I’ve got a spot on my door for a 3×5 index card where I can post my known schedule (classes, regular meetings, that sort of thing), but I’ve always had to keep a stack of Post-It notes on hand for the other places I often go. The problem with the Post-It method is that I’ll often get called off to another location before I can get back to my office, and the notes quickly become inaccurate. And the notes can easily get misplaced or out of order, making them less useful.<\/p>\n
And I liked the concept of the Panic Status Board<\/a>, too.<\/p>\n So what I’m working on instead is a door sign I can update over the network from my smartphone, my home or office PC, someone else’s computer, etc. My office door already has a 12 inch square window in it, so any display I mount there can be protected, at least when the door is closed. There are several ways I could do this with varying tradeoffs:<\/p>\n The basic page looks like this on WebOS:<\/p>\n The contents of my page are nothing more than a series of links to twitter.com:<\/p>\n Clicking a link (for example, Clement Hall 113) takes me to the Twitter site and has the status text ready to edit or post as-is:<\/p>\n And the cron job that runs every minute to update the sign is just<\/p>\n I needed to enable and configure the Apache module Here’s a resulting image from a virtual Chumby. The script removed my Twitter ID, and also added the date and time I posted the update. The original Twitter feed is untouched, and I can even make another page with the virtual Chumby Flash object embedded if someone wanted to see my status from somewhere else.<\/p>\n That’s it. A sizable amount of my work week is spent outside of my office, and is difficult to schedule ahead of time: Material testing jobs show up with little notice. Students or faculty need help fixing a coding, instrumentation, or other problem, and it’s easiest to fix those on-site rather than in my office. etc. I’ve … <\/p>\n\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/sites.tntech.edu\/renfro\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/111\/2011\/01\/1152881_rb.jpg\")
\nI ended up buying an Insignia Chumby because for $50, even if I just made it into a smarter alarm clock with MP3 and FM radio playback, it’d be an improvement over my current home clock. But I think it’ll end up working out well for my door sign. The setup details follow after the jump:
\n<\/p>\n\n
Page of Twitter Status Bookmarks<\/h1>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/sites.tntech.edu\/renfro\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/111\/2011\/01\/browser_2011-01-01_111801.png\")
<\/p>\n\n
<p>Clement Hall:\n <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/?status=In Clement 101<\/a>\">101<\/a> |\n <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/?status=In Clement 113<\/a>\">113<\/a> |\n ...\n<\/p><\/pre>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/sites.tntech.edu\/renfro\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/111\/2011\/01\/browser_2011-01-01_111849.png\")
<\/p>\nPython script<\/h1>\n
#!\/usr\/bin\/python\n\n# Grabs most recent tweet from RSS and reformats it for Chumby RSS\n# Reader app\n\n# Final Chumby display format:\n#\n# - feed_title\n# - item_title\n# - item_description (with Twitter ID removed, and appending timestamp\n# in local time)\n\n# Credits:\n# http:\/\/stackoverflow.com\/questions\/1766823\/how-can-i-generate-rss-with-arbitrary-tags-and-enclosures\n\nimport feedparser, PyRSS2Gen, string\nfrom datetime import datetime, timedelta\nfrom pytz import timezone\nimport pytz\n\ntwitter_id = \"REPLACEME\"\nfeed_title = \"Mike Renfro <renfro@tntech.edu>\"\nitem_title = \"Where's Mike?\"\ntz = timezone('US\/Central')\ntimestamp_format = ' (%A, %B %-d, %-I:%M %p)'\n\ntry:\n parsed_feed = feedparser.parse(\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/statuses\/user_timeline\/%s.rss\" % (twitter_id))\n items = [\n PyRSS2Gen.RSSItem(\n title = item_title,\n link = x.link,\n description = string.replace(x.summary,\"%s: \" % (twitter_id),\"\")+\\\n datetime(x.modified_parsed[0],\n x.modified_parsed[1],\n x.modified_parsed[2],\n x.modified_parsed[3],\n x.modified_parsed[4],\n x.modified_parsed[5],\n tzinfo=pytz.utc).astimezone(tz).strftime(timestamp_format),\n guid = x.link)\n for x in parsed_feed.entries[:1] ]\n\nexcept:\n # Occasionally, the feed will fail, and be fine the next time I\n # check it. Since this isn't critical information, I'll just not\n # write any output at all.\n pass\n\nelse:\n\n try:\n rss = PyRSS2Gen.RSS2(\n title = feed_title,\n link = parsed_feed.feed.link,\n description = parsed_feed.feed.description,\n items = items[:1]\n )\n\n except:\n # Occasionally, the feed will fail, and be fine the next time\n # I check it. Since this isn't critical information, I'll just\n # not write any output at all.\n pass\n\n else:\n f = open('OUTFILE.rss','w')\n f.write(rss.to_xml())\n f.close()\n<\/pre>\n(cd \/FOLDER && .\/SCRIPT.py )\n<\/pre>\n
Web Server Modifications<\/h1>\n
mod_expires<\/code>. Since my web server is Debian, all that required was running a2enmod expires<\/code>, adding ExpiresActive On<\/code> and ExpiresByType application\/rss+xml \"modification plus 1 minute\"<\/code> to the Apache virtual host entry, and finally reloading the Apache process.<\/p>\nResults<\/h1>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/sites.tntech.edu\/renfro\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/111\/2010\/12\/door-sign-rss.png\")
<\/p>\nAll that’s left is to get the Chumby on the campus Wireless network, physically mount it in my office door window, and run power to it.<\/del><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"