Step #1. - Software
Step #1 - Software |
| Wireless Card Setup So, I got this thing off ebay, so my first step was to plug it in and make sure it turns on. It does, happy day. I need to configure my wireless card now. This vaaries from card to card, but my particular one was an HP 802.11b card based on Orinoco technology by Lucent (Orinico has now been bought my Proxim I believe). It was a pain to setup, I had to install drivers for both PPC machines and 68k machines. Don't ask, it works and i don't know why. Also, i had to put the card in the top slot, and then select "ethernet slot 0" in my TCP/IP settings and in the appletalk menu (both under control panels in the apple menu). Then I had to type my network name, it doesn't find it like computers do now, you have to know the name of the network and type it in. I also turned on file sharing so that I can drop images in from my compter and never have to touch the frame to add or remove pictures. |
Power Settings I set the power settings to never put the display to sleep (since that's the main purpose of this project) and to spin down the hard drive whenever possible. I think these are in the Energy Saver preferences in control panels under the apple menu. |
JPEGView Settings  I got this program here. It's a great little program for this. Just set it to display a slide show when it's opened and tell it where the pictures are. So I have a folder full of images on my desktop (for easy access) and I tell JPEGView where they are in "Slide show Options"  Then I made the setting for overall JPEGView preferences look like this:  |
VNC Server I also set up a VNC Server so that I can control the frame from my laptop. On the frame i installed this and then installed Chicken Of The VNC on my main computer running OS X. There are many other clients and servers available that probably work just as well. So all I do to use this, it run chicken of the VNC on my computer, and type in the frame's IP address and password. I find the frames IP address by going to my Netgear router settings and checking for attached devices. It will then list the name, IP, and MAC address of each attached device.  Then I type in the IP address in the Chicken of the VNC program and my password, and hit connect.  So, here's the frame running on my Powerbook in a window. Sometimes the images does not appear on my computer, it's just black, so I have to get near the frame and just look at that screen.  |
| Speakable Items I decided to install and set up voice commands so that I can easily quit programs and turn off the frame and do other cool stuff. Since Mac OS 8.6 did not come with voice commands built in (or at least the one I got off ebay didn't) I had to find it online. So, it can be downloaded here . After you install it (or just about anything before Mac OS X) you have to restart the computer. Then go to "speech" under control panels in the apple menu and turn it on. I made it so I have to say it's name before commands so that it doesn't pick up conversation as commands, which does happen. I was talking to my dad near the laptop, and apparently someone said something that sounded like "restart." So, turn it on, choose a voice you like ( I prefer "Fred") and choose a visual assistant. I recommend "lights" because it's the smallest. So, I then double clicked on the speakable items menu bar to activate the window shade (minimizing basically) and the drug it down into the far left bottom corner so it's barely visible. Later on, it will be covered up anyway, just keep reading. |
| Applescript Coming into this, I knew nothing about applescript, but it's pretty easy, especially for simple stuff like opening and quitting programs. So, to make scripts, the script editor program is in the "Apple Extras" folder in the hard drive on the desktop. I made a script that will open the VNC server program, open JPEGView, and quit the finder (to free up RAM since I only have 24MB to work with and I keep virtual memory off to reduce the hard drive spin). So, to write scripts like I have below, you need to make alias's (shortcuts)for the programs you want on the desktop.  After I took this shot, I also added to the script (after I tell the finder to quit) say "welcome to the power frame" and the voice will say that. So i want to be able to boot up the computer, and this scripts opens, so I save it as a run only program and then drop that program in the "startup items" folder in my system folder in my hard drive on the desktop. I also made an alias of that program and the folder on my desktop in case I quit the programs and need to restart it again without rebooting. |
Fun Stuff I made a few more scripts with just something for the computer to say stuff. I made a script that goes like this: say "Full Sail" I save it as a run only program, and title it "Where do I go to school" and I put that in my speakable items folder in the apple menu. You can easily get to this folder, I believe it's in the system folder and the the apple menu items folder. Also, clean out other scripts from there so you only have the ones you need. So, for my script, I say "where do I go to school" and it responds "full sail". I also have stuff like, "whats my major". There's some scripts in there for restarting and shutting down the computer, but after you say "shut down" it asks "are you sure?" and a dialog box appears with "OK" and "cancel" buttons, but since we have no easy access to mice or keyboards, we do not need that. So just make the script say to shut down and not ask, you can figure it out, i just forget the specifics right now. |
Step #1 - Software |