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[mike galos]

Roger, <BR> <BR>No question they need to make it easy. The <BR>problem is they also need to make it safe <BR>for amateurs to use. The last thing they <BR>need is lots of press stories of "Hackers <BR>take over X10 users houses". That would not <BR>only make the trade press, that'd be one of <BR>those "human interest" stories that would <BR>make the evening news around the planet and <BR>set back home automation again. <BR>

We're starting work on our next plug-in, <BR>which will put control of ActiveHome Pro <BR>(including cameras and video, if you have <BR>iWitness) on the Internet. We have a number <BR>of features in mind, but are looking for more <BR>ideas from our users. <BR> <BR>What kinds of features would you expect or <BR>like to see in an Internet plug-in for <BR>ActiveHome Pro?

Internet Plug-in: what do you want to see?

Re: Internet Plug-in: what do you want to see? [2 of 5]

Re: Internet Plug-in: what do you want to see? [3 of 5]

Re: Internet Plug-in: what do you want to see? [5 of 5]


[TTA Edit: Experiment to determine whether or not SPLITTING 'Highly-Viewed' / 'Highly-Replied' but currently INACTIVE threads from LONG, LONG AGO (I'm starting with ~2 years) into parts will allow current ACTIVE threads to appear in the Top 10 Topics (by Replies) section of the Statistics Center (aka More Stats) Page.

NOTE: I *WILL* address the <BR> problem...]

[tcassio]

I guess what I meant is that the operating
system is free. Linux.  I would not doubt
that X10 is using some form of free Linux
to run there systems.
T.

[mike galos]

According to the Netcraft "What's that site
running" page, they're running Apache on
Solaris. (but that report doesn't really
show what's behind the front end servers)

[mike galos]

And, Tcassio, with all the expenses of
building and running a commercial website
like X10.com, the cost of some Windows
Server 2003, Web Edition licenses is
trivial.

[mike galos]

Roger H.,

You said that you "don’t think that X10
would want to limit their customer base for
this plug-in to  such a small minority."

And that's a very valid point. However, the
premise is wrong. The majority of home
users (and a significant majority of the
type of home users who are techie enough to
play with home automation) are running
Windows XP. Remember even ignoring people
doing upgrades, virtually every computer
sold to home users in the last three years
shipped with XP and even in this lousy
economy, most people change out computers
about every 3-5 years. Yes, there are
people out there running AHP on one of
their old "closet computers". That's fine
and a good market for X10. However, running
an internet facing control panel for your
house is just too attractive a hacker
target (read that as it'd be fun for them)
to be run on an old, insecure system.

[donald mcmow]

There do seem to be a number of people who
are running with the older OS's. Not
everyone updates the computer just because
a new OS comes out. The other thing is if
you buy a newer computer you might keep the
older one to use for the kids or as
a "controller" just to keep it from going
to the dump or where ever - after all the
computer is still useable.

[Observer]

X10: TIME FOR A NEW THREAD.

I agree with Mike G., besides how many X10
modules would a scrooge bit-fiddler using an
obsolete, non-supported PC system be
inclined to buy?  He/she probably would try
to monopolize the Forum and X10 Pro’s time
with very little return.

Et al:   The below reams of verbose context
reminds me of two bald men arguing over a
comb.  And it’s about as relevant.

X10:  Please, New thread… enough of armature
marketing hour, its getting embarrassing.

Release 3.186:  Is tomorrow the big day??

[mike galos]

Realisticaly, the only way X10 could do an
Internet facing control for legacy users
(those running Windows 9x operating
systems) would be to host the actual site
on a seriously secure host and have it
communicate with a very tiny, very
controlled client module that only spoke
via a secured protocol with certs for
authentication over a high port. Even then,
their support costs would be high with the
need to talk users through configuring the
traffic through their and their ISP's
firewalls.

The downside is that it would make all the
really interesting add-on work by 3rd
parties virtually impossible and also be an
expensive operations system with a totally
different business model that is likely to
be way too unprofitable to make sense.

[roger1818]

Mike G:  I didn’t say that a minority of
users are using Windows XP.  I said that a
minority of users are Network
Administrators who know how to configure a
web server.

[Observer]

X10: PLEASE: TIME FOR A NEW THREAD.

How many X10  modules would a scrooge bit-
fiddler using an  obsolete, non-supported PC
system be  inclined to buy?  He/she probably
would try  to monopolize the Forum and X10
Pro’s time  with very little return.    Et
al:   The below reams of verbose context
reminds me of two bald men arguing over a
comb.  And it’s about as relevant.    X10:

Please, New thread… enough, its getting
embarrassing.

Release 3.186:  Is tomorrow the big day??

[mike galos]

Roger H.,

Right. They're not. But a decent setup
program could configure a secure AHP
website if the system is configured to
support that. Now, if the system isn't
running an NT based OS (like XP) or doesn't
use NTFS or if the users all logon with
Administrator accounts things get
progressively worse no matter how good the
program.

I'm not suggesting that users need to
become website admins or DBAs or know
infrastructure. They do, however, have to
have a system modern enough for the setup
program (and the site itself) to do
configuration, security and maintenance.

[mike galos]

To answer the "X10 MUST support all
platforms they claim to support!" question,
the X10 requirements for AHP are: "System
requirements: Windows based Personal
Computer, available USB port, and Internet
connection to download software and
updates." which is actually pretty silly.
If taken seriously, I could complain that
it doesn't work on my Windows 1.03 box if I
wrote a USB driver...

Realistically, those requirements wouldn't
fit for an internet plug-in anyway since
they don't require an "always on" internet
connection.

Now, X10 doesn't have a real history of
keeping state of the art on their code (The
old ActiveHome may very well have been the
last 16-bit, Windows 3.x commercial app
sold) but the requirements really do need
to be set realistically so that they aren't
wasting all their dev and support time on
getting it to work with Win95 with
proprietary USB drivers.

[X10 Pro]

Mike: Can you tell me what page those
requirements are listed on? They should be
Windows 98 or newer, not just a "... Windows
based Personal Computer...". We definitely
aren't spending time testing Win95
configurations.

By the way, the Internet plug-in will work on
Win98. That's a requirement for us. The
architecture for support the Internet
features is based on the Vanguard software,
and is pretty well defined at this point.

[mike galos]

It's on the main AHP page at
http://www.x10.com/activehomepro/activehome-
pro.html. Do a search for "requirements"
and you'll find the string I quoted in the
earlier post.

I think X10 is making a really bad mistake
with Win98 support for a web server with
this kind of security risks for your
customers but we can take that offline.

[coder since cp290]

"Mike Galos 4/12/2005 01:07 PM

It's on the main AHP page at
http://www.x10.com/activehomepro/activehome-
pro.html. Do a search for "requirements"
and you'll find the string I quoted in the
earlier post.

I think X10 is making a really bad mistake
with Win98 support for a web server with
this kind of security risks for your
customers but we can take that offline."

what you don't unserstand is there might very
well be a bunch of folks with a win98 box
connected to the cm15a in a basement, or
attic, etc. that just want to admin it locally.

They might not want to control it from the
internet, but only from the home office, on a
lan local to the house (used for printer
sharing, etc) with only dialup access to the net!

If I had to take a computer and dedicate it
to HA, I do think I'd take my slowest/oldest.

So, what you suggest is that this win98 box,
be upgraded with xp (and memory and disk) so
that I can access the host with the cm15a
attached, from my home office?  (including
getting IIS working and keeping current on
the MS updates so that IIS doesn't get hacked!)

BTW, Apache does run win win NT/2k/XP, and is
free, so IIS isn't the only way to go on
windows 32. (never used it on win 16, but it
may work!)

Personally, I would NEVER use IIS to host a
public website, as that's the one that
hackers go after!