The Technology Tailor Blog: A Low-Tech Approach to Consumer Electronics

1,000 Scanned Photos For $50

One of the best and most useful digital photography deals around right now is at a California-based services that will scan up to 1,000 of your printed photos for a measly $50. If you think about the amount of time it would take to scan just 100 pictures yourself -- several hours easy for most flat-bed scanners -- this becomes something close to the steal of the century.

The service is called Shoebox Reprints.

Whenever I talk about it on my radio show or bring it up anywhere, I always get e-mails that ask something like "What was that shoebox company that scans old photos?"

Here's how it works:

You send in your printed pictures, preferably via FedEx.

The company runs your shots through their high-speed scanner, and sends you back a DVD with digital photos and your originals.

1,000 pictures scanned for just $50. And many hours of tedium saved.

It's a beautiful thing.

Who's Talking About Going Digital

If you've never listened to a podcast, here's your chance! The current edition of the Digital Photography Show, a podcast hosted by Scott Sherman and Michael Stein, features a lengthy interview with me about my new book, Going Digital.

The Digital Photography Show mostly focuses on topics of interest to photo enthusiasts. Things like tips for shooting with digital SLR cameras, and PhotoShop techniques. It's free, and each show is packed with useful tips and suggestions.

To listen, just click here, and then click the play button under Show 16. Our interview begins around the 20th minute.

Also this week, Farah Silver, who edits the highly useful SheFindsMom.com site kindly put up a review of Going Digital today. If you're a mom, have a look at SheFindsMom.com, as it lists countless "shopping finds." Yes, this site, along with its parent site, SheFinds.com, helps women shop. As if you need it! (My wife says you do.)

You can find Going Digital at Amazon.com for a measly $10. On my Web site, you can learn more on the Going Digital Home Page, which includes several excerpts.

The Magical Digital Picture Frame

If I were forced to pick a single digital photo product that represents the amazing things you can do with your pictures it would be the Ceiva Digital Photo Receiver.

I'll take it one step further:

If your parents or grandparents are around, whether they're technically-proficient or not, there's one gift you must purchase for them: The Ceiva Digital Photo Receiver.

It may be the warmest and fuzziest tech product currently on the market.

Here's an excerpt from my book, Going Digital, which ran in the Chicago Tribune yesterday.

Going Digital, by the way, as just released today from HarperCollins. It runs a measly $10 on Amazon.com and is full of neat ideas and projects for your digital pictures and home movies.

Excerpt from Going Digital:
Mom and the 'Magical Picture Frame'

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."

Want more from Going Digital? You can visit the Going Digital Home Page on my Web site.

The Launch of My First Book, Going Digital

I can't tell you how excited I am about the launch of my first book,
Going Digital.

After years of work, sweat, and at times, frustration, my little book is hitting the market! It's a 200-page paperback about the amazing things you can do with the digital photos on your hard drive and the home movies on your shelf.

Today (one day before release), Going Digital maintained an Amazon.com sales ranking of between 500 and 700 for most of the day. This is a terrific position for a new book in what is essentially a new genre: technology advice.

Lifestyle technology.

The goal: The New York Times Best Seller list! Ironically, in publishing, the more people that buy the book, the more people that buy the book. Readers reach readers.

Thank you a thousand times for your support.

I'll have much more about the process that led to the this book's publication, as well as excerpts, examples and lessons from Going Digital, in upcoming posts.

What Happened to the Video Camera?

Last week, Sony announced it is launching a high-definition video cameras. You don't hear much about video cameras any more. This got me thinking:

It's clear: We've become a photo society.

We didn't used to be.

American homes once used video cameras as much as, if not more than, photo cameras.

But no more.

I grew with a video camera in my face at all times. The photo camera also saw action in our home, but mostly, whether at a birthday party or on a trip to Disney World, my dad's massive shoulder-mounted "camcorder" (which attached via cable to the VCR deck hanging from his other shoulder) was pointed at me.

Today, clearly, we're all about digital photos. More than six out of 10 homes own a digital camera. Many own more than one. Many cell phones have cameras built in. The opportunity to take a digital snapshot is ubiquitous.

Why has this happened? Why is the video camera disappearing from our family events? Here's my crack at the answer:

1. Digital cameras are more affordable than video cameras.
   
2. It takes far less commitment -- especially in time -- to look through photographs. Video demands multi-sensory attention. We must sit and watch and listen to television.
   
   
3. But first we must get our video from the camcorder to the television. This is not always easy. Especially if you want to do some editing of the video. This involves getting it to the computer. Importing it into a video editing program. Making the modifications. Then burning a DVD. Too many steps.
   
   
4. For photographs, the editing and output process is far easier than the above
   convolution. Just make prints, at the store or at home. Or e-mail the pictures. Either way, it's a one-step process.
   
   
5. This might be the most important one: the technology industry has put its muscle (read: investment) behind digital photography. That's where the innovation is. And the affordability. And the advertising. When's the last time you saw a television commercial for a video camera?

Can video cameras catch up to digital cameras? Do we want (or need) them too? Is the industry going to turn its attention to video once digital photography sales slow?

For all of the above, I think, it's doubtful.

An SLR Digital Camera

I have been shopping for an SLR digital camera -- the kind that lets you change big lenses and add big flash units -- for years. Seriously, it has been this long. Mostly because the camera I've been using has been taking fantastic pictures. It's one draw-back: it wasn't an SLR.

Today, finally, I bought that digital SLR.

This is the brief story of my journey.

The Old Camera

For the last three years or so, I've been using a Sony DSC-F707 digital camera. It's a terrific 5-megapixel "pro-sumer" model, which lets you manually control many photographic features such as aperture and shutter speed, but stops short of the "lens-swapping" features of a true SLR. When I bought it, it cost about $700. At the time, it was the perfect camera.

Over the years, this Sony has been on vacation with my family in at least eight countries, and countless birthdays, dinners, parties and holidays. And it has captured spectacular snapshots.

It's on the shelf, I can see it, but I miss it already. I feel guilty. As though I have betrayed it.

The New Camera

Today, I bought a Nikon D50, which is the company's entry-level "low-cost" digital SLR. I paid $699 at Costco of all places. But at your local Best Buy and Circuit City, this camera runs $599. Costco sells it in a kit, which includes a second lens (a large zoom lens), a memory card and a carrying case to hold everything. All together, I probably saved about $250 by purchasing the kit.

This unit takes 6-megapixel photographs. There are much more advanced, more intricate, higher-megapixel SLRs on the market (from companies like Nikon, Canon, Olympus, and very recently, Sony), but this was a perfect start for me.

Why did I want an SLR?

Because as a photography enthusiast -- a buff, you might say -- I want to experiment and play with the variables -- like exposure -- this camera lets me control. I want to use wide-angle lenses and zoom lenses and big flashes. I want to learn more about photography...while taking excellent photographs. This camera, which today is the lowest-priced SLR on the market, will let me do this.

Want to learn more about photography?

Then I heartily recommend this book (not mine!), which is regularly in the top 150 books sold on Amazon.com. It's filled with easy-to-understand lessons and descriptions about high-end photography, and defines -- with words and tremendous snapshots -- terms like f-stop, shutter speed, aperture, etc. If you're a hobbyist photographer, or looking to become one, this will be the best $15 you've ever spent.

As for my guilt...

The battery for the new Nikon is charging now.  The light blinking, as if to say, "Hey, when I'm charged up, you're going to take some amazing pictures."

The guilt is lifting...