Turning a Laptop Into a Calendar/News/Weather Station

[lsproductions]

Hey Guys

Lets See If You Guys are Better Than Chris Pirllio's Forum, they sucked.

I have a laptop with a broken lid, it is beyond repair so I want to make something out of it. I have unscrewed some screws and I have managed to swivel the screen around, so it looks like a tablet (screen over keyboard - not glued - yet!)

I want to change this laptop thing into a News/Calendar/Weather station, that turns on automatically (I can set this in the BIOS) and start running. As I just mentioned, I want it to show News, My Calendar from Google Calendar, Weather and maybe my email. Heres a mock up of what I am thinking of -



(http://img852.imageshack.us/img852/3429/thing.jpg)

Do you guys know any programs that would allow me to create this? The computer is running Windows XP and can be changed to Ubuntu if needed. Windows 7 is a no no (wireless driver is not compatible). The program must be pretty and do everything I want ! I know, im greedy!

I really want to do this, so your help would be awesome. Ideas?

Thank you,
Lewis

[Copper Bezel]

I think you can do all of that in Ubuntu (or another, much lighter Linux distro) through Conky. The calendar, clock, and RSS feeds I'm sure of, but you'll need to find a script to pull down your Google calendar information, like this one.

Yeah, I think Conky would be the easy option. Just find the lightest distro that will run it (and your WiFi card) (to save on power consumption and boot time.) The Conky script itself is as simple as putting together a web page, and you can make it as pretty as you like, with layered graphics, custom fonts, etc.

[h4ck3r]

I was just looking to do something like this. Considering putting a monitor on my wall. So using conky, I've created an app following your awesome lay-out that you created. How does this look?

This is what I was able to create:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5960242/Screenshot.jpg

I'll be glad to help you set it up or modify it etc... My programming in Conky is TERRIBLE but it obviously is working.

(I know this is a thread necro, but hopefully you'll see this response, or someone else will be interested in something similar to this like me)

[grahammechanical]

What is this?

The computer is running Windows XP and can be changed to Ubuntu if needed.

You are asking on a Ubuntu forum for help in setting this up in XP?

Just joking!

Regards and I hope you get some good ideas.

[Rodney9]

Here are some creative Conky scripts I think could be tweaked to your needs, give you some ideas anyway.

http://cristalinux.blogspot.com.au/2...f-mine_04.html

Rodney