I’m not one for hyping products, but with Mother’s Day sneaking up, I can heartily recommend as a gift something my brother and I gave our Mom a while back.

It’s called a “CEIVA Digital Photo Frame” and there isn’t anything else out there like it.

Basic idea: a CEIVA lets you share digital photos from anywhere in the world with a family member who isn’t Internet connected or isn’t even computer literate.

How great is that?

It’s easy to set up and use.

  1. Buy a CEIVA (you have a few options as to the size of the flat panel display you want - but all are under $200), and buy a “Picture Plan” (about $100/year). You can buy them locally at places like Sam’s Club, order one through Amazon.com, or buy a frame directly from CEIVA at http://www.ceiva.com.
  2. Designate an internet-connected family member to administer the CEIVA account. Administering the account is a piece of cake - it takes five minutes to set everything up on the Internet side.
  3. Plug the CEIVA Digital Photo Frame into the recipient’s existing phone line.
  4. Tell family members who are Internet connected how to upload photos to the CEIVA account (it’s as easy as sending an email). You can also upload photos from your camera phone.
  5. Let the CEIVA receiver do its thing.

Each night (you can set the time for when it does this), the CEIVA silently dials a local number to pick up new photos sent to the frame. And then, starting in the morning, the CEIVA displays the photos in a continuous full-color slide show.

My Mom now starts every morning by watching new photos that have come in from all over the world to her CEIVA, sent by her children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews. It lets her share in all our lives, very close to real time, even though she lives far away from many of us and isn’t herself part of the ‘digital revolution.’

She loves it to bits.

Hands down, I think it’s one of the neatest gifts you can give.