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nixplay blog-mental health-main image

4 Easy Ways to Instantly Improve Your Mental Health

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On October 10, 2018

In Lifestyle

There’s some stigma attached to mental health problems, but the fact remains that these are issues which a surprisingly large portion of the global population deal with. Fortunately, it’s a topic that is garnering more and more attention in recent years, and for good reason.

Although serious problems require professional help, these four easy ways to instantly improve your mental health should help brighten your spirits in times of woe. Read on.

1. Exercise

Exercise is a natural endorphin-releasing activity, and although you may not always feel like going to the gym or doing strenuous exercise, you’ll naturally feel much better after doing so. Generally speaking, the better your body’s health is, the better your mind’s health becomes. Exercise for at least 20 minutes a day and track your progress to make it a part of your daily routine.

2. Take pictures

If you’re looking for a hobby that is relatively easy to pick up, photography is always a great choice. Whether you’re taking snaps on your smartphone or capturing long-exposure shots with a high-end DSLR camera, producing and retouching photos is one of the most calming hobbies out there, especially if you’re in a beautiful natural environment. You could even display your images on your Nixplay Wi-Fi Cloud Frame to remind you of your favorite memories. Your Nixplay Frame can also serve as a portfolio of sorts, helping you gain pride in your accomplishments.

3. Don’t be shy to ask for help

Whether you need serious help or you just need to get some problems off your chest, suffering in silence is sure to lead down a slippery slope if you’re not careful. When you feel like you’re not coping well with life, it’s best to talk to someone who can help you. It doesn’t have to be a psychologist–a close friend or family member whom you can confide in can still do wonders for your mental health.

4. Make time for yourself

We all need a little time to ourselves, no matter how much we love the people whom we surround ourselves with. Whether its 30 minutes in a nice bath or a couple of hours on Netflix, it’s important to unwind by yourself from time to time. This simple act of self-care goes a long way in keeping your mental health and stability in check.

Mars Salazar

Marianne is Nixplay’s Web Content Editor. Her hobbies include exploring new places, playing table tennis, and cuddling puppies. Send her a message at marianne.salazar@nixplay.com.

nixplay blog importance of having a curated instagram feed

The Importance Of Having A Curated Instagram Feed

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On October 3, 2018

In Customer Testimonials, Photography

Photography has turned out to be the universal language among us human beings, and many people haven’t realized the important role photographs have in their lives nowadays. Today we want to give you something to think about: The quality of content on your Instagram feed.

With such a massive invasion of images flooding our feeds constantly, keeping a highly curated Instagram feed is going to enhance your life like nothing else before. And we are not saying this in a cocky way, but you should keep your Instagram feed under control in order to make it a useful thing in your life. Otherwise, you’ll end up looking at tons of pictures with no meaning at all in your professional and your personal life.

Curated Instagram for Stronger Bonds

Keep Things Exclusive

First, let’s talk about our personal lives. It is impossible that we could ever have hundreds (or even thousands) of truly close friends and family. It is important to have a certain degree of exclusivity when it comes to our personal Instagram Feed, and you shouldn’t feel bad about it. This should respond to our necessity of keeping in touch with the lives of the people that we truly care about. For broad networking, use other social media accounts like Facebook or LinkedIn.

This Will Be Your Window to What Matters to You

Have you noticed that the family photo album has become almost extinct? This object was one of the most important assets for any family just a couple of decades ago. Now, all the images, from school pictures to travel photos, are floating in the cloud.

As long as we keep control of the beautiful things technology has to offer to us, there is no reason to freak out about this.

Less is More

You should keep in mind that not everything that is being published out there is meaningful for you; hence the necessity of keeping your Instagram feed curated. Otherwise, how would you strengthen those bonds that made the family album a valuable asset of the household?

Curated Instagram Feeds to Create Better Stuff

Your Instagram Feed as your Daily Input

The creative economy has become extremely powerful in the last years, and every creative needs to keep consuming stuff to keep updated and relevant within their respective disciplines. If you are a creative, you’ll understand this without further explanations.

Developing a Useful-Instagram Mindset

You need to see your Instagram account as a pristine place to consume the finest images out there from the creators you admire the most, as well as the peers you adore and respect. Instagram is fantastic because it allows you to discover emerging talents, as well as many great creators from all over the world.

How to Curate Your Instagram Feed

Just keep things separated. Your personal Instagram account should only have family members you care about, as well as your closest friends. Your professional Instagram account should be a meaningful place for your discipline; a portfolio that embodies your work.

The best way is to start fresh, keeping things clean right from the beginning. Of course, this isn’t always the case, so you should start doing some cleansing by designing a set of criteria that will make your feed exclusive. For example:

❌ Promotions from the newest creamery on the block
✔ The Photographer that made you fall in love with photography

High-Quality Image Consumption

You won’t escape the current state of image consumption in the world, but what you can do is to have a higher quality experience while looking at them. Viewing images through a frame satisfies this because there are no distractions such as text messages or app notifications.

Now, imagine having your highly curated Instagram feed showcased in a digital frame that will give you a richer connection between you and your loved ones. It’s almost like going to a gallery with all your favorite creatives, right at your own place.

This is exactly what you can get with a Nixplay frame: An absolutely nurturing image consumption experience with no distractions at all, updated in real time. Unlike other digital frames, Nixplay lets you update your images wherever in the world you may be.

Always Keep This in Mind

One thing that you need to keep clear about when curating (or even designing) your feed, is that Instagram was born as a social network in which the only way of sharing stuff is via images. Nowadays there are comments and direct messages, but the spirit of the platform is still the same: Image-based content, period.

Therefore, you should only follow accounts that publish images that will inspire you or will keep you uplifted, and not the other way around. If you can manage to spot those accounts, you’ll be a healthy image consumer.

Federico Alegria

Federico is a documentary photographer, writer and educator based in El Salvador. Check out his photography portfolio.

https://federicoalegria.com/
digitizing old photos

6 Reasons To Digitize Your Photos As Soon As Possible

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On August 3, 2018

In Photography

If your family is like most, you probably have a stash of printed photos and film rolls at home. Some may be meticulously laid out in photo albums and frames, while others are stocked in boxes or kept in the envelopes from the photo store. These images serve as tender reminders of a simpler time, triggering nostalgia within seconds.

However, these photos are in danger of being left behind during the mass migration to the digital sphere. Digitizing printed photos can be tedious work, with dozens—maybe even hundreds—of images needed to be labeled, sorted and scanned. Add in the process of organizing the prints for safekeeping and the time you’ll inevitably spend reminiscing over your memories, and you’ll surely take a long time.

The good thing about this process is that there’s no deadline. There’s no real need to rush—you can take all the time in the world. But of course, the sooner you accomplish it, the more secure your photos (and their accompanying memories) will be.

elderly couple looking at an old photo album

This is where the Association of Personal Photo Organizers (APPO) come in. APPO trains and supports professional Photo Organizers who can make sense of your photo collection. They can curate and safeguard your precious images so you and your loved ones can keep enjoying them in the years to come. This way, your photos, as well as the memories you’ve made through the years, won’t be an “out of sight, out of mind” situation.

If you’re still on the fence about hiring a professional Photo Organizer, here are a few reasons why you should give them a call soon.

1. Prevent your photos from deteriorating.

At the end of the day, your printed photos are flimsy and extremely susceptible to damage. The paper will turn brittle and yellow, the vibrant colors will fade, and the details will be gone. A Photo Organizer can use state-of-the-art organization and preservation methods to ensure that your precious images will stand the test of time.

2. Remember moments you might have forgotten.

Your memory won’t remain sharp forever. In fact, we bet you can’t even remember what you had for lunch two weeks ago—that’s how fleeting memories can be. What more when it comes to events that happened several years ago? Organizing and scanning your images will force you to take a deep dive into the past in order to provide the necessary documentation for your printed photographs.

3. Avoid damage from natural causes.

You never know when a major disaster like a flood, earthquake, or fire might strike. Will you have the time to fix your photo collection when more pressing matters are at stake? With an archived photo library stored in the cloud, you can still have a reminder of some of the most enjoyable times of your life even when the printed images you took back then are gone.

old woman looking at an old photo album with her granddaughter

4. Proper organization.

Ever gone digging through your printed photo albums in search of a particular photo from a specific time? It can be such a hassle if you’ve got a lot of images to go through, especially if your albums and boxes are not labeled properly. A Photo Organizer can help you sort through all your photos so you’ll never have a problem looking for a certain picture again.

5. Easy sharing and reminiscing.

When all your printed images are archived and stored on the cloud, you can share your photos with loved ones with just a couple of clicks. Sharing your memories is even easier when you and your loved ones have Nixplay Frames—just a few taps, and you’re done!

6. Preserve your memories.

The best thing about hiring a professional Photo Organizer to fix your files? All your precious images will be safely stored online and can be easily accessed by future generations without much fuss. This way, your photos—and the memories they hold—can be kept safe forever.

Click here to find an APPO-certified Photo Organizer.

Mars Salazar

Marianne is Nixplay’s Web Content Editor. Her hobbies include exploring new places, playing table tennis, and cuddling puppies. Send her a message at marianne.salazar@nixplay.com.

This Is The Best Thing You Can Do For All Your Photos

By

On May 9, 2018

In From The Nixplay Team, Photography

Taking photos is one of the best ways to preserve life’s most precious moments, whether it’s a Sunday dinner with the whole family or your grandchild’s first steps. But what do you do with all the pictures you’ve taken? Saving them on your computer is the first step, but it seems like a waste to just let them languish on a hard drive forever.

Luckily, digital frame company Nixplay has a solution for that. Because Nixplay’s joining the Google Photos Partner Program and using the Google Photos Library API, you’ll soon be able to securely access even more of your most treasured memories on your Nixplay Wi-Fi Cloud Frames anytime, anywhere.

A concept presentation of how Google Photos will be integrated with the Nixplay mobile app. This is not the final product demonstration.

During the 2018 Google I/O Developers’ Summit held on May 8 in Mountain View, California, it was announced that Nixplay will be one of the first companies to launch its integration with Google Photos to its customers in the coming months. With this development, Google Photos will soon send your albums directly to your Nixplay Wi-Fi Cloud Frames, eliminating the need for you to spend precious time selecting photos for your playlists.

The best part is that if you’ve sent albums from Google Photos to your Nixplay frame, every time a new image is added into one of those albums on Google Photos, it will also be automatically uploaded to and viewable on your frame. This feature is especially great for people who live away from their loved ones, as this presents a new way for them to stay connected to them. Now, not only will your treasured moments be within reach, but you’ll always be in touch with those who matter most in your life.

This innovation, scheduled for release in the summer of 2018, is the latest feather in the cap of Creedon Technologies, the parent company of Nixplay and its sister brands, NIX and Nixplay Signage. Creedon Technologies has sold close to 1.5 million units of Nixplay Wi-Fi Cloud Frames, Nix Digital Frames, and Nixplay Signage Solutions since its inception in 2007, making it the global leader in its field. By harnessing the power of cloud storage, service technology, and security, Creedon Technologies has empowered its customers to display their photos and share their memories in a sophisticated manner.

Are you as excited for this as we are? Let us know your thoughts by leaving a comment below!

Mars Salazar

Marianne is Nixplay’s Web Content Editor. Her hobbies include exploring new places, playing table tennis, and cuddling puppies. Send her a message at marianne.salazar@nixplay.com.

The Top 10 of Most Beautiful City Photographs

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On September 12, 2017

In Photography

Are you a city or country person? Even if you are a country person, you may like to admire these amazing city photos. The city can be seen as a hostile place during the day but when the night comes and the lights go on, you can observe a very different landscape. The atmosphere becomes more quiet, less busy and stressful.

Take a look at the most beautiful cities at night: New York City, Hong Kong, Paris, London, Tokyo, Sydney, San Diego… Each unique and distinct,  but we agree to say that they are all very splendid at night.

Feel free to click on the link below each image to download the original photo. If you want, you can upload your favorite ones to your Nixplay Digital Frame. You can create a new playlist with your favorite landscape pictures. It can be a nice transition with your family and friends photos.

1. San Diego, United States (California)

San Diego 

2. London, United Kingdom – Tower Bridge

Tower Bridge

3. Venice, Italy

Venice at night

4. Hong Kong – Victoria Peak View

Hong Kong

5. Paris, France – Louvre Pyramid

Le Louvre

6. New York, United States

New York Midtown Skyline at night

7. Tokyo, Japan

Tokyo

8. Waikiki, Haiwai

Haiwai

9. Sydney, Australia – Milsons Point

Milsons Point

10. Seattle, Unites States (Washington)

Seattle

Beatrice Bisais

Bea is Nixplay’s Social Media Manager. She enjoys drinking coffee, reading about wars, and writing stories. Send her a message at beatrice.bisais@nixplay.com.

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