Contest! CARPC!

[mattdisaster]

Hey all-
Well I finally started work on my carpc. So why not have a contest for it! I'm no skin engineer so thats why I'm having this. Your objective:
Make me a nice, clean skin for xlobby that will be the frontend for my carpc! Must be 16:9 for my touchscreen (yes, 16x9) and a resonable resolution, since the touchscreen goes up to 1600x1200. Needs to have buttons for the following section:
Directions
Music
Movies
Games
Email
and a button for the screensaver (I'de like it to be the ford bronco horse logo, hidden somewhere on the menu)
Thats all I can think of right now.
Prize:
Well most importantly you get to have you skin featured in my carpc! hah But after that I'll send you a case (yes you read right) a case of beer of your liking! (Prizes may change with some subjestions!)
Thanks alot! Good luck yalls!!!

-matt

[rubbah]

how du u plan to integrate GPS?
and what's the native resolution for the touchscreen? product link?
what hardware are u goning for?

just curious

[mattdisaster]

Touchscreen product page:
http://www.mp3car.com/store/product_inf ... ucts_id=49
As for the gps, there are several companies who make a usb one that sits on your dashboard. And as for the native resolution I'm not sure what I'll be running it at yet, I'm most likely going to be using the onboard video of the mini-itx board so itll be something like 856x480 I think. Thanks for the interest. the hardware is still in the works, its based on a mini-itx motherboard with an integrated 1ghz processor. It's going to have a 1 stick of pc2100 ram (if I can find a non ECC gig stick i'll use that), a slimeline laptop dvd drive, and I'm still looking into harddrives for it.

-matt

[rubbah]

native res for the lcd is

Physical Resolution: 800 (H) x 480 (V)

so i guess you should stick to that for best result..

are you planning to integrate the gps software in xlobby or something? maybe run something designed for windows pocket pc.. for easy touchscreen control

have you checked out drivesoft? think that's what u need, exept it ain't xlobby

sounds like a interesting project!! keep going!!

[Colby]

I thought about doing a carpc a long time ago. (ask jowaldo) I stopped because steven wouldnt help with my feature request for gps events and such. As far as a skin, I would be more than glad to help you. I dont want beer, we have that here.

I assume you have looked at other car pc front-ends, and want to use xlobby for some reason. I wouldnt choose xlobby as skin of choice be cause its lacking a nice thing called animation. If I ever rebuild a car pc that will be a must for me.

How do you plan on doing game zones or movie zones for each headrest screen? I would want that too. If you plan on using winamp to power sound, I would use some kind of spatial effect plugin, to make your vehicle sound bigger, and delay the surround longer. Anyway let us know.

[mattdisaster]

Well all the parts are ordered cept the lcd screen (thats next week). I decided on going with xlobby for a few reasons, mainly the fact that I want to be able to do alot with the system, from snes/nes/sega games on it to playing dvds and such. I'll end up using a 3rd party naviagation system in it which I'm fine with. As for the extra zones, lol I hadnt thought of that since it's the end of my hardcore work season (meaning moneys gonna start running low) but now that you say it, once I get going with work again (my tax return is gonna be towards this I guess lol) I'll put at least 1 more lcd screen into the bronco- for the poeple in the back, if not 2 more (one for the back of each head rest). But in order to do that, I'll most definitly have to get a different case since the one I'm using doesnt have any pci slots built into it. But realisticly I was happy with the single lcd to begin with. Here's the system specs:

Epia Mini-itx mobo w/ c3 900mhx processor
1 gig(yes, a single gig stick) if pc2100
250 gb harddrive
16x dvd slimeline drive
200w powersupply w/ ITPS board
Going into this case:

(the silver one)

Once I get the machine up and running it's gonna go into this beauty:


I don't expect to have this done in the near near future since I do have other things to do (working, girlfriend) as well as some body work and customizations I want to do to the bronco, I've already gotten new killer tires for it. But I still have some minor things, some small rust repair, new customized muffler system and possible a new suspension system. Thanks for the interest, I need to start working on a skin sometime soon. heh

-matt