Now, the fun begins. You, your siblings, parents or friends all get email addresses. You'll know who to include. There is no spam as only approved email addresses from the Presto.com site will get through. You can subscribe to magazine articles, crossword puzzles and other goodies for the user.

You can choose holiday designs or other pretty backgrounds for your emails. You can send photos.

Finally, you can do something about those fleeting thoughts you have while downloading the new digital photos of your baby. You can do something about the guilt. You think, "I should print this out and send it to Grandma. She'd love it." Then you get sidetracked and don't get around to it. Now, you will just send it. And Grandma will have the delight of receiving a full color photo of your little cherub, at whatever time you appoint the mailbox to deliver.

There is a soothing chime that announces when mail arrives, and it also has a little blue light. However, there is nothing for Grandma to "do" to receive the mail. It just comes out of the printer at appointed times.

If Grandma isn't able to figure out how to reload paper (it's easy, but with dementia anything mechanical can be confusing), you'd have to have a caregiver do it. You'd want to have them keep an extra ink cartridge handy, too. Again, replacing is easy, but with dementia or even a fear of gadgets, Grandma may have to have a caregiver do that. But the mail can be set to come many times a day, and that is automatic. And the printer and paper will last long enough so it's not a chore for someone else.

If you want to send something each Wednesday noon, your sister wants to send something every other day at two o'clock, a good friend wants to send something each morning, and you may want crossword puzzles, games, "Better Homes and Gardens" or "The Wall Street Journal" to arrive each evening, then that's how you set it up from your control center on your computer. All Grandma does is receive mail.

The cost for this is, I think, is a bargain, especially if you divide it among the family. It's $149 for the Mailbox and $9.99 a month for the service ($99.99 annually) at http://www.presto.com/. For a piece of technology, this hardware has the ability to warm a lot of hearts.

For more information about Carol go to www.mindingourelders.com or www.mindingoureldersblogs.com.