Space saver for the home and office

Downsizing your tech

by Paul Lima

How many times have you looked at the surfaces in your home and were struck by the clutter?
There you are, wanting to showcase even more stuff — like new family pictures — and there’s no room available. Captain Kirk’s voice resounds in your head: “Space. The final frontier.”

FRAMING THE ISSUE

Digital photo frames literally let you run a slide show of digital images, with an adjustable time interval, on a picture frame LCD screen. Some digital photo frames display only JPEG images. Others support multimedia content, which means you can display digital movies or accompany your slideshow with an audio soundtrack — both of which you can create on your computer. Generally, digital photo frames display pictures using a camera's memory card or a USB key. Frames from a variety of manufacturers come in standard picture frame sizes, have different storage capacities and display images in a variety of resolutions.

DESKTOP SPACE SAVERS

PC and peripherals taking over your desk? Maybe your whole office space? It may be time for an update. Today, flat screen LCD monitors and smaller “tower” hard drive boxes take up much less space. Some major brands also offer an all-in-one, similar to Apple’s iMac where the hard drive box has completely disappeared — the hard drive and DVD player are located in the flat screen monitor. This saves a great deal of desktop space. Those who are truly space challenged can replace their PC or iMac with an incredibly powerful and ultra-compact laptop computer. Printers have also come way down in size even as they have gone up in print quality. In addition, multi-function devices that print, scan, copy and often send and receive faxes mean one compact device has replaced four digital devices, saving even more desktop space.

SAVE THE MEMORIES — AND THE SPACE

If you have a closet full of old family video tapes and you want to get rid of your VHS player (now that all the movies you buy and rent are on DVD), you can take them into a shop that converts analog movies to digital format and store your memories on more compact DVDs. If you want, you can even store your digital movies on your computer hard drive and watch them on your PC. People are also storing a vast array of photos in online photo albums. With a click on an email button, they can share password-protected photo album links with friends and family members. Technology now enables you to preserve your memories without using filing cabinets, photo albums, slide projectors, movie camera and screens, and other storage paraphernalia that takes up space in the home.

PURSE AND POCKET SPACE SAVERS

There’s more good news for those who want to minimize the digital stuff they carry around. Convergence has hit the portable gadget market. Today, you can buy a compact cellphone that also serves as a digital music player and a digital camera. Some of these multi-function devices can even be used as sound recorders and can shoot videos. People on the go can replace their laptop, PDA and cellphone with a smart phone that allows them to send text messages and email; keep to-do lists, schedules of meetings and appointments; and even work on some software applications, such as word processing, spreadsheets and presentation files. One device. Many functions. More space!

Paul Lima has been a professional writer and writing instructor for over 25 years. Since 1988, he has run his own communications business and often writes clearly about the latest technology.