I sat in on a planning meeting the other day at the invite of a friend on the committee. They are faced with the daunting task of organizing and hosting a local music festival in the downtown area of our little Midwest town – Terre Haute. Referenced by Steve Martin in The Jerk, mentioned in A Christmas Story, and home to NBA legend Larry Bird’s alma matter, Indiana State University – Terre Haute has hosted the Blues at the Crossroads Festival for four years running. As I sat in the room painting some tiny wooden block sculptures (no joke), up on the item list came “Projecting Sponsor and Band Info”. Turns out they are making plans to throw up sponsor logos and respective band info on the side of a big bank downtown using digital projectors, you know, during the festval. Things of this nature somehow get me excited so after the meeting, I talked to my friend and asked if they had anyone in particular covering the projection and setup and what not. My buddy said “no” so I quickly offered to take care of it. I figured I would work everything up in Flash (I just noticed one albino white hair amidst the rest of my generally dark arm hair. It is platinum white – no joke and long! It’s really weird to me.) As we were talking it occurred to me that it’d be really cool to control the Flash movie remotely, even from a cell phone as opposed to “manning” a projector which I think no one is into. I haven’t looked into the Flash server stuff that would do this (I’m sure there is a way), instead I woke up this morning and starting researching the cell phone side of this endeavor. I call the best of what I found today “Six Cell Phone Solutions for…” because they mostly function as some sort of remote control or thin client but then there are a couple other cool cell phone articles I just stumbled across that really show, to me, cell phone technology being focused in good directions. Here goes.
1.) JM2PC
That’s Java Mobil to PC available at jm2pc.com. This is my pick as the coolest and seemingly easiest solution for my project. Pretty simple it seems. You download and install the Java based server on your PC, then you download and install the client software on your Java enable WAP mobile device. It looks like a mobile version of pcAnywhere only without the $200 price tag. Okay, stripped down, but it will work for my need, I think. Seriously! This is just what I wanted! I’m not sure how secure this is, but for a one time thing like I’m doing, I’m not overly concerned. Here is a video of it working.
2.) Use VLC client options to Control Playback with your Cell Phone
This video looked really promising until I tried to find the code in the show notes and there was none. Still I think the video shows a cool solution that seems possible and these guys seem pretty “squared away” as my friend Bill says (i.e. it’s not fake), so it might still be worth looking into. This was the first thing I found today that looked like a possible solution to my BatCPP (Blues at the Crossrpads Projector Project), though using this would mean I’d be working alot more in After Effects then Flash (since the final product would have to be video)… grrrr, way more comfortable with Flash. Anyway, I found a better solution, but I still think this is pretty cool.
3.) Soonr
Soonr is a free service/software that allows you to download any file you’ve hosted in a shared folder on a pc to your mobile phone. It effectively turns your pc into a file server with cell phone clients for anyone you want to give access to. This really seems aimed at the business sector and in know way applies to my BaCPP, but thought it was pretty interesting none the less. Never seen anything like it. That may be for several reasons I’ll leave you to ponder.
4.) Cell Phone Remote Controller
The fine people over at CPS offer this nifty device. The taglins says, “Text Message Your Controll Commands.” Honestly, I didn’t spend to much time looking at this, since it’s primary function seems to be controlling circuits and hardware stuff and I’m on a hunt for things of a different nature, but still, I think it looks pretty cool. It appeals to the hardware techy part of me, “Ooo!, Think what could be done with that!” My pragmatic side asks what I really need it for and a battle ensues. The unit requires its own SIM card, so I guess it would have it’s own phone number too? And you’d have to pay for service. Still some creative poeple out there could dream up some awesome installation art with this thing I imagine.
5.) and 6.)
Okay, like I said in the intro, these last two are sort of way off subject, except they involve cell phones. One is article about solar powered cell phone towers in Africa. The other is about a microscope that attaches to cell phone for taking and sending medical photos to labs and doctors. Combined, these technologies could make lab work available nearly anywhere in the world. I like seeing stuff like this. It reminds me there it’s not all about trinkets and gadgetry, something I need reminded of frequently.
Tags: cellphone, Blues at the Crossroads, Flash, projector
