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.

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!

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!