DIY Kitchen PC with Touch Screen
I found very interesting DIY project of kitchen PC. It includes an ELO 19″ 4:3 touchscreen, Intel Core i5 processor based PC, iPhone-like user interface and a bunch of useful applications such kitchen database with barcode scanner, cooking timer, todo list etc. Additionally Twitter client, iTunes, Skype, Google Maps, weather app are available for users. Also PC allows to watch TV (DVB-T) and works as digital photo frame in standby mode.
The kitchen PC runs Windows 7 and uses Active Desktop feature to set custom UI. The budget of the kitchen PC is about €1000. Thanks to the author you can download all used applications including UI, graphics and kitchen database.
Well, the project looks pretty cool. But … It’s overpriced I think. First of all in my mind the nVidia Ion with dual-core Atom would be more appropriate choice. It’s cheaper, more compact and energy efficient but offers the same possibilities – run rich GUI or watch HD video. I’m also would like to see Linux as OS instead of Windows. Cause it’s more reliable and it takes less resources. So, you don’t need the strong processor and big amount of RAM to run applications included into the kitchen project. In any case, that project demonstrates how attractive a kitchen PC can be and it gives a basic ideas for your own project as well.
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7 comments:
No, No, No, Erik, even with the GUI it uses significantly less resources, I have a dual boot system with vista and Ubuntu and I only use Ubuntu and it has A LOT of stuff on it. The vista OS is still a clean install but takes 3 times longer to boot up and uses up almost tripple of the resources.
Disagree! One friend of mine bought notebook with Vista. He switched off all effects but still had a bad performance. After a few days of using Vista he installed Ubuntu. The difference was significant. He had all effects on (including 3D desktop) with good performance. This is a good example IMHO because there is the same hardware and different OS. Moreover, it’s no necessary to run KDE or GNOME for such project. It can be used something lighter like flwm, icewm, Xfce or Openbox. This is the difference between Linux and Windows. You always have several alternatives under Linux 😉
Wouldnt it be cheaper to buy a Dell Studio One?
the cheapest setup runs for 600dls.
It’d be cheaper and more reasonable to use something like ASUS Eee Desktop or some other nettop. Especially if you’re not planning to watch HD video.
Hi! Cool post! But the webpage has been loading incredibly slowly.
“I’m also would like to see Linux as OS instead of Windows. Cause it’s more reliable and it takes less resources”
But only if you run it without a GUI. Once you fire up a GUI in Linux the resource debate becomes a wash.