4 years, 9 months ago

OK. So I guess we're inactive. I was thinking of seeing if anyone wants to take the project over? (Providing Azhar agrees). If someone did, they'd probably need to compensate Azhar for the domain.

4 years, 10 months ago

None then I guess.

4 years, 11 months ago

How's the development going?

4 years, 11 months ago

SOrry I've been dead these past few weeks (in fact I thought RMC died) very happy to see some progress. yay!

4 years, 11 months ago

I could upload warez or porno to your server, which would result in the host possibly having legal problems.

4 years, 11 months ago

Ah, on payment: duly noted and updated.



On automatic orders: I disagree, depending on the nature of the request. If somebody's just buying storage space or bandwidth from me -- that is, the request is fairly circumscribed and there aren't many Bad Things the buyer can do to me -- then I, as seller, want that sale to happen even if I'm offline for a few days.



That could also be restricted to buyers with a certain level of community trust, by the way -- a good way to encourage community trust judgements.



On royalty points: no hurry. They're basically just an informal guide anyway, since CH isn't directly involved in the commercialization of ideas at this point. I figure once we have a working prototype and can plausibly discuss commercialization, then we'll talk about royalties and shares.

4 years, 11 months ago

By the way, I owe you 50 royalty points for that!



I'd transfer them now if Cambrian House wasn't so borked!

4 years, 11 months ago

It seems good. I dislike automatic offers though; the seller should have to approve each request manually for liability reasons.



You'll also need to keep track of payments so we can collect a fee (from the buyer or seller, though?).

4 years, 12 months ago

Initial spec here; please comment in this thread.



When I'll have time to start developing said spec, now that's a different question entirely. The week looks brutal, involving the translation of 60 pages of French lease agreements, three technical documents in German regarding beverage filling machines, and another 6000 words of medical IT documentation, my son's tooth filled, visits to our son's nephrologist and our daughter's gastroenterologist, oh, and packing for our two-month trip back to the States for the summer, flying out of San Juan on Friday.



Trivial.



Oh, but after that, life will be easy!

4 years, 12 months ago

How about we develop the server idea for the Mars release and the desktop idea for Jupiter?

4 years, 12 months ago

So now wait.



Azhar is focusing on rental of server capacity, in other words, FTP or command-line access to a computer which already has a reasonable security system in place, and perhaps even some kind of server functionality (e.g. extra bandwidth for load balancing or something.) That's easy to manage.



What I'm hearing from Joe is the additional capability (which is what I was originally thinking) of renting capacity on any random computer, say my mom's Windows box with DSL, and in that case, security is a big, big issue, as I mentioned in the other thread.



I don't see any reason in principle not to support both of these notions, but I think it might be easier to focus on the server model first, then expand to the desktop model.

4 years, 12 months ago

We also want to rent computers, Azhar!!



The way this would be done, I'm thinking, is the person with the computer to rent will upload their computers details and people wishing to rent it will place a bid on it (rate per hour) etc.



Timezones would also be useful, so that a user on the Pacific coast could use a British Mac in the middle of the seller's night!

4 years, 12 months ago

Yes you've got it That's exactly what we're looking at.

We're all busy people so I understand, you have access to FTP and DBs so code when you can.

Keep me (and Joe) posted on your progress

4 years, 12 months ago

Ack, posted too soon.



The verified seller thing is a good idea, and obviously a feature which could be added going forward. But these initial functions are what I see as the core functionality that define the idea.



I [i]might[/i] have a little time over the weekend, next week is horrible, but after that I might actually see some light, in which case I hope to start on the prototype. (Or earlier, sometimes I need to code to take a break.)

4 years, 12 months ago

Aha -- light dawns! I like this idea even better than the one I thought you had! OK, actually, I might use this service myself, since I myself have extra server capacity I'm not using. Hell, I might very well get another server or two... Fine-grained hosting services. Hmm...

On June 1, 2007, 12:21 pm azharc said:

1. User registration, profile maintenance, etc.

2. Registration of jobs to be performed.

3. Search for jobs to perform on my computer.

4. Download of the job code, upload of the results code.

5. Payment system after completion, perhaps a bonus for some special result (a fun way to get a couple of bucks, if your machine is the one that cracks the code or whatever).

6. Rating system for sellers to rate renters.

1.Yes

2.Nope, not needed, I can do what I want since I have access to your server. To make sure I don't destroy it, you'll have to give a security deposit if you want SSH etc.

3.Nope. (actually you might want to ask Joe about 2 & 3 he might have a different opinion)

5.Yes

6.Yes

You still need #2 and #3, but in slightly modified form. Here's how it will proceed.



1. User A, who has a server with extra space, creates a profile, as does User B, who needs something.

2. User B [i]defines what he wants[/i], today (tomorrow it might be something different, so you still need this request defined).

3. User A [i]defines what he has[/i], or wants to offer at the moment. But there still needs to be a search, because as User A, I might like to check what people are asking for, and maybe install something else and offer it.



5. Payment system still required, obviously, but now it has to handle recurring payments.

Might also want to add something called "verified seller" where a seller can be verified once he has sold a particular amount and we have personally tested that his server is great to work with. I'll come up with more later...

4 years, 12 months ago

1. User registration, profile maintenance, etc.

2. Registration of jobs to be performed.

3. Search for jobs to perform on my computer.

4. Download of the job code, upload of the results code.

5. Payment system after completion, perhaps a bonus for some special result (a fun way to get a couple of bucks, if your machine is the one that cracks the code or whatever).

6. Rating system for sellers to rate renters.

1.Yes

2.Nope, not needed, I can do what I want since I have access to your server. To make sure I don't destroy it, you'll have to give a security deposit if you want SSH etc.

3.Nope. (actually you might want to ask Joe about 2 & 3 he might have a different opinion)

5.Yes

6.Yes



Might also want to add something called "verified seller" where a seller can be verified once he has sold a particular amount and we have personally tested that his server is great to work with. I'll come up with more later...



Seems you're definitely on top of this and working on it, happy to see that glad to have you on board.

4 years, 12 months ago

Michael... I think you have the idea a bit confused :-D

See people won't be renting computers, but server space and usage.



So basically if I were to "rent a computer" from you, I'll be renting space on your hosting server and CPU usage etc.



So I'll have FTP (and maybe SSH) access to a part of your serv er with how much ever space I requested. I could also ask for a Ruby On Rails container to test or develop apps. I could just rent out the space.



Why this makes sense is :

1) Not everyone completely utilizes their hosting account.

2) People don't need to pay the 20$ a month for the 100GB space and 1TB bandwidth, some of them only need 1/10th of that and would rather pay 2$ a month. So it's cheaper to rent out someone's server instead of paying for the unused space and CPU usage etc. People could also rent out space temporarily to mirror.



So there's no need for the renter/seller to download anything. They just have to be connected to each other so they can exchange details for FTP access etc.



The second part of it is all right. I'll red over it one more time after I post this...

4 years, 12 months ago

OK, as I see it this project has two sections from a technical standpoint.



The first is the code on the rented computer; this downloads some package from the server, executes it, and uploads some output. I'm not going to worry about that right now, as I'm working on the server end of things.



The server (the "Website machinery" as I put it in a poorly worded email to Azharc and Joe) is the site the user sees. It has the following functional sections (as I currently see it):



1. User registration, profile maintenance, etc.

2. Registration of jobs to be performed.

3. Search for jobs to perform on my computer.

4. Download of the job code, upload of the results code.

5. Payment system after completion, perhaps a bonus for some special result (a fun way to get a couple of bucks, if your machine is the one that cracks the code or whatever).

6. Rating system for sellers to rate renters. (We need terminology; this is something for you business people to work out -- but we have two roles. A "seller" is the person with the computer to be rented, a "renter" is the person who is going to pay the seller for that privilege -- feel free to suggest better nomenclature.)



I think those 6 functional sections are it -- unless we want to include general "community" type areas, e.g. private messages, forum, news, what have you. That's kind of icing.



Thoughts?

4 years, 12 months ago

VNC: it's extremely cross-platform, free and popular. The rented machine provides a password and username, which we could make a random generator for, which is provided to the buyer. When the session is over, the rented machine's owner simply kills the process and changes the log-in details.



As for folks being short-changed/hacked, a feedback system and caveat emptor rule could be used?

4 years, 12 months ago

I don't understand

Refer to the post at Website Machinery, because I'm not sure if we need any Rental Machinery.

4 years, 12 months ago

On the rented computer itself, we have ... what? Has any thought been given to this? (Sorry I'm kind of jumping into the middle.)



See, because even if somebody paid me to download some random executable, there's no way I would. So native executables are out.



That leaves either Java applets, which are free to post to the originating site but are otherwise sandboxed (otherwise somebody will abuse this to send email spam), or scripts in some scripting language, e.g. Perl etc. Java is probably the best choice IMHO, but I'm interested in hearing what else might be a good idea.



The good thing about a scripting language is that I could in principle examine the code to make sure it's not doing something I don't approve of, see? Since it's running on my machine! Java's security mechanisms make that less urgent, but they also restrict what the downloaded applet could do in the first place.



So: tradeoff. Just thinking out loud here.

5 years ago

Hey Michael,

It seems we got a bit of a problem here. You'll be using Joe's DB for dev. It's because at (mt) all DBs have one password, so by giving you my password I'd be giving you access to all my DBs.



Joe will send you FTP and MySQL details tomorrow (he's on vacation). Sorry for the inconvenience, i'll move the DB over to (mt) and change the config after dev is over.



Hope that's ok?

5 years ago

Hi, all.



Yes, one database, please. You can also email me at michael@vivtek.com if you'd rather not put password info onto CH.

5 years ago

(mt) supports both MySQL and Postgre =) once you need to create databases let me know I'll create them for you and provide user/pass/host etc.

5 years ago

MySQL I think. PHP works nicely with it and also I know it's definately supported on mediatemple!

5 years ago

Yeh i read that..



So.. PHP then.. and how about databases?

5 years ago

Well it's PHP. Azhar has very kindly bought the domain ( rentmycomputer.com )and will provide us with hosting.

5 years ago

ASP is fairly easy to learn/understand.. (and i can code ASP already, and I reckon PHP is easy too, but well... its your choice )

5 years ago

ASP? May I ask why?

5 years ago

I was thinking about MySQL and ASP... those two work together quite nicely.

5 years ago

Before we get to work, we need to make some simple choices:



MySQL or PostreSQL?



PHP or RoR?



I am in favour of both in both instances as finding developers for those would be easier.



Your thoughts?

5 years ago

Michael, are you a coder? Someone help this damsel in distress with some PHP

5 years ago

I guess so.

5 years ago

Did somebody say they need a proper coder?

5 years ago

We need a proper coder. It is inefficient to modify a free script. If you write it yourself, it's your code, and then you know how it works.



As said before, I am willing to help, but I can't code the whole PHP thingy myself.

5 years ago

Unless we find a proper developer, I guess so.

5 years ago

Are we heavily modding an existing free script or starting from scratch?

5 years ago

What's the progress? And let me know when you want that MySQL Container.

5 years ago

We need a coder for that I'm afraid. I can lend additional help in coding it, but unfortunately I'm very busy right now...

5 years ago

Coolio but I'm more worried about the heart of the beast the code that will bring this thing to life, don't see any progress. After all this entire thing is nothing without the code to run it (wasn't PHP decided upon?)

5 years ago

Good. Thanks



I'm on it right now

5 years ago

Hmm...

I'm guessing the final logo will be green (the LED gadgetry green). Word based on green, white, grey. White background with a gradient coming from the top I guess? Green and glossy would be cool methinks, for headings etc. The green I'm thinking of is in the 'vote for us' banner to your left.



(What do you think of the Logo btw, the green one, RMC2?)



Size. I was thinking the size this text is in right now to be the main size. Headings etc. 2 or 3px larger. Keep it simple. I second Joe for font, consider using Trebuchet MS for headings to add some variety.



Can we keep it a fluid design if it's not too hard?



Like an Ebay style, keep important links top, related links to the page being viewed to the side. So we have a top bar and a side bar, and the customary footer.



I'm just being vague and giving you what I'm thinking, if you want my opinion on anything else just ask

5 years ago

My vote for font has to be a sans serif one.

5 years ago

Hmm...



i'll guess the main colours depend a lot on the final logo design..

i'll have to wait then..

5 years ago

So..

About the markup of the site..



What font will we use? What size?

Which colours will be applied to normal text?

What colours do links need?



Please tell me your preferences about this, so I can begin with the CSS file(s)

5 years ago

I'm thinking beta 2 looks a lot better. It's not perfect yet, but I like the gadgetry green over the blue. I think I'll stick with the green, modify the logo a bit to make it a little simpler (i.e. a bit more like logo 1, but green)



I'm still open to any other suggestions.

5 years ago

I also like the first one the most



Sorry for not being on this project for too long, I was really busy working at another project...

5 years ago

We'll go with Azhar's decision.

5 years ago

Hm... not sure...



i think i like the first one better..

5 years ago

Me likey. What do you guys think?

5 years ago

Beta 2. Check it out.

5 years ago

Will work on something. I quite liked the blue though, will try some other colors.

5 years ago

I'm not sure.



I like it to a degree, but I'm not sure if I like the gradient nor the 'rentmycomputer.com' (I don't like the colour of the font).

5 years ago

The first logo I made is done. Please view it here :



And give me feedback!



Btw thanks Joe for putting up that handy empty index page, just got back from my exam so I've had no time till now.