RiseVision Calendar Widget

I have adapted RiseVision’s Google Calendar Widget to improve its usefulness for institutions that work on a weekly schedule, such as churches and other houses of worship. The staff at RiseVision have incorporated all my innovations except the CSS stuff into their standard widget. To learn how to configure and use this widget with your favorite … Read more

Google Chromecast digisign references

These are notes on digital signage on the Google Chromecast. Google’s docs https://cast.google.com/publish/#/overview   Console https://developers.google.com/cast/docs/custom_receiver   Writeup SaaS vendors. https://www.signsimple.com/ (local launch) http://launch.signagely.com/  (not up yet) Chromecast code repos https://github.com/pjjanak/chromecast-hello-world "C" is for Chromecast: hacking digital signage Limitations The Chromecast device does a good job of displaying media at 1080p resolution.  However, any web … Read more

Provisioning Windows to do RiseVision development

These are my notes on provisioning Windows (W7PRO, SP1 x64) for working on the open source RiseVision stuff. Here’s where the RiseVision stuff lives on GitHub. https://github.com/Rise-Vision Here are Donna Peplinski’s instructions for provisioning your machine. Get GIT. Get node.js from http:://nodejs.org/ and install it. Use the Windows binary. Run a simple node.js acceptance test … Read more

Digital signage vendor list

This is a list of vendors for digital signage, in no particular order. RiseVision  Free as in kittens, free as in speech, SaaS, some premium products. WonderSign   $40 per month plus $20 per extra display. DigitalSignage.com SoCal, SaaS, Freemium, hardware systems are offered. 11Giraffes  Prices not published. Deep retail communications products. DISE  Lots of multi-screen support, … Read more

Transcoding JPEG optimizer from Mozilla

The people at Mozilla have produced a transcoding JPEG optimizer. https://github.com/mozilla/mozjpeg/releases This thing is sweet: it takes ordinary JPEG files and recompresses them much more efficiently without making the images deteriorate. It uses the long-standing and well-tested Independent JPEG Group reference implementation, and adds a bunch of optimizations. It’s not built for GUI users; it’s … Read more

RiseVision’s calendar Events gadget updated to handle two weeks.

This article is obsolete. There’s a new article about the Rise Calendar Widget here. RiseVision makes a sweet little open source Events gadget. It displays the contents of your favorite public Google Calendar in a scrolling or tabbed window on your digital sign presentation. Here’s the documentation for that Events gadget. This won’t make a … Read more

Cost-effective Digital Signs

A digital sign is a big TV set in a public place showing information or possibly advertisements. Ideally a digital sign can show upcoming events, announcements, pictures, advertisements, and other stuff that’s relevant to a community of people who might look at the sign. How can you make a digital sign with off-the-shelf 2014 technology? … Read more