tomputer

It’s taken me a while I’ll admit but I’ve just got around to releasing the sourcecode for the XBMChumby widget I wrote which displays the XBMC “Now Playing” queue on the Chumby. I decided early on that my very basic skills as a flash/ActionScript developer weren’t up to developing this to it’s full potential so now if anyone is interested in taking it further please checkout the code and get in touch if you have any problems building it etc etc etc.

The sourceforge project page is: https://sourceforge.net/projects/xbmchumby/

…or you can point your CVS client at xbmchumby.cvs.sourceforge.net

After a couple of days playing with my new Asus EeePC 901 I was left more than a little disappointed: The innovative multitouch mouse pad was limited by the provided drivers - two-finger scroll would work but not pinch-to-zoom. The browser would crash if I tried using any flash recording in websites like youtube or ustream with the in-built webcam. The performance seemed a little sluggish when swapping between applications or even between browser tabs, and I’d describe the interface as something I’d expect to see on a kids “my first laptop” - poor quality icons and use of colour. I also found the default Xandros Linux operating system to be cumbersome - the update manager failed to install updates that it told me were available and it was incredibly difficult to install applications not listed in the update manager. Then when I told the thing to shutdown, sometimes it would but sometimes it would refuse to turn off the power and just sit there with black screen. I spent two whole hours installing seven different packages just to install Firefox 3, and then a further hour changing the Firefox shortcut in the application launcher to load version 3 instead of 2. I thought Linux was supposed to be user friendly these days!? I was left wondering whether perhaps these were just compromises I would have to accept for the portability and battery life that the EeePC could provide?

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I ordered an HTC S710 last week (arrived Friday) on the BT Total Broadband Anywhere package. It’s a Windows Mobile 6 Standard smartphone (no touch screen, but a nice slide-out qwerty keyboard). I’ve used the PocketPC OS before on PDAs but never on a phone and so I had the obvious concerns about running a version of Windows on my main handset. Initially the responsiveness of some of the menus seemed a bit slow and accessing some of the common features like “compose new message” seemed more long-winded than I’ve been used to (I’ve been exclusively a SonyEricsson user for the past few years). After a few days use I’m starting to know my way around the menus though, I’m finding ways to customise the interface with shortcuts and I’ve installed a few new apps to provide the functionality I want.

I plan to post more feedback on the S710, Windows Mobile 6 and any useful software/hints/tips over the coming weeks. If you’re interested, you can view all S710 posts or subscribe to a feed.

Disclosure: Yes, I happen to work for BT, but I’m not directly involved in the Total Broadband Anywhere project and the opinions expressed here are entirely my own. 

Intro
I’ve created a Chumby widget to act as a basic remote display for XBMC. I’ve been using it and reworking it over the last couple of weeks and I think it’s now in a state where I can make it available for others to try. It works by retreiving an RSS feed from the Xbox that contains a list of the next 5 tracks in the music playlist. If no music is playing, the RSS feed will be empty. To achieve this I’ve written a simple web page that sits on the Xbox and uses the XBMC API to retreive information about the current playlist. The widget also uses XBMC’s http API to provide basic controls to play, pause and skip tracks. This is my first attempt at using ActionScript so the functionality is fairly basic, but if others find it useful I may add more features, or release the sourcecode.

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Testing an app for the Nokia N800 to publish directly to wordpress.