CONTEST! Propose your idea and win ProgoPlug Pro (OXNAS)

Hi guys,

As a thank you to Jeff for hosting this site, and has enabled us to have so much fun hacking Linux! I have a spare brand new PogoPlug Pro (OXNAS variant) I bought long ago, that I want to donate to the site. Jeff thought it would be fun to have a contest for ideas that the we can all join in to discuss what's the best use for this box.

I will send this Pogoplug Pro to the winner who has the best idea what to use this plug for :-) The contest rules are as followed:

1. At least 5 ideas must have been posted.
2. Prefered Debian+UBoot project (Arch Linux would be great to).
3. The contest is opended for a duration of at least 2 weeks (from today Nov 2nd to Nov 16th). If there is not enough entries then it will end on Nov 30th.

I will select the best idea in my judgment. Jeff will a veto/preference in PM to confirm my choice after the contest is over.

Have fun! and I hope everybody will contribute their ideas here and we'll have a stimulating discussion.

bodhi



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/02/2012 07:19PM by bodhi.

I think it would be cool to host a wiki on it where everybody can get closer with topics like the environment variables, what they do etc. or a clear overview of how the affected people got rid of the erase-block problem.
This board here is full of information but day by day it's getting harder to find what you're looking for.
A wiki could improve this situation very much.

To me the best application in CrashPlan-- just have to figure out how to make it work :)

Hey everybody :-)

Common, let's hear more good ideas! the Pogoplug POGO-P01 - Pro is waiting for its new owner :-)

Here is the info page on Arch site:
http://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv6/pogoplug-provideov3

-bodhi

Really? Noone is coming up with ideas for this awesome contest? I've been following Jeff's site and forum since the beginning, but only registered today to get the idea count that much closer to 5 so someone can take advantage of this amazing contest!

My own idea is rather mundane, but would be to replace my aging P4 debian server at home with a pogo. To give everyone an idea what kind of life that would be, we're talking:
- 24/7 running
- apache for basic content including my website with random archived information and tidbits over the years (nothing particularly useful, but occasionally I get an email thanking me for a copy of a hard to find recovery file or process
- apache also is configured for webdav, giving me my own personal "cloud" i've used for over 10 years to keep my life in sync and help others do the same. On Mac and Windows computers, that's easily accomplished with built-in webdav network drive support. on android I use total commander with the webdav plugin for quick access and foldersync for automated copies. on apple ios, i mostly sync within goodreader, but have been looking for better options under jailbreak
- eye-fi server for wireless sync of my camera, dropped into the webdav tree for easy accessn and sorting
- digital photo gallery (files since 2000 in a basic file structure + a neat little cron script that creates thumbnails of all my images in 1024x768, 640x480, and 320x240 and another script to select a random image every 5 minutes) this helps me re-use all my old gadgets as photo frames around the house
- x10 controller via a serial x10 device and a usb serial adapter. I only got around to wiring x10 in about 20% of my place, but made sure to start with where I plug in all the holiday lights!
- media server -- i still don't believe in upnp/dlna, but so long as i can get something running xbmc i'm happy enough with basic webdav and smb shares of music, video, and photos


I'm pretty sure the pogoplug pro is up to the task. Plan B would be to use it as an access point and nas while travelling.


Not very creative, but we'll get the idea count high enough for someone who wants to make a pogo-bot to win

--

Now we're talking :-) thanks matrix. And thanks kevinvinv, and audiocrush!

@matrix, on android, "total commander with the webdav plugin" sounds pretty neat. I'm using Webdav Navigator on iPhone, and also looking for Android webdav client app. Will give it a try, thanks!

Keep it coming everybody! it's now to Nov 30th.

Maybe a case mod to fit the pogo and a 2.5" usb disk in a 5.25" dvd-like bay. It would be nice having a little-server embedded into your desktop computer. Of course software installed must include:

samba & nfs server, download server (aria2 with webui)
sshd (maybe dropbear)

I would put the oxnas behind a nat router with ddns & forwarding ports 22 & 80. In the web side just lighttpd + php5-cgi + h5ai and some javacripting
gives us a webserver to achieve data from this litle device and to give some downloads (h5ai is AWESOME for this kind of tasks).

Of course a litle python wiki (like moinmoin) is a good idea too.

I don't have any oxnas device and don't know how well newer kernels are supported, but add a cheap bluetooth usb is another good idea.

Thanks Pazos! very interesting ideas. I've looked into modding the PogoPro before, was thinking I could squeeze the 2.5 SATA HD in the case, but decided not to (not enough ventilation). The hidden SATA port is very nice.

Thanks for the info about h5ai :-) I went over to the website and took a peek. It looks really nice. I'm using dirLIST but the directory index does not look as nice as h5ai. h5ai has multiple file download capability, which is great. But I did not see upload capility?

Of course, via "drag & drop", but it's experimental and has some limitations (it is not posible to upload an entire folder & you need to have a RECENT browser).

look at _h5ai/conf/options.json

Personally, I think that h5ai is great for public sites, just for read and *NOT* for write . I rely on scp (or nfs | smb | sftp) to transfer new data to the server.

Indeed, there are many ways to upload. And since most OS has Webdav supports (when uploading work correctly), it's easier to use the built-in tools. I've tried OSX Finder and Windows 7 web folders and they're both usable, but buggy (eg. current OXS Finder can't upload a file/folder using Webdav).

I'm still strugging to use h5a1 with lighttpd and filed a bug report there.

@matrix,

The X10 controler sounds cool :-) how does it work? Pogo<--> USB <-->Serial x10 ? is there already control software or you'd just connect as terminal and send control codes through some scripts?

Thx

matrix Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> - x10 controller via a serial x10 device and a usb
> serial adapter. I only got around to wiring x10
> in about 20% of my place, but made sure to start
> with where I plug in all the holiday lights!
> - media server -- i still don't believe in
> upnp/dlna, but so long as i can get something
> running xbmc i'm happy enough with basic webdav
> and smb shares of music, video, and photos
>
> --

I don't really want to win it.

But marying a pogoplug an arduino and a wifi-stick, to monitor and
control the real world, basicly creating a stand-alone arduino development system.

My winter project this year will be controlling our underfloor-heating (11 zones)
using the above and quite a few ds18b20, some uln2008 and a relay or two.

Thank you for sharing your experience with a bad blocks, that saved one of my
e02.

/Peter

Thanks Peter,

Sounds like an interesting project! in the future please come back and tell us about how you've done it.

I've learned about UBoot from my E02 bad blocks workaround, thanks to other members here. I'm still using old UBoot for this E02 because I guess I have to repeat that workaround to upgrade to new Davy's UBoot.

X10 is handily done with mochad, and works rather well. Once that is in place, MisterHouse or other mochad-enabled systems can work perfected. I have a device running pure mochad & a node.js + angular + socket.io controlling my house & lights.

WarheadsSE Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> X10 is handily done with mochad, and works rather
> well. Once that is in place, MisterHouse or other
> mochad-enabled systems can work perfected. I have
> a device running pure mochad & a node.js + angular
> + socket.io controlling my house & lights.

Pretty cool! I didn't know X10 has such a great Linux support for Home Automation.

And the winner is .... Pazos !!!

Thanks to everybody who responded. Hope future contests will be better, more members will participate :-)

Pazos, you got PM!

-bodhi

congrats pazos!

x10:
i use an old x10 firecracker module with the command line tools from bottlerocket http://www.linuxha.com/bottlerocket/

I've got a few cron entries to manage time scheduling of some of the modules (eg - turn everything off at 1am, if someone is still awake they'll turn it back on; turn on the module with the christmas tree at 6pm) and some very basic smartness (i have another script that scans for blutooth devices and triggers the outside holiday lights when it detects the family has arrived in the evening (just checks the first time it sees you after 3pm, so it's not that smart)

x10 has been around since at least the early 80s and is still compatible with older unts. i have a great led desk clock with funky slides and buttons to control x10 modules.

webdav on android:
there are a lot of great tools that support webdav on android. unfortunately there is no universal support for davfs (to mount webdav shares as drives) but the two tools i use are foldersync and total commander.

foldersync ( http://www.tacit.dk/foldersync ) - new versions have a basic file browser functionality for local and remote drives and supports pretty much everything out there [from their site: Google Drive, Google Docs, Dropbox, Amazon S3, SugarSync, Ubuntu One, Box.net, SkyDrive, FTP, FTPS, SFTP, WebDAV and windows share]. the syncronisation options are very robust. of course, the first time i used it, i accidentally configured it to delete ALL my vacation photos, so be sure to play around with the options before using it on live data. the lite version has more than enough fuctions for most.

total commander ( http://www.ghisler.com/ ) is not a popular or well known android file browser, but i've used total commander previously on windows mobile and way back when on windows for it's hp200lx support. this is a full featured file manager with dual window support and all the trimmings, and internal support for webdav, ftp, and windows shares via plugins on the android client. free without ads, can't go wrong.

Thank you :) I'm really happy \\

bodhi: you got PM too!!

Thanks matrix!

> x10 has been around since at least the early 80s
> and is still compatible with older unts. i have a
> great led desk clock with funky slides and buttons
> to control x10 modules.

That is way out!

>
> foldersync ( http://www.tacit.dk/foldersync
> ) - new versions have a basic file browser
> functionality for local and remote drives and
> supports pretty much everything out there [from
> their site: Google Drive, Google Docs, Dropbox,
> Amazon S3, SugarSync, Ubuntu One, Box.net,
> SkyDrive, FTP, FTPS, SFTP, WebDAV and windows
> share]. the syncronisation options are very
> robust. of course, the first time i used it, i
> accidentally configured it to delete ALL my
> vacation photos, so be sure to play around with
> the options before using it on live data. the
> lite version has more than enough fuctions for
> most.
>

I'm using Grive on the GoFlex Home to sync with Google Drive, and it's very stable (I have to have a cron job to trigger the sync, since the current version does not have autosync yet). I could not find anything available on ARM architecture that syncs Dropbox. Got to check out this foldersync :-) that's for Android only?


> total commander ( http://www.ghisler.com/ )
> is not a popular or well known android file
> browser, but i've used total commander previously
> on windows mobile and way back when on windows for
> it's hp200lx support. this is a full featured
> file manager with dual window support and all the
> trimmings, and internal support for webdav, ftp,
> and windows shares via plugins on the android
> client. free without ads, can't go wrong.

Nice!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/03/2012 12:58AM by bodhi.

another idea:

pogo_pro + arduino + dht11

the arduino reads humidity & temperature a send it throught serial-usb to a pogo, which check info and store it into a raw file, formatted for gnuplot. The pogo has a little webserver with some perl scripting and update graphic charts on demand. [ I actually do this with an old nslu2 but the png files are not showed via webserver, but in a picture frame (df3120) ]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/08/2012 08:07PM by pazos.

pazos Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> another idea:
>
> pogo_pro + arduino + dht11
>
> the arduino reads humidity & temperature a send it
> throught serial-usb to a pogo, which check info
> and store it into a raw file, formatted for
> gnuplot. The pogo has a little webserver with some
> perl scripting and update graphic charts on
> demand. [ I actually do this with an old nslu2 but
> the png files are not showed via webserver, but in
> a picture frame (df3120) ]

Nice! I'm thinking it could be displayed on another PC running XBMC, and also on your phone/tablet. Long ago, I ran across a post in XBMC forum that a member has set up the door bell so it sends a notification message to XBMC (so it does not matter how loud the movie is playing:-)