I made a little boo-boo whilst preparing the FrameAlbum code for release. I’m restoring from last night’s backup so the site (and your feeds) may be a bit wonky for a bit.

Sorry about that folks.

And here you thought FrameAlbum was in the DeadPool — HA!

The new Lytro ‘camera’ is unusual in many ways. The first thing you notice is it’s unusual shape; more akin to a pencil box than a camera. You may also notice that there is no focus ring, in fact it has only one control — a shutter release.

The new Lytro ‘camera’ is unusual in many ways. The first thing you notice is it’s unusual shape; more akin to a pencil box than a camera. You may also notice that there is no focus ring, in fact it has only one control — a shutter release.

What you won’t notice until you begin using it is the real magic. It’s hard to explain without seeing it in action but basically it allows you to choose the ‘in focus’ portion of your picture after you have taken it.

What you won’t notice until you begin using it is the real magic. It’s hard to explain without seeing it in action but basically it allows you to choose the ‘in focus’ portion of your picture after you have taken it.

You can read more about it here and here.

- I’ve located another issue with the Picasa grabbers that delays feed updates. I’ve seen a few instances where the process hangs during it’s regular updates. To prevent various nasty side-effects I’ve built in protections to prevent the process from running more than one copy of itself at a time. When it hangs it triggers these checks and prevents it from running again. I’m continuing to investigate.

- In other Picasa related news, we have a new contributor to the project! He is actively working on several Picasa improvements including a resolution to the ‘unknown user’ or ‘no public photos found’ error that some of you are experiencing. He is also working on… wait for it… private albums!

- I’m STILL trying to get my hands on a D-Link frame. I have, so far, been unsuccessful at winning them on eBay but I do bid on all that come up. I need one of these frames to troubleshoot the ‘big red X’ issue that most (all?) of you that have D-link frames have. Soooo….. if any of you have a spare D-Link frame they would lend to effort I’ll be eternally grateful and will be sure to immortalize you in the code comments.

Thanks for your patience, and support!

T.

Stream of Consciousness will go dark from January 18, 2012 at 8:00 am Eastern US time through January 18, 2012 at 8:00 pm to protest SOPA/PIPA and Internet Censorship. You can learn more here.

The FrameAlbum website and frame feeds will NOT go dark and will continue normal operations.

Much has been written on how obscenely bad this legislation is to the health of the internet, and our Freedoms in general. I won’t bore you with my weak attempts where others have done so well. I encourage you to read for yourself and to contact your congress critter and let them know that this is hinders innovation, destabilizes the internet, is NOT effective and damages our Freedoms.

Finally! I tracked down the issue that prevented the Picasa grabber from running on a schedule. It was something silly and basic that took my far too long to figure out.

The non-propeller heads in the audience can tune-out now, what follows is a load of geek-speak.

The problem was this; when I ran the Picasa grabber from the command line it worked just fine. However, when it ran via CRON it appeared to not run at all. It didn’t fail with an error message, no messages in the logs, nor did it generate any console message of any kind, it just didn’t do anything. It was very frustrating.

The basic problem was that the PATH statement in CRONTAB did not match the PATH statement of my interactive shell. However, the way in which it failed was not detected by any of my monitors. Since the durn thing didn’t even start none of the error checking/reporting code I have in the app. had any opportunity to catch/report the failure. Nor did my log scrapers find anything anomalous as there were nothing reported.

I tend to work under the basic Unix tenant of less is more, and specifically that if a process does not detect an error it need not report a ‘normal termination’; simply the absence of an error message is in itself an indication of successful completion. In this scenario this ideal failed completely.

There are two morals to this story, both very basic; “Always check your PATHs” and “Don’t assume (that no response is the same as a positive response).”

Sorry about the ‘unscheduled downtime’ today. We’re back up and have resumed ‘normal’ operations.

I’ve been a busy little code monkey…

I’ve installed a ‘trouble ticket’ system to manage support issues for FrameAlbum.  Some (Ok, most) of you who have emailed me in the past (at framealbum@gmail.com) may have received a reply stating that a ‘…human will reply shortly.’.  I’m in the process of sorting through those, and replying to folks to whom I’ve been woefully remiss.

I’ve also installed a ‘bug tracker’.  I’ll use this to record bugs that are discovered by you, intrepid users, and to manage the ‘feature roadmap’ for future versions of FrameAlbum.

Both of these items are ‘behind the curtain’ but are important for the maintenance of my sanity as well as the experience of folks using the service.

Source code ready for ‘early review’

Lastly, but of greater significance to many folks here, I’ve finally managed to cobble together a GIT repository of the FrameAlbum source code.  I’m using the new bitbucket.org service from Atlassian (makers of Jira, Confluence and many other tools for developers).  I’m going to open this up only to a few people at first so that I can insure that I’ve left nothing ‘secret’ in the GIT version of the code.  If you are interested in having a look at the sausage machine that is FrameAlbum, hop on over to bitbucket.org and register yerself.  Ping me when you’re registered.

Ciao for now!

The most difficult issue with creating a FrameChannel replacement service is how to get all those frames that are ‘hard wired’ to the FrameChannel service over to access FrameAlbum instead.  It is practically impossible to change the internal programming of photo frames to use a different service.  The manufactures refuse to update the software and there is no way for the consumer to do it on their own.  The easiest method is to utilize the ‘custom Photo RSS’ feed feature built into many frames (Kodak) but not all frames have this feature.

For those frames without a ‘custom Photo RSS’ feed feature (I’m talking about you Toshiba) the only option is to fool the frame into thinking it is talking to FrameChannel when, in fact, it is talking to FrameAlbum.  There are various methods of accomplishing this but the most straightforward is to utilize a modified DNS server.

A DNS server is akin to the contact list on your smartphone; when you type in ‘Dave Smith’ it ‘translates’ that to Dave’s phone number (1-234-567-7890).  A DNS server does a similar thing on the Internet.  When you type ‘www.streamingmeemee.com’ into your browser a DNS server translates that into a specific network address that your computer contacts to retrieve the webpage.  Your photo frame uses the same mechanism to determine which server to contact when it is trying to retrieve your photos.

I have put together a specially modified DNS server that when asked for ‘framechannel.com’ returns the server information for FrameAlbum.  When your frame is configured to use the FrameAlbum DNS server, rather than the server provided by your ISP, it will think it is talking to FrameChannel when in fact it is talking to FrameAlbum’s servers.  The somewhat tricky bit can be configuring your frame to use the FrameAlbum DNS server.  I’ll warn you now that it involves a bit of geekery.

All frames that I have seen require you to choose a ‘static IP network configuration’ to set a specific DNS server.  The method varies widely between frames so I will not go into detail on how to access or set this option.  If this is all gibberish to you I strongly urge you to reach out to your friendly neighborhood tech-head and ask them to give you a hand.

Here is the key bit of information you’ll need:

FrameAlbum DNS server IP address: 64.2.142.181
FrameAlbum DNS server hostname: dns.framealbum.com

If your frame requires two DNS server values simply use the same address for both entries.

Once you have set your frame to use the FrameAlbum DNS server you should receive an image on your frame providing you with an activation code that you can use to link your frame to your FrameAlbum account.  Simply log into the FrameAlbum website and choose the ‘activate a frame’ link.

Please post any questions in the comments section below.

Thanks for your patience!

Well the ‘snowtober’ Nor’easter threw a wrench into the works here are FrameAlbum-central.   Power (and heat and water) are back on for the moment.

The core FrameAlbum service was unaffected by the wide-spread power outages here in the Northeast but I did fail to notice that things had gone a bit pear-shaped with the channel updaters.  Both the Flickr and Picasa feed updaters had marked a very large percentage of the feeds as ‘user unknown’ and discontinued updating them.

I’ve reset all those and the feed updaters are running now.

Sorry about that folks — you should start seeing the new pics on your frames within the hour.

I recognize that I’ve been posting exclusively about FrameAlbum here recently but the title of the blog is ‘Stream of Consciousness‘ so you can’t say I didn’t warn you.

I received a comment today where the person thanked me for being a ‘straight talker’.  I took it as a complement.

I’m an engineer; in my world there is ‘the truth’ and then “that thing that isn’t the truth”.  If something is ‘red’ then tell me it’s ‘red’; don’t tell me “it’s a very dark, complex shade of pink with overtones of blue but if you see it in just the right light it’s orange” because you think I don’t like red.  Frankly, I can’t bring myself to say ‘something is x‘ when clearly the opposite is true, regardless of the audience.

Unfortunately in today’s political arena ‘straight talk‘ has come to mean ‘dumbing it down for consumption by the masses so that it appeals to their emotions rather than thoughtful reasoning‘.

Most every sound bite I’ve heard that was labeled as an example of ‘straight talk’ was such a brain-numbingly obvious platitude that I couldn’t help myself from throwing up in my mouth a little bit.

“I’ll make Government more efficient!” – Really?  Do you honestly believe that in ~235 years of having a go at this democracy thing that we haven’t reached some sort of efficiency equilibrium?  No, really, I prefer inefficiency and would vote against anyone who supports increased efficiency

“We will take Our Government back!” – Back from whom, exactly?  Last time I read the Constitution it said that ours was a government of ‘We the People’.  One must be a citizen, therefore an American, to vote.  So we’re taking it back from the American People to give to… the American People?  I’m confused…

“I’ll make the tax code simple!” – I don’t even know where to begin on this one.

In every case the candidate is simply saying what the audience of the moment wants to hear. Have we, as a Nation, become so afraid of the truth that we’ll vote for no one that dare speak it? When a candidate does dare veer off message and a bit of truth leaks out it’s labelled a gaff and the blathering Punditry goes into high-gear claiming that the candidate just committed political suicide.

No, I fear that something even more distressing is true; that we are not willing to vote for someone who is not 100% in agreement with our views. I don’t think (most) politicians are stupid; in fact I believe most of them are quite intelligent.  So intelligent in fact that they have figured out that to get/stay elected they can’t possibly take a solid position on anything as it would give some group a reason to vote for ‘anyone else’.  Have you ever tried to get a Yes/No answer from a politician?  I have — I believe that if you look in the dictionary under ‘futility’ the entry reads ‘that overwhelming urge you get to smack something when you ask a politician a Yes/No question.’

If you want to earn my vote give direct, clear, unequivocal answers to questions.  When someone asks you “Which part of an Oreo is you favorite?”  You had better say “I love the rich creamy filling!” or “I love the crispy chocolate wafers!“.  If you respond “I like them both equally and here are 4,000 words about why you are an idiot if you don’t agree with me.” you are dead to me.

Give me the straight facts about what you believe — I will not agree with you 100% of the time but at least I’ll respect you and I might even vote for you.

I’ve been swamped with a big development project of late.  It has hampered my ability to spend any time extending FrameAlbum but it does have the small benefit of covering my Starbuck’s addiction.

The first item to be tackled is publishing some code!  I have to first settle on an open-source license; I’m open to any comments/suggestions folks may have on this topic.  My initial thoughts are to find a license that allows folks to use & modify it freely for their own use.  If they choose to use it in a commercial service they should be compelled to contribute something back to the project/community.

I’ve already starting putting the code into a GIT repository.  For you non-code-slingers out there GIT is a program for managing the source code (the stuff that programs are made of) of a program or website.  I am not a code-slinger by day so my git-fu is not strong however it does have a strong following among the code- slingers I know and trust.  If you are interested in contributing to FrameAlbum or just having a look at how the sausage is made then grab a copy of GIT and run it around the block a bit.

The next big feature to be added to the service is integration of Facebook photos.  Lots of people have asked for them and I’m interested in diving into Facebook’s new developer’s platform.

Beyond that, I plan to expand the informational channel types (news, weather forecasts, news, etc.), expand Picasa support to include non-public albums and add ‘tag’ filtering to all photo feeds.

Stay Calm and Carry On.

T.

A new feature went live on the FrameAlbum site today; ‘shuffle images’.

The current system groups all the photos from a single source channel, such as Flickr, together and then orders them chronologically by posting date.  So if you have a Picasa channel and a Flickr channel on your frame you will see all the Picasa photos in order by date and then all the Flickr photos.  This will continue to be the default.

However, if you would like to see your photos ‘all mixed together’ you may choose to activate the ‘shuffle images’ feature on your frame.  When shuffle images is active all of your photos will be sent to your frame in random order mixing all your channels together in no particular sequence.  It also works if you have only a single channel on your frame.

If you prefer to keep seeing your photos the way they are now you do not need to do anything, the feed will be unchanged.

If you would like to activate this feature simply log into the FrameChannel website and edit the details of your frame.  Click the button next to the green light on the ‘Shuffle Images’ option and save your changes.  That’s it!

It may take awhile for the changes to appear on your frame so don’t be concerned if you don’t see the new sequence right away.

I hope you enjoy it!

In other news: I’ve fixed a long standing bug that caused issues for folks with large numbers of channels or frames.  The display will now wrap around to a new row rather than continue off the right side of the screen.

Two big items today; I’ve released several hundred invites and the weather radar channel type is now available for public use.

All beta registrations entered before the end of July have been released. You should already have received an email from FrameAlbum with instructions on how to activate your account.  If you registered before the end of July and you have not yet received your invitation email please contact me.

Weather Radar images are now available!

FrameAlbum users in the United States can now add a weather radar feed to their frames.  The feed images are taken directly from the US National Weather Service and are updated every 15 minutes.  The image quality isn’t quite what you see on your local TV weather-reader’s background but it is free.

To add this new feed log into the FrameAlbum website and ‘Add a New Channel’ and choose channel type ‘Weather Radar’.  You will be prompted for your US ZIP code. Once the channel is saved, you can add it to your frame.  Within 15 minutes the local radar image will be added to your frame’s feed.

This was the most requested ‘information’ style feed requested — please let me know how it works for you.

Thanks for trying FrameAlbum!

Today I am going to move the website to a new server as well as push updated versions of several of the back-room components into production.

Those of you already on the service (Thanks!) should notice nothing more than faster response from the website and less ‘wonkiness’ in the feeds.

The biggest visible change is the addition of ‘activation keys’. Activation keys make it much simpler to add a frame to FrameAlbum service.  These keys will be displayed on frames that connect to the FrameAlbum service but are not yet ‘owned’ by a registered user.  This replaces the image that included the ‘productID’ and ‘frameID’ values.  While these are very useful to me they are not so useful to the average user.

I’ve noticed that many folks that have registered for the service have not added any channels to their frames.  I accept that the website doesn’t exactly do a great job explaining how you go about getting pictures onto your frame.  I’m an engineer, not a user interface designer (as if that wasn’t painfully obvious to anyone who has tried to use the website ) – it makes perfect sense to me!  But, obviously, not to everyone.

Beginning today if your frame connects to the service but doesn’t have any channels programmed you will receive a message to visit the site and add channels. This is a very small step towards helping folks use the service.  I have a long way to go but at least you won’t have a blank frame and no idea why it is blank.

Shhhh. Don’t tell anyone but assuming all goes well today, I’ll be releasing the next batch of beta invites.  ;-)

Thanks for your support!

All feed generation and delivery has been moved to the new server.  You do not need to make any adjustments to your frames, they will automatically switch to the new server over the next few hours.

The web site is still running on the old server so will continue to experience slow response until I finish moving that as well.

This should resolve several issues with sporadically missing photos, invalid RSS feeds and general wonkiness.  Please let me know if your frame is still unhappy.