Anyway - this is kind of cool and nice to see it shared, but the script simply won't do anything at all unless your chumbies are mapped to the IPs I had mine set to at the time of my edits to the wiki, and it will seem oddly broken unless you own three chumbies - but it was baked into zurk's firmware.  That's the level of functionality I think you can expect.  It's not terrible and some of the old widgets are there, but IMO it's nicer to stick with simple web radio streaming, playing music off an SD/USB card, using as a digital picture frame, and so on.

This post might irritate some people (like zurk, if he reads it) and ymmv so by all means try it out, but I found it to be absolutely no replacement for the actual Chumby firmware or functionality.

To get your device back to stock firmware (which should get updates if they're pushed out by Blue Octy) - you can follow the directions here: http://wiki.chumby.com/index.php?title=Troubleshooting

good luck and have fun!

Re: Better late than never?

I agree with slipperyp about Zurk's firmware. If you want to play with alternatives, try Nathanware.

Everyone is getting excited about the new Blue Octy service that should be coming online some time soon, but we must remember that Duane does all this work in his spare time. He has a full time job and a family that (I assume) likes to see him occasionally. ;-)  We must be patient. The new service will come soon enough. Remember to visit the Chumby store and BUY something. Cafe Press has some cool Chumby stuff too. If, once the service is online, you find it valuable (you use your Chumby) buy some Chumby stickers. It would be a good idea to put a recurring event in your calendar to remember to buy some stickers regularly. It does not have to be a ton of money all the time, but a steady stream of smalll amounts is better than "one and done".

Tar, feathers, congress. Some assembly required.

Re: Better late than never?

Gosh, thanks all so much for the responses!

Usually, when one posts something like this to a forum they mostly just get "USE THE SEARCH FUNCTION", which I have been doing. I just wanted a quick primer on the world of Chumby, which is what I got! Thanks so much!

I've been reading more of the Wiki, and I've learned a lot about the current state of things since I posted.

Interesting comments about Zurk. Can't wait to get my hands dirty!

8 (edited by directive0 2014-03-13 07:21:06)

Re: Better late than never?

Can I ask why the powers that be are moving from a centralized server (which clearly has a failure point when the company loses the ability to maintain it) to a new also centralized server? Why they haven't opened the software up and allowed people to create their own content servers?

Is there some technical limitation preventing this, or is the centralization required?

Again, not complaining, just trying to understand.

Re: Better late than never?

there's a *lot* of discussion that happened on this subject about a year ago, I'd suggest looking through the forums for that, I think that copyright issues on the widgets themselves (most of which were community created and owned) are part of that.

Cleaning up any loose bits and bytes.

Re: Better late than never?

Yeah, that's a big topic.  As the current "powers that be" in this ecosystem, the long-term goal *is* to transition to a more distributed model, however, that's not something that can be done quickly or without some loss of functionality.

At this point, the only way to move to a distributed system would be to completely toss the old system, lose the commercial music sources such ac Pandora and SHOUTcast and effectively start from scratch, with authors uploading widgets under new distribution terms, plus, of course a rewrite of most of the middleware.

The position I've taken to date is that the current hackability of the device enables the tech-savyy to do anything they want, including running their own software and middleware stack independent of any of the centralized chumby back end - and there are several solutions in the wild of various levels of quality that do exactly that.  However, the vast bulk of users are not technically savvy enough to install and maintain such systems, and more importantly, I get a *lot* of requests to restore the system as it was, who don't particularly care about the details.

I absolutely recognize the long-term value in insulating the ecosystem from any type of catastrophic central failure, since we all almost went through that a year ago before I was able to buy us a reprieve.

Re: Better late than never?

Well I'm pretty satisfied with that thoughtful and prudent response.

Again, I am overwhelmed with how responsive this "dead" community is. Not since the Newton have a seen a group so devoted to helping new members, unlike the Newton this one appears to have a future.

I'm gonna grab a couple packs of stickers tomorrow. Thanks again for all your work Duane.

Re: Better late than never?

As Duane pointed out about the hackability, there's a lot possible to those of us with the technical know-how, but even then, some of us don't have time to create such a fleshed out solution on our own.  I like running the stock firmware with maybe a tweak or two, but love the built-in functionality as an overall solution.

One of the reasons I hoard these devices is because of the hackability.  My long-term plan is to put a bunch of them around my house with a home automation solution.  The price-point on used hardware with the capability of these devices is amazing.  I've picked up Infocast 3.5" devices, Chumby Ones, Infocast 8s for the last 2 years at $25-ish for 3.5" devices and $50-ish for 8" devices.  Find me somewhere else you can get an open source ecosystem that's easy to code for (since I'm a linux developer by profession) has a touch screen, etc.  People will say a raspberry pi, but by the time you add power supply, sd card, touchscreen, etc. you're looking at a lot more money without decent packaging.

One of my favorite mods is running the Qt webkit browser.  I have it setup on a USB stick to easily plug in and run the browser instead of the control panel.  Last year I had Christmas countdowns (for one of my other hobbies) around the house in no time at all.

Linux Guy - Occasional Chumby Hacker

Re: Better late than never?

there is something special about chumbies and the people that love them.

for me, part of it is the openness of it, the 'do you believe in the users' baked right in from the start, plus the liberal dose of whimsy.

the fact that the devices are as open as they are is great for us that like to play in them.

directive0, there's more interesting stuff in bunnie's blog, at http://www.bunniestudios.com/ if you search for chumby, and infocast... or just skim along from the way back when times.

Cleaning up any loose bits and bytes.

Re: Better late than never?

Thanks everyone for all the info.

Yesterday my Chumbo was in Erlanger KY, and then cleared customs in Etobicoke Ontario. Today my Chumby is in my home city... zooming around in the back of a postal truck. Sooooon it will be here, I hope. Its not uncommon for these things to take two days.

Sometimes tracking numbers are a blessing, but most of the time they just help you obsess over how-close-yet-how-far your item is. I'm hoping it comes today, though. I have a whole night of nothing to do and I'd love to get it set up with me and my lady's fave radio stations.

That reminds me; is it easy to add .pls Urls as radio stations?

Can't wait.

Re: Better late than never?

directive0 wrote:

That reminds me; is it easy to add .pls Urls as radio stations?

Can't wait.

yes, I added OZfm to my classic, and my c8, it's a pls stream.

http://s3.reliastream.com/tunein.php/ozfm/playlist.pls

Cleaning up any loose bits and bytes.

16 (edited by directive0 2014-03-20 09:08:33)

Re: Better late than never?

IT ARRIVED.

OMG this is amazing, I'm SSHing into an alarm clock. Haha, YES!

At first I was super concerned because the speakers didn't work. Nothing but static and HIGHLY delayed button "clicks" when I had touchscreen click turned on. I was ALLL ready to file an ebay cuss out, but then it was all sort of "Hold up one sec!"

Then it said initializing... then it rebooted. Now I have classical music from CBC 2 piping out in glorious stereo. Not as loud as I had hoped, but it will have to do.

So... typing in the PLS stream is annoying. Looking at the wiki I see I can command an MP3 stream to play remotely, is there any way I can access and edit "My Streams" remotely?

*EDIT
Uhp... sorry my noob foo is still SO strong, I found the wiki page regarding editing the My Streams!  Thanks!

Re: Better late than never?

directive0 wrote:

IT ARRIVED.

OMG this is amazing, I'm SSHing into an alarm clock. Haha, YES!

At first I was super concerned because the speakers didn't work. Nothing but static and HIGHLY delayed button "clicks" when I had touchscreen click turned on. I was ALLL ready to file an ebay cuss out, but then it was all sort of "Hold up one sec!"

Then it said initializing... then it rebooted. Now I have classical music from CBC 2 piping out in glorious stereo. Not as loud as I had hoped, but it will have to do.

So... typing in the PLS stream is annoying. Looking at the wiki I see I can command an MP3 stream to play remotely, is there any way I can access and edit "My Streams" remotely?

*EDIT
Uhp... sorry my noob foo is still SO strong, I found the wiki page regarding editing the My Streams!  Thanks!

1) woohoo!, 2) yeah, there's a lot of good stuff in the wiki... the 'chumby tips and tricks' page is one of my favorites.

Cleaning up any loose bits and bytes.

Re: Better late than never?

good point

I am/was too lazy to come up with pls streams to put into my 'new' chumby beanbag.

Anyone have a list of streams to add?

I also notice iheartradio is a little sparse on streams, like 3 jazz streams



PS  I LOVE the sound out of this beanbag chumby.  I forgot how good it sounded

Re: Better late than never?

philhu wrote:

Anyone have a list of streams to add?

An indication of musical tastes would help... Declaring my age... I thrive on 80s music:
http://somafm.com/u80s/songhistory.html

& the random stuff Radio Paradise plays:
http://www.radioparadise.com/

as well as the local ABC stations. That's our ABC - the ad free public broadcaster AU equiv. of the BBC, not that appalling creature from the US. wink

20 (edited by directive0 2014-03-21 05:53:47)

Re: Better late than never?

I've decided to make this its own support question.

Re: Better late than never?

And here we ...go!

It begins folks, I bought another orphaned Chumby (c1) off ebay.

I have to say I am extremely excited about the movement I'm seeing from this community and the future developments. So much so I decided to ante up for a little dude for my desk at work.

Chumby for ever!

Re: Better late than never?

don't forget to buy some tasteful stickers for him, or perhaps something nice accessorywise off of the cafe press store wink

Cleaning up any loose bits and bytes.

Re: Better late than never?

directive0 wrote:

So... typing in the PLS stream is annoying.

There's another trick: I found that if I go to tinyurl.com and turn the stream URL into something sensible and short, it's easier to type into the Chumby. Example: "Hawaiian Rainbow" is a station that plays Hawaiian music (natch) and the streaming URL is:

http://loudcity.com/stations/a-hawaiian … listen.pls

The shortened URL is:

http://tinyurl.com/haw-rai

For what it's worth, I never had any problems with Zurk's firmware. I have two Chums running on it and they both work just fine.

Re: Better late than never?

directive0 wrote:

And here we ...go!

It begins folks, I bought another orphaned Chumby (c1) off ebay.

I have to say I am extremely excited about the movement I'm seeing from this community and the future developments. So much so I decided to ante up for a little dude for my desk at work.

Chumby for ever!

Congrats on the c1.  It has some surprisingly decent sound for such a small enclosure.

Re: Better late than never?

Thanks Marcev, yeah that's what people have told me. I'm mostly stoked on it because it has an FM radio and my partner loves waking up to CBC radio, though she'll probably be upset that it's not the little leather guy anymore; he's moving to my desk at work.

Diamunt: I just bought a 10 dollar set of stickers for now, consider me a contributor!

Stoked for the future of these poor little doods.