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Creating a Digital LCD Picture Frame
Project Status: As of 04/05/04 I've got the iBook apart and in many pieces. See the project gallery for photos. I've got Mac OS X and GraphicConverter installed. There are numerous options to move photos to the picture frame. I think I'll experiement with a few and see what works best. The next big step is making the hardware look like a picture frame. RequirementsDisplay our collection of digital photos with as little maintenance on our part as possible. SoftwareOperating System I decided to use Mac OS X. It's stable, a base install is a little large (about 1 GB) but I've still got over 1.5 GB for photos. Display Software: After trying out just about every popular and not-so-popular slideshow applications, GraphicConverter best meets my needs. It runs on OS X, it's small, it has a full screen slideshow with variable time between photos, it has crossfades, and it can pick up new photos that have been put in a folder without restarting the slideshow. Image Transfer: I need a way to transfer photos to the digital picture frame. The easier it is, the more likely I am to do it. The iBook hard drive is only 3GB so it won't be able to store all my photos at once. Possible solutions: File Sharing - could simply mount the ibook hard drive using AppleShare and drag and drop the photos. rsync - I could have a specific folder on my laptop that was for pictures I wanted to display on the digital picture frame. I would place whatever photos I wanted transferred to the picture frame in that folder and run an rsync script, manually or through cron, that would transfer them in the background. iBook downloads latest photos from my web gallery. The advantage of this approach is that I already upload my photos to the redjar gallery. If the picture frame automatically downloaded the latest x galleries, I theoretically wouldn't have to do anything. On the downside, it would have to transfer the photos over my slow and sometimes unreliable satellite internet connection. ResourcesCommercial Digital FramesCeiva - manufactures small digital picture frames that require monthly subscription PhotoVu PV1900 - 19" digital picture frame with Wi-Fi. Do-It-Yourself Digital Photo Frame ProjectsSlashdot Digital Picture Frame story - prompted by the Duo conversion. CeivaLinux - Installing Linux on a Ceiva digital picture frame Conversion of Macintosh Powerbook 100 - A monochrome conversion PC Laptop conversion - Conversion of a AST Ascentia J30 laptop running Linux TIre wall - a Ti-Book with a broken hinge turned into a wall mounted firewall Related Softwaresaft - full-screen kiosk mode for Apple's Safari browser. |
Corin's old original blueberry clamshell iBook (petunia) has been sitting unused for many months. The power connector solder joints came loose (which seems to be quite common on Apple's laptops.) making it powerless. After much misinformation, it turns out that this connector is in fact replaceable. However, I could only find it on-line for around $70 which was a little much for a laptop that we didn't really have a use for. Then I called the local store to see if they had the part. They did, and for only $15. So I picked the part up and went back and forth whether I should just put it back together, or try something a bit more ambitious. It had been a couple months since I took the computer apart, and the chances of me getting it all back together correctly were declining each day, so I decided to go for it. My plan is to convert the internals into a digital picture frame to display the thousands of digital photos we have. At this time, commercial digital picture frames leave a lot to be desired. They are too expensive, often have monthly subscription fees, don't have ethernet or wireless connectivity, and have small screens. I've yet to find one that has the right combination of features at a reasonable price.