Server Rekonstruktion - SME Server by rudolf_schuba, on Flickr
The “thing” in FLOSS right now is Free Network Services, and for good reason–proprietary network services are a serious threat to privacy and overall computing autonomy (especially network and data portability and control).
My idea is for a chunk of FLOSS built specifically for personal servers that abstracts the cumbersome process of installing and configuring (and updating or otherwise managing) individual network/web applications, probably through a simple, password-protected web interface. For example:
I want to run a local laconica install on my personal server. I go to parkerserver.com and log in. Similarly to how i would aptitude install from ubuntu, or (more closely) how i would (as of more recent versions) install a new extension to my wordpress blog, I search for packages whose name match “laconica.” Then I click install.
Same for instantiating a blog, a wiki, a web-based rss reader… hopefully even email hosting and webmail. Installing wordpress is extremely simple as it is (editor’s note: parker loves wordpress), but if the piece of software that i’m imagining could make available in a standard format some config options (database login credentials, port config, server type, other server software/web apps installed), then installing wordpress could literally be a question of pressing a button, and the entire install process, including database config, etc, could all be abstracted. Also, the software should be able to itself be updated through its own web ui (seems crazy, but wordpress does this).
Next step: What if this shipped with a specialized gnu/linux distro (maybe Ubuntu for maximum user-friendliness or gNewSense for maximum freedom)? The idea is that you buy a cheapo tower on ebay with no OS installed, pop in an install CD, and then you’re ready to go. Now, this initial config will necessarily be somewhat painful. The software could try to automatically detect network topography and carefully walk the user through stuff like port forwarding… but only so much of this process can be automated. Nonetheless we can get close. Ubuntu Server ships with apache, mysql, php, etc, and it would probably be trivial to add this extra package.
Also, in terms of scalability as well as software freedom, it’s probably a good idea to make information available to the user about logging in remotely. Perhaps ssh, or perhaps just remote desktop … i’m not sure whether or not a normal gui should be installed on the machine… i’m imagining that one shouldn’t be necessary if the web-accessible front-end is robust enough, and it’s easy enough to get the server online and keep it online (probably the weakest link… again, this has to do with network topography). In fact, if other OS tasks, like installing packages, rebooting the server, rebooting the operating system, configuring user accounts and SSH/SFTP/FTP, etc could all be accomplished from an inviting web interface, operating a personal server and running your own network services would seem like a much less daunting task.
Introducing: Lyst
This has been a little side project for a while. I kind of gave up on it for a bit when I realized that it had already been done over at instapaper.com.
But recently I’ve been thinking about all the cool stuff that’s going on with Free Network Services like laconica. This project could still prove useful if it’s built as a Free Network Service. The Free alternative to instapaper. Plus I’m sure I could think up some cool features that instapaper doesn’t have
So I want to turn this into a FLOSS project. I don’t really know what that entails. To start, I’m going to add a little “about” page and GPL the code very very soon (hopefully). From there, maybe it’s an svn repo, an project on sourceforge, and a wiki? I don’t really know, and to be honest I don’t mind handing this project off to someone else if she has more time to organize it and make it happen. I just want to see it happen.
Please contact me if you’re interested in helping out with this project.
For immediate release:
Introducing: nofunzone.biz
It’s a .biz because it’s all business, all the time.
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Starting Friday, I began failing hard. Here I am on sunday night, trying to get my life back in order.
looking back on the last week:
*I tweaked my contact and calendering systems a bit. I’m using some sort of mix of google sync on my iphone, thunderbird and sunbird, with some scheduleworld sync and funambol sync thrown in there. I’m happy with contact sync in that it’s immediate and invisible. I’m unhappy with calendar sync in that i have to manually sync to scheduleworld, then manually to google from there. also, sometimes stuff just doesn’t show up on my iphone, which is no good.
*i got much better at sending 2-liner emails. good job, parker.
*i’m getting comfortable with using a folded up piece of 8.5×11 paper as my todo list. i still liked using the task manager on my old treo 650 better, but this is working okay for now. i still need to get used to pulling it out and giving it a look-over more often. maybe that’ll be the goal for next week. every time i have a free moment, pull out the list and see if there are fires to be put out, or trivial tasks that can be knocked out.
*mornings are still a MAJOR weakness. like, this is really bad. i lose so many hours for no good reason because i don’t just get myself out of bed.
*i can never seem to be on a good GTD routine and a good workout routine at the same time. I’m not going to push working out quite yet, but this is a goal for if/when i start getting more comfortable with my GTD system. This may prove particularly tough because working out significantly alters my sleep cycles. But it might ultimately improve focus. We’ll see.
that’s all i can think of for now. i’m still moving in the right direction, but i seem to have been progressively slipping since i started ~a week ago. here’s to hoping i can bring it back starting tonight/tomorrow.
sidenote: this post is sloppy, untagged, and not checked for grammar. this may become a trend… it might be necessary to lower the entry barrier created by a high standard in order for me to actually get my thoughts out there more often.
I’ll keep this brief because these are getting repetitive and boring. I think that the fact that I am forcing myself to write them is helpful for convincing myself to Get Things Done. But when it comes to the end of the day, I’m sleepy and dont remember all the little nuggets of my productive and unproductive moments.
I did _not_ get my butt out of bed this morning. I wasn’t up and out until 12:30 or something. I went to run one of the ~5 errands that I had planned to run, and didn’t even really get it done. Fail.
I went to class at 2, which lasted until 4. I hadn’t had anything to eat except some cereal in my room. When I don’t eat, i’m hungry and cant concentrate. Then I eat a lot and then I’m sleepy. Overall, no eating means less getting things done. Bad.
I spent all afternoon/night basically sending emails and talking on the phone. I made very little tangible progress, but I was doing things most of the time, so it can’t have been all bad. I organized a few meetings and coordinated some stuff. Meh.
Overall: bad start today. But a good push through the afternoon/night.
I got my butt out of bed in time for class at 10, which was good. I had a couple hours between classes–time that can easily be squandered on drawn-out lunches and facebook. I did a good job of getting things done during this period.
My second class almost put me to sleep. It was pretty much downhill from there. Instead of walking to the cafeteria to grab a cup of coffee, I settled into a brief nap in the library. Afterwards I got some more stuff done, but it started to fizzle out around 6. Then I went to the compsci lab, because i had volunteered to be on call for intro compsci tonight. I was there for 3 hours and got only a little bit done, considering that I was in a quiet room by myself most of the time.
I tinkered with my contact and calendar management a bit, and accidentally lost a sizable chunk of data in the process. Unfortunately I’m a little more dependent on google now, but fortunately my data sync will be a little more seamless.
Now I’m in Cole’s dorm, getting ready to shoot the next No Fun Zone.
I did _okay_ today. Certainly it was not a hug waste. I made a long list of errands to run tomorrow. I don’t have class until mid-afternoon. My goal is to coax myself out of bed in the morning so I can get stuff done before class. Getting out of bed is something I have a lot of trouble with. We’ll see how it goes.
I got a really really absurdly late start today. This is something I really need to work on. I have a lot of trouble getting up when I don’t have to.
I went to the library, which was good. I did some wikipedia surfing and watched a couple of TED talks, which was also good. Then I clocked in some hours on some web development. goodgood. I sent a few emails, but I ought to have sent more. I still sometimes have a lot of trouble diving in and cooking up brief emails.
After the library closed ~8, I was largely unproductive. Until my friends Cole and Eleni got in around midnight. Me and Cole recorded episode one of a new video blog. More on that soon.
I am disappointed with my level of activity last quarter. I made the grade, but overall I did less independent learning and less activism, and I created fewer things.
I want to get this quarter started off right. So this week, I am going to pay particularly close attention to what I do with my time.
