Duane wrote:Well, there are still some security issues with this that we'd have to resolve.
If we give a widget that came in from the network free access to the USB device, there's nothing stopping someone from reading files from the device and uploading them to some random site on the net. That's a security hole we simply can't allow.
I'm still getting up to speed on the "philosophy" guiding Chumby (and let's not split hairs...it *is* a philosophy), so bear with me a bit. From what I had read, I *thought* people were going to be able to run Flash from places *other* than just your server. The more I think about it, maybe that was a "maybe" you'd let that happen.
At any rate, *I* would prefer to see Chumby easily able to load Flash from non-Chumby servers. Not because I don't like what you do or trust you (Chumby-corporate), but because it's just a more useful device to me if we can all "do our own thing" a bit with it. Now, I fully understand the open nature of this beast will let me go hacking on it to *make* it do what I want, but that's not what I'm after. Just the ability to get Flash from anywhere I want. I think that will build communities a lot better that only allowing Flash from chumby.com. Maybe that's the intention, I'm just being thorough with what *I* want right now.
Now, why couldn't you allow a chumby to upload to an accessible upload site? Sounds like something people might want to me. It's up to the sites on the net to be secure from rogue uploads. I must be missing something here.
Past that, I'd really like my alarm clock to be able to play the music *I* want to hear, and it may be that I have that music on a USB key. It may be that I want to use Chumby in some place that doesn't have wifi and still want the alarm clock to work like it works when it *is* connected.
(And a feature request I'd like is the ability for the Alarm Clock widget to play a background track in a looping manner as it then becomes a "noise machine" and can interrupt the "noise" with alarms.)
I guess I'm interested in the opinions of everyone on the notion of "formatting" a USB mass storage device that's inserted into a chumby. Is this something we should do? What about non-passive devices that already have an existing file structure, such as iPods? What if our structure directly conflicts with the normal operation of the device?
I think having an option to format is fine, but being able to read (and potentially write) a FAT formatted USB filesystem would be a very nice feature. But I can't see a good reason why you'd really have to format to something proprietary.
How much management of the storage should be presented to the chumby user?
However much they *need* for the Chumby to be successful as a product. Sounds like the goals you guys have for Chumby don't include any need for this. That said, if people out there want it, they'll create a file manager widget of their own (such as it can be created due to what appear to be some pretty severe Flashlite limitations).
Is there now a full file browser? How do we handle full media, locked files, permissions, etc? Is this *really* something we want somebody to have to deal with to use a chumby?
Have to? No. Be able to? Yes.
Isn't this all just trying to turn this into a computer?
Sure. But look at all the other threads with feature requests like this. It's just another one, and you have to figure out where each one falls on the ever-forming chumby philosophy.
Personally, I think you'll have the greatest acceptance of the device if it does the Alarm Clock thing insanely well, has panache (I think it already does), and is open enough to lightly "hack" even for folks that aren't hard core (which is where I think the openness to getting widgets from anywhere comes in).
--Donnie