Tristan Phillips's Blog

I recently purchased an iPod nano to add to my vast array of Apple goodies. In fact I purchased it on the day Steve Jobs died as a memento. When I bought it, I wanted to wear it as a watch. The new firmware has 18 watch faces, and you can get some pretty nice straps for it.

Anyway, “wouldn’t it be cool”, I thought to myself, if every time I synced the nano with my Mac, the latest photos from my (or people I follow) Flickr streams were automagically added to the nano’s photo library. A quick google revealed there were loads of Flickr download tools, but none so flexible as to satisfy my needs. Besides, I’m a geek and I like writing code…

I started to look into the Flickr API’s and soon realised everything I needed was right there, so I got coding. Within an hour or so I had come up with something pretty cool, a few more hours of tweaking and I now have a command line, cross platform application that will grab x number of photos from a list of peoples photo streams, store them in folders based on their tag names, and update every time the application is run. The app lets me specify whose streams I’m interested in, how many photos I want to grab from each stream, and what size I want.

Combine this app with a scheduled automator script and I have a folder that always contains the most recent photos from the streams I subscribe to.

A quick settings tweak in iTunes and those photos are now added to my Nano every time I plug it in. A few more settings and my screensaver drops a nice display of them when my computer is idle.

Setting the app to sync my Flickr streams to a folder in my DropBox and my streams really are available to me, wherever I am.

If you would like to get hold of the app, you can do so here.

It’s pretty much always been the case that if you want to schedule your home automation, you need to be running an always on PC or server in you house.  This costs money and is a pain.  Not anymore!  HomeAutom8 now allows you to configure your schedule on the site and will execute it for you from the cloud!

I often get asked how to install HomeAutom8 on a PC and use it for scheduling commands.  Although HomeAutom8 does not require the use of an always on pc, as you can use the iPhone client iAutom8, for more advanced usage, such as scheduling events or iteration with other pc based software, it can be useful.

I’m writing this tutorial assuming your always on PC is running a flavour of unix, I’m going to assume Ubuntu / Debian.  I personally use a SheevaPlug for my always on needs.

Firstly, as the HomeAutom8 PC client is cross-platform you will need to install the Mono runtime on your server.  

> sudo apt-get install mono-complete

Now you need to get homeautom8.exe onto the box

> wget http://www.homeautom8.com/iAutomate/downloads/HomeAutom8.exe

Check this works

> mono HomeAutom8.exe -?

You should see a help description.

HomeAutom8.exe needs to be run once in GUI mode so you can log in and it can retrieve information about your setup from the cloud.  So install and run HomeAutom8.exe on your favourite GUIfied OS and login.  We are going to be needing the HomeAutom8.data file that is generated and sits in the same dir as the exe.  We need to get that on to our always on server.

You should be using ssh to manage your server, so ON YOUR GUI machine:

> sftp theuser@youralwaysonhost

Login

> put HomeAutom8.data

> exit

Now, reading the help description we can see that a terminal HomeAutom8 command looks something like this:

> mono HomeAutom8.exe -p “My House” -r “Living room” -d Lamp -O

Thats an O for Octopus to turn a device on or a little o (for orange) to turn it off.  You can dim a device by providing -l with a % number (thats l for lion)

> mono HomeAutom8.exe -p “My House” -r “Living room” -d Lamp -l 50

Would dim the lamp to 50%

And thats it! You now have homeautom8.exe on your always on pc and can move on to fun with schedules.

Although I’m based in the UK I have managed to signup to Google’s Music service and try out some of its features.

I have been EAGERLY awaiting a place in the cloud large enough to hold my circa 100gb collection for some time, so was very excited to get the chance to try it out.

Google music gives you the ability to upload 20,000 of your songs, and play them from the cloud on any of your devices.  Its is not designed to allow you to download the music onto other devices, rather stream it.

There is a native app for Android, and a web app for iOS devices to allow you to play your music.

Unlike the forthcoming iTunes Match service, you have to actually upload the music to the cloud, there is no matching facility.  However the service is free, so I guess you cannot grumble too much about that.

Is it any good though?  

Well, sadly, at the moment no it is not.  I have been signed up for 3 days now and have managed to upload a total of 412 tracks to the cloud.  I have a 100mb connection at the office.  The service seems to be incredibly flaky.  With no explanation as to why my uploads have stalled, and no evident way of resuming them, I’m left with no choice but to un uninstall the software, delete the music from the cloud and call it a day.  Reading some forums it would seem that upload stalling is a common issue at the moment.  So I doubt it’s due to my UK location.

We are still waiting for iTunes match in the UK, but with Apple’s track record of things “Just working” my guess its well worth the subscription fees and the wait to get our hands on it.  I do think the Google service issues will be ironed out, but it will be too little too late to save my interest.

Anyone else absolutely sick of cool tech coming out ‘US Only’ all the time!?

Please please please sponsor my Mo in aid of Prostate Cancer http://mobro.co/Tris

I caught my iPhone 4S speaker hissing to itself the other day. I bet this is related to the battery issues.

Box.net are giving away 50GB cloud storage to ios users! Go get it!

If you are an existing iAutom8 owner and would be interested in getting your hands on the latest version before anyone else, tweet “#iAutom8 tester! @HomeAutom8”

A major new update for iAutom8 is coming soon.

The update will include:

- New App ‘Skins’ or modes (spinner, tabular and switches)
- A reworked iPad interface supporting all modes mentioned above
- A complete overhaul of the code base
- Scheduled commands and macros!

This will be a free upgrade in the App Store. Watch this space for more news soon…