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 The Technology Tailor Newsletter |
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| An Excerpt from GOING DIGITAL: Mom and the 'magical picture frame' |
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By Alex L. Goldfayn
The Technology Tailor
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Published Jul 31, 2006
Chicago Tribune |
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The following is an excerpt from my first book, Going Digital, which ran in the Chicago Tribune. For more details on Going Digital, and additional excerpts, please visit the
Going Digital Home Page.
Shirley loves getting pictures. She has children and grandchildren, nieces and nephews, even grandnieces and grandnephews. Once a week, sometimes more, Shirley's daughter, Joyce, sends her pictures of the family.
"I'm the keeper of the family photos," says Joyce, 58. "Most of the family members send me pictures, and I'm in charge of getting them to Mom."
And so Joyce receives the pictures, sorts through them, and sends them along to her 87-year-old mother.
The pictures don't go to Shirley as printed photos. Instead, they land squarely on her digital picture frame, where they play as a slide show, rotating until Joyce sends the next update.
Shirley received a Ceiva Digital Photo Receiver (about $130, www.ceiva.com) for her 85th birthday. It consists of a 5-by-7--inch LCD screen, surrounded by a wood frame. It plugs into an electrical outlet for power and a regular phone line for receiving pictures. Then, like a TiVo digital video recorder, in the middle of every night the Ceiva "frame" dials in to check for photo updates. Any new photos are downloaded, replacing older ones. The Ceiva receiver can store 30 pictures at a time on its internal memory.
How does the frame know which pictures to download? It gets only pictures that you upload. Joyce uploads the photos she wants to share with her mom to Ceiva's Web site, and then every night the frame checks for and downloads any pictures. Anyone who knows the password can add pictures to Shirley's frame, which means she can get pictures from family members from all over the country.
"Every morning, Mom goes downstairs and checks the Ceiva first thing," Joyce said. "And she says, `Oh my! There are new pictures!' And she calls Joycie at 7 a.m."
This is an ingenious, effective and incredibly rewarding way to share your pictures with the non-technical family and friends in your life. No computer is required. No high-speed Internet connection is needed. Just an electrical outlet and a phone jack.
Often, Joyce adds text to her pictures, explaining details such as dates and locations. These annotations can be added on the Ceiva Web site next to each photo. She also uses the frame to send her mom digital holiday cards. Joyce calls herself an "exhibiting amateur photographer" and uses her favorite artistic shots in the cards she sends to her mom's frame.
All of this leads to the ultimate bottom line for any kind of digital tool: It makes Shirley happy.
"Oh, there's nothing like it for her. This is an absolute proven joy gift. It's ensured happiness." |
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