Tuicemen,
Sorry if I didn't make myself clear on the software angle, but I was busy at the time. My primary focus was to find out if this hardware and/or software had improved since 2004 (when I first ran it.)
As for saying something nice about this software, forget it. And I run all XP Pro boxes. Some of the complaints:
- 1.) Resizes crazily for no good reason (even with a single monitor.) Sporadic, but irritating as hell as they broke that.
- 2.) Can't double-click the stupid title bar to restore/maximize.
- 3.) Keyboard shortcuts are short-circuited all over the place.
- 4.) Stalls, crashes, etc. Not too often (seems better than before), but still unforgivable for an automation tool.
- 5.) That ridiculous "tree" (what the hell was wrong with the native Windows tree control?)
- 6.) Asks if you want to exit every time (like some sort of popup ad!) No checkbox to shut it up.
- 7.) Never heard of scenes?! Smarthome modules (I understand that one as this is an X10 catalog app.)
- 8.) I could go on and on, but who cares? The software is crap.
As for the hardware. I got my replacement CM15a, but haven't unpacked it. Amazingly, the old one suddenly started behaving. I downloaded timers and macros three days ago and closed AHP. Nothing bad has happened since. The only other variable changed was that I connected the USB tether to a PCI card instead of a hub. Admittedly USB hubs suck, but it is hard to figure how the USB connection would affect the retention of timers and macros. Who knows? I am glad that the stupid thing is staying programmed.
Let me try to un-muddle the state of automation software as I see it.
AHP sucks badly (as we've seen.) There's no saving grace here. It just sucks.
MH was a disaster when I downloaded it a year and a half ago. My experiences with AHP/CM15a had soured me on this controller, so I wanted an app written for the older CM11a. Unfortunately, MH didn't work worth a crap with the CM11a. Looking at the script for this controller in MH (which prints out to about a page and a half double-spaced), it was clear what the problem was. So I fixed that. Then I spent a year away from the MHers customizing my own version with a better Web interface, scene support, etc. When I checked back, I couldn't believe how little progress had been made. It was still the same mess. 600+ programmers claimed to be part of the project and it wasn't even budging. So, I contacted the author about renovating the thing and he agreed. That was last Spring. So I uploaded a ton of updates to the test version. Lots of devices that never worked properly started to work. Windows users were no longer cursed by mixer problems, the GUI went from zero to pretty cool in about three days. And then, the whiners crawled out of their parents basements to protest. Why? Because they wanna read about their ingenious updates. Every time I fixed something it implied that it was broken (which it was!) The vast majority of MH users/developers could not stomach that as they had been singing its praises in this isolated little backwater discussion group for years!
Anyway, a couple of them started sidling up to me to ask if they could help with the upgrade. I threw them a couple of bones and kept going. There was no doubt in my mind it could be a killer app in six months. If you are not familiar with MH, it is nothing like AHP. You can ask your house over IM what the temperature is in a certain room and it replies to you. You can tell it to check your stock quotes, forecast the weather, program your VCR (useless today), control stereo equipment, virtual (and real) PA zones, multi-zone audio, etc. Sounds great huh? Sounded good to me when I downloaded it and then I saw that most of it was wishful thinking. The best way to see the before/after is to look at any version prior to 2.103. That's another thing with these dolts: they don't understand versioning. 2.102 is a disaster with much improved CM11a support and anything prior to that is just a disaster (as you would expect with 600 users all patching the code at once.) How could people struggle for years on end with something like this? Mass hysteria is my guess. Finally, a couple of the dorks started bitching that they were going to leave the project (happy trails to you!) These crying little girls managed to get the source code locked so they can catch up. It's been months since then and they haven't caught up. One of them is over there crying right now about how he can't track down a memory leak. What a shame.
The bad news with MH is that these knuckleheads closed the door on the source right in the middle of a massive update. Yes, really. I uploaded 200+ PERL scripts over the course of a couple weeks and then found myself arguing with some dork about whether it is a good idea to lock them down before they have even entered wide-spread testing. So over the summer and into the fall, I finished what I started while this dolt presided over a time capsule of MH Pro Beta circa June 2006. Yes, really. They didn't learn at all, despite the fact that any child could see the difference between the two versions (one blows, one does not.) Can't vouch for anything they have done to it since (hence my constant disclaimers.)
So I have already written my own. And it co-exists with Activehome Pro perfectly (as long as the #$%@ controller behaves!) I am just undecided as to how I want to market it. I had discussions long ago with the author about the GNU licensing and it seems I can release my version as an overlay and get away with it. God knows I wouldn't try to sell the time capsule version!
Here are some of the balls fumbled over the last six months:
- 1.) CM15a support (they claim to have it, but the CPAN module is not close to finished.)
- 2.) USB-UIRT (they admit theirs does not work.) For those who don't know, this allows IR control of your house and allows the house to control your home theater equipment.
- 3.) Vonage support (speed dialer, etc.)
- 4.) XML News (they just have my AP News module)
- 5.) A real Web interface (without framesets!)
- 6.) A finished GUI w/ skins (they have the alpha version of my tk interface from June with zero forward progress since.)
- 7.) Competent X10 parsing. The old parser is brain-dead. That's right. The nerve center of the whole app needed a rewrite!
- 8.) Controls Ninja cameras, etc. Their old w800RF module is a bit of an unfinished mess (a recurring theme with this app)
- 9.) Has an MSI for Windows users (install/uninstall/repair, etc.) Theirs unzips into a folder with no spaces in it. (!)
- 10.) Support for X10 cameras (all kinds and better than AHP's brain-dead implementation), chimes, sirens, thermostats, etc.
- 11.) Competent POP3 email support. Christ on a crutch, you should see theirs! And they built modules on top of it too!
- 12.) Documentation that doesn't hurt your eyes from all of the spelling mistakes. Boy have I heard some crying for that piece. Those jackasses actually want my documentation now. Good luck losers. You shouldn't have locked the repository or you would have everything right now. Duh.
This stuff will all be documented better on an upcoming feature comparison page. The main idea is that the app is friendly to non-geeks. Their slogan is "It's fun, it's geeky, etc." I say: "It's geeky, but it doesn't have to be!" Better yet: "It's stupid, but it doesn't have to be!" If you are going to turn your home into a giant robot, who wants it to be a stupid one?!
So the answer to the question is: I already did, but I didn't start from complete scratch. Damned near though. This thing was as close to nothing as you can get. Most of the "features" were just wishful thinking. AFAIK, if it doesn't work, it doesn't count (covers most of the old MH.)
Maybe I will cut out the rest of the MH code as it becomes less significant to the whole. Maybe I will make it a Windows-only app (the current version is cross-platform.) I can only vouch that it works well on Windows (XP specifically.) I have reports that it works on several flavors of Linux and on the new Macs, but I can't confirm this at all. It seems most of the people having problems run Linux. As I stated before, I ran it for thirty days at a time on XP without a hint of trouble (of course that is my version, not the "official" pinched-off 2.103 release from a few months back.)
PS. I think the AHP software's biggest problem is the camera plugin (what a ripoff!) After I stopped using it, the software stopped screwing up so much. And to the poster in the woords, if you have to move macros around to overcome bugs, the software is automating you! What will you do when some drooling imbecile at X10 hunches over his/her keyboard and breaks your workaround?
[TTA Edit: Formatted for improved readability.]
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Topic: This software sucks! (Read 78925 times)