hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr0859.txt

Episode: 859
Title: HPR0859: Sourcetrunk: OwnCloud
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr0859/hpr0859.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-08 03:40:43

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Music
Hi and welcome to Source Drunk Episode 77, recorded on the 14th of November 2011.
This podcast will try to show the listeners the more practical examples of open source and free software.
I will do this by taking selected open source software and give it a little test run.
With this episode I'll be drinking a visa triple. It's a nice blonde triple, 8% alcohol, which is about average for a triple.
It appears to be having a light bitter taste, pretty aromatic, a soft, sweet touch, so a bit of fruity flavor, and it appears to be very ideal for a dinner.
I'm just going to pour it in a West Mala triple glass, right over the laptop, living on the edge,
and just trying not to get the sediment or too much of the sediment which rests in the bottom of the bottle in my glass.
Because, well, it's yeast, it is solely yeast that I can see here in the bottom of the glass, and it's not that dangerous, but still a bit of a fanatic.
I'm afraid that I'll be sick anyway. It's a nice, blonde, orangey color, fruity taste, and not a lot of foam.
I did my best to create a lot of foam, but not a lot of foam. Just sipping.
A nice, sweet taste, a bit of orangey taste, not too much. This is a really nice triple. Weezer triple, if you can get your hands on one of those, it's a delight.
Okay, but enough about beer. Let's go.
Web applications.
OwnCloud. Let's read the description according to the site of OwnCloud. OwnCloud gives you universal access to your files through a web interface or web dev.
It also provides a platform to easily view and sync your contacts, calendars, and bookmarks across all your devices and enables basic editing right on the web.
Some key features I'm going to read out here are currently, file management, web dev, access, sharing, music streaming, calendar, contacts, users and groups, open ID, LDAP, webfinger, remote storage compatibility.
That's what's already currently available.
What is in development, image gallery, online text editor, online task manager, encryption, bookmarks, desktop, sync client, Android and WebOS apps, server, server, sync.
And then what is planned for the remote future, versioning and recovery, connecting to other services.
So we have three stages. We have what is currently available. We have what is in development, which you can already test out if you would like.
And you have the stuff that is planned, stuff that they are thinking about to do.
Okay, now OwnCloud is something that really scratches my itch.
But first, let's give a little description what cloud computing is for those of you who are not really familiar with the concepts.
But when you look at Wikipedia, they describe it as cloud computing is a marketing term for technologies that provide computation, software, data access and storage services that do not require and use the knowledge of the physical location and configuration of the system that delivers the services.
Okay, so parallel to this concept can be drawn with the electricity grid, where in end users consume power without needing to understand the component devices or infrastructure required to provide the service.
End quote, to give you an example cloud computing can be very interesting for people who are constantly on the move who really don't have an office and they want to download and work on their files wherever they have internet.
And not specifically on their computer alone, they want to use any computer they can get their hands on, they want to use a computer in a library or a computer at a client or their own computer or maybe even a tablet or a telephone, a little phone which has a browsing compatibility, which you can use to browse to a certain location and then edit your files.
All your files with cloud computing are on somebody else's server, not necessarily that's where own cloud comes in, but that is how the most of the cloud solutions are constructed.
You use you rent some space on service from a company, for example, Amazon, Apple, there are a lot of cloud computing solutions for you, some internet service providers provide their own cloud computing service to you and it gives you the luxury that you can just use your files, you don't have to worry where your files are physically located, you don't have to worry about doing packets.
There are some drawbacks, the thing that creeps me a bit out is the following, suppose you put all your personal music, pictures, videos and documents in the cloud, well, technically on the service of a proprietary company, there are some things to consider, what if that company goes belly up and closes its business?
Then what about your files? They are not located on your computer, they are located on their servers. What if that company plans to go through your personal stuff to use for targeted advertisement?
After all, they can do whatever they want with it, it is your data but it is hosted on somebody else's computer.
The agreement should be very, very tight to make sure that that company doesn't read or use your data.
What if your company data is on the cloud? What if your data is sold to your nearest competitor, for example? What if that company decides to double the fee of the cloud after a year of usage?
You would have to transfer all your data to another cloud, which then again could be very expensive. All those problems, all those things that could happen with a cloud, that is not your own cloud, all those problems decided for me that I really needed my own cloud.
That is the last time I am going to make this silly joke. With your own cloud, you have your files, your folders, residing on your own servers and you still can access it from anywhere on the web, as long as you have an internet connection.
So that is the concept. You will use your own web server to host your own cloud. That is all good and it sounds great, but is it easy to install?
Because let's be honest, if it is going to take weeks and weeks to configure such a thing, I might be inclined to just go with my internet service, provide a solution and just let them host my files.
Well, own cloud is extremely easy to install, so I am just going to give you a very short walkthrough how you should install it. But first, if you don't really like installing something that you are not sure that you are going to use, then just hop on over to demo.owncloud.org.
There you have a complete demo of an own cloud that you can use and just try it out for yourself. It is very easy to just go to demo. If you would like to install it, well, there is, for example, a Ubuntu package in the repository, I installed it, but I was tiny bit disappointed because that was the 1.1 version and own cloud 2.0 is out.
That you can install from Gitorious. So the thing you have to do is to read the tiny manual on own cloud.org how to install it from Gitorious. It is really easy.
The only thing you have to do is go to the directory of the base of your web server. You check out that version with git clone gitgitorious.org slash own cloud slash own cloud. Git really should look it up on own cloud.org.
And then you just point your browser to that own cloud directory on your own web server and bam. You are immediately asked to create an admin account. That says it's easiest that you just enter a username and password.
I clicked on advanced and I set myself a data folder that I put on a different drive, but you don't have to. And I set the MySQL host and account name myself.
So I created a database own cloud with PHP, my admin. That is really quick to do. After nothing more than three minutes, I mean, I had my own cloud.
So installation is just pretty, pretty darn simple. Now after putting the own cloud files on your web server, you really have to go immediately to the own cloud directory and set up an admin account because otherwise someone else could do that for you.
And then they would have their own cloud on your private server, which is, well, it divides the purpose just a tiny little bit and patchy and droople, for example, have a bit better control over the first initial admin setup in my opinion, but pay well, it works.
The first thing I was going to do was look at all the possibilities. I needed this, especially to host my, for example, source strength preparation files.
Wherever I am, if I have just 10 minutes or 15 minutes while I'm eating a sandwich at work or somewhere else and I have an internet connection, I like to do a bit more preparation for the show.
And then I just can go to my own cloud, check out a file, edit it and just upload it back to the own cloud on whatever computer I'm using on whatever network I am as long as I have internet connection on port 80 or 443. I'm good to go.
And that is what own cloud provides. It has a file step. There you can see all your files and folders you have uploaded already on your own cloud.
I can click in folders and I will go through the other folders or I can just go back with the little breadcrumbs. You really should see it in front of you.
If you have a computer now, just go to demo.owncloud.org and follow with me. I think it's a bit easier if you're in the car. Well, bad luck.
Good. So the files. I can upload files. I can make a new folder and upload more files to it. I can multi-select a lot of files on my computer and just upload the lot of them to the own cloud.
From that moment on, it's really easy. I just click on a file to download it and I just click on upload to upload it back after my editing is done.
That is four files that it cannot open itself. GPEGs or other picture files are just demonstrated in a little gallery are previewed.
So I don't really have to download them. I can just preview them before I would download them. There's a lot you can do with your files. You can even share them to other people, other groups within your own cloud or a company own cloud.
Or you can even make them public and then you can give a link to someone which points to your cloud and they don't even have to log in. You can just give that person the file you've uploaded to your cloud.
And that's a very interesting concept because a lot of people use proprietary websites to upload a really big file to and then give that URL to somebody else who has to either log in to that website or go through all the banners and advertisements that are thrown in his face.
So in this way you can easily give public big files to someone via a link. There is not a lot more to say about files in a web browser. It is a beautiful work out solution. I can even search my files with a little search tab.
So search trunk will give all my files episodes, my episode template I can use from within my files tab. So that's just marvelous. That's not all. There are different tabs. These are only my files and the way I organize them.
There's another tab where I can have my music files. I've also uploaded music files to own cloud. And well, yes, you guessed it. I not only can download my music files, but there we go. I can just listen to my own music files, which is beautiful.
Okay, to be clear about this, I don't need an external audio player. It just plays from within the web interface. Not only can I play them, I can make complete playlists from within this interface.
There's more. I can create contacts in my own cloud. I can organize these contacts. And I'll get back later on with the syncing of those contacts with other applications.
I also have a calendar in the own cloud interface. I can see by week, month, complete lists, I can very easily swap from one month to another or from one week to another or from one day to another.
I can create, as I should be able to in a calendar, create new appointments. I can just shift one appointment by dragging it to another day.
It's pretty well thought of. The interface is really nice. I can look at my active calendars. I can have different calendars, different settings, categories I can switch from their advanced options.
For example, I can submit a location, a description of the thing. So it's everything you need for a personal or even small corporate calendar.
The next step is the gallery. It will scan for all the images it has in your folder and it will give you a nice gallery where you can browse through.
And it also all goes very rapidly. You don't have any lag. You just can click, click, click through all your different things you want to do in your cloud.
There's even a tab for your bookmarks. You can just create your bookmarks or just drag your bookmarks to your URL tab.
And it will open a new tab and open your website according to that bookmark. It's marvelous.
I tried out some stuff because on cloud, when you upload files, you only see your newly uploaded files. But I wanted to test out if when creating a symbolic link to my documents folder on my personal server, if it would just scan all my documents and give me readily access to my already existing documents folder.
And yes, it did just that. It provided me access through own cloud to my already existing library of documents. And also, as a test, I created a symbolic link to my complete music collection.
It did an initial scan which ran pretty fast and it was able to provide me my complete music collection. But there I was stretching it a bit because before it would show me all the numbers and all the albums it just took a while.
So it's that's I think now beyond the usage purpose that it is possible. So if you already have a small documents folder on your server, you can just create some symbolic link or just move the files to the own cloud data directory that is under your profile.
But I'm getting a bit too specific. That's not what most of you will do. You will just use your own cloud and upload what you need.
Okay, if you're still with me, there is more. When you look at the settings tab and you take your personal settings, there you can, for example, change password, email and so on and so on. But you can also copy the webdaf location.
There is URL you can use to have a webdaf folder opened on your desktop every desktop or phone or tablet which uses webdaf can make use of this.
There's also a calendar syncing address. So you can even create an own cloud calendar in your preferred calendar application which makes use of the Calda protocol and there are quite a few that do this and just manage your own cloud calendar from there.
The same for contacts. If card death is supported, you can just manage your contacts which are on your cloud from within a application.
Your media can even your music files can even be played with Apache which supports the media plugin.
So you see it's already targeting to using the own cloud from within a web environment but give you the ability to use applications and just synchronize with your data synchronize with your cloud.
Underneath those settings, you have your user settings where you can just create groups, users, give them privileges and also an application tab where you can add applications.
I only use the calendar contacts media, share files, bookmarks, gallery and text editor but you can also if you need that remote storage compatibility, you can check that on open ID.
If you use it, you can use an LDAP user backend if you don't want to create all those users by yourself or you don't want to be a bastard with password changes and stuff.
You can use webfinger or just a complete import and export from another own cloud.
And that's it. There's also log and admin and even a little help tab where you can ask a question.
It's a sort of handy link to the own cloud forums where you can get more information about stuff that you are not really able to get implemented or are not really able to understand from the top of your head.
That's it. I'm not going to say any more because you have to see it, you have to try it, go to demo.owncloud.org and try it out for yourself.
This version is 2.0 but in my opinion, it is nearly at the beginning of what this application should be able to do.
It is already very polished. It's already very quick and fast and you can use it immediately from the get-go of the installation.
But there is more in this. There is really more we could develop for own cloud and that is a bit of a call to developers out there just to go over to owncloud.org and look at the project and see how you can develop with the own cloud community or even develop an app for the own cloud solution.
Every plugin like a media browser or a synchronizer with the remote storage is just a plugin which is easy to build.
So if you have ideas for a connection with own cloud, do not hesitate to contact them. I'll put a link on source trunk where you can go to for that information.
Another idea I had is why isn't there for example someone who creates a business in making own cloud boxes so that you can buy a complete pre-configured own cloud box and that people manage their own cloud without the necessity of installing a web server and so on and so on.
You should be able to have an agreement with the internet service provider so that the ports 80 and 443 are allowed but that is something that you can agree upon that is something that could be in a contract with your internet service provider.
In my opinion it should be easy to plug in an external drive and have automatic backups in such an own cloud box.
I'll maybe start my own company doing that sort of things because it's stupid but it's such a dangerous thought, such a nervous trend that everyone is putting their private information on other companies websites, on other companies, clouds and just well...
Something will go wrong eventually with one of those companies and your data will be lost. It would be better if you have your own cloud but it should be easy for non IT professionals and non IT jolly amateurs to buy such a thing, to have their own cloud and don't have to worry about backups and stuff.
So something to keep in mind. Also own cloud has a lot of potential and has a lot of ideas, has a lot of already plans for the future so you should really check out the website for more information.
The offers we have Frank Carlyczek which is the project founder Robin Abelman who is responsible for the back-and-front-ends media player and so on and so on and Jan Christof Borcherts who does the interface and interaction design and there are a lot of people who are currently working.
I'm not going to list them all it is. Well it's quite extensive.
The availability own cloud only needs Apache PHP 5 and either MySQL or SQL Lite as a database. You can get it from owncloud.org and you can search for help on owncloud.shapado.com.
The license is the agpl version free. That's a license and open source license that is specifically for streaming and network related solutions.
So check out Wikipedia if you want to know more about a federal general public license. You can support it by reporting an issue or ask questions and help others on the forums.
You can translate own cloud to your own language. You can help in the coding and check for other opportunities for contribution.
It's all on the support page which I will put on source from.com as well or as I said you can develop your own apps for that or you can help in the documentation which could use a bit of help and especially spread the word about this wonderful project.
I don't care how you do it just tell your friends tell colleagues Twitter about this episode of source trunk or just Twitter about own cloud or go to Identica and so on and so on just get the word out.
Okay Android pick quickly because I'm running out of time Tivo commander. This is complete open source clone of the Tivo for iPad and iPhone app.
So if you would like to control your Tivo premiere and unfortunately only the Tivo premiere you can do so by Tivo commander it's a full remote control with keyboard input.
You can browse all your recorded shows you can watch and lead them you can search for shows movies actors secrets record in video shows at modify remove season passes and so on and so on.
It's not affiliated with Tivo it's complete open source so check out Tivo commander.
Okay let's wrap it up leave your comments on sourstring.com or mail me directly via sourstring at gmail.com.
You can also contact me on Identica or Twitter by the handle of Gnu Dimi.
I'm leaving you with farewell by tag.
Thanks for your time and good hunting.
Oh yeah nearly forgot I'm done editing so I'm just recording this via T laptop.
But if you're an Android developer there is already an Android own cloud application in Gitorius for you to check out.
Not yet released I think but if you are an Android developer and you would like to help get the Android app for own cloud out sooner and then just pop on over to the Gitorius repository or just contact own cloud.
Thanks for your time and good hunting.
Thanks for your time and good hunting.
Thanks for your time and good hunting.
Thanks for your time and good hunting.
Thanks for your time and good hunting.
Thanks for your time and good hunting.
Thanks for your time and good hunting.
Thanks for your time and good hunting.
Thanks for your time and good hunting.