CEIVA Advances Photo Frame Technology

My boys and I were strolling through Toys R Us yesterday (they had gift cards that were burning holes in their pockets). I dragged them away from thre Star Wars and Lego area so I could look at the electronics department (I’m a techno-geek). I saw some outstanding digitial photo frames on display. I was surprised to see how decorative and stylish they’ve become. Digital photo frames are kind of cool (I don’t have one). Most digital photo frames have some internal memory or require a memory stick (like a USB flash drive) to load photos into the photo frame memory. The photo frame displays the photos on the memory onto an LCD monitor. It’s pretty neat. But you do need to obtain a memory card in some way to transfer the photo data from your photo source to the frame itself. Sometimes you have to wait until Uncle Billy Bob is done with his camera photos in Bermuda, for him to load them onto his computer, to email them to you, for you to load them onto your USB flash drive, and load everything into your digital photo frame for display. Lots of steps.

The Ceiva Digital Photo Frame is a little different. This frame connects onto an existing phone line (or W-Fi connection). It will receive photos directly from a camera or cell phone, from anywhere in the world at any time. And there is no need to edit the photos to prevent squished images– the photo frame sets the photo up perfectly in the frame, automatically. I find this absolutely fascinating– such technology! I think all digitial photo frames are going to go this route, because it is so convenient. You essentially get Uncle Billy Bob’s snapshot of his sand castle in Bermuda at the moment he took the photo through his cell phone. The technology is AMAZING.

Ceiva has made it very easy for anyone to enjoy photos, even people who actually (*gasp*) don’t have computers!

Here’s the process:

• Choose the perfect Ceiva frame.
• Register your CEIVA frame and activate your PicturePlan® membership ($129 a year, includes service and frame).
• Send photos from your computer via email or cell phone directly to the frame.
• Receive photos from your existing phone line or Wi-Fi.

There are other ways to get your photos into the frame– the traditional USB drive, etc. See the site for more information. It’s pretty neat!

PicApp for Free Photos

I have been trying to incorporate more photos into my blogs, but taking them myself and going through the uploading is such a hassle sometimes. PicApp is something I found. It’s a site with loads of free photos for the taking. Be sure to read the terms of service and FAQs before using the site, though! PicApp says there is no fee to use their service, and they are in the process of making a way for people to actually make money with them.

I tried out the photo search– I tried “cat” and I came up with all sorts of results. I was going to embed the photo here, but after I tried, I noticed a Google AdSense ad in my post under the photo. I do not want an AdSense ad in my post, so I removed the image. I find this element of embedding photos with such ads very offensive.

You can embed their photos for free, if you give them your email address. Or, you can register. I tried to register, but the captcha wouldn’t take. I tried five different times on two different browsers and it wouldn’t go, so I assume it’s something wrong on their end. Bummer.

So the idea of embedding free stock photos is great, but like I said, they’d better dump the AdSense ad if they want to have any means of success. That is just TOO intrusive to be acceptable.

Vista’s Snipping Tool

I’d mentioned that I got a very cool Apple Aluminum keyboard for my Windows Vista computer. I am just loving this keyboard! I can type faster and I make fewer typing errors. It has made me more productive, and there’s nothing like a new gadget to inspire and motivate a person!

I’d said that some specialized keys don’t work for me (like the media keys, which I never used on PC keyboards, either). But I discovered that one of my favorite keys is missing– the “PrtScrn” key. I do a lot of copying my desktop, for image-making and for tutorial posts.

I did a search and tried all the button variations I found online: Ctrl + Command + Fn + Shift + 3; Shift + Command + 4; Fn + Command + F11; argh! It wasn’t long before my fingers were aching from all the Twister-like variations I had to try, like Plantar Fasciitis on the hand, lol. And still nothing worked.

I figured that I’d have to download some specialty software to get the function to work. I try not to go that route if I possibly can, because the last thing I need is another little program running in the background (or some weirdo thrid-party hack that is buggy). But then I read about something that Vista has already! It’s called Snipping Tool. Oh my goodness, this was just what I needed, and it is on my computer already! And better still, it’s sleek, it’s small, and it’s very easy to use. It’s even better than PrtScrn, because I can add some graphics (like highlighted text, or “write” with a colored pen of my choice.” Cool!

Below is a screenshot I took using Snipping Tool. It’s a screenshot of my blog post. I doodled on the image with a few of Snipping Tools features. It’s really a fun program.

And the next screenshot is something I took off Wikipedia. Snipping Tool saves/copies the images as JPEG files, which are the standard and most common image files– so everything is very compatible with everything else.

So if you have Vista and are looking for a keen little copying program, look for Snipping Tool. The easiest way to find it is to clck on your Vista “Start” button (the small round button on the bottom left hand side of your screen) and type in Snipping in the search bar. If you have it, it will show right up. If you want to save the shortcut to a more convenient location so you can access it quicker next time, right-click on the title “Snipping Tool.” A small menu will appear. Choose “Pin to Start Menu.” From now on, when you click on the Start button, you’ll see the Snipping Tool icon listed in your Start Menu for easy access.

Hotlink– Please!

The time has come! Wow I found a terrific website! I think it’s about time for something like this, and I am very excited to use it! It’s called AcoBox.com. It’s a portal for bloggers who love to have blog pictures within their posts (like me). The problem with a blogger (like me) posting photos the “old way,” is that I have always had to search for an image (and make sure its not copyrighted from me using it), save it to my computer, upload the photo to my photo hosting site, fanagle with that, and insert the code into my post. It is a tedious chore.

Well, here comes AcoBox.com. They already have a large selection of photos to choose from. You register to use the service (if you are a blogger, you need to include your blog url in the form), and you can hotlink their photos on your blogs. All their photos are licensed and optimized for websites. And the photos are very nice, too. Here’s one I tried:

It’s a pretty cool service. I’m all for efficiency– I see so many of the same photos clogging up places! And I hate tinkering with endless photos all day long.

Making Screencasts

I’ve been on a quest for some good video editing software (you who follow this blog know what I’ve been up to). I’d also been searching for good screencasting software. I’ve found a great tutorial video by Shawn Powers that led me to some success!

Screencasting is making videos of your desktop. Programs like the very popular Jing make great screencasts. The only problem I found with Jing is that it saves the screencast as a shockwave flash file format (swf), which isn’t recognized by Apple’s Quicktime or Windows Media Player or the Windows Movie Maker that I use for making videos. So although Jing is really neat for making quickie screencasts (for example, for online tutorials or whatever), I can’t use any of it for my videos. Specifically, I wanted to make a screencast of me using Google Earth. It took me forever to find screencast software that would do this. Thanks to Shawn Powers, I got some ideas of what I needed! Here’s his video. I have it here because it’s fun (he’s very humorous) and he mentions a whole bunch of different kinds of software you might find useful for yourself.

I use the software AviScreen Classic (it’s free at Download.com here). The software is a little clunky but it worked great and I got my Google Earth screencast!

I’ll be sure to post more updates and more goodies I find as I continue to scout around.

Video Editing Software

I’ve been searching for some quality video editing software these days. The kids and I have been more interested in video these days. I bought a JVC analog camcorder last year (takes mini VHS tapes) and it’s cute for them. However, there is no means for me to convert the analog recordings to digital, for DVD or computer viewing. So I got a discounted digital camcorder (it was a steal– a Samsung flash memory camcorder! I bought the display model) and we are having a blast making movies. I am also pleased that since I make videos for certain advertisers, I can write off the expense for my business. Nice.

Well, all we have is Windows Movie Maker. I like it but it’s very basic. I’ve been looking for something with more features, but I don’t want to spend anything if I can help it. Finding and comparing video editing programs is a little like shopping for auto insurance quotes: you need to compare apples to apples to make sure you’re getting what you need without a buncy of fancy (and useless) bells and whistles.

You know what? After days of searching, I haven’t found anything better than Movie Maker. I’m surprised.

I tried the Corel VideoStudio Pro trial version (found here at C|Net). I was disappointed. It was a huge 121MB download, too! All that waiting and I was displeased. The program is bulky and very slow. I don’t have a clunker computer, either– Athlon64 processor, Vista OS, 2GB RAM, etc. The Corel program jerked and stuttered. When I tried publishing my files to a movie, the movie didn’t include the last clip! And this program sells for $100! Yikes.

I looked around more, but there’s slim pickens. I then tried Avidemux, but that didn’t work for me. I imported my .avi file and all I got was a green screen. ?!

So I’m back to Windows Movie Maker. I did find a site that offers some additional split video clips to add to the collection– it’s a free download called Rehansplit. It’s safe, and Kim Komando recommends it.

For your information, I found a Flash creator program called Riva FLV Encoder. And I found a free online video editing program called JumpCut. That looks good, but I wanted downloadable software.

So for now, I stay with Windows Movie Maker, unless any of you have any ideas. I’m tired of looking for programs; they are hard to come by.

Image Editing Software

Well, in between my searching for some great budgeting software, I’ve also been on the hunt for some good resizing and cropping image editing software. I have been using Irfanview for a long time, and I love it; but Irfanview does not allow cropping. I found something new, found on C|Net, called Resizr. It’s free! But it lacks the flexibility, as it only handles .png, .jpg,. and .gif image files. Still, it’s great, and it’s free!

Extract Images from Microsoft Word

Before I had image-editing software, and before I knew what I was doing, I used to paste all my images in Microsoft Word. But after saving it, I had NO IDEA how to get the image onto, say, a web page. My image had been essentially locked by Word.

I came across a helpful blog post explaining how to extract images from Word.

Just open up the Word document, then go to file> save as option and save the document as a web page. This will create a new document with the images in a separate folder with the same name. Go into the folder and you will get 2 version of the image, one is in .jpg and the other is in .png.

The .jpg will be the smaller size and the .png will be the original size. If you like to use the original image since it is much larger to view but wanted in different format, just open up your image viewer and save the image in the format that you prefer.

I haven’t tried this yet, but I will. It looks like it would work perfectly. It’s a handy tip!

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