What to do with all that Digital Media?
Faced with thousands of digital images, and plenty of video too, I pondered this empty wall.
Notice how, on the other side of this useful wall space, there is a closet.
I thought, if I drill a hole through this location, I could keep a PC in the closet, run the wires through the wall, and hang an LCD flat panel monitor in my living room.
I drilled through the 'closet-side' of the wall first... just in case there were any surprises.
The box may be damaged, but this low profile monitor mount does the job. It's VESA compatible and stands-off the wall a mere 1/2 inch.
It's nicely secured to the drywall using four toggle bolts. You can almost see into the closet through the corresponding 2" hole in the wall just below the mounting bracket.
Thank goodness for Home Depot. they sell these plastic inserts to finish holes in drywall. I took out the central piece and just used the outter rim.
There were no outlets in the closet, so I picked-up one of these lightbuld/outlet combo thingies. Works fine, although it's not grounded. I removed the corresponding wall switch and replaced it with a flat plate so folks coming and going wouldn't turn off the PC with the wall switch.
I forked out about $350 bucks for a low end ACER PC. There were many considerations here. I wasn't too concerned about computational horsepower as I figured the box would be used mostly for slide shows, watching video, and web browsing.
Noise was a concern. It's a nice coincidence that slow PC's generate less heat, have smaller power supplies, and correspondingly tiny, quiet, fans. I went to several local stores just to put my ear on the cases of potential models (only drew a few odd looks).
This pick comes with 512MB RAM, DVD burner, plenty of USB 2.0 ports, on-board audio/video. I removed the modem card that was included. I also got rid of the mouse and keyboard, but more on that in a minute.
I couldn't help myself with this item. The additional $70 for a better video card seemed worth it. I specifically shopped models with no fans. This Radeon 9250 holds 128MB video RAM and is PCI. I was happy to have the DVI-out as well. In retrospect, the motherboard on the ACER has an AGP slot, which would have been a better option. Unfortunately, there wasn't a shred of info to that regard in the 'technical specs.'
Who wants to run cable? This $45 PCI 802.11G card connected to my wireless router without a problem. I briefly considered just getting a USB wireless adapter, but the PCI card uses a little more power, gets better range, and gives me better file transfer rates.
Ahhh... the business end of things. I actually keep this puppy in the magazine rack next to my couch. It's RF (radio frequency) and works fine through the wall... even from the second floor... even from the parking lot.
The touch pad functions as a mouse, much like you might find on a laptop. Nice clickey-action on the keys too.
Viola! There are built-in speakers for reasonable stereo sound. I put a tiny piece of black electrical tape over a green power light on the front panel. Much gnashing of teeth went into monitor selection. We use this brand, Planar, at work (Radiology). Among it's many (+) features is a wide 170 degree viewing angle. The moulding in the back is also well tailored for running cable into a wall.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain...
Just for fun...
From inside the closet, you can see the cables coming through the wall. I tidied-up a bit when I was done. That's a dust pan and brush hanging on the wall above the PC.
Access to the DVD drive, USB ports, and audio jack, is easy enough from the front.
Side view. Note the Power, DVI, and audio cables heading into the wall beneath the mounting bracket.
The other side.
Re-living a nice moment on the beach....
I make use of 'FastStone' image viewer slideshow to get the goods on the screen. This is a shot of the file browser.
This was a nice day.
Sox Win!
Some fun with the content can be had. This is actually a window looking out of the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg.
The glory days....
The slideshow can be configured remotely using any of the machines on my wireless network. I call this one 'WALLFLOWER.' EGGPLANT is a machine in my office (It's purple), and the laptop is, well, the laptop.
This pic shows the network neighborhood as I am transferring files from my laptop to Wallflower.
It's almost like I was there...
Fun!