This is a quick tip for anyone using a 1080p TV/monitor for their computer display. Odds are good you don’t like the look of the fonts. The problem is that a 32” (or 42” or 52”) screen was not meant to be seen from 18” away. Add to that that 1920 pixels across a 32” screen is only about 72 dpi which is much lower than most modern computer screens.

You could try to tweak the ClearText settings but you won’t get what you want.

Simply lower the TV “sharpness” setting ! Yes, rather than try to make the computer accommodate the display, let the display just blur things a little. I turned the setting down to “10” and things look much better.

I was surprised to read the teaser for the March 2010 Car and Driver article on removing blind spots. Surprised because I was taught this by my driver education teach in 1980 ! Perhaps 30 years is not too long for a good safety tip to move mainstream. (fig 1 & 4 show the recommended views while fig 2 & 5 show what most drivers actually use).

 
photo credit and full article: Car and Driver

Somewhere in a corner of your basement or garage you probably have a small bench where you go to fix things – a cord on a lamp, a loose screw on a chair, a door hinge, etc. And on a shelf near that bench (or in a drawer) there is an old coffee can where you keep the left over screws from old projects. It has lots of different wood and metal screws, bolts, nuts, washers, and odd looking bits and pieces you decided should not get thrown away because "some day you’ll need it".

When it comes time for the next fix-it project, you dutifully go to the bench, dump out the coffee can and sift through the contents in hopes of finding the perfect match. If the can is big and you’ve been at this for 20 years, odds are good you will find something. When it’s all done, you are left with the task of putting all those odd bits back in the can. The challenge is that some are small and many have sharp points. Inevitably you drop a few on the floor or prick you hand or both.

The solution is a "pan funnel". You empty the can into the pan rather than out on the bench and when you are done, you conveniently just pour the contents right back into the can!

As my bread making continues, I want to share most of it – in part to prevent from eating it all ! When I make a standard loaf, that only yields one loaf and thus giving it to one recipient. To spread that home cooked goodness a bit further, my mother told me of an old trick …

After the dough has been punched down and is ready to go into the loaf pan, separate it into two equal balls of dough and apply just a little oil to the outside. Then, place them into the loaf pan together. When they rise and then bake, the loaf bakes like a full size loaf but when it comes out, is can be separated into two halves. This lets me give to two people – or more often – keep one, and give one away.

While I could use smaller pans, I like this solution because it does not change my baking temp or time.

Let’s be honest, digital photo frames can look tacky – white bands filling the unused portions of the screen or images cropped to leave half of grandma’s face; a dangly wire to the bulky power adapter; constrasty images when you look into the image from different angles; and images can be slow to load. Some of these are limitations of technology or where you install your digital photo frame. But there are some things you can do to make it look more like a picture frame and less like a computer screen hanging on the wall.

The biggest issue with digital photo frames is getting images that look good on the screen. Unless you take perfectly cropped pictures with a camera that has the exact aspect ratio as your photo frame, you will end up with “filler bars” on the sides of the image when it is displayed. Some frames have a “smart” display that tries to zoom the image and then crop to make it fill the screen but this can lead to unexpected and embarrassing results.

ImageMagick may be your first step to happiness with your digital photo frame. It won’t make you pictures look like Ansel Adams but it will make them look like they were framed for display.

convert source-image.jpg -resize "1280x800" -quality 75 MIN-target-image.jpg
convert source-image.jpg -resize "1280x800^" -quality 75 MAX-target-image.jpg
convert MAX-target-image.jpg -gravity Center -crop 1280x800+0+0 -quality 75 MID-target-image.jpg

These three command lines give you three different images. The reference to “1280×800″ represents the screen of our test frame. You will substitute the screen resolution of your frame. Note the second like looks almost the same as the first but there is a carrot “^” at the end of the screen resolution. The first line tells ImageMagick’s “convert” program to insure the target will fit within the specified resolution while the second line will create an image that has its smaller dimension no less than the specified resolution. Let’s look at an example …

Let’s start with an image from a point-n-shoot camera that is 2816×2112 pixels. The three commands will give you the following:

1. PF-MIN  is 1067×800 pixels
2. PF-MAX is 1280×960 pixels
3. PF-MID is 1280×800 pixels (with 80 pixels trimmed from the top and bottom of PF-MAX)

If your original image was taken in landscape, then PF-MID is probably what you’d want to display. If you need every bit of your original, then you’d use PF-MIN.

If you look back at the three commands, you will also see the JPEG quality has been set to 75%. This makes the images smaller and will allow the digital photo frame to load them faster. At the same time, the quality is high enough that you will no notice on the screen.

If you take lots of vertical pictures and you have mounted your digital photo frame vertically, ImageMagick can help with that too. Just add “-rotate -90″ or “-rotate 90″ to the command ahead of the quality parameter on the first to commands. You may need to run an experiment to see if you need to rotate clockwise or counter clockwise to match how you have setup your frame.

So, that takes care of getting your images ready for display. Here are a few tips for installing the digital photo frame.

If the frame will be mounted on a wall in a highly visible location (and why wouldn’t it), see if there is an electrical outlet on the other side of the wall. It’s easy to create a small hole in the wall behind the frame where it will not be visible, and then run the power wire to an adjacent room or better yet a closet.

Consider getting a more attractive frame and mat. Most digital photo frames come with a cheap black plastic frame and a white paper mat. It’s not difficult to replace these with a traditional wood frame and a mat that works with your room’s decor.

Before nailing your digital photo frame to the wall, load a picture and have someone hold it at various heights. The viewing angle will change the quality of the image. If you have rotated the frame vertically or even upside down – this latter idea can help hide unsightly controls or slots on the side of the frame – it will change the viewing angle. You may find that you want to mount the digital photo frame a little higher than a traditional picture to improve the view of the screen.

So there you have it. With a few tweaks to the images, and a little attention to the installation of your digital photo frame, you can turn it from geek to chic in no time !