Building an Unattended Computer Presentation? 33
hastenslowly asks: "I'm a member of a non-profit Association restoring a 1920's gas station, here in the midwest, for National Historic Register status. I'd like to provide an 24/7 'unattended' audio (visual) presentation for visitors using an 'el cheapo' computer, monitor, and mouse. I'd like to connect the entire thing to the doorbell which, when triggered, will start the presentation. Can anyone steer me to some hardware, software (for whatever OS), programming, newsgroup or any other source of info, so I don't re-invent the wheel when I do this?"
Make sure the mouse has a long cord (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, something that reboots when it fails would be good. Otherwise, you'll have Blue Screen of Death, Guru (Amiga equivalent) or similar screens eventually.
Re:Make sure the mouse has a long cord (Score:1)
Macromedia Director (Score:3, Informative)
Macro media's website [macromedia.com]
Author once and deploy anywhere with Director MX 2004, the proven multimedia tool for building rich content and applications for CDs, DVDs, kiosks, and the Internet.
Pretty much the standard for doing Kiosks since the early 90's.
Re:Macromedia Director (Score:1)
Do you need a computer? (Score:5, Insightful)
On-demand (Score:2)
Shouldn't be too hard to rewire the controls to a timed "power-on" circuit (timed to power off after presentation length), and maybe some chapters so that you could skip through sections.
With a computer you could go that e
Here's an illustration (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Here's an illustration (Score:1)
First Idea (Score:5, Interesting)
Connect the doorbell via opto coupler / relais or similar to a key on an old keyboard. Use an application that can restart a presentation when a single key is pressed. For example, Mozilla reloads the current page when F5 is pressed, so do Opera and the IE. Set a local html page as homepage, containing a Flash or similar presentation. Connect the doorbell interface to F5. Make the browser start when the OS starts. For Win9x, place a shortcut to the browser into %windir%\start menu\startup.
Tux2000
A related question... (Score:3, Interesting)
Is there any open source solution?
Go solid state (Score:3, Interesting)
Cheap... (Score:2, Interesting)
1) Powerpoint ($$)
2) OpenOffice [openoffice.org] (Free) with either its Impress [openoffice.org] component, or Impress plus its built-in Flash movie (SWF) exporter (for which you will need the plugin [macromedia.com], which is free) plus Mozi [mozilla.org]
Re:Cheap... (Score:3, Informative)
It would help if you told us more about the presentation, does it need sound? interactivity (beyond the doorbell to start) etc.
X-10 (Score:2, Informative)
For the interface, you could have it fire up an mpeg/divx player, run a flash-based presentation, or run an Impress slideshow. All of the above should work on Windows, MacOS, *BSD, or Linux equally.
You might find the best X-10 software for Linux and *BSD, however.
Opera (Score:5, Informative)
Opera's [opera.com] "kiosk mode" is intended for just such uses. You get all the benefits of a web browser (links you can select, etc.) and it's neatly and easily secured against general use.
And they have a donation program [opera.com] for worthy causes, so the price might wind up being US$0.00
Re:Opera (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Opera (Score:2)
Firefox(Mozilla) has One, and so does IE.
Hardly worth spitooing money into a corporate hole
Re:Opera (Score:2)
Re:Opera (Score:3, Interesting)
Using XHTML and CSS it allows you to create a webpage that, when viewed in regular mode looks like a normal webpage, but when viewed in Kiosk mode magically turns into a Powerpoint-style presentation.
This page [opera.com] explains it -- in fact, it is a demonstration itself -- if you put Opera into full-screen mode on that page you will get exactly what I am talking about, a set of slides for a presentation.
Neat stuff.
Director / Flash (Score:4, Informative)
Director has a pile of extensions to allow it to receive input from external apps -- serial port, X-10, etc. It's also much more suited to presentation work than, say, HTML or Powerpoint.
Just use an X-10 [smarthome.com] contact receiver to your existing doorbell, wire up your Mac/PC/Linux box with a reveiver and software [smarthome.com] and set your system's macros to emulate keypresses or launch the presentation from a black screen.
The guys above who said just rig an old keyboard's key to start / restart a presentation on a keypress have a great idea as well -- not as elegant, but way cheaper and easier.
Thanks, guys . . . (Score:3, Interesting)
Revolution (Score:3, Insightful)
Try Revolution [runrev.com]. It's like Macromedia Director, but it's available for Linux, Windows, FreeBSD, Mac OS, Mac OS X, AIX, Solaris, SunOS, HP UX and SGI Irix
Museums and Interactivity (Score:2)
In particular there are probably any number of multimedia artists that have been doing this sort of thing with varying levels of interactivity.
One of our friends, Andra McCartney [andrasound.org], just finished a gallery installation using a Mac, midi, and controller to handle video and audio for an interactive and unattended installation [concordia.ca] about the Lachine Canal [concordia.ca] outside Montreal.
She
Doorbell pushbutton to Mouse switch candidate (Score:2, Informative)
Skip the computer, use a DVD player (Score:2)
Skip the computer. Create a video presentation on a DVD, use DVD Studio Pro or anything you like. Get a cheapo Apex DVD player. You can set the player to autorepeat your v
Re:Skip the computer, use a DVD player (Score:2)
1. Reliability. (Ever seen a DVD player crash? Ever seen optical media wear out from over-use?)
2. Cheapness. (Pick up a DVD player for $60 from Best Buy and attach it to an old TV.)
3. Capability. (Nicer sound and video than you'll get from an old $60 computer.)
4. Familiarity. (At this stage, most people know how to operate a DVD player.)
5. Portability. (You can get a handheld DVD player for a few hundred bucks that'll play for hours and is much
Re:Skip the computer, use a DVD player (Score:2)
And even if the fellow needs it to be interactive they can still use simple menus.
Scala (Score:2)
Take a look at Scala [scala.com], it's exactly what you need. If you can get your hands on an older version, you won't need anything more than a Pentium or Pentium 2.
Keep it Simple - Screen Saver (Score:2)
I used a CD based linux distro (i believe knoppix) when I setup a similar system a while back. The images were stored on a CD in a second CD drive.
Anyway, set the PC in the window, and walk away....
-MS2k
Kickoff Crash Recovery (Score:1)
If you decide to use a computer for it, you might want to have something like PcAnywhere (or something similar [com.com]) running so you could remote into it if there is a problem. You'd probably want something like this [com.com] to automate your keystrokes/mouse clicks. And something like this [com.com] might work for daily maintenance and scheduled shutdowns.
I imagine you could pretty easily take apart the mouse and take the