Keep It Simple Stupid. Thanks to RickB for pointing out that my photo frame submission scheme is way too complicated. I had grand plans for how it would work, but A) nobody really uses it and B) it's a crazy process. Maybe those two things are related.
So let's simplify things to one step:
I don't expect everyone to do this, but at least it will be simpler for those of you that do.
I've opened up the source for the photo frame project. I mentioned it on the home theater discussion list at work and got a flood of replies. Hopefully people will actually contribute to the project and it won't become one of those half finished open source projects that I always see. The project is posted on CodePlex if you're interested.
This is a good example of what happens when I have too much time on my hands. It started when Tim and I were watching a Star Trek movie and thought about how it would be interesting if we could talk to the digital photo frame.
I downloaded the Microsoft Speech SDK and started coding. In just a few hours, we were able to talk to the frame and get information like the current weather and the current deals on Woot, SlickDeals, and Steep and Cheap.
It's still a little rough around the edges. I want to make it scroll the text vertically when there is too much to fit on a single screen. I'm also trying to figure out how I can get it to stream TV from my computer in the bedroom by simply saying "Computer, ESPN!"
So check out the video below for a demo of the voice commands in action. It was my first attempt at a two camera shoot (a digital camera and a camcorder.) It was a lot of extra editing work, but I think it was a nice touch. Unfortunately I forgot to align the color balances before shooting so I just went with black and white instead.
Get the Flash Player to see this player.
[UPDATE] Forgot to mention that this is also availble for download in the Videos section.
[UPDATE] If you would like to see the code or even contribute to it, head over to http://www.codeplex.com/photoframe/
var FO = { movie:"/web/projects/flash_flv_player/flvplayer.swf",width:"320",height:"240",majorversion:"7",build:"0",bgcolor:"#FFFFFF",
flashvars:"file=/web/video/startrek.flv&showdigits=true&autostart=false&showfsbutton=true" };
UFO.create( FO, "playerstartrek");
During my brief stint with Lockheed in Minneapolis, I contributed a bit of code to an after-hours UAV project. Unfortunately I didn't get involved until almost the end of my time up there, but I was enthralled with the project. Since then I've always had an idea in the back of my mind to buy an off-the-shelf RC plane and add an autopilot to it.
The project either boils down to a ton of time or a ton of money. That might be changing though. Some clever individual has created a simple autopilot with pieces from the Lego Mindstorms kit. The kit now includes a gyro sensor and that is the piece that enabled this project. Currently the autopilot will maintain level flight and control the rudder to return the plane to the launch area.
If you see a tiny plane flying overhead taking pictures of you, look for the Studio711 logo on it. I'd love to create my own version of this project.
The digital photo frame in our living room is now set up to receive pictures from you! Frankly we get tired of looking at our own pictures and it would be great to have some new content. Here's what you need to do to participate:
The process is a bit rough for now, but it should work just fine. If a lot of people end up doing this (which I don't really expect) then I'll see what I can do to make it simpler.
The shelving project had three phases: shelf construction, fish tank setup, and the digital photo frame. The shelves were built and installed and the fish tank is the happy home to six neon tetras. For the last week I've been working on turning an old laptop into a photo frame. This is part 2 of 3. For the third part, click Page 3 – Voice Activated Screensaver.
The goal was to dismantle the laptop enough that I could flip the LCD around and lie it flat on the keyboard (with the screen facing up.) By removing a few screws and cutting some of the plastic, that was accomplished without too much trouble. The next step was mounting the laptop into the shelves.
Plan A: Build a stand out of wood that will hold the laptop and LCD in place. This quickly became a mess in my head as I tried to figure out how it would all work. The LCD was pretty flimsy and there was only a tiny connector carrying the video data and it looked easy to break. I tossed the wood platform idea.
Plan B: I bought some styrofoam and spent hours carefully carving out the right nooks and crannies for the laptop to fit in just perfectly. I was particularly proud of this idea. When finished, it would fit perfectly in the hole in the shelves and hold the laptop securely in place. After I painstakingly cut out the styrofoam block, I powered up the laptop and was greeted with a blank screen. Somewhere along the way, I trashed that flimsy connector and I couldn't get it working again. (Yes, I know this looks very much like my laptop from my old job. I assure you it's not the same one. It's surprising how cheaply you can pick up old laptops like this on eBay.)
Plan C: By this time I was fed up with using the LCD from the laptop so I took a trip to Costco. I picked out the cheapest LCD they had which happened to be a 19" model. I didn't need anything fancy. The new plan was remove the base and build a new stand. After some thinking, I thought that would tip over too easily. Next plan.
Plan D: Tim and I ended up cutting a piece of wood to fit vertically into that hole in the shelves. It's held in place with L brackets. We chose L brackets because we could install them without taking the shelves down and trying to hammer nails in. It took a long time to do the math and get the holes drilled correctly to match up with the mounting holes on the back of the laptop, but eventually it all worked out. I cut out some black posterboard to use as a temporary matte around the frame.
I'm happy with the way it turned out. It would have been nicer if I had been able to really make the whole thing out of the laptop, but the end result is the same (or better.) The laptop now sits behind the shelves and has a wireless card in it so I can remote desktop in and change settings. I also have a wireless mouse and keyboard hooked up to it, but you have to be standing fairly close to the shelves to get the signal so it's impractical to use the mouse and keyboard for much more than bug fixing.
For now it's just running the default My Pictures screensaver, but I'm working on some new software for it. Hopefully we'll be able to power off the LCD at certain times of the day and receive picture submissions from users on the Internet. You'll know when that's finished because I'll be asking you for pictures.
I think I can basically cross this project off my list. The rest is just software and that's the easy part.
Cesar from the Zune team just posted my in-car demo video (previously posted at on10). Sweet!
http://zuneinsider.com/archive/2007/01/24/zune-on-your-car-s-monitor.aspx
Last Sunday, Tim and I had a little photo shoot in the house. We’re weird like that. Chelsea and Laura posed us while Matt snapped the pictures. Hopefully you have seen the famous Lunch Atop a Skyscraper picture or else this one will make no sense. The astute among you will notice that we used Seattle as the backdrop instead of NYC. It’s actually a picture I snapped from the top of the Space Needle this summer. I’m heading to Kinko’s today to get this printed off in a poster size. It should make a lovely addition to one of our walls.
Tim and I finished up construction of the shelves tonight. It only took about 3 hours to build them, but it took all week to put on coats of stain and polyurethane. Each coat took extra time to dry because of the cold weather, but it's finally done. I'm really happy with the way they came out. I owe a huge thanks to Tim for all his help. This is the first time I've ever tried to build something that looks really nice, and it wouldn't look nearly this good without him.
This is really just phase 1 of 3 for the project. Now I need to find an aquarium store and pick up some supplies to get the fish swimming again. The shelf directly above the tank lifts out so I can clean the tank. Phase 3 is to chop up a laptop and get it installed. I put Tim's laptop into the hole so you can get a rough idea, but it will look much better than that. All you will see is a matte with an LCD in the center. [Page 2 – Digital Photo Frame]
The Zune video made a bit of a splash on YouTube. It was in the top 100 most popular videos in the car section for most of the day. I also sent it to the Zune discussion list at work, and one of the guys (Duncan) who writes for On10 saw it. If you haven't heard of On10 before, it's like Channel9. If you haven't heard of Channel 9 either, they're Microsoft-run websites that give you a peak behind the scenes. Channel9 is usually focused more on interviewing people on projects and On10 is more like the old TechTV (including some of the people from that station.)
I re-recorded the demo (minus Billy Ocean) and he posted it on the site today with his own introduction and explanation. Thanks to Duncan for posting it!
Ben Martens, a Microsoft employee and Zune enthusiast sent us over this video of him using his Zune with his Pioneer in-car stereo/navigation system and, being the extroverted type of folks that we are, we thought you might want to check it out.
http://on10.net/Blogs/duncan/hooking-zune-up-to-a-monitor-in-car/