Chumby podcatcher


Here's a video of my Chumby podcatcher (podcasting client) in action:


And a couple of photos:


Chumby USB stick for podcatcher Chumby Podcatcher

Just finished getting a UI working on the Chumby. Last week I had the basic http server running in the Chumby and I could browse to it from my laptop and control it that way. Today I managed to get a simple flash widget written that interacts with that server, so a laptop isn't needed.

The http server is written in Python (see here for info on running Python on the chumby). It has the job of downloading the feeds and interacting with the audio server on the chumby (called btplay). It's all pretty standard, except that the version of Python I was using didn't have BaseHTTPServer. This meant I had to roll my own (thankfully pretty easy) using the SocketServer module.

The UI is written in flash (using swfmill and MTASC) and talks to the server to find out about available episodes and to stop/start the audio.

Once I've used it for a bit and made sure it's ready for use I'll release it and the code behind it. Hopefully other people will find it useful. I know for me this has been one feature that I wish the Chumby already supported. That's the great thing about the Chumby though - if you want a feature bad enough you can just get in there and write it yourself!

I should also be talking about this app at the next £5app (which should be late September).