Turn your old iPad into a digital photo frame

So you have an old iPad (like an iPad 2), and you think it would be a shame to just recycle it?

Why not turn it into a fancy wifi-enabled digital photo frame? This is what you could do:

  • Create a dedicated Apple ID for your frame, and configure your iPad to use that specific ID.
  • On the computer where you store your pictures, create a new Shared Album, and share it with the Apple ID of your iPad. If you want other family members to be able to add pictures to the iPad, share the album with them too.
  • On the iPad, install the LiveFrame app. It is free for testing (you can view the picture slideshow for 5 minutes, then you get adds), 2,29EUR to remove that limitation.

How to build a nest

Early this year, we started a small hobby tech project: we built a webcam into a birdhouse, connected it to a Synology NAS and started recording footage triggered by motion detection. For three months, nothing happened (except some short visits of a couple of birds checking out the area).

We had already given up on it, until this morning I checked the camera again. I saw three eggs. This is what happened in the last three days:

Check the top right widget of the blog for a recent picture from inside the birdhouse. For more footage, see this Youtube channel.

Why Gmail is no longer my friend…

OK, Google, that was really nice of you to offer me unlimited e-mail accounts with unlimited storage, with a nice webmail, a (bit flaky) IMAP integration. For that, I did not really mind that you have a peek in my e-mails to offer me “targeted” advertisement. 

Until today. Now you really crossed the line. Bye Google. Back to my favorite hosting company for my e-mail.

If you don't speak Dutch: my wife asks me what I want to eat, Google sends me ads about losing weight...