Mannyman's Ghetto Set-up

[Mannyman]

Update: Thief caught on video. Read about it a few posts down.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2889547775668401984

My wife was out late a couple of nights ago (she volunteers at a home for troubled teens). This gave me the perfect opportunity to surprise her by installing a touchscreen in the foyer.
I chickened out of an in-wall-installation as I didn't want to crawl under the house for wiring, etc. So I decided on the coat-closet door that faces the front door entrance.
"How Ghetto!" among other things was what she said. Turns out she came home earlier than expected to find wood scraps, drill, handsaw, big ugly foot square hole in the door, and of course a lot of duct tape. Once I came to (wife has a great right hook), I finished the installation with a 3 dollar bamboo place-mat (we have a tropical/palm tree theme going on ...) from Target and some velcro.

Install

Slideshow:http://beta.photoshow.com/watch/UM5xA3Yn
Pictures:http://mannyman.googlepages.com/inwallinstallation

A little bit about my set-up:
I was using PowerHome for my HA needs, ReplayTV for my DVR needs, ebay 8 cam CCTV card for all my webcam needs, but wanted 1 interface to tie them all together. That's where Xlobby came in. I use Colby's skin.
older video:http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8217264706518602180

As I had a working system before becomming an XLobby convert, I've been using XLobby only as a prettier front-end. As I posted before on other threads I've only skimmed the surface of XLobby's capabilities, but am pretty sure most everything I've done is possible in XLobby alone.

I am not yet using the built-in XNET, IR or X10 capabilites of XLobby as I've not needed to change my existing setup.

I have 1 pretty old 2ghz P4 VAIO that runs HA, CCTV, ReplayTV emulators, and stores almost all media.
I have 3 eBay Fujitsu Stylistic 3500s each running a duplicate copy of XLobby. Some screens are different depending on location (entrance/foyer, living room, or bed room). Two are networked via wifi-g (108Mbps) the other by cat5 (100Mbps).

Music:

I mostly enjoy the commercial free music channels from my digital cable. I use XLobby to tell HA software (PowerHome) to send IR (USBUIRT and Powermids) to control surround sound Amp input, tune cable box to my favorite musc channel. If we want to listen to MP3s we have the 3500's output go to the amp as well. The music is all stored on the a shared drive on the VAIO. This setup is mirrored in the master bedroom, but with a Kawaski amp HT in a box set I got at Target for a crazy cheap price.

Video:

LivingRoom:
Fujitsu Stylistic 3500 Touchscreen Tablet running XLobby tells HA software (PowerHome)on VAIO in Den to send IR (USBUIRT and Powermids) to control the following:
HD digital cable box.
Mitsubishi 60inch HDTV VS-60111
JVC DVDrecorder/VCR DR-MV1S
Denon AV Surround Receiver AVR-485
ReplayTv 5000 series (auto commercial skip) networked (lan and internet show sharing) DVR
DVArchive and WIRNS software on VAIO for additional video storage.

videohttp://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1955691372839256563

Bed Room
Fujitsu Stylistic 3500 Touchscreen Tablet running XLobby tells HA software (PowerHome)on VAIO in Den to send IR (USBUIRT and Powermids) to control the following:
27inch ViewSonic N2750w 1280x1024 widescreen LCD
Kawasaki 3 input Surround Sound Amp
ReplayTv 5000 series (auto commercial skip) networked (shares shows with PC, livingroom)
Apex DVD player

HomeAutomation
Entrance Foyer
Fujitsu Stylistic 3500 Touchscreen Tablet running XLobby controls
PowerHome software, (can also be controlled by cellphone, web, email, etc,)
all lights in the house are x10 controlled, switches are from smarthome,
2 x10 motion flood lamps in the front of the house (driveway, and pathway to front door)
I use Black and Decker freewire rf products for secure rf-x10 control.
CCTV:
I'm on my third ebay DVR card. I went from 4 camera card to 16 camera card, down to 8 camera card with faster refresh rate.
Use this to show off at work and to check on the the St. Bernards. and occasional visiting cat we end up pet-sitting.

[berniejr]

Very nice setup! Your setup is very much how I hope my to be once/if I ever get around to actually finishing it up.

[Mannyman]

Thanks.
My r/c curtains just arrived.
Thankfully Colby hooked me up with new buttons.
I'll install them this weekend and post the results.

[smarty]

Smarty,
I had to check my PH triggers.
Hallway motion detector 'on' wakes up display (instead of sending 'space' I actually use PowerHome to run an AutoIt script on the Fujitsu for educational reasons).
Hallway motion detector 'off' minimizes XLobby, so that the aquarium is visible on the next wake-up. I use RocketDock with an always on top setting to maximize Xlobby when needed.

I actually use the windows screensaver /monitor power/powersettings functionality to put the screen to sleep.
It seemed simpler at the time.

I found the following commands on the web:

To turn off:
SendMessage hWnd, WM_SYSCOMMAND, SC_MONITORPOWER, ByVal 2&

To turn into energy-saving mode:
SendMessage hWnd, WM_SYSCOMMAND, SC_MONITORPOWER, ByVal 1&

To turn on:
SendMessage hWnd, WM_SYSCOMMAND, SC_MONITORPOWER, ByVal -1&

As hWnd you may use handle of any window, for example, Form.hWnd.

Constants:
Const WM_SYSCOMMAND = &H112&
Const SC_MONITORPOWER = &HF170&

If these don't work there's command line freeware out there that does:
http://display.noel-danjou.qarchive.org/
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/nircmd.html
HTH,
Manny

Manny,
Let me see if I understand your response.

I think you are saying that you use PowerHome to call an "AutoIT" script file that turns "on" or "off" the monitor. If so, I would like to see the script files (mailto:gymfolks@hotmail.com). When I attempted to write an AutoIT script using your "SendMessage" syntax above, AutoIt did not seem to recognize the "SendMessage" function (odd).

I am NOT very code savy and am sorry for my my basic questions.

I am hoping that I can come up with a script (or better.... turn the script into an executable) that runs on the local touch screen, but that can be called to run by my remote PowerHome machine.

Steve

[Mannyman]

Hi Smarty,
I'm at work right now and its been awhile, but you pretty much got it.

Motion detector (B16ON) triggers PH to run an Autoit script/executable on the Fujitsu. I'll check to make sure, but I think I just made the script move the mouse a couple of times.

I'll send you the Autoit wake-up script when I get home, or sometime this weekend. I remember it being just a case of looking up the mouse movement command and sticking in some coordinates to make the script.

The sending "space" should work for you, it worked for me , but I then decided to try to learn AutoIt and have used PH to remotely run the exe I compiled ever since. Also wanted to avoid sending keystrokes to the touchscreen in case those keys were ever used by any running application.

I let Windows2KPro OS turn the monitor off automatically (monitor power section in screensaver control panel)as opposed to any special commands, but I may try some other solution over the weekend just for fun, and let you know what happens.

Motion detector (B16ON) triggers PH to do an XSend / XReceive command to minimize XLobby. This way the aquarium is visible on the next wake-up.

So what usually happens:
Touchscreen monitor is sleeping and XLobby is minimized.
1)I step into the hallway
2)motion detector tripped (B16on)
3)PH trigger sends command to Fujitsu to run wake-up script
4)Wake-up script moves mouse and screen turns on showing some fish swimming around. Makes a great nite-lite.

Even more fun:
1) If anyone walks up to the house
2) motion detectors tripped
3) PH trigger sends command to Fujitsu to run Remote Monitoring program
4) Fujitsu screen filled with multiple video from cameras surrounding the house.
5) The front door has a window so you can actually see yourself on the touchscreen from outside.

[Mannyman]

Smarty,
Wake-up script
Compile the following with AutoIt3, save the .exe on your Fujitsu and run it remotely from PowerHome.

; AutoIt Version: 3.0
; Language: English
; Platform: Win9x/NT
;
;
; Script Function:
; mousemove to wake screen

MouseMove(900,600)
MouseMove(512,384)

; Finished!


I've not tried the following script from the AutoIt forum yet ....

$WM_SYSCOMMAND = 274
$SC_MONITORPOWER = 61808
$POWERON = -1
$POWEROFF = 2
$x = 1

Opt('WinTitleMatchMode', 4)
$hwnd = WinGetHandle('classname=Progman')

while 1
If $x = 1 then
$x = 0
DllCall('user32.dll', 'int', 'SendMessage', 'hwnd', $hwnd, 'int', $WM_SYSCOMMAND, 'int', $SC_MONITORPOWER, 'int', $POWEROFF)
Else
$x = 1
DllCall('user32.dll', 'int', 'SendMessage', 'hwnd', $hwnd, 'int', $WM_SYSCOMMAND, 'int', $SC_MONITORPOWER, 'int', $POWERON)
EndIf
Sleep(10000)
WEnd

[smarty]

Manny,
Thanks for your input. I too am now able tell my touchscreens to wake or sleep (or goto screen saver) on command via PowerHome DCC client.

He is what I have done.....
In the root directory I have placed a downloaded freeware file called (c:\display.exe). You can get it at:

http://www.vicman.net/downloads/dir/Display/24219.html
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
It works like this:
C:\>display
Display Power Management - Version 1.00 (build 2.3)
Turns the monitor or the screen saver on and off to save power.
Copyright (c) 2005, Noel Danjou <webmaster@noeld.com>.

Syntax:

display <on|low|off|saver>

Where:

on Turns monitor on
off Turns monitor off
low Sets monitor in low-power mode
saver Starts the screen saver

Example:

display off
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Like I said, I put this file in the root directory of my two touchscreens. I then wrote a PH macro that runs this file with the proper option (on/off/saver). Like this:

ph_ssrequest("192.168.0.100", 8500, "smarty", "password", "FORMULA", "ph_run('c:\display on')" )

I have also set up button within XLobby to put the screen to sleep/saver. Of course any tap on the screen will wake it up (manual wake-up).

Again, thanks for you help.

Steve

[Mannyman]

Kewl.
I'm glad a program I suggested worked out.

If these don't work there's command line freeware out there that does:
http://display.noel-danjou.qarchive.org/
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/nircmd.html
HTH,
Manny

I may go the same route as well as anti virus programs sometimes have issues with autoit scripts/executables.

What are you using as a screensaver?

[Mannyman]

Video of a guy stealing an eBay touchscreen fedex'd to my front porch.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2889547775668401984

[P3rv3rt B3ar]

Video of a guy stealing an eBay touchscreen fedex'd to my front porch.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2889547775668401984

Well he definetely didnt steal for hunger...

Mayby he should start jogging or consider career change...

[Mannyman]

That's what I thought:
the pot bellied bastard.

No offense to fellow non-thieving fattys.

[scottw]

Dude that sucks. I am so sorry that happened to you. Can anything be done?? Do you recognize the guy from your neighborhood??

If you find him let us know, we will all meet up and beat the S#$T out of him.

I can relate, I had to send my TS back to Hong Kong for warranty repair and they have had it for a month and are not returning my emails.
You situation however is worse, I was stupid for buying from Hong Kong, you did nothing wrong.

Scott

[Mannyman]

Thanks Scott.
I consider it a learning experience so not a complete loss.
No one recognized the thief.
It looks like it was someone who drove by and got lucky.

Thanks for the tip re. Hong Kong warranty problems. I've considered getting stuff from there, but never have for anything that cost more than 5 bucks.

[scottw]

Good attitude to have. What goes around comes around, he will get his.

I wish I could be more like that, I want my $%#& monitor back

[dalanik]

Sorry for being ignorant, but isn't FedEx supposed to hand package to you personaly against your signature????