The Wall-PC hanging in my office

I had an old Sony Vaio laptop lying around collecting dust and my choice was either to sell it on Ebay or think of something creative to do with it. I chose the creative route because that’s certainly more enjoyable than putting together an Ebay listing, for me at least.

The idea was to dismantle the laptop and put the guts of it into a new enclosure. I wanted the laptop to act like a flat panel and cleanly hang on the wall. I decided a shadow box frame would be a perfect solution. The challenge was finding an appropriate frame with the correct dimensions, both width/length and most importantly depth. I spent a couple months browsing shadow box frames here and there. At craft stores, online, frame shops, etc. I was not finding anything the correct size, shape, and color. Finally, I stumbled on a suitable frame at Marshalls Home Goods store. It had an ugly sea-shell display inside of it but I figured I could just tear it out and apply a new matte myself.

Side view, off the wall

Why hang a computer from the wall….?

• Takes up almost zero space
• It’s cheap, only need an old unused laptop + cheap frame
• Digital picture frame w/ online syncing
• Dedicated video game emulation with wireless controller (NES, SNES, Genesis, Playstation)
• Control music, watch movies, watch TV
• Browser testing w/o a separate tower + monitor, or KVM switch
• Security web cam or video conferencing
• File server, backup, etc.
• Extend your main PC desktop to this extra display
• Looks cool, good conversation piece

I learned fashioning your own matte for the frame is challenging for a novice and it is nearly impossible to find a pre-made matte to fit the non-standard (in the printing realm) dimensions of a laptop LCD screen. I got lucky and found a matte made specifically for certificates at Michaels, that fit it nearly perfectly. I had previously attempted to measure and cut my own with sloppy results, I would recommend getting it cut at a frame shop.

The laptop before it was torn apart

The guts of the Wall-PC:

• Sony Vaio Z1 laptop – 13″ screen, very thin and light laptop
• Pentium M 1.6ghz, 1GB RAM, 60GB HDD
• Windows XP, 1400 x 900 screen resolution
• Built in Bluetooth & Wireless B
• Xbox 360 PC wireless adapter
• USB hub, Staples snake style 5 port
• ATI Remote Wonder Plus adapter
• Pinnacle PCTV USB TV tuner
• Linksys PCMCIA Wireless N adapter
• Extra USB fan (later removed, started making noise)

Dismantling the laptop was relatively easy. It’s just a matter of finding the many tiny screws and taking away each piece in the correct order. With a little patience and a careful hand, it’s hard to screw this part up. I took away all pieces I didn’t need and removed the frame and backing of the screen. Be careful with the screen dissection because laptops often have the wireless antennas placed inside the top lid on either side of the LCD screen. I made sure to preserve those antennas and wire connections. After this, I was left with the bottom of the laptop with no keyboard and the naked LCD screen.

The guts behind the frame

How do you control it?

• Remote (logmein, remote desktop, VNC)
• AirMouse iPhone app (full emulated keyboard, trackpad, mouse buttons)
• Wireless keyboard/mouse
• Xbox 360 controller
• ATI Remote wonder RF remote
• Touch panel (maybe in the future… there are kits on eBay)

This is not a step by step tutorial, as every project and laptop/frame will vary somewhat… but basically I took the screen flipped it around and put it behind the laptop while making sure it wasn’t upside down. Everything seemed to fit, so the next step was to attach the screen to the matte and attach and fit everything inside the frame, so it hangs flush on the wall. I chose to use double-sided tape for most of the securing, which doesn’t look too pretty but it worked out fine.

Once everything was together, time to plug in, hang on drywall screw and enjoy my new Wall-PC!

View details about my home office and Wall-PC on Flickr.

Additional photos:

Tekken 3 (PS1) on Wall-PC

My desk

LCD attached to back of matte

Top view

DLO Homedock

Here is a list of the items I thought I would need for the install:

• iPod video 30GB ($200)
• Composite A/V Cables (~$10)
• Infrared remote repeater/extender (~$40)
• AC/DC power inverter and wiring (~$30)
• 8″ x 10″ plexiglass (~$8)
• Black non-slip cabinet liner (~$10)
• Brackets, screws, double sided tape, A/V couplers (~$10)
• Tools

My windshield mounted display

I decided to install the dock in the center armrest console where it would be easily accessible for the driver and passenger while remaining hidden. First, to power the dock I used a 200 watt power inverter, cut the cigarette adapter off the end of the cord and wired & grounded the inverter straight to the fuse box. The sunroof is only powered when the car is actually running, so I chose to wire the inverter to that fuse.

For the controls I used the included remote. Since the dock would be in the armrest where it would be unable to receive the remote signal I had to use an Infrared remote extender kit. The IR extender was also designed for home use and AC powered, so I plugged both the receiver and transmitter units into the inverter as well.

I attached the dock underneath plexiglass with a hole cut out for the dock connector. I cut out the bottom side of the plastic container in the armrest because there were slots for CD’s. The plexiglass was used as a new bottom for the container. I used cabinet liner from Lowe’s to cover the top of the plexiglass and stuck the DLO sticker included with the dock onto the liner.

The connections to my current car audio/video setup were quite simple. My LCD had a composite video input and my in-dash receiver had 2 composite audio inputs. I had to tear up a lot of the car for the wiring, but it is an American car and most everything snaps easily in and out of place to run and hide the wires.

Dock installed in armrest

After using the setup for some time there are some issues I have encountered. The DLO homedock has a nice interface very similar to the iPod UI. It is great to use a large screen to navigate through your iPod collection and see the album art. However, the remote control is buggy and almost unusable at times. Sometimes it is unresponsive and takes many key presses before it moves, sometimes it does something completely different or even moves backwards through the menus. But, I would have to imagine that DLO has since fixed these issues in their latest homedocks. Also, when you start your car it will not automatically begin playing, but you only need to press Play and it will pick right up where you left off. Finally, the album art is small and is too slow and buggy to load while playing music. However, I have not yet found a better way to watch iPod movies and music videos on the road, than using this type of setup. It will also work with the iPhone, but will playback music only (no video) and will not charge the phone while it’s plugged in.

All things considered, it turned out to be a clean and successful install that I’m proud of.

I will have to play around with this more, adding links, pictures, etc to have a better idea of how well this app works.

Overall, mobile blogging seems like it would work great if you’re really bored, have something on your mind you just need to get out, or for live blogging an event.

My finger is tired…

Small is like a catch all for a large percentage of the shipments from a thumbdrive to a hard drive, starting with something like a 14×12x6 box, and moving up from there.

Eraser from Staples

This certainly may reduce costs and makes it much easier to automate, but when I receive an 1 1/2″ eraser in a cardboard box 1000 times it’s size, I feel sick to my stomach. I am not a “tree-hugger” but this has to bother anyone who cares about the environment even a little bit. There is no reason that they could not have shipped the eraser in a small envelope. There are many first-hand examples of this on the web, but nothing has changed and I don’t think these retailers have answered to this.

Makes me think about boycotting online retailers… but they are the lesser of two evils. Paying 20% more than online prices for a gadget while having a BestBuy rep try to convince me why I need $85 HDMI cables, is worse than this.