On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 07:03:23PM -0700, Thomas Lord wrote:
Opinions and speculations requested, please. What is our group vision about this: I mail off a headless freedombox to some non-hacker friend (who, let's assume, has a computer and Internet connection at home already, but who isn't a sysadmin or anything close). He opens it up. Plugs it in / turns it on. The package, I hope, has one page of instructions about how to configure the freedombox and start using it. What does the process look like? Does my friend have to have wifi? Or a spare ethernet cable and a router with a spare slot? What if his wifi is password protected? Does he telnet to the box? Use a web browser? Or does it include a (possibly tiny, minimal) display and my friend is supposed to plug in a keyboard? What is a realistic and desirable "vision" for the "first 10 minutes" experience?
I imagine something like this:
* Initiate personalization mode in one of these ways:
a) Plug a USB keyboard into the box while turned off.
Turn box on, and when light changes to slowly blinking
(approx. 1 minut) type in a temporary passphrase (yes,
blindly, there is no screen) and unplug the keyboard.
b) Hold down reset button for 5 seconds while turned off.
Turn box on while keeping down reset button, and when
light changes to slowly blinking (approx. 1 minut)
release the reset button.
* Notice how light blinks double now, indicating pairing mode.
If not then repeat above step.
* connect the box and your own computer one of these ways:
a) connect directly with an ethernet cable
b) connect directly with a USB cable - showing as a usb-net at
your computer
c) connect your own computer to wifi network "freedomnet"
offered by the box.
* connect to web address http://freedombox.local/ or connect
to DLNA device "freedombox".
* Enter your passphrase (if using reset button, enter 1234). * Select the Freedoms you want enabled, and select "OK". * If your selection included personal freedoms then enter your nickname (you can add more later), and save the WebID you are then being given. NB! Very important that you keep this WebID and keep it private - it is your key to personal data on FreedomBox! I want activation to be possible even in a somewhat hostile environment.I want to support Zeroconf of most types of personal computers in common use today - both Mac and Linux (mDNS/DNS-SD) and Windows and e.g. some TVs (SSDP part of UPnP).
I guess DLNA style interfaces are unable to store a WebID so cannot support personal freedoms. They can instead be presented with a notice that personal freedoms needs a more capable computer because simple passwords is too weak to provide adequate protection.
I tried hard to imagine alternative ways of interaction (e.g. call it with a SIP phone and interact with it through voice and phone digits). I am sure design folks are more creative here, and I would be more than happy to help find technical ways to support non-web-style interfaces!
Anyone knows which interfaces (plural - I assume not one is ideal for all) most ideally support blind, deaf or differently challenged people?
I strongly believe that initial setup should consist only of a list of enable/disable style choices and (if needed at all) a single personal identifier and/or a single box identifier - all services should have sensible defaults and be ready to go (any tuning is optional and done at later reconnect). This helps keep initial setup to a minimum and helps ease ability to provide vastly different kinds of interfaces (like voice-controlled or even clapping-hands-by-certain-logic).
- Jonas -- * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt * Tlf.: +45 40843136 Website: http://dr.jones.dk/ [x] quote me freely [ ] ask before reusing [ ] keep private
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