7 ms·

A cloud in a plug - brilliant

14 points by codemechanic 17y ago

ShabbyDoo 17y ago
I don't get it. The site (www.tonidoplug.com) touts all sorts of ways one can share his desktop computer with the world. Presuming that the desktop computer is on the network, why would a software-only solution not be sufficient? I understand the home NAS use case, but that's a well-solved problem already. The author of the zdnet article touts how great the "plug" would be for education, but why wouldn't someone's old PC running Ubuntu be better (or at least good enough)? Oh, look! It's a computer IN A PLUG!
- codemechanic 17y ago
  The reason is it consumes less power compared to your old desktop. It costs only 7$ to run a plug computer for a year compared to $125 for your desktop
  - ShabbyDoo 17y ago
    "compared to $125 for your desktop" - Does this number include the display? Perhaps an old laptop with the lid shut would be more efficient than a desktop?
    - ErrantX 17y ago
      Not a huge amount more (as long as your talking about an old desktop too). We use a load of old IBM's in a similar way as monitoring stations/servers to shove into networks. For fun I've been running a few attached to power monitors to see what it's like; not brilliant is the answer. Power consumption is roughly the same as an old Dell server we also use.
      - codemechanic 17y ago
        Enlighten me. Can you show the power consumption details of your old IBM servers. For Ex, the plug consumes 5 Watts. Probably saving $100 for a year is not much for you.
StacyC 17y ago
Seems that you could make your own private Dropbox-type environment with this, no? I know it wouldn't have all the features of Dropbox, but it could function as a private 'cloud' with the ability to selectively share out public URLs. Very interesting, I'm curious to hear the impressions of someone what has spent some time with this.
- codemechanic 17y ago
  Some links for you http://us.cnn.com/video/?/video/tech/2009/05/07/dcl.pirillo.tech.talk.tonido.cnn http://us.cnn.com/video/?/video/tech/2009/05/07/dcl.pirillo.... http://lifehacker.com/5208833/tonido-keeps-cloud-computing-local http://lifehacker.com/5208833/tonido-keeps-cloud-computing-l... http://blogs.scholastic.com/accelerating_change/2009/11/your-own-personal-cloud.html http://blogs.scholastic.com/accelerating_change/2009/11/your... http://maketecheasier.com/tonidoplug-your-personal-cloud-server-in-a-plug/2009/11/02 http://maketecheasier.com/tonidoplug-your-personal-cloud-ser... http://jpwhitehome.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/tonido-open-source-personal-media-and-collaboration-mesh/ http://jpwhitehome.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/tonido-open-sour...
  - StacyC 17y ago
    Thanks for the resources!
ShabbyDoo 17y ago
Another thought... I still have to punch a hole in my firewall and forward some ports to the "plug", right? The product I'd like to see is a managed consumer-targeted router device. It would be a wireless access point, firewall, and home server all rolled into one. You'd buy the box and then pay a monthly fee for management. The software would upgrade itself so you wouldn't have to worry about manually patching security holes. The configuration would be easy to use and contain lots of templates like, "I want Skype to work well on these machines, so open up these ports" Oh, and you can plug in a bunch of external hard drives and serve up their contents via all sorts of protocols. Perhaps this exists and I'm entirely unaware?
- codemechanic 17y ago
  You don't need to. Tonido has a relay service. Tonido also updates the software with just one click. So the software would upgrade itself.
IgorPartola 17y ago
I will likely get this to compliment my aging NSLU2.
colonelxc 17y ago
One thing to note for you hackers out there, I believe the TonidoPlug (in contrast to the Marvell dev version) has covered up the mini-usb serial connection. It's probably still there, you'd just have to punch a hole in the box to get at it. Looking at the website, it seems that the SD slot is covered as well. Personally, I use my marvell plug with debian on it, installed onto a 2GB SD card, along with a USB NIC to act as a firewall for my network.

14 points by codemechanic 17y ago

I don't get it. The site (www.tonidoplug.com) touts all sorts of ways one can share his desktop computer with the world. Presuming that the desktop computer is on the network, why would a software-only solution not be sufficient? I understand the home NAS use case, but that's a well-solved problem already. The author of the zdnet article touts how great the "plug" would be for education, but why wouldn't someone's old PC running Ubuntu be better (or at least good enough)? Oh, look! It's a computer IN A PLUG!

codemechanic 17y ago
The reason is it consumes less power compared to your old desktop. It costs only 7$ to run a plug computer for a year compared to $125 for your desktop
- ShabbyDoo 17y ago
  "compared to $125 for your desktop" - Does this number include the display? Perhaps an old laptop with the lid shut would be more efficient than a desktop?
  - ErrantX 17y ago
    Not a huge amount more (as long as your talking about an old desktop too). We use a load of old IBM's in a similar way as monitoring stations/servers to shove into networks. For fun I've been running a few attached to power monitors to see what it's like; not brilliant is the answer. Power consumption is roughly the same as an old Dell server we also use.
    - codemechanic 17y ago
      Enlighten me. Can you show the power consumption details of your old IBM servers. For Ex, the plug consumes 5 Watts. Probably saving $100 for a year is not much for you.

StacyC 17y ago

Seems that you could make your own private Dropbox-type environment with this, no? I know it wouldn't have all the features of Dropbox, but it could function as a private 'cloud' with the ability to selectively share out public URLs. Very interesting, I'm curious to hear the impressions of someone what has spent some time with this.

codemechanic 17y ago
Some links for you http://us.cnn.com/video/?/video/tech/2009/05/07/dcl.pirillo.tech.talk.tonido.cnn http://us.cnn.com/video/?/video/tech/2009/05/07/dcl.pirillo.... http://lifehacker.com/5208833/tonido-keeps-cloud-computing-local http://lifehacker.com/5208833/tonido-keeps-cloud-computing-l... http://blogs.scholastic.com/accelerating_change/2009/11/your-own-personal-cloud.html http://blogs.scholastic.com/accelerating_change/2009/11/your... http://maketecheasier.com/tonidoplug-your-personal-cloud-server-in-a-plug/2009/11/02 http://maketecheasier.com/tonidoplug-your-personal-cloud-ser... http://jpwhitehome.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/tonido-open-source-personal-media-and-collaboration-mesh/ http://jpwhitehome.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/tonido-open-sour...
- StacyC 17y ago
  Thanks for the resources!

ShabbyDoo 17y ago

Another thought... I still have to punch a hole in my firewall and forward some ports to the "plug", right? The product I'd like to see is a managed consumer-targeted router device. It would be a wireless access point, firewall, and home server all rolled into one. You'd buy the box and then pay a monthly fee for management. The software would upgrade itself so you wouldn't have to worry about manually patching security holes. The configuration would be easy to use and contain lots of templates like, "I want Skype to work well on these machines, so open up these ports" Oh, and you can plug in a bunch of external hard drives and serve up their contents via all sorts of protocols. Perhaps this exists and I'm entirely unaware?

codemechanic 17y ago
You don't need to. Tonido has a relay service. Tonido also updates the software with just one click. So the software would upgrade itself.

IgorPartola 17y ago

I will likely get this to compliment my aging NSLU2.

colonelxc 17y ago

One thing to note for you hackers out there, I believe the TonidoPlug (in contrast to the Marvell dev version) has covered up the mini-usb serial connection. It's probably still there, you'd just have to punch a hole in the box to get at it. Looking at the website, it seems that the SD slot is covered as well. Personally, I use my marvell plug with debian on it, installed onto a 2GB SD card, along with a USB NIC to act as a firewall for my network.