Get more from your digital photo frame
jjones | Guides | 26/02/2009 14:43pm
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Digital photo frame prices may have fallen recently, but be careful what you buy, because they’re not all the same. Most basic frames will only display the contents of a memory card, for instance, and you’ll usually have very little control over how your photos are displayed.
Choose a wireless picture frame with RSS (Really Simple Syndication) support instead and it’s a totally different story. The frame will not only be able to communicate with your PC over a wireless network, but it can go online and grab new images from sites that distribute content via RSS. That puts the latest Flickr images, weather forecasts, news and blogs all within reach.
But there’s a problem – most digital frames can only handle a single RSS address. The need to constantly change addresses was fiddly, but Microsoft have just released the ideal solution with their free Windows Live FrameIt service.
Complete control
Windows Live FrameIt is all about collecting content to display on your frame or other RSS device. Just by signing up you’ll get access to image feeds from the photo-sharing site SmugMug (www.smugmug.com), but it’s easy to add images from other sites too – all you need is their RSS address.
Want Flickr pictures? Try www.flickr.com/services/feeds. NASA shots? Pick a feed at www.nasa.gov/rss/index.html. BBC news images (snipurl.com/3xjy9), or the latest weather forecast (snipurl.com/3xjyn)? It’s all on offer, so feel free to add as many as you like. Then Windows Live FrameIt combines all those feeds into one, so even simple frames are still able to cope.
WEB WATCH Weather, news, blogs – anything with an RSS feed can be sent to your frame
But perhaps the best part of Windows Live FrameIt is its ability to schedule feeds. That means you can have your frame display the latest weather forecast in the morning before you leave for work and pictures or news in the evening when you get back.
Sign up for Windows Live FrameIt and suddenly your frame isn’t just for last year’s holiday snaps – it’s a sophisticated way to present images and information. Give it a try – we think you’ll love it.
Getting started with Windows Live FrameIt
Stream feeds and photos to your frame
1 CHECK YOUR HARDWARE Windows Live FrameIt won’t work with every device, so it’s important to check your digital photo frame’s manual before you get started. Your hardware will need to support RSS (Really Simple Syndication), a standard way of publishing data online.
2 SIGN UP If your hardware is compatible, then sign up at frameit.live.com. You’ll immediately see the default ‘collections’ – a live weather report or a group of gnome pictures (no, really) that can be sent to a frame. Click the green Play buttons to view them.
3 PICK A PICTURE The default collection items are fairly pointless, so use the red delete icon to remove them. Once that’s done, start adding the content you’d like on your digital photo frame. Choose one of the Media sources, perhaps ‘Animal photos’, then click Preview to see some of the images on offer.
4 TAKE CONTROL Looking good? Click Display to control how images are displayed, maybe choosing to shuffle them randomly. Then click Schedule to decide when they’re shown: just at the weekend, lunchtime on Fridays – whenever you like. Finally, click Add to add the source to your collection.
5 QUICK AND EASY Add other sources, such as images from your favourite web site, or maybe an entire web page if your digital frame is large enough to show it. When you’re finished, click the Setup button (to the left of ‘Options’), note the web address, enter it in your photo frame and enjoy your new collection of feeds.
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This entry was posted on Thursday, February 26th, 2009 at 2:43 pm and is filed under Guides. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.
