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Ask Slashdot: Skype Setup For Toddler's Room?
New submitter mmmmdave writes "My parents love to Skype with my kid. My kid loves to mash laptop buttons and drool on the screen. And because we don't want to spend forty minutes every night holding the laptop outside of baby arms' length, we're looking to build some sort of wall-mounted monitor + webcam thingy. I'm sure there's a much cheaper option than sticking an iPad on the wall; what's more, non-touchscreen is probably better, so my daughter can't hang up the calls. Any ideas?"
Did you name your kid Winston, by any chance?
Bad idea, dude, bad idea.
Can't you protect the laptop/baby with plexiglass?
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
Sounds like you're seriously underestimating a toddler's resourcefulness, frankly...
Caveat Utilitor
You can try LCD/LED TVs which have Skype app integrated into TVs
Ex Panasonic, Samsung
That's funny, because it's my parents, not my kids, who like to mash on laptop buttons and drool on the keyboard.
Build a simple, flat wooden box with an opening at the back that you can slide the laptop keyboard into. Add vent holes if necessary. Affix a cheap keyboard to the top if your kid tries to take off the box to get at the laptop keyboard.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
40 minutes of your parents talking to your baby daughter every night? I can't imagine that. Is your last name Focker?
Why do you want to torture your kids with 40 minutes of grandparent gooing on the screen?
this must be the lamest ask /. I've ever seen.
If only you could buy a box, that when plugged into a computer and peripherals, was just like a laptop, except it didn't use batteries and wasn't portable and was cheap. Why, I bet you could place a technological marvel like that on a desk, instead of on a lap like a laptop. I'm sure marketing can come up with a good name like the ideskbook or the desk-ster or the e-mini-desk or the deskr or maybe the socialdesk or something like that. Hmm like a laptop but instead of sitting on a lap it sits on a desk... what could that be called... Naw I got nothin' Sorry. Good luck dude!
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
It is nice that the grandparents want to be involved, but let me say technology and kids do not mix. I'm living proof of that
PB&J sandwich in the VCR at the top of an 8' book case. I'm not saying how I did it.
Plexiglass case + tablet is your best bet.
=================
Unix is very user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are.
whatever you do, don't install E*TRADE on said laptop
Get a TV Then go here.
http://www.skype.com/intl/en-us/get-skype/on-your-tv/
Look it's 2012!
wall-mounted monitor + webcam
Mount a LCD monitor on the wall or put it out of arms reach of the kid on a dresser with a webcam and some cheap PC speakers. Put the computer farther away using a 10ft VGA/HDMI cable.
Why make it so complex, does your toddler really need to touch the screen?
Also, nothing like exposing your kids to the benefits of watching TV when they're still in the crib. Instead of TV being the "new babysitter", it'll be skype.
we're looking to build some sort of wall-mounted monitor + webcam thingy
So, um, grab a monitor and a webcam, and mount them to the wall...
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Why didn't my ask slashdot submission get accepted? I'm looking for a good way to copy my files from the computer in my living room to the computer in my bedroom without using wireless internet. Any ideas?
Noobs. Us old timers know everything. Use the unix "split" command to make a bunch of little 2 kilobyte files, turn each into 40-L QR code each of which holds about 2900 bytes, print those bastards, hand carry or armed courier or military gunship escorted transport chopper, whatever is needed in your situation to approach the bedroom, then feed the QR codes thru ye olde sheet feeder scanner and use unix "cat" command to merge the binaries together. If you're really leet you'd use PAR files but I can be arsed to figure out the options to split down to 2 K. Bonus, it uses linux. This is also a pretty good backup scheme. The bad news is I assume you're transferring blueray dvd pr0n rips downloaded from u****t so thats gonna be about seven million pages at one QR per page. Well, if you wanna be 'leet you gotta pay the price.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
get a program to disable the keyboard.
For example:
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/11570/disable-the-keyboard-with-a-keyboard-shortcut-in-windows/
It won't solve problem of her hitting the power button - but depending on the model, you may be able to disable the functionality of the power button in a separate program.
So as long as she is just mashing keys, not popping keys off the keyboard, that should solve your problem.
If you really want a separate machine, so you can read a recipe for dinner on your laptop (or whatever) while she interacts with grandma/grandpa, there have been other suggestions that look like good options.
I can think of no better example of a first world problem than this!!
Blu ray is a horrible way to show movies to kids. Do you realise that a 2 year old has the attention span of a gnat on speed? They want a movie NOW. Any time spent between asking for the movie and the damn thing playing is time spent hearing a kid lose their mind. Or dad losing his mind due to the kid freaking out because they want the movie. Media destruction take a distant second place to the reason that I rip content.
You must not be a parent. The parents *are* there. The OP mentions holding the laptop. You try holding a laptop in front of a child and see what happens. I bet they spend more time hitting buttons than interacting with the people on the screen. Because this is what my kid does too. This is the problem the OP is trying to solve. A parent saying "don't touch that" and restraining hands isn't much fun for the kid. A setup that has the hardware transparent to the kid will be fun.
I'd go with a TV displaying from the laptop and webcam mounted on top of the TV. I have been meaning to set this up for my kid, but have stalled (it's the in-laws that skype, not my family :P) Maybe get an older HD CRT that is safer for the kid to touch. (Our kid manhandles our CRT TV all the time, and it's fine.) I don't know if you'll want a 20' display cable (HDMI or VGA), or something wireless. I'd try VGA because I have that option and it's cheaper. The cable itself won't be too interesting across the floor, so I imagine you don't need to route it all fancy. At least, that is what I have been planning to do.
He might not be anti-apple just pro-cheap. In that case I suggest an hptouchpad from ebay, a cheap android tablet with a front facing camer, an ipad2 or a used laptop.
In fact when I am on the laptop and he's in the room he's usually begging me to see "Nana and Pop-pop".
Do you put on Ice Climber on an emulator?
There are a lot of 1984/Truman Show/No Real Parent posts on this thread. Folks, understand that for some families, grandma and grandpa are a time zone away at best, and a grandkid is lucky to see her grandparents in person once a year, if that. Skype/videophone is a fantastic way to help bridge that gap. My parents can read our daughter stories. My wife's parents can sing songs with our daughter. They can see each other and interact in ways that you just can't do over the phone or with text.
Our kid is lucky--she gets to see each set of grandparents in person about twice a year. For the stretches between those times, though, she can still visit with them over Skype. It's far from perfect, but it's a huge leap ahead of a phone call, and helps all sides of the family feel closer.
You wouldn't mock people for calling their parents to let their kid talk to grandma and grandpa over the phone. Why the special hate for the extra level of closeness?
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
I don't know which is worse - your method for transferring files, or the fact that it sounds like fun and I really, really want to try it myself now...
You bast-ed.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Is this what passes for Ask Slashdot submissions these days?
Buy a cheapo TFT new or second hand and mount it on the wall if you want. Buy a $10 webcam, do likewise. If you can't manage that, what the hell are you even doing here?
no chatroulette jokes? no rickroll jokes? /. going downhill.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Put the laptop on a table, out of arms reach and hold the child on your lap. There. Problem solved. No need for restraining of hands, you just hold the child on your lap as you would any other time.
But from the summary, thats not what the parent wants - he wants to stop several very easily prevented actions, such as touching, ending the call accidentally, drooling on the devices etc. All of those things would not happen if they were there supervising the child during the conversation.
Again, spoken like a non-parent. I have yet to see a child that wants to be held on a lap. Children naturally move about and interact. Supervising (parenting) involves watching the child, not preventing them from interacting. You actually *want* your child to move and interact, just like a real person. But, you want to steer them away from interacting with the parts that'll spoil the interaction.
In practice it's a challenge to prevent actions without treating the child like an object. You can either try telling them 40 times "don't touch that, look at grandma", or you can move "that' out of the way so the only interesting interaction for the child is the appropriate one. I still agree the OP has a good question, though the solutions are probably simple trial-and-error hardware approaches.
Put the laptop on a table, out of arms reach and hold the child on your lap. There. Problem solved. No need for restraining of hands, you just hold the child on your lap
Something tells me you've never actually tried this with a live toddler. That, or you were using a different model of toddler to the ones I've encountered...
Need to type accents and special characters in Windows? Use FrKeys
If you are anti apple, ...
Then he needs to get a grip. The same to the anti Microsoft people and everyone else who's "anti" whatever. It's just so ... adolescent.
Yeah, people with any sort of idealism should just give it up and go with the flow. Idealism is for adolescents. You have a philosophical problem with Apple? Just get a grip, Apple is not going to go away. You're against religion in schools? Just get a grip, religion in schools is here and is not going away. You think there's not enough religion in schools? Just get a grip, there's never going to be religion in schools and that's not going to change. If you're not satisfied with the status-quo, well, just get a grip because it's never going to change.
Imagine how much better things would be if no one had adolescent idealism and just accepted things as they are even if it goes against their personal beliefs, especially if their idealism is different than my own.
There's a fireproof safe bolted to the floor with my GPG keyring on it using something extremely close to this method.
My lazy ass solution was uuencode and uudecode because thats very easy to split at line breaks and I used somewhat smaller QR blocks since each line is short. Its no great achievement to put a GPG key on a couple sheets of paper... after all I can put darn near 4800 bytes of english text characters on each sheet so... if I was less lazy about packing the QR codes in...
A previous version involved simply PAR files with extremely high redundancy and uuencode the works and print it out and hope OCR doesn't fail me.
"Somebody" out there should make a dedicated android / iphone backup and restore app to print and scan tiny, yet important, data files like this. Assuming it's not already been done. I suppose I'm missing out on becoming the next facebook IPO by posting this instead of monetizing this.
"sheet of paper filesystem" or "sheet of paper enclosure format" or whatever.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Put the laptop on a table, out of arms reach and hold the child on your lap. There. Problem solved. No need for restraining of hands, you just hold the child on your lap as you would any other time.
But from the summary, thats not what the parent wants - he wants to stop several very easily prevented actions, such as touching, ending the call accidentally, drooling on the devices etc. All of those things would not happen if they were there supervising the child during the conversation.
iF i hads athgsd toddler on 2 yasdr lap aright noas the s is aatht you'sda he reading.
No, seriously. And it's not like my kid is especially wiggly, either.
I am not a crackpot.
They ARE doing their jobs, maintaining an enhanced familial / social network and more personal stimulation for the child.
OP does not include information about whether this is also assisting parents who find it difficult to travel (to visit in person which would be preferred) and/or expect limited time to interact with the child.
If/when you have a child, you can do it your way. When my son was born, my wife's parents lived in the next town (still do); my father was already dead and my mother lived far away (and has since died). Maybe with modern tech the relationship could have been closer. I certainly wouldn't begrudge OP the attempt.
I found something useful: the IP Webcam android app (Free from google play.) If skype from your phone wasnt already an option (such as, if you dont have a FFC) you can set Skype up to read the feed from the webcam. Then, plug your laptop into your wall mounted TV and mount/hang the phone near the TV somehow. Presto, a wall mounted video chat setup that doesnt have a touchscreen (per the spec in the submission) and if you have an old android phone lying around (what self respecting geek doesnt) you probably didnt spend a dime (fulfilling the other spec in the submission). How is that for "the usual dreck"?
Come on pal, cheer up!
Shut Up seriously. What do you know about OP's life ? How do you know they dont have e social life ? I moved to US with my Daughter and wife when my daughter was 8 months old. we regularly had skype calls with my parents and my wife's parents. Last year when we visited India, my daughter recognized everyone and gave them hugs without shying away or worse running an hiding behind her mom. They loved it. They were so happy that their grand daughter did not consider them as a bunch of strangers, also the skype calls helped her in talking to them in a language they understand, they dont speak a word of english. There is no need to tear the OP to bits just because he/she wants his/her family to be included in his/her joy of life. You must be so lonely.
-- It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. -- Aristotle
"its not that hard to hold a toddler a fraction of your weight and ability in your lap" As a martial artist with over 1000 hours mat time in grappling arts and who is at three to four times the weight of my oldest, I'd like to say YMMV. Our youngest is quite easy to hold still even if he doesn't like it. To put our oldest still in a place he doesn't want to be is one of the hardest grappling feats I have ever undertaken.
> What is this recent trend in equating TV problems with computers.
It starts with the United States' puritanical point of view. If it's fun or enjoyable, it's inherently bad for you and probably evil to boot. Computers are fun, so they must be bad in some way.
The easiest way to "prove" this is to relate using a computer to something that's already been demonized and is widely considered to be "bad" ... watching TV. Nobody proudly announces how many hours of TV they watch a week but, every time a discussion comes up, you can bet there will be plenty of people who proudly announce that they don't watch and/or don't even own a TV set.
The two are superficially similar since they both involve looking at moving images on a screen, so it's easy to claim that there are deeper similarities. Sadly, a lot of people are actually dumb enough to be swayed by arguments like that (which explains a lot about our political system as well).
Why would you mount the toddler to the ceiling?
http://tk.ms11.net/
ToddlerKeys. Great free app. Locks the keyboard, power buttons, drive eject buttons, whatever you want.
I wish there was a choice that said "Factually Wrong -1" when I mod.