Wake-on-LAN falls from the sky, no one injured. Go World Cup!

It was one of those brilliant things in life…

Funny things happen in FOSS communities, and Amahi is no exception!

It was a normal to quiet day on the Amahi Community Channel, when an un-named regular said:

“You know what would be cool? a “Wake” button, next to each entry in the Static IPs page.”

Wake-on-LAN (or WOL), standard that allows a computer to be magically turned on or woken up by a network message.

The community wheels really kicked into motion when other team members started searching for icons to use in the dashboard while many others tested some code. Then, before long, the team had a working platform with the new WOL feature to be released in the next update!

Amahi is taking long strides to bring your network back to the land of the free! This is but another step on our path to bring you the best that Amahi can offer!

The World cup championship is this weekend. We hate to pick sides! Really we do! But if we had to well … Our Spain supporters argued that our long term logo had been supporting the Netherlands all along with all that orange, so we decided to give a nudge to Spain for a few days 🙂

Amahi-Spain

OK, we’re a bit biased, as the core team is partly formed by one spaniard 🙂

So sit back, relax, and enjoy friendly competition while two great teams battle each other for the coveted World Cup Trophy!

Cheers!

The Amahi Team

Amahi to Demo at Computex with Intel

The news is out – Amahi will be at Computex in Taiwan, in the Intel pavilion.

Amahi will be demonstrating the latest release of the Home Digital Assistant (HDA) home server running on an Intel Atom processor N270 series for embedded computing. The HDA is what Intel calls an “Open Consumer Applications Platform.” A new class of device  integrating a home server with home router functionality. The demonstration will take place in the Intel pavilion from June 2nd to 6th, 2009.

Amahi at Computex with Intel

Above: Partial image of Intel Demo Brief with Amahi at Computex 2009

The demonstration will showcase an HDA operating in the booth at Computex as well as VPN access to a remote system (in California). The demo will cover:

  • the basic platform functionality for user and share creation, and networking control
  • one-click application installation
    • applications demonstrated will include media management, media serving, photo galleries, video surveillance applications and more!
  • cross platform support for Linux, Windows and Apple client machines will be highlighted

We have heard from many new users that they had no idea Amahi exists (there has been little if any marketing to date). This show might be what just changes that perception.

This is an exciting time for the community and Amahi – enjoy it!

Dilbert Wants Amahi (does he know it?)

Now someone famous is asking for Amahi, and he does not even know it!

Scott Adams recent blog entry addresses his personal need for a home server. Quoting him directly:

If you’re wondering where the next economic boom will come from, I think it will involve a central computer for your home that handles all of your entertainment, home controller, and computing needs.


Before you rush to tell me “That already exists,” and then provide links to things that only do a few functions, let me assure you that it doesn’t exist. But there is no reason to think it won’t be developed in the future.


I came to this conclusion while searching for a home system that would deliver recorded TV shows and music (iTunes) to several rooms in the house, with each room controlling its own content. I was surprised to learn that no such thing exists.

Not surprisingly, as a member of the Amahi community, I take offense at the comment “let me assure you that it does not exist.” It does exist – Amahi is designed with just this objective in mind!

Scott lists his immediate requirements as delivering recorded TV as streaming music (iTunes). Well, those in the community know that MythTV (backend server) for recording and streaming TV is in alpha for one-click deployment on Amahi, and AmahiTunes is already available as a one-click install for streaming music from/to iTunes.

Scott continues in his blog to dream about more advanced home control: lighting, video games, home security, climate control, etc. Well, Amahi already delivers on some of these (eg. video surveillance with ZoneMinder one-click installer), and as an expandable platform it is only a matter of time before the open source community packages more solutions for one-click deployment.

My question for Scott Adams is, “What would Dilbert say about the quality of research Scott did searching for a home server?”

App: phpMyAdmin

For those who are interested in understanding more of the inner workings of their Amahi Home Server, we are announcing (in conjunction with phpMyAdmin) the availability of a one-click install phpMyAdmin.

phpmyadmin_scrnphpMyAdmin is the most versatile web-based MySQL administration tool available. With one-click installation on Amahi you can, not surprisingly, install phpMyAdmin with a single click.

If you like phpMyAdmin, feel free to donate to their effort.

Applications – Variety is Good

It’s been a week since one-click application installation was released, and, already the community has submitted a competitor for Jinzora, one of the demonstration applications.

The featured new application is Ampache (not to be confused with apache!) Ampache is a web based audio/video streaming application and file manager allowing you to access your music & videos from anywhere, using almost any internet enabled device.

Not only does Ampache organize your music/videoes but it transcodes and streams it for you – making it accessible through a standard web browser interface (more info)! This is pretty amazing.

ampache_scr

Gizmodo did a recent article on some of the nice new features of Microsoft “Windows 7” one of which was the abillity to access your music from ‘anywhere.‘ Problem is ‘anywhere’ in this case requires that you have a Windows Live account AND that the media player you are using is the same as that on Windows 7!

When we say anywhere we mean anywhere, cross platform, cross browser, you name it, Ampache enables it.

If you want, try both Ampache and Jinzora to see which one works best for you! You can do this in 5 minutes with Amahi one-click install.

We will be announcing more apps soon – we’re trying to work out the best way to manage this process.