Wub Da Chumby
Hotnessssss… I can finally roll with the cool kids… I got my Chumby in the mail!! After a couple months of hearing about it from friends who jumped on the train ages ago, I caved to the peer pressure. My unit is the “Latte” color (as seen to the left), but a “Basic Black” Chumby was a VERY close second choice. Oh, and word to the wise: if you buy one on eBay do NOT pay over $179 total for it (price+ shipping) - that’s what the delivered cost of the unit goes for direct from Chumby Industries. I got mine for a little under that cost, but while I was shopping for mine I noted that there are more than a few Chumby units were listed at a $40+ profit on eBay… CLICK to see the latest crop of sellers and scammers… (Bleep) bags.
I have a couple of small plans for this Chumby, as it is marketed as a hackable device, and hope to create a widget or two as soon as I learn how it’s done… To see the official wiki for developing widgets go HERE.
Chumby Review Links:
http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/chumby-redux
http://www.geek.com/review-chumby/
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/05/14/technology/ptpogue15.php (Added)
SHOUTcasts I Fall Asleep To:
SOMA FM Drone Zone - MP3 stream
BlueMars - MP3 stream
BlueMars Cryosleep - MP3 stream
Sleepbot - MP3 stream
[[[ Updated 18 May 2008: I have added a total of 78 widgets on my Chumby - spread out over four channels. I have channels set up for Day, Night, Test and Kitchen. For one of my widget ideas, I'm looking at how I might be able to work a small search engine GUI out, using the on-screen keyboard. Why? Cause I wanna take a stab at integrating my Kitchen Assistant (using a Google API) as a means for looking recipes and drink mixes up. The only down side is that I am not certain if I will be able to work some magic and get all the clicked-through recipe pages to display right on the Chumby without a serious portal (most of these recipe sites do not export their data in XML format). 
The other option is to syphon a truck load of recipes from a variety of locations, convert them into an XML format and dump the whole lot into a personal SQL database on my (or a central) network. Either way, uuuggghhhhh...]]]
