March 07, 2006

Picture Pages, Picture Pages - Part 2

The digital picture frame system I set up on the Audrey has been working great for about a year now. But recently on one of the Audrey websites I frequent, someone suggested using the Audrey to display Flickr photos. I thought that was a great idea, so I gave it a try. Here's what I came up with:

http://www.kevincooney.com/projects/audrey/flickr_control.php

Basically, just type in a tag to search for (e.g. artwork, bw, green), and you'll get a slideshow of photos that fit that tag. Now, they're not always the best photos -- since they're submitted by the general public -- but it's nice for a change of pace when I've seen enough of my own pictures.

Posted by Kevin at 04:19 PM | Comments (0)

Picture Pages, Picture Pages

Once I got the Audrey up and running, one of the first projects I attempted was a digital picture frame. Since the Audrey is pretty small, is in plain view in the kitchen, and is pretty much always on, I figured it would be perfect for such an application.

Continue reading "Picture Pages, Picture Pages"
Posted by Kevin at 04:04 PM | Comments (0)

March 06, 2006

Audrey Gets a Barcode Scanner

Audrey
I've been working on a kitchen recipe/inventory/shopping-list application off-and-on for about a year now, with the idea of using an Audrey as the hardware. To really make this thing useful, I wanted a UPC barcode reader, so I can register when I purchase or discard grocery items.

I bought a CueCat scanner for about $8 on eBay, and thought I had a winner, since it's a USB device.

CueCat Barcode scanner

I plugged it into the Audrey, but it didn't work. Turns out the Audrey wasn't intended to support generic USB devices. I was bummin'. The project went on the back-burner.

About a month ago, I had some time on my hands, so I dusted off the ol' Audrey, and tried again. This time, though, I overwrote Audrey's operating system with one that supports USB devices. I plugged in the scanner again, but still no luck.

After some fooling around, I found that I needed to tell the Audrey to look for the scanner as a USB mouse (for anyone trying this, use the "wm popup" menu" by hitting Paste+Enter). Viola! The CueCat now reads barcodes like a charm.

So now I'm back to writing my kitchen inventory application. I originally wanted to call it "Chefmate", but apparently someone beat me to it. So Amy suggested "Kitch 'n' Bitch" (she doesn't like the Audrey, apparently). I love it.

I'll post more progress here.

Posted by Kevin at 11:51 AM | Comments (0)