Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with wall

How to drive 12 interactives with one machine?

MrBobaFett — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 06:51:52 -0800

What do I use to drive a multi head (12 displays) interactive display wall? I want to use one machine to run 12 discrete slide shows. Each show is only 2 slides. Mac/PC? Software? The details. Looking to have 12 displays running. Currently looking at the ELO 1537L ACCUTOUCH with VGA in and USB out for the touch screen.

My boss is drawn to using a MacMini for it's very small form factor since it will be installed in the display wall as well. It looks like I can use an EVGA USB VGA Adapter to drive the video for the displays. This solution would probably also work if we switched to a Shuttle PC.

The big question I think is what software will let me run 12 discrete full screen interactive? The interactive is very simple, each display has a default image it displays constantly, until someone touches the touch screen, then it flips to a second slide with info on the graphic. After an amount of time flips back.

Is there something that will let me do that with one machine? I'm pretty sure PowerPoint would be fine if I used 12 different machines.

I want to pull this off without pulling it off

Iteki — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 10:14:30 -0800

Need help building a climbing wall in my apartment. Mefites recently decided I should have a climbing wall in my room. Excellent! The next question is the hows of pulling this off in the easiest, safest manner least likely to anger my wife.

I can choose between two more or less identical rooms, as described in the original post, but the burning question is...

Should I chose the room with one concrete wall and one that is drywall over studs, or the one that has two drywall-walls. I am intending I think to use the "anchor a plywood "pegboard" to your wall" method.

What factors do I need to take into consideration here?

I want ready-made hardware that makes my picture look like it's floating off the wall

Opal — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:32:13 -0800

I want to hang this picture on the wall, but in a way that makes it look like it's an inch away from the wall. I know how to make that happen with a piece of wood wood and a sawtooth hanger, but are there any ready-made hardware or system that will achieve that? The picture is not framed, it's actually printed on a sheet of metal - think one of those old fashioned tin signs. I want it on the wall, but in a way that, when you're in front of it, it looks like it's floating off the wall, detached from it by about an inch.

Here's how I've done this before: I take a wood block, cut smaller than the object I want to hang, and attach it (usually with glue) to the back of it. Then I take a simple sawtooth hanger and nail/screw it to the wood and voila. So I'm actually hanging the wood block on the wall, and the picture is attached to the wood block. The final distance from my picture to the wall is the thickness of the wood block. This is how it looks.

Tell me someone came up with a picture hanging system that does exactly that and I can buy at Ace Hardware and not have to deal with cutting and painting and gluing wood blocks?

As for some of the existing solutions out there, this won't work because I need to sell each object individually and ready to hang; and this won't work because, even if I didn't mind the edges showing in front, they're too flat and the picture doesn't hang far enough from the wall.

So, what's ready-made and cheap and will solve my problem?

Dry erase/whiteboards walls and me?

alexherder — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 07:27:55 -0800

My animation company is moving into our first real office and we want to make a very large "brainstorming wall" with a dry erase surface so that we can collaborate and share ideas more intuitively. We are an animation company moving from a bunch of people working at home into our first office. I'm really excited about this because we'll be able brainstorm together without the intermediary of Skype. I want to make our new space as collaborative and creativity-nurturing as possible. To that end, I want to cover an entire wall of our office (~100 sq. ft.) in dry erase surface so that we can sketch out ideas together for sequences, characters, etc. Ideally I'd like this wall to also be magnetic so we could put up paper sketches or other multimedia materials and not break the brainstorming flow.

I have seen this question but it was posted in 2005 and asserts that there is no one selling dry erase paint anymore, which I'm pretty sure is not true. Lifehacker posted this in 2008 about Markee which sells gallons for about $100 and I have also discovered IdeaPaint who appear to be about twice the cost. My question is whether any one out there has used these products (or similar) and how successful they were? Was it helpful? Is this a good idea? Bonus answers as to how to involve the magnetic part.

Dividing Wall Alternatives

tomcochrane — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 18:30:01 -0800

Cardboard wall alternatives? I really like the idea of these modular cardboard walls/dividers, except they seem way too expensive. Any suggestions for an alternative? I live in a basement apartment and I'd like to put some dividers up to section off the corner of one room. These seem ideal, since I can't install anything in the walls or ceilings, and I'd be able to take them when I leave. I'd like to find something that would work similarly, yet not cost quite so much.

Thanks!

Wall unit. Who made this thing?

dudeman — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 13:47:38 -0800

Need a new drawer glide for my wall unit. Can you identify the manufacturer of this furniture (photo) or a source for replacement parts? In 1997 I purchased a modular wall unit from Workbench Furniture, a furniture importer and retailer that went out of business in 2003. I believe they called it the "Venezia wall system". It could be configured many different ways. I know it was made in Italy but i have no other information on the manufacturer. The unit has shifted slightly over time, and as a result the panels pulled away from each other, the drawers pulled on the glides, and now I have one drawer glide (photo) that is bent out of shape and needs to be replaced. The new glide has to be exactly the same size as the old- it fits into a cutout in the middle of the right side of the drawer - 11 1/8" long, 1/2" high, 1/4" deep. I've checked with a few local hardware stores and none have anything that will fit. So I want to contact the manufacturer and see if they can supply the part.

For what it's worth, the Workbench invoice lists one of the part numbers (the base) as I59018WL (wide base w/4 drawers). No model name or number on the invoice or the wall unit itself.

Clever poster to put in a home studio

cronholio — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 10:48:42 -0800

What should I put on the wall in my new home studio? I just moved my home studio to its own room (yay!) and there is an empty wall right above my screen that needs to be filled. I was thinking of a poster of a guitar chord chart, scales or the circle of fifths, which seems kind of lame. (I know most of these things by heart.) Alternatively it might be something in the spirit of Faerie's Aire and Death Waltz.

Can you think of something clever (and possibly helpful as a reference) that I might put there?

How much does it cost to fix a doorknob-sized hole in drywall?

buriednexttoyou — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:30:48 -0800

Doorknob went through the drywall. How much should this cost to repair? We live in an apartment in the suburbs of Chicago. There was no doorstop to keep the doorknob from going through the wall, so now there is a doorknob-sized hole in the drywall. We are moving out at the end of the month. How much should it cost to repair? Should we let the landlord fix it with the money from the deposit, should we hire someone to fix it, or should we try to do it ourselves?

Mirror, mirror, not quite on the wall

hayvac — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 08:09:34 -0800

I want to mount a mirror in a corner, but it can't be flush with either wall or perfectly vertical. Logistics within. My apartment has a beautiful west-facing view that is only visible from a small corner of the living room. I'm trying to install a mirror that will reflect that view toward the couch. (The couch can't move to where the view is visible.) Unfortunately, the place where the mirror would have to go is already occupied by a large bookcase that can't go anywhere else, so the mirror will have to go above it.

The logistics:

-The mirror is about three feet high by 1.5 feet wide.
-It has a wooden frame I can drill through.
-It has to be securely mounted in a corner without being flush to either wall.
-It can't be a perfect hypotenuse for the corner. The necessary angle to reflect the view is about 15-20 degrees off one wall, putting it 75-80 degrees off the other.
-It has to angle slightly downward (i.e., the top of the mirror will be farther from the wall than the bottom is).
-I can't drill into the bookcase itself, although placing something on top would be fine.

I've considered putting a floor mirror on top of the bookcase, but I can't find any that aren't full-length, which is too big.

Any ideas?

On preview, I see that this all sounds quite confusing. Here is a picture of what I'm trying to do.

Please help me find some linguistics posters!

iamkimiam — Thu, 28 May 2009 08:37:07 -0800

Looking to purchase some awesome linguistics-related posters. I've searched for hours on the internet and I can't seem to find any family tree posters, IPA posters, or even anything remotely related to linguistics that is interesting and somewhat academic. It would be cake to find something like the "History of Programming Languages" poster, but for Indo-European languages or some other branch of the world tree. I'm tempted to just make a language tree poster myself, but that'd be a LOT of work.

Also, any ideas to spruce up a giant bulletin board and/or small linguistics 'lab' room are welcome.

Help me fill this large white wall! (Spending as little as possible).

madeinitaly — Fri, 22 May 2009 09:18:30 -0800

Help me fill this large white wall! (Spending as little as possible). One of the walls of my living room is 5 meters long and more than 3 tall - the couch lays below it (see it here).

It has been white and empty for a while and whatever solutions Ithought of, would cost me a fortune.

Here you can see the rest of the walls (1, 2, 3) to understand the style: it's white and metal (it's messy in the photos but it is supposed to be very minimal overall) and my tastes are mainstream nerdy with a trendy eye.

Let me know how you would fill that white wall (and how to do it cheap, knowing i need to source stuff in Europe, so shipping a 4x3 meters frame probably is not cheap) !

What goes on my wall?

erikgrande — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 22:29:59 -0800

What long, decorative item (say, 12'x4') can I hang on my empty wall? If it happened to absorb sound from the opposing speakers, that'd be great. Here is a very rough diagram of my situation. The area in question is the red line at the bottom. The walls are flat drywall, painted light brown. It seems all the rugs I come across are either too wide (i.e., tall when turned sideways) or are runners that are too skinny (often 2 or 2.5 ft wide). I've been leaning towards a rug to reduce reflections from the speakers, but I'm open-minded. Thanks.

Help Me Build a Freestanding Wall

swilkerson — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 15:01:40 -0800

I want to build a freestanding (but not necessarily portable) wall in my outdoor/natural light photography "studio." Ideas? Backdrop stands won't work for these purposes, because on a breezy day, my roll of seamless paper acts like a sail, and everything comes tumbling down (stands are weighted down, but the paper really billows with a decent breeze). I thought about building a makeshift climbing wall, but I can't really afford to lose 6-8 feet of space in the back for the braces (plus I'm not sure that I have that much carpenter in me!). My other thought was a commercial room divider (like they would use in offices/schools/churches), but that's getting into the $500+ range, and I'm not sure how well it would work anyway (I really need the wall to be flush with the floor. I'd like the wall to be about 7 feet high and 9 feet wide. I'll be clamping seamless paper, fabric, wallpaper, etc to it to make interchangeable backgrounds. I'm willing to throw a couple hundred dollars at this if I can come up with a good solution.

Who's posting links to malware/viruses from my facebook account? How do I make them/it stop?

unclezeb — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 10:37:11 -0800

Facebook-filter: Somehow two links have been posted to my facebook page, NOT by me, which directly people to a website to "Vote for my modeling pic please :) http://theimageparlour.com/images/?&uploaded=58291H560.jpg" or similar ... that pages contains malware or virus. How is this getting posted? How can I stop it? The first link was posted yesterday, I changed my password and limited some permissions (including "links" requiring that application to "Prompt me" before posting to my wall). It happened again today with a new link which stated:

Vote for my modeling pic please :) http://theimageparlour.com/images/?&uploaded=58291H560.jpg

Today I limited permissions on all my applications and deleted most of the non-standard applications (i.e., Causes, rate beer, etc) and limited the standard applications (Photos, events, links) to "Prompt me" before posting anything.

I get nothing when searching for the specific file name referenced in the link nor when searching for the website it's "uploaded" to ... though that site does seem to offer file uploads.

Any ideas what else I can/should do? Is this a more common scheme that occurs on facebook? Thanks social-networking-privacy-protecting-stranger-helping-mefites!

Know any screenwriters trying to write the next Wall Street?

matthewstopheles — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 17:27:30 -0800

Screenwriters working on scripts related to current economy I'm doing a radio story on screenwriters writing scripts about Wall Street in light of the current recession. It doesn't even have to be Wall Street -- it can be any business related to the fall out and decline of the stock market. Business-y type stories are certainly preferable but anything along those lines is what I'm trying to find. Anyone working on anything themselves or have any friends or associates who might be? Anyone know of any projects underway that deal with those issues? Any MeFites want to just start working on something and I'll profile you?

Responses that want to go into detail can just use my MeFi email to get a hold of me.

How can A and B be connected if there's nothing to connect them?

pokeedog — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 17:58:21 -0800

When our pool equipment runs, it triggers the sound of a leaky pipe in a wall adjacent to our hot water heater. By triggering the valve on the hot water heater when the water to the house is off, I can stop the noise. How can I fix this? This is a very odd situation. So here's the detail:
1. House is slab foundation.
2. Pool equipment is outside kind of far from the hot water heater. No house plumbing connects to the pool equipment. The only common link between the pool equipment and rest of the house workings I can find is electricity, via a fuse box.
3. When the pool equipment goes on, it triggers the sound of a leaky pipe in the wall where the hot water heater is adjacent to. Minimal water appears on the floor after several hours on the hot water heater side of the wall, but no other water indicates any kind of leak.
4. If you turn off the water to the house at the street, the sound in the wall stops.
5. If you fiddle with the pressure release valve on the hot water heater while the water to the house is off, you stop the noise in the wall. Pool equipment must be off.
6. If you fiddle with the pressure release valve on the hot water heater while the water to the house is on, the noise doesn't stop.

We've had a plumber out, it's driving us a little crazy. These two things just don't seem connected. Am I grasping at straws? What other things should I check? It seems to coincidental to me, since the water system of the house isn't connected to the pool equipment.

I'm having a financial existentialist crisis

MrMulan — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 09:36:19 -0800

Have I been wrong on my financial core beliefs? I have had a worldview when comes to finances for over 15 years that I am now questioning.

1. I believed 8-12% return on your money over the long term was reasonable, conservative, and realistic.
2. I believed in No-load mutual funds.
3. I believed in dollar cost averaging.
4. I believed Technical Analysis does not work.
5. I believed in A Random Walk Down Wall Street.

First there was this segment from NPR(of all places!) that blew my mind: Technical Analysis actually works (at least for oil)
Then this article from Slate on Suzy Orman. The article disses No-load, and Dollar-Cost Averaging without any references.

Was NPR sinking to a major network level of reporting? Or does TA really work?
What is the mounting evidence against No-loads as part of a passive, long term strategy?

There is no other choice for me but to be an optimist for the long term health and prosperity of our country and by proxy, the stock market. Else, the best thing to do would be to stock up and canned food and guns, and that really isn't a nice way for me to live.
Why then is Dollar-cost averaging bad, if you are doing it in mutual funds, and doing it for the long term?

There are many books out know calling into question A Random Walk Down Wall Street. Is there any truth to them?

Picture collection - how to make it straight?

widdershins — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 06:22:40 -0800

What's the best way to hang a collection of small-to-large picture frames so that 1) they're all straight - and 2) stay that way? About a year ago, I made a 'family photo wall' with lots of pictures in varying sizes - about 25-30 pictures varying from 4x6 to 12x20. The pictures together form a rectangle on the wall, with the top of the top tier, the outside sides and bottom of bottom tier of frames lining up. I'm now hanging something else on this particular wall and want to move the collection to another wall. I've run into 2 problems:

1) It was really hard to get all the pictures to line up straight as needed. Because the frames are not uniform, there's a considerable difference in the distance between the hook and the top of the frame. I worked really hard at it the first time and it still didn't turn out exactly the way I wanted, so I'm looking for advice on how to do it better the next time. (Note: buying more uniform frames is not an option - I like the frames themselves very much.) Is there an easy tip I don't know about that doesn't involve measuring hook-to-top of frame distance to the millimeter for every single picture?

2) We have small kids and there is much potential for the pictures to get moved around and hang crooked. To eliminate this, I put doublesided stickytape on the bottom corner of most of the pictures - but that's causing the paint and plaster to come off the wall as I'm removing the pics. What's the best way to fix the pics in place when I redo the picture wall - with minimum damage to the wall?

Thank you very much for your help!

How to protect my wall from the cat dish

kosmonaut — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 18:22:35 -0800

Cat fanciers: is there a convenient way to keep dried bits of food from getting on the wall next to the cat food dishes? We keep our cat's food and water dishes on the floor against a wall. Over time, the wall area near the dishes builds up a nasty spattering of dried food all over it. The wall can be washed, of course, but we'd love to have a way to keep it from getting dirty in the first place.

Rather than affixing something to the wall semi-permanently, I was thinking that it would be great if there was some product that was a platform for the dishes with a little divider sticking up in the back that would guard my wall from the dish area. It might look sort of like a little stage. A unit like this could easily be rinsed off in the sink from time to time. Does anyone know if this (or something similar) exists?

If not, then how do other cat fanciers protect against this kind of wall mess?

Building a wall inside...

boosh — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 05:14:32 -0800

Victorian house construction/DIY: building a wall in a shared loft (attic). 'What's this thing?' and 'Am I doing it right?' Our loft (attic) space runs straight through into our neighbour's house and we need to build a dividing wall. We've been trying to get a builder in to do this for years but (unsurprisingly) no-one wants the job, so it's DIY time. According to the local council there are no specific building regulations to comply with beyond creating a barrier that will be fireproof for around an hour. I think we can handle it, but there are a few complicating factors that I'm hoping the hive mind can help out with.

Here's an overall view, looking from our loft to the neighbouring house. The brick pillars are two chimney stacks running up from the lower floors through to the roof. We need to build in three parts: between the pillars and to either side.

Here's a closer view of the centre, and looking up and down. At its highest point this area is 8' tall (250cm), and the area between the pillars is 4' wide (120cm). Looking left and right of the pillars.

The really awkward bits are the roof trusses (Pic1 | Pic2) and especially these deep pits next to the pillars (Pic1 | Pic2). Do these pits serve any purpose, or are they just like that to square off the chimney breasts in the rooms below? They measure 2' on each side, and are about 4' deep.

Our first idea was to put up a stud wall and clad it on both sides with fireproof board, but now we're leaning more towards using these lightweight Thermalite concrete blocks (looks like it would be easier, cheaper and stronger). Assuming that we use the Thermalite blocks, the main questions that we've got are:

1) Should the wall be one or two blocks wide? How do we ensure that the wall is stable, especially in the central area? We would build on top of the existing party wall, which looks like it is two standard house-bricks wide.

2) What do we do about the pits by the chimney stacks? The wall would have to span these pits, although it wouldn't be particularly tall or heavy at that point. How about covering them over with tightly fitting fireproof board? Would it be safe to build on top of that?

3) How do we deal with joining the block-work to the wooden rafters? Should some kind of membrane or compound go between the block and the adjoining rafter? Should they actually be attached in any way?

Any pointers, ideas or online resources very gratefully received.

Device to redirect wall vent output

ObscureReferenceMan — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 10:47:54 -0800

Homeowner HVAC Filter: Where to find a "vent redirector"? I have my living room couch directly in front of a wall vent (~6-8 inches from the ground). Currently, I have closed and taped off the vent (bad, I know). I am trying to find a device that will redirect the output down, and under the couch. Similar to this, but for a wall vent. I'm positive I've seen such an item before, but am stumped. Any ideas? Thanks!
Please do not include "move your couch" suggestions in answers. The couch must stay where it is. Thanks again!

Seeking Studs, Avoiding Trouble

silkygreenbelly — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 00:50:56 -0800

How do I find the studs while avoiding water pipes? Need recommendations for stud-finder. Our condo's FAQ book made it quite clear that if we hit a water pipe while attaching things to the walls we are responsible for paying for the fixing of the pipe and any damage the leaking water might do. The building uses hot water radiators for heat and apparently there are many pipes in the walls that we don't want to hit.

I am looking for a good recommendation for a stud finder which can tell the difference between studs and pipes. Preferably one that you have personal experience with. Looking for $0-$50 range although if need be the price can go higher.
Also, any tips on avoiding water pipes when attaching things to walls would be welcome.
We will be attaching a very large bookcase to the studs (when/if we find them) and hopefully artwork in the future. The building is early 1900's in Seattle.

Sorry, love, there is no color that would match that floor.

halogen — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 15:36:33 -0800

What color should I paint a bedroom with a swirly brown-black-reddish stained concrete floor? I will be staying with my parents in Houston, TX for five months. They just got a great deal on a townhome, and in order to give me more privacy, suggested that I can have the first-floor bedroom if I like it. I love it!

Since the house was a forclosure, dad will be painting all rooms before any furniture is moved into the house. Unfortunately, I won't be in Texas when he does that. He's keeping the original paint colors everywhere in the house since he likes them and doesn't want to bother with more than one coat. However, I am somewhat sick of beige and white walls, so I get to pick the colors I like for my room.

Normally, I'd go with a pale pastel blue or sage green, but the first floor of the house has brownish stained concrete floors, and I am not sure what would look good with them.

I love brown, and I love the combination of brown/light baby blue, but the floors look somewhat more reddish under artificial light than in the pictures and I can't tell whether that would look good or bad. The sheets and pillows on my bed (pretty much the only furniture for the time being) are baby blue with a brown and blue duvet cover (none of those crazy pillows), and the doors and window frames will stay white unless I am very persuasive as to why they shouldn't. Also, chances are dad won't be happy if I ask him to paint every wall a different color.

The room is small and will be used pretty much only for sleeping. My mom and I have been eyeing rugs for it, but won't be spending this much money any time soon. I love, love, love this rug and the color scheme: the floor is not too far off from the reddish flowers, and the blue matches my sheets, by the way. I guess I'll live with beige walls if I it's the best choice, but would rather not.

Please, people with better taste than mine, tell me what would look good in my shiny, new bedroom?

You paint me right round, baby.

Glitter Ninja — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 12:38:56 -0800

Where can I find a small number of vinyl records (20 - 30) inexpensively? Alternately: other things to spray paint and throw on my walls! I'm trying to turn my childhood room into a music-themed but grownup room suitable for a college girl. Part of this involves taking down all the Redwall posters from the books I loved as a kid, and packing them up. Once we repaint the walls, I'm afraid everything will be terribly bare and it seems I can't function without some sense of clutter in my surroundings. Can anyone reccomend shops online, or in the Columbia SC area, where I'd be able to find records to spraypaint and hang? Being on a college student budget, I'm trying to dish out as little money as possible.

Help me create my Wall of Maps!

pollex — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 10:20:16 -0800

I need ideas for creating my wall of maps. I have a collection of maps (the bulk are tourist-type maps from my travels, but many kinds are represented in my collection). I'd like to make a big wall of maps. When I was in college, I made one just using pushpins and it was OK, but I'm interested in finding a method or design that might be a bit more elegant before I put 100 pin holes in the wall in my new apartment.

Here's a picture of the beginnings of the dorm wall, for reference.