Chumbylover

Chumby Guts video from Make

chumbylover — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:37:32 +0000

Make is selling Chumby Guts. Though not as cheap as the new Chumby One, they’re more fun to build, and can be shipped worldwide.

Make also shared a “how to” video for building Chumby Guts:

via @chumby

Ready for chumby?

chumbylover — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 06:15:29 +0000

The public release means that the chumby is ready for the (internet-addicted) masses. Are you ready for chumby? Part alarm clock, part internet radio, part hacker’s toy, the chumby is a touchscreen beanbag linux computer.

On Monday, February 25th, Chumby Industries announced the public launch of the chumby. 5 months ago, in September, the “insider’s release” of the production units started. By December, the chumby store was open to any U.S. customer. Hackers abroad have settled for private importing; the company cannot ship outside the U.S.

I’m pleased with my chumby. Since November, when my chumby arrived, the software has grown by leaps and bounds. The control panel offers improved music options and alarm settings, which were tested in beta control panel versions. Widget offerings have grown, with new widgets developed by community members as well as by the community. Documentation has grown as well, both on tips and tricks for using the chumby, as well as example widgets.

I’m also pleased with the company’s process of customer-influenced, user-centered, agile development. They’ve been very aware of their user-base, engaging early adopters through the chumby forums. Back in November, chumby CEO Steve Tomlin wrote

We treasure every comment and every communication with our Customer Service group. We love getting the positive feedback, but the negative feedback is what makes the chumby better — we are listening and doing what we can with this constructive criticism to address it in our product roadmap.

Kudos to the chumbians–especially Software Development VP Duane Maxwell, who was the listener in many of these cases! While many community requests anticipated the company’s plan, some seem to have changed the direction of development. For example, you can now get out of the control panel by pushing the same button that got you into it!

Chumby website redesigned

chumbylover — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 03:50:11 +0000

The Chumby website has been redesigned, as announced on the forums. My favorite? The ‘My Chumby’ dashboard:

Check out major redesigns on these pages:

The shiny new front page now uses the theme “Wake up to your internet life” and offers a Chumby overview video. The page also highlights popular uses:

In Your Life
Clocks and Alarms
Photo Viewing
Sports
News and Entertainment

Don’t get the chumby? Take a look at chumby.com, as Scott Jansousek suggests.

And if you’re not impressed by splash, there’s always the code:

<!--
	 ___
	(O o)    Chumby says, "I'm now at version 773."
	/||||\
	-->

Oops, I mean, the developer page. Community widgets are now easier to find, sorted into categories in the widget guide, instead of lumped into the widgets laboratory.

Scratch-proofing my chumby touchscreen

chumbylover — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 01:09:26 +0000

I kept the original film covering on my chumby for awhile. It’s not meant to protect the chumby in normal use. The sticky bits holding the film in place are prominently marked “peel here”. But it held up pretty well for 6 weeks:

The chumby is a fingernail-operated touchscreen, so I ordered a custom invisibleSHIELD, a plastic originally used to “protect the leading blades of helicopters from wear and tear” and now sold for iPods, laptops, cameras, etc.

They come with a lifetime guarantee so I’m guessing my chumby screen will be safe from my fingernails from here on out.

If you want your own custom-order invisibleSHIELD, you’ll need good measurements and a link to a photo. Here’s what I gave them:

Inset in a bevel
2 1/8 inch x 2 27/32 inch, plus a hair on each side
Radius at the corners at about 1/32 of an inch
a link to chumby.com for photos

Expect to pay about $18 with shipping and to leave your chumby powered off for about a day after applying the screen protector. For better results, recalibrate the touchscreen afterwards to compensate for any loss in sensitivity.

Chumby streams your favorite internet radio station

chumbylover — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 23:44:45 +0000

Want to stream internet radio to your chumby? Type its URL on the chumby’s on-screen keyboard:

Or choose from preloaded audio streams:

Chumby can play music and podcasts from:

iPod
SHOUTcast
Mediafly
Radio Free Chumby
My Streams
SlimServer
My Music Files (USB)

with beta control panel 2.6.54.

‘My Streams’, automatic rebuffering, and screen art are new since my last report.

Chumby is getting better fast. In November, when I got my Chumby, you could play music off an iPod, or use btplay at the command line to stream audio from any URL. The beta control panel makes this easier–and lets your chumby play widgets while you listen to music.

Streaming radio on my chumby

chumbylover — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 00:48:14 +0000

Streaming internet radio is a consumer’s killer app #1 for the chumby.

Hackers immediately find the joy in a cheap, hackable, portable linux mini-computer. But Muggles might ask, “How much did you pay for that?” or “What is it for?”

While the chumby still lacks a webbrowser (a tall order on a 266MHz ARM9 with a 3.5 inch screen), the beta control panel brings the chumby *much* closer to being an end-consumer device. If the rate of improvement and community interaction continue, I’ll be quite pleased, come spring, to have dubbed myself ‘chumbylover’.

I’ve used chumby more this weekend than anytime since Thanksgiving. Yesterday, I flipped from Berkeley’s KALX to skip sports programming from their match with Princeton, just to find WPRB gearing up for coverage of the same match. Earlier, Handel’s Messiah was streaming from my chumby. (Thanks WCPE!). Now I’m listening to oddly soothing music from Bob Brainen’s show on WFMU–a nice mix of instrumental (I’ve never heard a bass clarinet do *that* before), jazz, and pop music. Easy-listening, but not in the pejorative sense.

And how easy streaming is–in the control panel sense.

The default control panel has one music option: playing off an iPod.

Beta control panel 2.6.49 music options are much richer:

Shoutcast
Mediafly
Radio Free Chumby (Throw your own favorite non-commercial radio station into the hat.)
SlimServer
Music files on USB

In either case, you can also ssh into the chumby to access other music sources.

Bottom line: Sure, I could pull streaming audio off my computer or a dedicated device, but the chumby–with its built-in speakers and rounded, hand-friendly shape, makes internet radio much more fun.

If only my house had more power outlets!

How to get a chumby

chumbylover — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 00:51:58 +0000

Quick answer: Go to http://store.chumby.com/

Are you sure you want one? The chumby isn’t ready for the masses yet [says CEO Steve Tomlin]. Still want to buy a chumby? They’re

Currently shipped to U.S. customers only.
$179.95, including drop-shipping from China
Delivered in about 1 week: Mine spent 5 days in transit.

“Insider’s versions will be upgraded … via WiFi to the full launch version, for free” [bunnie:studios, blog of designer Andrew "Bunnie" Huang]

Chumby Widgets

chumbylover — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 01:42:32 +0000

I was glad to see a bunch of widgets appear in a new chumby “widget laboratory”. How do I learn about new widgets, and add them to my chumby? Sadly, it’s harder than it could be.

There are bunches of feeds and even a widget showing the freshest additions (“recent widgets”). But to add widgets, you need a computer. That makes chumby great for pushing info to somebody else (photoframe style) but not suitable for computer-free use.

On the chumby you can:

delete widgets
switch between your own personal ‘channels’
rate widgets
receive widgets from your ‘chums’

You need a computer to:

add widgets
configure widgets
change the order of widgets in a channel
create a new channel
comment on widgets

So far there are a roughly 200 publicly-available chumby widgets. Some picks:

Post Secret
Oddly mesmerizing. Better if you increase the time. Pleased a teenage friend on Thanksgiving Day.
Chumby Chat
Why I love it? I got wished “Happy Thanksgiving from Michigan” by an utter stranger.
Flash Lite Chumb-ilities
Chumby was the first Flash Lite 3 device to market, and I’m hoping this list of chumby’s abilities will bring us more content quick. From Flash developer Scott Janousek.

Want to make a widget? Here are some recommended resources:

Scott Janousek’s blog (category: chumby)
ChumbyWiki: Developing widgets for chumby and Example Widgets
Chumby Forum on Flash development (e.g. thread on learning Flash)

Synch me, will you?

chumbylover — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 00:44:59 +0000

Here is the dream of the chumby:

I don’t need to “get a life,” I have too many already. I just need to reconcile, to “synch,” them better.

We’re hoping that the chumby will help reconcile real and Net lives for some people. … It’s meant to be passive. It’s “sort of” what’s going on in your Net life, with the occasional alert for when you do need to put your real life on hold and engage completely with your Net life …Frankly, I don’t know if it will really accomplish this goal or not (maybe I’ll now be staring at my chumby in the living room and still missing the puppet show), but it’s an attempt. [Chumby Corporate Blog]

My experience so far is mixed. Which parts of my net life are actually passive? Or could be? I’m still figuring that out.

Setting up a good mix of widgets will take time–and a fair bit of experimentation. Until then, Chumby’s more of a time sink than a life synch.

Why I bought a chumby

chumbylover — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 00:39:10 +0000

While I was waiting for my chumby to arrive, some friends asked “what are you gonna do with that thing?” Here were some of my ideas:

Awareness of email/IRC/RSS when I’m away from my computer. (I spend *way* too much time in front of the machine. It’s physically uncomfortable, and can be socially disruptive.)
Streaming audio or video content–perhaps pulling out stuff marked “towatch” or “tolisten” in my del.icio.us, and checking them off the list. (I’m a very text-based person so just never, ever get to those.)

My dream tool would also

Be a tool for searching, without using a laptop. (Not what I’m expecting of the chumby.)

Other factors:

The “ooh, cuddly, touch-me” vibe. (plus)
Lack of a battery is a big downside. (minus)
Hackable, with instructions for crafters, Flash designers, software developers, and hardware modders. (big plus)
Linux in a beanbag?