How to Use & Select Frames for Digital Desktop Pictures

It is hard for most of us to remember that just twenty years ago before the age of Microsoft Windows, there was no such thing as a PC or the use of a computer, if it was used at all, it was restricted to the work place. With the growth of easy operating systems, the Internet, bandwidth and technological advances. Every family in the Western world has access to a personal computer.

These advances have produced new side industries, for instance the MP3 was developed as a way of compressing sound files, and changing them into a digital formatt, now they are a separate piece of equipment functioning outside the PC. The digital revolution has spawned other offshoot products, the software to make frames for digital pictures being another.

When the digital camera was first invented, it was very much for the exclusive use of geeks, but in today’s world the digital camera is not only becoming mainframe, but it may in time make the analog photograph obsolete. However there are drawbacks to the digital photo, you cannot display the traditional photograph on your desk, it cannot be sent as a Christmas present. In essence it is not much use having digital technology if to appreciate those photographs we have to convert them back to the old analog format and print them out.

Modern technology has responded to this new challenge, and produced a range of frames that will display your ever-changing digital images in a digital format, on your desk. Several years ago this technology sounded as though it came out of “Harry Potter”, today although it is not cheap it is relatively commonplace. So how do they work? Some frames are designed to work from the Internet using a phone line, transferring images from other computers.

Others are designed so that they are fed the images from a memory card. You feed images from your computer onto the memory card, and then display them. This method is limited only by the storage capacity of your memory card. If you are considering purchasing this technology it is necessary to ensure that it is compatible with the type of image that your camera produces, all the available frames support j.peg images, check if your camera produces an alternative type of image. The compact flash cards have also to be compatible with your computer. From an aesthetic point of view, not all of the frames have interchangeable frames in terms of color, so make sure you can live with the frame if it only has one.

'The Ceiva Frame' shows photos being displayed on a 7.7-inch passive-matrix LCD screen. Users plug the frame into an analog phone connection, and upload pictures onto their private page of the web site. This page functions as a control, telling the frame which photos to display, other features include the addition of private captions. You can also authorise other users to be able to upload their photography. You can upload up to ten photographs a day, and this is usually

done late at night, with an automatic phone call that takes approximately seven minutes at the local charge rate. The advantage of this is that the person who uploads the photographs retains control of the frame, and what it displays, which means that the frame is ideal for people who are computer illiterate, they have access to photographs immediately and can view them as a still or a slide show.

The equivalent product manufactured by Kodak was the Weave Innovations' Storybox, if you are researching frames for yourself you will find that Kodak no longer support this service.

Other innovations allow you to present conventional frames on the desktop of your personal computer. Framy (my faourite) allows you to choose your frame and display family photographs on your computer in a frame as opposed to using a photograph as wallpaper. Frameshow is a shareware program that offers a similar service