New partner, Amahi 6.1 and the Ubuntu Alpha Zero release

Today we present you a few fantastic announcements: Amahi 6.1 release, a new Amahi Ready™ hardware partner, new app updates … and … the first, Alpha Zero, release of Amahi Ubuntu Edition! We’re excited about this!

App Store and Subscription Plans

First, an update on the transition from our former App Gallery to the Amahi App Store.  With all the feedback we got, we expect to more formally announce the App Store and it’s details soon. In the mean time, we started testing by adding a small one-click convenience fee to some of the more popular apps that the community feels would be worthwhile, generating revenue for the project. This is so far working well and we are getting both positive feedback and feedback on how to improve/tweak things.

We also started subscription plans, which have been well received. As it happens, one of the core team members (cpg) suffered a fire at home (no major casualties), now really coming to appreciate first-hand the need for off-site secure storage of critical files. Was this a message from above?

We are happy to report that after the initial spike in support load, this transition has been  successful and we thank you all for the great support shown! We look forward to improving features on these fronts soon!

New Amahi Ready™ Partner!

We’re constantly thinking of ways to create a successful ecosystem around Amahi. Today we’re happy to announce our newest Amahi Ready™ partner! / kosa crta / (“cosa cherta”) is a Croatian-region distributor of VIA Embedded ultra compact form factor, rugged and fan-less embedded systems. kosa crta recommends and ships Amahi Ready VIA M’SERV S2100 64-bit energy-efficient, large storage capacity, compact, low-noise mini server. Check out their special promotion to Amahi Facebook users! They have even created a few install videos.

Amahi 6.1

It’s been quite a while since our last blog post announcing Amahi 6.0. While we have been delinquent on the news,  there have been many developments within Amahi in a few areas! We have released Amahi 6.1 (technically, 6.1.1). If you have Amahi 6, the update is automatic by default, so you are probably enjoying this release already. Check out the Amahi 6.1 release notes. The big ticket items are stability fixes for the platform and apps, initial support for Ubuntu/Debian platform and right-to-left languages like Arabic (thanks to Abdulrhman Al-Khamees!) and Hebrew (Ashi Carmel!). Also included are Latvian (Ivo!), Croatian (Vladimir!) and updates to Russian and Finnish. Awesome job from the community!

Did Someone say Ubuntu?!?

We are also very happy to announce the amazing Alpha Zero release of Amahi Ubuntu Edition!

It’s been no secret that the desire for an Amahi Ubuntu Edition has been strong for a long time. Commitment was critical in the face of complexity. We slowly added support for Ubuntu for a while and now have Frans (aka eFfeM), a very dedicated developer who was willing to lead on this sizable task, taking time to understand the intricacies and leading it past the goal of an Alpha Zero release for testers!

A few people are rumored to be running Amahi 6 on Ubuntu in development mode and are starting to test the platform and even apps! If you like to test and report bugs, please install it and join us in debugging and improving it!

This has been a long road, and we have still quite a long road ahead. We’re calling it Alpha Zero for a reason 🙂

Please join me in saying many thanks to the development team, especially to eFfeM, cale, SolaR and cpg for their contributions (if you see them in IRC give’em a hug or buy’em a beer)!

What’s up with Apps!? And the Express CD?

Our mothers used to say that “It’s the little things that make people happy” .. and we couldn’t agree more. Conversely, some little things are big when it comes to turn people off. When an app does not install or does not work well is a great turn off. This is a huge deal for Amahi, because we disappoint people when things do not work, and that makes them speak bad about their Amahi experience. It takes detailed attention from our contributors and our testmasters to validate and bulletproof apps.

Here is what we’re doing to be more efficient at validating apps: we keep track of failures and we try to tackle the top issues. We are working on automatic app testing, which will ease the job of the team and leverage the (so far dormant) tester program. Expect to hear some news on this front soon as we believe we have a lead for the tester program. By focusing the team we believe we can package and release apps faster.

What about the Express CD? Hmmm, yes … we produced one version (Alpha 1) that was a dud. It did not work well. We have another version in the works that is rumored to run well. Many thanks for the contributions in this area to Solomon (aka slm499) and Rod Waldren!

App Updates

We now have a few apps verified and live as one-click apps, like

  • A very very nice Tiny To Do app which is a slick and interactive to-do list manager
  • The all-new VNC (a remote desktop app), which works out of the box
  • The good old Gallery 2 and the brand new Gallery 3, the granddaddy’s of photo galleries
  • A nice file manager called eXtplorer
  • A crafty terminal emulator called MindTerm
  • Rnews, a nice RSS reader, for the power news users out there
  • .. and a hometown favorite … OpenVPN ALS, a web-based VPN (for experts only!)

Cheers and enjoy!

The Amahi Team

Themes, VoIP/PBX, Amahi 5.5 ready! And the winners are …

Fusion PBX

Wow! We are blown away with the innovative ways in which the community responded to the theme and app contest!

We got 9 new themes, which we are releasing live today (screenshots below) and we even have a top notch VoIP/PBX app, FusionPBX and a hot full-disk backup solution, Redo Backup, in progress!

Today we bring you this: The winners, the features, and … a new Amahi release!

Amahi 5.5!

Amahi 5.5 brings a guest dashboard for non-logged in users, a few fixes and some better networking and app support, along with Wake-on-LAN/WOL. Also included is an update in Greyhole with some bug fixes. Thank you for reporting and testing them!

And the Winners are …

Without further ado, look at the new features the new themes brought on: vertical tabs, mobile support, highlights in rows, nicely shaped tabs, … even an Easter egg in the theme! These innovations result in a smoother looking, cleaner dashboard, just another step forward in the evolution of Amahi.  Kudos to the individuals who contributed, you are another reason why the Amahi community is a great place!

The entries for the theme and app contest came from Florida, Indiana, Germany, Georgia, the Netherlands, Canada and Texas!

One of the biggest new features in a theme is Ben Wyatt’s Touch Theme that integrates mobile functionality, allowing for better control and improved rendering in iPhone/iPod/Android/WebOS devices. Check out our wiki for how to mod your Android based phone or iPhone to add VPN capabilities. What’s better than controlling your server from your phone?

Coming up!

What’s coming up? Amahi 6, with a whole slew of new features! Amahi 6 will leverage new features and advancements of Ruby on Rails 3.0 (released yesterday BTW). Amahi 6 will incorporate performance improvements, javascript helpers, cross site scripting protection, and very cool Amahi Gadgets and Widgets. More on this soon!

Enjoy the screenshots below, and congratulations to the winners and runner-ups! Can’t wait to see what you guys do with your new Plug Computer!


Touch

Touch Theme submitted by Ben Wyatt

Ocean Theme

Ocean Theme submitted by MartinF

OTH

On the Horizon submitted by slm4996

Celestial

Celestial Theme submitted by SolaR

Zombie Parade

Zombie Parade submitted by llamallama

Carbon

Carbon Theme submitted by MartinF

Shades of Grey

Shades of Grey submitted by slm4996

Chupacabra Theme

Chupacabra Theme submitted by the one and only Chupacabra

Colorus Theme

Colorus Theme submitted by Guillaume Boudreau

Sheeva Theme

Sheeva theme launched to kick off the Theme Contest

Apps are blooming everywhere! OpenVPN ALS, Bookmarks (Weave), and phpLogCon

It’s been a brisk month for Amahi, with the Hottest Pick award from Linux Format, and the FLOSS Weekly interview.  We’ve also had a record number of installs this month. Welcome new users!  If you haven’t done so already, please stop by the community channel and say hello!

So, to continue our pace, we are taking 3 very exciting Apps from beta to live, to make Amahi even more useful!

First is a very useful app from our prolific contributor Mouton: the Amahi Bookmarks App. Based on Mozilla’s Weave Sync API for the Firefox browser. Now you can sync your bookmarks, history, and passwords across all of your machines (and across all the users the your network!) with the Firefox Weave plug-in. A number of us on the team are using it already!

The often asked question “How can I access my data from outside my network?”, now has a straight forward solution.  Although OpenVPN is available by default with Amahi,  with ALS you don’t need a machine with a client installed.  OpenVPN ALS allows you to securely access your network through any browser that supports HTTPS.

And for the analyst in you, we offer in our Application Gallery, the web based phpLogCon.  Now it’s quick and easy to find that log entry by opening a simple browser window.

Read on!



BookmarksBookmarks

Sync server for Mozilla Weave. Allows you to sync your Mozilla Firefox bookmarks, passwords, open tabs and history to your Amahi HDA using the Mozilla Weave add-on.
This application sets up a personal sync server for use with the ‘Weave Sync’ add-on for Mozilla Firefox.

Weave Sync currently supports continuous synchronization of your bookmarks, browsing history, saved passwords and tabs; you can preserve your settings on your own Amahi HDA.



OpenVPN ALSOpenVPN ALS

OpenVPN ALS (project Adito) is a web-based VPN server written in Java. OpenVPN ALS has a browser-based AJAX UI which allows easy access to intranet services. Once installed and configured correctly, you will be able to access all your files and most of the applications on your HDA using your custom Amahi URL (tested with Firefox and Internet Explorer).



phpLogConphpLogCon

phpLogCon is a web interface to syslog and other network event data. It provides easy browsing and some basic analysis of realtime network events. Depending on the applications feeding the database, it can process syslog messages, Windows event log entries and even SNMP trap data – just to name a few.


Cheers!

The Amahi Team!

Amahi Bookmarks App. Based on Mozilla’s Weave Sync API

Amahi 5.1: more bang, less buck!

WHAT!?!? 5.1 is here already? With fewer bugs?

You bet your knickers it is! The 5.1 release brings new and exciting enhancements to the Amahi platform,Reboot Poweroff improving on the 5.0 release (our most successful ever)!

Q: Didn’t you just release 5.0? – A: Yes!

Q: What is new in the Amahi 5.1 release?

A: Have you ever been in an airport and thought “Oh no!! I didn’t turn off the server!”  No worries! You now have the capability of shutting down (or rebooting) your HDA remotely from the dashboard! We also have fixes in user creation, DNS resolution across the VPN, a much improved diskmounter script, improvements to the installer for Amahi in the cloud (VPS – Virtual Private Servers) and more …

Amahi 5.1 also adds Portugese/Portugal support to the supported languages and improves Polish support. We also started the Japanese localization. This will make Amahi supported in 20 languages!

Check out the full list in the release notes or read below for the gory details. In the mean time, as many of you know, we have been discussing how to improve the media server features of Amahi. We continue integration testing on a DNLA server, which is proving to work quite well!

Enjoy the 5.1 release! If you have Amahi 5.0, you get 5.1 automatically. If you have Amahi 4 (Fedora 10) here is a quick guide on transitioning to Amahi 5.

The lowdown of those pesky critters fixed in the 5.1 release ..

A minor bug in the Fedora Project affected our 5.0 release as a result of Fedora 12. Namely you could only create a user with all lower case, there could not be one capital letter we filed bug 550732 though it is believed to be fixed on Fedora 13.

The DNS subsystem will support resolution over the VPN connection to your HDA (this means you can more reliably use your webapps while VPN’d into your HDA). This resolves bug 400 which has been a long standing issue. NO MORE! It’s your network and we’re making it easier for you to use it!

There is a a newly added diskmounter script (called hda-diskmount), bundled out of the box, so  it’s much easier to access than the older one in the wiki. Simultaneously, this substantially improves the way the diskmount script sets up mounts and suggests how to mount them permanently in your HDA!

It’s your network and we help you keep it that way! We have been working hard to bring you the most reliable and secure platform of a home server out there.

Cheers!

The Amahi Team

Drupal, OpenGoo, … and more: Awesome apps for your one-click pleasure!

Hot on the heels of the Amahi 5.0 release the team is working harder than ever to bring you great one-click applications to choose from!

First we have one of the most robust Content Management Systems systems out there (Drupal), and a very promising Google Apps-like suite of office and collaboration groupware with incredible functionality (OpenGoo). Also in this release we have an Internet speed tester and a nice web-based calendar browser, preconfigured to run on your HDA, browsing the calendars in the built-in calendar server.



DrupalDrupal

Drupal is a free software package that allows an individual or a community of users to easily publish, manage and organize a wide variety of content on a website.
Tens of thousands of people and organizations are using Drupal to power scores of different web sites, including:

  • Community web portals
  • Discussion sites
  • … and much more.

Drupal is open-source software and is maintained and developed by a community of thousands of users and developers.



OpenGooOpenGoo

OpenGoo is a free and open source web office, project management and collaboration tool. It is a complete online solution focused on improving productivity, collaboration, communication and management.
OpenGoo’s main features include document management, contact management, e-mail, project management, and time management. Text documents and presentations can be created and edited online. Files can be uploaded, organized and shared, independent of file formats.

OpenGoo gives you all the tools to manage the work of all the divisions of your company. You can plan and manage all your projects, easily following the status of every task.

Features include:

  • MS Office-like and Google-Apps like functionality wrapped into one package with project management software
  • Nested projects/work spaces
  • Create milestones and tasks with linked milestones
  • and much much more


Speedtest.net MiniSpeedtest.net Mini

Speedtest.net Mini is a broadband speed analysis tool that allows anyone to test their Internet connection. Ookla provides this service for free to anyone curious about the performance of their connection to and from hundreds of locations around the world. Whether you test just for fun or you really need to certify and validate the true speed of your Internet connectivity, Speedtest.net Mini is the app to have.

Speedtest.net Mini performs two key measurements used to determine the overall quality and performance of your Internet connection.

  • Download Speed – The speed at which data is sent from the Internet to your computer.
  • Upload Speed – The speed at which data is sent from your computer to the Internet.


iCalendariCalendar

phpicalendar is a PHP-based iCal file viewer/parser to display iCals in a Web browser. Its based on v2.0 of the IETF spec. It displays iCal files in a nice logical, clean manner with day, week, month, and year navigation. It is available in 13 languages and includes support for printing, searching and RSS news feeds.
With phpiCalendar, you can

  • View calendars by day, week, month, or year as a graphical output or a list
  • View different calendars (including remote web calendars) individually or in combinations
  • Display Google calendars
  • and much more