The oft delayed release of the first round of beta registrations is in progress now!  It’s a small set and it’s based on first-come, first-served method.  If all goes well with this group I’ll release a larger group on the next round.

You will receive an email from ‘framealbum@gmail.com’ that contains a link that will take you to a registration page.  You will be prompted for a password and your home ZIP code.  You may also change your username if you wish.  The ZIP code information will be used on future features such as weather updates, local news, traffic, etc.  None of this information is shared with third parties.

Once you are logged into the service you will be presented with options to ‘Add a Frame’ or ‘Add a Channel’.  You may have multiple frames and multiple channels.  A frame may have multiple channels and a channel may be assigned to multiple frames.

Your first step should be to Add a Frame.  You will be asked for a nickname, a Frame ID and to select the model of your frame.  The FrameID is a unique identifier assigned to your frame by it’s manufacturer.  You may leave it blank if you do now know it.  If your frame model is not listed, or you simply don’t know it just choose the ‘Unknown’ option.

You should make note of the ‘Feed URL’ of your frame.  For now this will be the primary method of getting the feed onto your frame.  I’ll try to put together some documentation on the various frames but for now please review your frame’s user manual.  It is commonly referred to as a ‘Custom RSS’ or ‘Custom Photo’ feed.

Once your frame is created, you can add channels.  Channels are what contain the content that is displayed on your frame.  At present only Flickr feeds are supported.  More are under development.

When creating a new Flickr channel it will prompt you for a nickname and the Flickr username of the photostream to view.  Only ‘public’ photostream photos are supported at present.

As always, questions are invited.