Drew’s Daily Deliberations

On a whim, the wife and I picked up a Kodak picture frame on the weekend. We have a fair amount of photos that we want to display, and thought this might be a neat way to avoid printing off our newest photos and putting them in picture frames.

I originally wanted to buy the Mustek Ality PF–T80R 8” frame, given the good things I heard about it. However, with that not in stock, we bought the Kodak frame for the same price, but with wireless!

Setting the frame up was… fairly straightforward, although for those of you less technically inclined, it may prove challenging. Using just as a frame is easy. Put in a SD/CF/etc card with pictures, and it plays them automatically. The part that is a bit more involved is getting the wireless setup and the frame talking to a PC. One caveat I noticed immediately, is that the frame, with latest firmware, only supports WEP encryption.

The frame has the ability to see pictures/music/video that you have on a computer (shared via Windows Media Player). And this is nice, but what the frame can not do, is remember where it was when powered off. It takes numerous steps to get it displaying images from a computer, and I was hoping after pointing it, I could turn it off and have it display those pictures when turned back on automatically. No such luck.

Another issue with the wireless is that it is SLOW. It had issues playing back video, and images were slow in the sense that a 3 second interval was more like 8 seconds before the next image would display. I suppose if you were going to have pictures on the screen for a longer period of time, this slowness issue would not be such an issue.

The other big pet peeve I have with how the frame operates is that it does not have a random feature. Again, I was planning on having the frame off when not needed (it even has a scheduler to turn itself on/off), but I do not want to always see the same images when the frame turns on.

Since the wireless function was not to my liking, I put some images on a memory card, and used the frame that way. Aside from not displaying images in random order, it worked as well as could be expected. Images displayed quickly, and video played in a smooth fashion.

The controls on the frame and included remote are temperamental. Sometimes it would need multiple button presses to activate a function, and then sometimes it would queue the multiple presses up and issue them when not expected.

The quality of the images pleased my wife and our guests, however I was left wanting more. We normally display images on a 48” HD TV in the family room, and compared to that, the frame left much to be desired. It seems like the resolution (800×600) is not quite high enough perhaps. Dark areas of photos display a noticeable blocky/bandy effect (similar to some DVDs). Colourful photos are the most pleasing, as the display does give off vibrant colours, not overly accurate, but vibrant.

If the frame was $100 and not $300, we may have considered keeping it, but as it is, it will be getting returned to the store.

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A couple friends of mine travelled to Cuba recently. Upon returning home, they both had items stolen out of their checked baggage. One had a camera stolen, and the other had rechargable batteries removed from his suitcase. They departed Varadaro, Cuba and landed in Calgary on a Westjet flight July 28^th. Now, the items may have been stolen in Cuba, granted. However, an airline official did say that there has been recent trouble at the Calgary Airport with items being taken from passangers bags.

My friends both contacted police, filed the paperwork, and contacted Westjet. Thankfully the items were not of high value, and there were no pictures on the camera that would have been lost. However, it begs the question, if it is that easy to remove items from luggage, is it that easy to put items into luggage, items of a dangerous type???

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More and more families are living a significant portion of their lives online. I am not specifically talking about online games and chat by kids. In a more broad sense, people’s lives are partly digital these days. You bank electronically, you open and manage various accounts online, email accounts for more and more of our communication, and even direct phone calls often end up in voicemail. And this all works very well.

Until the unthinkable happens. With so much information about ourselves occurring in the digital world, protected by various passwords and secret phrases, do you have a plan to ensure your loved ones will be able to gain access to the information they might need if you suffered a tragic accident? Would they even know where to begin?

In the age before computers, you know, up until the late 80s/early 90s, much of this information would likely be stuffed in a drawer or shoe box. It may not have been pretty or organized, but at least it was available. In an emergency, people could search your house and likely come up with much of this information. Of course, people with ill-intentions could as well, but that is another topic entirely.

I for one scan all of my paperwork and file things on the computer. My reasoning is that I can easily duplicate the data to another location, protecting my information from fire or other disaster. And because of “evil doers”, this information is thoroughly protected. All of my utilities are handled online, as is my banking.

With my first wedding anniversary coming up, I realized that my wife, if needed, would not know where to begin. And since I happen to handle _her_ paperwork as well, it would be especially difficult. It got me thinking about how to plan now to avoid issues down the road. This is by no means a complete list, but it helps me sleep better at night.

First, identifying information that needs to be readily available:

• A current will
• Power of attorney information
• Medical/life insurance information
• A list of utility accounts in case others need access to them (to pay them or close them, or what have you)
• A list of online services, and the associated login information. This includes things like bank login, email accounts, online storage accounts, and whatever else is remotely important. Take your time and think about this. Earlier I mentioned voicemail. Someone could need to access your voice mail messages, did you remember to include that password?

Now this information is no good to me if I am incapacitated, so deciding upon two or three people that I can trust completely is needed. Obviously, my wife makes the list. And I figure two others, who are connected to me in different circles, and who can mostly trust each other, should be included. The reason I mention being part of a different circle, is that if I had two close friends, whom I always go skiing with, and something happened to all of us on a trip, my information would again not be readily available. Picking a family member and a friend should suffice for most of us. Since these people will have the keys to my life in their possession, I believe that they need to know each other and trust each other to a large degree.

Once the people are decided upon, all the compiled information should be documented. This could be done on paper, or in electronic format on a USB key or similar. I personally favor the USB method, as it gives me a means to secure the data in a manner appropriate for the recipient. With all this information compiled together, it would be a disaster if it fell into the wrong hands unprotected. Ensure the recipients fully understand the directions you have left, how to access the USB key, and who else has this information and why.

Most importantly, do this today! Tomorrow could be too late. And update this periodically, ensuring new accounts and changed passwords are all accounted for.

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