I also found Plex, and other database driven, setting filled servers to be too annoying to use. I installed Apache2 and pointed it at my media folder. Then I wrote a little PHP that dumps the directory as a raw list of file paths separated by line breaks! sorted by date modified. Then I banged out a quick web page that sorts those by TV show and season. Tap a show get a list of seasons, tap a season, get a list of episodes. Each episode has a link to play it in the browser in a small frame below the episode list, a link to the actual file location,and best of all, a Javascript button that launches the episode in VLC on my TV computer using VLC's built-in HTTP interface, letting me start shows on the TV from any of my iOS devices.
I love these guys. They aren't an "integrated solution" or anything, but they can turn eight sockets on and off in response to GET requests, run scripts, do time-related things, auto-power-cycle on failed ping... It's dead easy to slap together custom web pages/apps to trigger them. I use Siri to turn my lamps on and off alone or in clusters. "Turn off the bedside lamps", "turn off the foot lamp", "make it dark", "let there be light." The flexibility is what makes it fun. If I had your money, and had Ethernet next to every outlet, I'd have a hundred of them.
We're all full-up on Californians. Stop applying here, stop moving here, and for the love of god, stop building Mexican-villa style buildings everywhere you go. It looks terrible next to an evergreen tree.
Slashdot Mirror
I also found Plex, and other database driven, setting filled servers to be too annoying to use. I installed Apache2 and pointed it at my media folder. Then I wrote a little PHP that dumps the directory as a raw list of file paths separated by line breaks! sorted by date modified. Then I banged out a quick web page that sorts those by TV show and season. Tap a show get a list of seasons, tap a season, get a list of episodes. Each episode has a link to play it in the browser in a small frame below the episode list, a link to the actual file location,and best of all, a Javascript button that launches the episode in VLC on my TV computer using VLC's built-in HTTP interface, letting me start shows on the TV from any of my iOS devices.
Also, it's LCARS themed.
http://www.digital-loggers.com/lpc.html
I love these guys. They aren't an "integrated solution" or anything, but they can turn eight sockets on and off in response to GET requests, run scripts, do time-related things, auto-power-cycle on failed ping... It's dead easy to slap together custom web pages/apps to trigger them. I use Siri to turn my lamps on and off alone or in clusters. "Turn off the bedside lamps", "turn off the foot lamp", "make it dark", "let there be light." The flexibility is what makes it fun. If I had your money, and had Ethernet next to every outlet, I'd have a hundred of them.
We're all full-up on Californians. Stop applying here, stop moving here, and for the love of god, stop building Mexican-villa style buildings everywhere you go. It looks terrible next to an evergreen tree.