Christmas Party Idea - Solution!

[GadgetBoySI]

I'm hosting a Christmas Party and I am trying to incorporate a little "automation" into it...

The touch screens around my house all share a common network attached storage to supply the pictures on the screensavers.

Since everyone has a camera phone, I thought it would be cool for people to be able to take pictures and email them (perhaps to Homeseer?) and have them dumped in the folder that contains the screensaver pics.

When people arrive, give them the email address to send them to and then have some fun. I will be left with a lot of cool photos from the party and everyone will have fun throughout the night trying to get funny pictures posted.

Maybe have a script that will strip out the attachment when an email is received and then save it in the folder?

I'm hoping this might spark some creativity here.

And while we're at it, any other games you guys can think of?

[Rupp]

This is a really good idea. I'm traveling this weekend but this would be a fun project.

[richardo]

I use a Dropbox folder to supply the files for my touchscreens.. This means I just need to post any pictures I take to the Dropbox folder from my phone and hey presto - they appear on my touchscreens.

[GadgetBoySI]

I use a Dropbox folder to supply the files for my touchscreens.. This means I just need to post any pictures I take to the Dropbox folder from my phone and hey presto - they appear on my touchscreens.

I use DropBox a lot as well to share files between my phone and my PCs - however, I don't think I can have people emailing files to my DropBox for this purpose.

[GadgetBoySI]

This is a really good idea. I'm traveling this weekend but this would be a fun project.

Thanks Rupp.

I downloaded Jon00's email plugin last night - I know he has a FileTrigger function within it that can detect the receipt of an email with an attachment - more specifically an email attachment that is a photo (i.e. *jpg). The question is can I then go one step further and save that attachment?

I also posted a general question in Jon00's message board to see if this can be accomplished...

[reidfo]

How about creating a Twitter account for this? Your guests might have an easier time posting photos to Twitter, then you could just display the feed on the screens.

[GadgetBoySI]

How about creating a Twitter account for this? Your guests might have an easier time posting photos to Twitter, then you could just display the feed on the screens.

I would like the photos to circulate cycle throughout the night. I would think that the Twitter idea would simply show the most recent photo until the next was uploaded.

I also think all the guests to have to have a Twitter account to send the pics to me - although most (if not all) my guest will have smartphones, not everyone uses Twitter.

Thanks though...

[Pete]

Another method would be to utilize an SMS gateway and tell your friend to text their pictures to the gateway.

Not sure if this plugin would work:

http://board.homeseer.com/showpost.p...68&postcount=1

[GadgetBoySI]

*** solved ***

Checking in, I installed Jon00's check email plugin and remote control plugins on HSPro. Editing the script (with a lot of help from Jon) wasn't difficult.

Guests to my party will be given an email address. Any pictures emailed to Homeseer at this specific email address will be saved in a screensaver folder on my network. All the PC's attached to the TV's throughout the house will then display those pictures via the screensaver.

The next day, I will be able to zip up the emails and send them to the guests to (hopefully) enjoy.

Considering liquor will be involved, it should make for some funny laughs throughout the night...

[bibowoka]

Brilliant idea.. let us know how the party turns out and if it was worth the effort!

Would like to see some snippets of the code if you are able to share?

[GadgetBoySI]

Brilliant idea.. let us know how the party turns out and if it was worth the effort!

Would like to see some snippets of the code if you are able to share?

Here is the thread with the code that was used - you can follow along with my thoughts with Jon as the idea progressed.

http://board.homeseer.com/showthread.php?t=157197

[GadgetBoySI]

The idea worked out well. A couple of things I would have done differently:

1. Give out the email address to all guests either in the email invite or send out a blast email before the party advising them of the address to use.
2. Perhaps create a splash page picture to cycle with the photos to tell people to email their pics
3. Maybe print something on card stock to stick to the TV with the email address.

My geeky guests embraced it, some of the other guests felt I had too much time on my hands. haha!

[tmcgowan]

Jon00 also has a Picture View script that has a slideshow capability and auto update of folder contents function. I haven't used it myself, but coupled with his email app, you might have the complete answer in hand.