Recommend Linux software to monitor e-mail, facebook, twitter, RSS feeds etc from across the room!

March 13, 2009 7:00 AM

Can you recommend software that will let me use a Linux machine to monitor e-mail, facebook, twitter, RSS feeds etc and see new content at a glance, from halfway across the room (ie. it has to be in BIG letters)?

Hi All.

Currently, I've got a Linux machine sitting across the room from me acting as a simple PBX for the household. It runs a product called Trixbox on top of CentOS, which is a Linux distro.

Anyway, since the house is fairly quiet, the PBX doesn't get much use and I am wondering about other ways to use it. One idea I had was to use it to display data to me about my e-mail, facebook etc so that I can see what's going on without having to explicitly go to the different interfaces/pages. I've already got tools like this on my Mac (Gmail Notifier, Facebook Menu, Twitterific etc), but I guess what I really want is a 10-foot style interface running on the Linux machine that I can see from across the room (with rotating information).

I've tried everything to google for this, but I can't work out the right keywords to find it. I'm sure something like what I'm looking for must exist, even if it's just a fancy browser page I can go to.

The Linux machine is running Gnome currently, and I can VNC into it if I need to, but really wanted something that worked without any user input.

(It occurs to me that what I'm really after is a "build your own" Chumby, but having trouble googling that too!)

Thanks all!

posted by ranglin to technology (9 comments total)

What about Google Desktop for Linux? I bet you could find gadgets to cover just about all of those services.
posted by jquinby at 7:18 AM on March 13

You could set up a google homepage (iGoogle). They've twitter, email, facebook gadgets. Just tweak the browser font (or the X display resolution)and use a large display and you should have no problems viewing from across the room.
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 7:19 AM on March 13

Here's a similar question, but for OSX.
posted by nitsuj at 7:53 AM on March 13

if you could get RSS feeds for most of the info you're looking to display, there are RSS Feed displaying screensavers. that should be a pretty big font..

http://oracle.2question.com/rss/
posted by jrishel at 7:56 AM on March 13

Conky could do a respectable job of this if you're not afraid of copy/pasting scripts (I'm sure everything you've mentioned is covered, and more). Basically it's a way to nicely format and display the results of a shell script (without animation).

I would probably try something even more DIY, programmatically generating a slideshow in OpenOffice every 5-10 minutes and playing that (like this).

If you're wary of coding/scripting, the above suggestions of widgets/feedviewers are probably the easiest solution.
posted by cowbellemoo at 8:11 AM on March 13

For the "make it big" part, get it in a Gnome app or Firefox, and make the font *really big*. Gnome goes ridiculously big. If you combine the rss feeds from what you want then you should be sorted.
posted by devnull at 8:32 AM on March 13

Here's a (potentially) easy and graphically pleasing way to do it.

If you don't know Chumby, it is a wireless appliance that does most of what you want. But it has a tiny screen. And it costs $200. You can make it bigger though, and even if you don't have one...

1) On the Chumby site, you can register even if you don't own a Chumby, and then create a "virtual" Chumby with whatever widgets you want.

2) Install Screenlets if you don't already have it (assuming you are using a compositing wm).

3) Get the code from your virtual Chumby and turn it into a Screenlet.

4) You can resize the Screenlet up to something like 400%. Beyond that you might need to zoom the screen or lower your resolution.

Presto, giant Chumby!

(Disclaimer: I have a virtual Chumby running as a Screenlet, but I have not tried to make it HUGE. It might look like crap.)
posted by quarterframer at 9:51 AM on March 13

This would be pretty easy with some HTML and some scripting. Since you can manage a CentOS machine, I'm thinking you'd find your way around some basic HTML too.

If you are wary of coding, look into Yahoo Pipes which can pretty much generate a RSS feed for anything.
posted by the_dude at 11:39 AM on March 13

quarterframer: How do I get the code for the virtual chumby?
posted by ranglin at 4:42 AM on March 14