(I really never intended to tell anyone about this project, nor do I think it's actually useful for anyone but myself. Alas I mentioned it to a friend and he encouraged me to at least post about it somewhere. Think of this email as me sharing an interesting, if unusual, use of AOLServer. And go easy on me with any replies.)
The short of it: First of all, I don't actually run AOLserver on the processor in the iPod. It's a stock iPod with disk access enabled. I merely carry around three AOLserver binaries (Linux, Win32, and Mac OSX) and a single servers directory. This allows me to basically plug into any computer, work, home, friend's house, etc. and prototype code. Think of it as a portable AOLserver development environment. But that's not why I really did it... I also wrote some tcl scripts to parse the Calendars, Contacts, and Notes directories on the iPod and display/edit via html. I view the Calendars, Contacts, and Notes like normal on the iPod when I'm on the go. And when I'm at any computer, I plug in, run AOLserver, and use a browser to view/edit the same Calendars, Contacts, and Notes. No syncing. And you can do more, basically whatever personal web app you can think of. For example, I also copied over my photo system from my personal website so I can show my photos on any computer, even without an Internet connection, e.g. at the parent's house who are still on dial-up. (Note, I first put this together ~1 year ago, before iPod Photo, but I have since bought one and actually use both photo systems. I use the built in iPod photo system on the go, e.g. to show off photos of the new house when at a crowded party, and when I have a computer available I plug in, run AOLserver, and view the same photos in a browser, e.g. parent's house scenario.)
The long story: (this part is very opinionated and off topic) It was a few years back and I was enamored with PIM/PDA devices. Yet I was also becoming increasingly frustrated with them. While the idea of having this information with me at all times was desirable, the implementations on the market at the time, and indeed most of them today, was awful. The storage was limited. Syncing was a mess if you regularly used more than one computer. My data on the device, particularly calendar information was often out of date or out of sync. And trying to edit the information on the device on the go was cumbersome. What I ideally wanted was more storage, to be guaranteed to be in sync and up to date, to trade the convenience of editing anywhere for a more user-friendly method of input, and to be able to plug in to any computer at any time. The traditional syncing model fundamentally fails because the device, the thing you have with you all the time and want to always be up to date, actually has a slave copy of the data. What I really wanted was the device to be the master and any computer effectively becomes a terminal that views/edits the master copy on the device. I had already been carrying around a few different binaries on my iPod, e.g. Windows ssh software or mp3 encoding software. I also had already ditched my Palm, iPaq, etc. in favor of the PIM functions on the iPod. And then it came together. If I could write a program to access the .ics, .vcf, and .txt files on the iPod directly I could just carry that program around on the iPod and plug into any computer to edit and not sync at all anymore. I considered Java at first, which I suppose most sane developers would use. But I realized I would have to carry around copies of a JVM to ensure platform universality, e.g. my parents don't even have Java on their old WinME box. And while a single jar file is convenient, I wanted more development flexibility, I wanted to be able to change the GUI or logic on the go with out recompiling or loading an IDE. And I never intended to distribute it anyway. And I realized if I went with AOLserver/tcl I could easily add other features such as my photo collection. And I can prototype code for other live web servers I occasionally work on. So I compiled the AOLserver binaries for Win32, OS X, and Linux and threw them in respective directories in /bin/*/aolserver/ on my iPod. I made a single copy of the servers directory along with config.tcl, tcl modules, etc in the /aolserver/ directory on the iPod. I wrote a shell script/bat file for each system type in the root directory of the iPod to make starting the server easier. And I wrote some various tcl scripts/pages to directly parse/view/edit the iPod data files in the Calendars, Contacts, and Notes directories.
Yeah, I think it's insane too, but it works for me. I call it 1906, think uber elite (leet - 1337) slang for iPod. And it of course runs on the non-privileged port http://localhost:1906/. ;)
Cheers, Kevin
-- AOLserver - http://www.aolserver.com/
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