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

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

ranglin — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 07:00:56 -0800

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!

By: jquinby

jquinby — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 07:18:26 -0800

What about Google Desktop for Linux? I bet you could find gadgets to cover just about all of those services.

By: Cat Pie Hurts

Cat Pie Hurts — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 07:19:38 -0800

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.

By: nitsuj

nitsuj — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 07:53:37 -0800

Here's a similar question, but for OSX.

By: jrishel

jrishel — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 07:56:39 -0800

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/

By: cowbellemoo

cowbellemoo — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 08:11:14 -0800

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.

By: devnull

devnull — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 08:32:40 -0800

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.

By: quarterframer

quarterframer — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 09:51:58 -0800

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.)

By: the_dude

the_dude — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 11:39:16 -0800

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.

By: ranglin

ranglin — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 04:42:49 -0800

quarterframer: How do I get the code for the virtual chumby?