

A cloud in a plug - brilliant - codemechanic
http://education.zdnet.com/?p=3614

======
StacyC
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
Some links for you

[http://us.cnn.com/video/?/video/tech/2009/05/07/dcl.pirillo....](http://us.cnn.com/video/?/video/tech/2009/05/07/dcl.pirillo.tech.talk.tonido.cnn)

[http://lifehacker.com/5208833/tonido-keeps-cloud-
computing-l...](http://lifehacker.com/5208833/tonido-keeps-cloud-computing-
local)

[http://blogs.scholastic.com/accelerating_change/2009/11/your...](http://blogs.scholastic.com/accelerating_change/2009/11/your-
own-personal-cloud.html)

[http://maketecheasier.com/tonidoplug-your-personal-cloud-
ser...](http://maketecheasier.com/tonidoplug-your-personal-cloud-server-in-a-
plug/2009/11/02)

[http://jpwhitehome.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/tonido-open-
sour...](http://jpwhitehome.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/tonido-open-source-
personal-media-and-collaboration-mesh/)

~~~
StacyC
Thanks for the resources!

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colonelxc
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.

------
ShabbyDoo
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
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.

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ShabbyDoo
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
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
"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
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
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.

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IgorPartola
I will likely get this to compliment my aging NSLU2.

