Article Summary
My mom loves seeing my digital photos, whether they're of far-off places or my latest culinary creations, so I've long thought about building her a digital-photo frame that would show a new shot every time she walked by. But instead of loading 1,000 images onto a hard drive, I wanted to be able to update the library remotely, adding new pics as I shot them, so she could always see what I'd whipped up that night or where I'd traveled that weekend. I also wanted the whole project to be cheap, because, well, I'm cheap.
Mission accomplished. The hardware: a four-year-old IBM laptop donated by PopSci's IT department. Ask around and you'll probably find a similar castoff machine, but if not, there are hundreds of suitable notebooks on eBay for less than $200-just about anything running Windows 2000 or better will suffice. You'll also want to add Wi-Fi, either through a USB adapter or a PCMCIA card, so your mom can set the frame anywhere. (If the folks don't have Wi-Fi, you can pick up a wireless router for about $20 online). To fit the screen's nonstandard dimensions, I ordered a custom-made frame from americanframe.com, which offers hundreds of styles and materials and lets you visualize the matte and frame together before you hit "buy."....Read Complete Article
|
Joby Gorillapod Focus
