Hier sind die Links:

• Firmware
• Windows-Treiber / Windows-Driver
• Upgrade-Anleitung / Update-Guide

Zum Zeitpunkt als dieser Artikel geschrieben wurde, war unter dem Link die Version 5.21 vom 11. Februar 2008 verfügbar.

Zum Update ist wie folgt vorzugehen:

1. Stromstecker vom WPF-288 abziehen
2. WPF-288 per USB mit dem PC verbinden
3. @-Taste des WPF-288 drücken und gedrückt halten, Stromstecker wieder einstecken, warten bis der Treiber-Installationsdialog auf dem PC erscheint, dann die @-Taste loslassen
4. Treiber manuell auswählen und installieren
5. Update-Tool starten, Update-Vorgang starten und warten bis die Fertig-Meldung erscheint
6. Stromstecker vom WPF-288 abziehen, USB-Kabel abziehen, Stromstecker wieder einstecken

Der Link auf http://www.estarling.com/upgrade/ führt zur Uralt-Version 5.13.

Fast hätte ich es vergessen, warum habe ich nach einer neuen Firmware gesucht? Mein eStarling hat sich nach einiger Zeit, maximal ca. eine Stunde, aufgehängt und die Slideshow beendet. Ich konnte zwar noch die Tasten bedienen und die entsprechende Meldungen wurden auch ausgegeben, aber es wurden keine Fotos mehr angezeigt. Erst ein kurzes Abziehen des Stromsteckers hat das Gerät wieder zum Leben erweckt.  Dieser Fehler, der auch dem Hersteller bekannt ist, wird mit dem Update auf die 5.21 behoben.

Here are some of the complaints from readers:

“... E-mailing pictures fails most of the time, the server responds with denial of service frequently because eStarling frames apparently sold well this season. RSS feeds didn’t update at all ... duplicate pictures from the RSS feeds.”

- Thanks to John Jeandron

“... charging when we realized, as we were leaving, that it was on fire on the table ...”

- Chris

Well, whilst Air Hogs (Maker of the Havoc Heli mini helicopter) were not available for comment (I'm still trying to contact them), spokespeople for eStarling contacted me back with statements.

"The issues with the RSS feed are currently being adjusted and capacity will be increased within a few hours. I do apologize for this inconvenience to your readers and I hope that this resolves the issue. If you have any other concerns please feel free to contact me."

- Jessica Odenbach, PR spokesperson for PFDigital and eStarling

Additionally, a second statement was sent to me:

"...PFdigital is the maker of estarling digital frame. One of your posted complaints is about our product, we feel sorry one of our customers had such problem. Actually we were aware of this issue immediately when this occured because we do have monitoring system to check the server performance. All our servers are hosted by a big brand company, but unfortunately there were some issues with the hosting site, most requests were denied for one day. The issue has been resolved one day later, now we don’t get any similar complaints.

I am wondering if you can contact the poster if he still experience the connection problem, if not, please remove the post. I am also glad to contact the poster directly if you can give me his email address. Pfdigital is trying to make all customers happy..."

- Hanzhen Zheng, PFDigital

So it appears on the surface that PFDigital were performing site maintenance and performance tweaks, and this wasn't the Internet service being unable to deal with the load of new registrations and requests from new users who had bought frames as gifts.

What are your opinions about this? Do you feel that PFDigital has answered your issues? If you've had a similar experience to this with this or any product, please let me know. As always, comments and constructive criticism is encouraged, and if you have any questions or comments for PFDigital, or the eStarling team, hit the comments section (below)

Thanks also to the spokespeople on behalf of PFDigital, and eStarling for their efforts.

Graham

Notes: The responses featured here could not be fully verified, and while I trust that these are genuine statements from PFDigital spokespeople, these statments should not be held official. I will not remove user comments that are constructive and truthful, unless requested by the reader, to be fair to all parties.

Reports are coming in from readers of holiday purchases gone horribly awry.

It seems like some readers have bought gadgets as gifts, only to have their holiday dreams of gadgety fun cruelly dashed. Some gadgets have been more or less rendered useless, whereas others have even caught fire.

One example is of the eStarling WiFi digital picture frame (review here):

"Bought one of these for the parents, received in advance of the holiday to set it up and try out. All worked as advertised....until yesterday. E-mailing pictures fails most of the time, the server responds with denial of service frequently because eStarling frames apparently sold well this season. RSS feeds didn't update at all yesterday and today there's duplicate pictures from the RSS feeds. Uploading isn't much better given the server times out and you can only upload 4 pictures at one time. Sad ending to what appeared to be a great idea and terrific gift...imagine a digital frame that the not-so-tech-savvy parents could enjoy. Keep imagining."

- Thanks to John Jeandron

Worse yet, this comment on the Havoc Heli mini helicopter:

"My sons was charging when we realized, as we were leaving, that it was on fire on the table.Good thing it wasn't in his room at night or that we had not left yet!! Tried to contact seller and they have left the local mall....Hmmmmmm"

- Chris

This isn't the first report I've had of this type of problem:

"These helicopters are fun but way too cheaply made and dangerous. I set mine down to charge and ten minutes later the thing caught fire"

- Jon

These problems simply shouldn't happen. This is the sort of problem that should be sorted out way back in design, or in safety testing. On behalf of you, the readers, I contacted eStarling and asked them to comment, and they have thus far remailed silent (I'm in the process of getting huld of Air Hogs, maker of the Mini Helicopter).

I do however urge you to contact eStarling, and other companies that you have had issues with, and please - let me know how this transpires. You can contact eStarling using the two addresses below:

support@estarling.com (Customer Care), and info@estarling.com (Product Comments)

If you have an issue with a product you've bought for the holiday? Let me know! Hit the comments below and share your woes, and I'll do my best to get a hold of the producers and bring them to justice, as it were.

Happy Holidays,

Graham

The first of the gadgets I'll be reviewing as part of the ThinkGeek Christmas roundup, the eStarling is - in my opinion - one of the best products that ThinkGeek have going for this Christmas season.

I slid the white sleeve off of the box, and popped the lid - revealing the contents of the box - an (American two-pin) power wire, a USB data cable, and of course, the frame itself. As the small notice above says, you can only set the frame up online, there isn't a CD or manual provided. I guess this is because the frame is built to work with an internet connection, so an online setup is completely viable.

From the page at ThinkGeek:

• eStarling LE features widescreen aspect ratio (480 x 270 resolution) and external wi-fi antenna
• eStarling 7" Widescreen features widescreen aspect ratio (480 x 270 resolution)
• eStarling 8" Hi-Res 4:3 features standard photo aspect ratio and (800 x 600 resolution)
• Black Piano Finish
• Wi-Fi 802.11b/g with Support for WEP encryption
• MMC/SD/MS/CF 4in1 card slot
• Views JPEG files
• External 120V/240V AC Adapter

The unit comes in "Piano Black Finish", and with a complete lack of buttons on the front, and a clear acrylic border to the frame, it looks great.

In leiu of an off-line setup, there is a small glossy instruction booklet that details how to set up the frame using the website. It directs you to the SeeFrame website, where you must download and install a utility called "Netconfig".

To set the frame up, you need a WEP or WPA encrypted WiFi network (It will search for WiFi networks, or you can enter the details of one manually - not recommended), you need to enter your network key and encryption type, plug the USB cable in, and reboot the frame. That's it. After fiddling with the settings on the config utility, and getting errors (see below left), I got the frame hooked up to the WiFi network on about the fourth attempt.

After sorting out the WiFi access and getting a registration key, I went to the SeeFrame website and registered, trawling through the Terms Of Service agreement, setting up my SeeFrame account. Success! I was given my selected email account name @SeeFrame.com, and I was done.

Within minutes of the setup, I had emailed my first pictures to the frame, and they were there, playing across the glorious 8" glossy screen, with various transitions like wipe, spiral, blinds, random bars, pinwheel, and others it chose at random.

I went onto the seeframe website, and tried adding two RSS 2.0 feeds - one from a Flickr group I found, and one from a suggested feed that users have recommended. About 5 minutes later, the images from my selected feeds started to appear, streaming across the screen merrily, without any issues.

Next, I moved on to uploading directly to the site. This worked fine, allowing me to upload up to four images at a time, and again the images were being displayed in a few minutes. I'm sure that there is a limit on the size of these images, and an overall storage limit, but I couldn't find it.

You can also send text messages to the frame simply by going to the "Messages" area, clicking the "Create a message" button, typing a message, selecting a text size - then just preview or send your message, and it will appear shortly on the screen. Unfortunately, you cannot send texts to the frame via email or SMS messaging, perhaps this will be built in, in a future upgrade of the service.

If no WiFi network is available, the frame will just scroll the images that it has on it's local 128MB storage area, or from an MMC/SD/MS/CF in it's 4in1 card slot - which can be really helpful if, for instance, your WiFi network goes down, or you want to pick up the frame and take it away. On the downside, when I tried inserting an SD card loaded with images, the frame simply stopped on the current image, and I had to pull the plug and plug it back in.

Unfortunately, the eStarling doesn't support any kind of video or audio format, so you can't have short movie clips in the mix of your photos. Whilst this is a small issue, I think that it is a worthy sacrifice, given that most people tire of movies playing in the background randomly after a while.

If you have any questions, comments, feedback, or requests about the eStarling, or me, please feel free to hit the comments (below) - or check out the Flickr set for this review here.

Final Word: The eStarling 8" Hi-resolution (800 x 600) digital picture frame is a great buy for those who have use for such a device - this is a frame for snap-happy tourists and more serious photographers alike, with a simple interface and a great look.

A great recommended gift for gadget lovers, as well as almost anyone else - providing they can use the web interface, and the frame's features. One of the best upsides to the eStarling, is that you can email your holiday pictures home, and they'll be home before you!

I wouldn't recommend this for lovers of video or audio in their slide-shows, nor for those who won't make use of the Internet capabilities - or don't know how.

Relatively easy and very quick to set up, and really easy to use once you have set it up, I highly recommend the eStarling 8" Digital Picture Frame.

8/10

Buy the eStarling here

($149.99 - $269.99)

Once again, many thanks to ThinkGeek for powering this post & stay tuned for another two reviews from this lineup