First off, I am NOT a developer, but I thought it'd be better to post this here, as it'd be more likely to be found by people who could help.

I've had a Chumby Classic for a while now, and I love it.  Not long ago, I found a listing on eBay for an alpha prototype, and I won it for not too much money.  I thought it'd be a cool thing to have, and would have potential as a second Chumby, although I knew that, as a prototype, it might not have all the capability of the Classic.  (Plus, the proceeds went to NextStep Recycling, which seems like a cool group, so I didn't mind giving them money, even if the prototype has limited functionality.)

I've had it for a little while now, and I've been trying to see how functional I can make it.  It doesn't have on-board wifi, but I can see the place inside where a dongle would go, so I've been trying to find a way to get it online.  First, I tried a small wifi dongle I had, but w/o luck.  I tried searching the wiki and the forum, and I found this thread in which a "Chumbian" mentioned that the dongle being used was a XTERASYS XN-3134G:
http://forum.chumby.com/viewtopic.php?id=116
I discovered that PCMicroStore was selling this model, so I bought one, hoping that would work:
http://www.pcmicrostore.com/XTERASYS-54 … 02265.html
Unfortunately, it hasn't worked so far.

So, I decided to try starting a topic here, to see what sort of help I could get.  I'd prefer getting it online via wifi, but I'd try a wired connection, if need be.  Would I need to apply some sort of update or patch via a USB drive to get it to work with the dongle?  Would a USN ethernet dongle work with the prototype?  My cable modem has a USB connection -- is there any chance that might work?  (Actually, I'm not even sure if that modem could handle its ethernet port and USB port being used simultaneously, so that might be a moot point, anyway.  Like I said, I'm not a developer, but I'm not beyond a little tinkering...)

Right now, my prototype is little more than a rather cool-looking clock, since even the music section shows as "under construction."  Is there a way I can update or patch in at least a Music player, so it could be an MP3 player, too?  Oh, I also noticed that it won't remember the time & date, even with a fresh 9V battery (I even tested it with my tongue) -- is there a way to get it to remember the time so I won't have to reset it each time I turn it on?

Again, I fully understand that, since this is a prototype, it might not be able to do everything my Classic can, but I'd like to make it as functional as I'm able to, but it's still an interesting peek into the development of my little Chumby buddy!  :-)