First things first
Somewhere in a closet there's an old laptop. It has served you well throughout the years, but eventually it's days are numbered and now it's doing nothing more than gathering dust until the end of time.
But perhaps there is still something you could do with it - you could try to make something useful out of it, like for instance a digital picture frame to hang on your wall.
And why not? Those digital picture frames you can buy in the store are expensive. Further more, that is all they are: frames, while a converted laptop remains a laptop. That means it can still serve more than one purpose.
Some time ago, I saw the first do-it-yourself projects appear on the internet. Projects where people just like me had an old laptop they wanted to convert into their own digital picture frame. They were all good projects, each with its own character, all ending up somewhere in my bookmarks.
Some weeks ago, my old faithful laptop decided to give up the fight, so I decided to take this opportunity to convert my laptop as well. The laptop could barely function in its present state, and selling it second-hand would leave me with next to nothing. I figured I might as well take the risk and try to create something useful out of it, and have some fun during the process.
The project seemed simple - but wasn't. Along the project I encountered many a problem, some bigger than others, but each requiring a unique solution. That's why I decided to create this website - not only did I want to let others enjoy my story, but perhaps this was a great way to inspire others or to offer ideas people can use while building their own digital picture frame projects.
There were a few conditions to this project:
- it had to be as cheap as possible: a digital picture frame is nice, but I wasn't ready to spend much money on it. And, of course, itt had to be cheaper than one from a store!
- despite the fact that I like DIY stuff, I didn't want to spend my next few months with it: a picture frame seems like a simple thing, so it should not take too much time to build one.
That concluded the basics for this project. Time to get started!
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