Frame: My frame is polished nickel, but wood would work as well.Mat: I trimmed a piece of self-adhesive foamcore and stuck it to the back of the paper mat to provide extra support for the heavy LCD.Be very careful removing the plastic border from the screen-there are several thin cables, and if you rip one, the LCD is useless. LCD: The screen attaches to the mat with hot glue.This created a small pocket of space between the foamcore and the LCD to allow for cooling airflow. I punched several ventilation holes through the foamcore under the laptop bottom and then hot-glued it to the outside edge of the frame back. Foamcore: This came with the frame but can also be found in any art-supply store.Then I reattached the keyboard and glued the whole thing to the foamcore mounting board. So I kept it simple and disassembled only enough of the laptop to disconnect the screen. Laptop Bottom: I planned to pull all the laptop guts out of the plastic shell so I could mount just the motherboard and hard drive onto the foamcore, but the power button was on the keyboard, and removing the bottom of the case looked like a pain.Add shots to your Flickr account for Mom to see. Attach a piece of foamcore to make a stand.Ħ. Reattach the LCD cable to the laptop and reassemble the keyboard. Make sure everything works, then hot glue it all together.ĥ. Assemble the frame pieces-mat, LCD, mounting board, and laptop bottom-using tape. Skip the glass, but order two self-adhesive foamcore mounting boards-one to strengthen the mat and one on which to mount the laptop bottom.Ĥ. Measure the bare screen and order your frame. Take apart just enough of the laptop to get at the ribbon cable that connects the LCD (usually under the keyboard), and carefully unplug it.ģ. ![]() ![]() Then check our web exclusive article “Windows Rehab 101” for steps to protect the laptop from viruses and malware.Ģ. Before you start disassembling the laptop, download the Slickr screensaver from and enter your Flickr account information. Custom 15 1/4-by-12 3/4-inch polished zinc frame with mat and mounting boards: $50 ġ.IBM ThinkPad T21, 800-megahertz Pentium III processor, 10GB hard drive, 14.1-inch LCD: free (donated).See the basic steps and parts and details on the build. ![]() I can even set it to show only shots that I’ve tagged “formom,” so any time I upload a photo with that tag, it appears on Mom’s mantle. To fit the screen’s nonstandard dimensions, I ordered a custom-made frame from, which offers hundreds of styles and materials and lets you visualize the matte and frame together before you hit “buy.”īut the real star of this project is Slickr (free download here), a screensaver that displays a constantly updated slideshow of images from my account on, a free photo-sharing site. (If the folks don’t have WiFi, you can pick up a wireless router for about $20 online). You’ll also want to add WiFi, either through a USB adapter or a PCMCIA card, so your mom can set the frame anywhere. Ask around and you’ll probably find a similar castoff machine, but if not, there are hundreds of suitable notebooks on eBay for less than $200-just about anything running Windows 2000 or better will suffice. The hardware: a 4-year-old IBM laptop donated by PopSci’s IT department. ![]() I also wanted the whole project to be cheap, because, well, I’m cheap. But instead of loading 1,000 images onto a hard drive, I wanted to be able to update the library remotely, adding new pics as I shot them, so she could always see what I’d whipped up that night or where I’d traveled that weekend. My mom loves seeing my digital photos, whether they’re of far-off places or my latest culinary creations, so I’ve long thought about building her a digital-photo frame that would show a new shot every time she walked by. For current advice, consider setting up a shared iCloud photo library, investigating other ways to share your digital photos (including a shared Google Photos folder), or taking the easy option and just buying one of the best digital photo frames. It was originally featured in the May 2006 issue of Popular Science magazine and involves outdated technologies and services.
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