My mother is 80 years old and would like to purchase a device whereby she can send and receive emails only. She does not surf the Internet. Do you have any suggestions?

Unfortunately, I don’t know of a simple gadget, like the now-discontinued MailStation, that just sends and receives emails. However, there is a service and device, aimed mainly at those seniors who aren’t comfortable with computers or smart phones, that allows the receipt of email, and even photo attachments. The drawback is that this system is one-way — users can receive email and pictures but can’t send emails.

The service is called Presto, and it uses a special Hewlett-Packard printer that connects to a phone line. Your mother would receive a Presto email address, and any emails and photos sent to her would materialize as printouts. A broadband connection is neither required, nor compatible. The device costs $100, and the service costs $100 a year, if paid on an annual basis, or $10 a month, if paid monthly. Information is at presto.com.

I have boxes and boxes of old photos, and about 20 home videotapes and old movies. Some of the photos are fading and showing wear, so I would like to find a company that can convert them to a DVD. Doing it at home would take too long. Have you reviewed such a company?

. Some years back, I reviewed and recommended a service called YesDVD, from a company called YesVideo, that converts videotapes, movie film and photos to DVD. It worked well in my tests. The service operates through retailers, such as Walgreens, CVS, Best Buy and Costco, where you drop off your materials and then later receive the DVD, plus your original stuff. More information is at yesvideo.com.

I enjoyed your review of Xobni. Will it work on Outlook Express or Entourage?

No. Xobni, which creates personal profiles and social networks from your stored email, doesn’t work with Microsoft Outlook Express for Windows or Microsoft Entourage for the Mac, or for any email program other than Microsoft Outlook 2003 or 2007, on computers running Windows XP or Windows Vista. The company is working on a version for Yahoo Mail.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online, free, at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

For the analog grandfather who wishes he could see the digital vacation photos that everyone else in the family emails to one another, or the beloved aunt who just can’t or won’t get an email address, one company thinks it has a solution: turn emails and digital photos into paper documents, automatically, without a computer.

The Presto service offers a way for users to receive emails without having a computer: by printing them out. www.presto.com.

This week, we tested a new service called Presto that works with a special Hewlett-Packard printer called the Printing Mailbox. After setup, the user is assigned a Presto.com email address to which friends and family send text emails or photos. But the owner of this gadget doesn’t need a computer, and never has to go online to retrieve emails. The Printing Mailbox automatically and periodically dials into the Internet using a regular phone line, retrieves all messages sent to it — including photos — and prints them out.

Hewlett-Packard Co.’s Printing Mailbox costs $150. The accompanying Presto service (www.presto.com) from Presto Services Inc. costs about $10 monthly or $100 annually. The printer doesn’t work without Presto, making it useless if you stop the service.

The Presto plan includes optional free subscriptions to various articles and puzzles, which print out in addition to any emails that you receive. You set up and manage the account via a Web site accessed from a computer, a task intended to be performed on the owner’s behalf by a friend or relative.

Overall, we liked Presto and the H-P Printing Mailbox. It has some room for improvement, but it does an excellent job of emphasizing simplicity, and providing a way for the computer-phobic to feel part of the online community.

But the system has one major drawback: It’s a one-way street. The owner of the device can receive emails but can’t email back. The printer has no keyboard, and can’t scan in typed or written notes that might be converted into emails and sent to others.

The idea of bringing email to those without computers has been tried before. For years, EarthLink sold a simple two-way device called the MailStation. This small tabletop gadget included a bare-bones screen and keyboard and also used a dial-up connection to automatically receive and send email. But EarthLink stopped making the MailStation.

To get started with Presto, we took 10 minutes setting up the Presto account, doing so as if the Printing Mailbox were going to be used by someone else. This process designated us as the account managers and asked us to choose a username and password that let us log in to the account from any computer. Another step suggests setting up dial-in and printing schedules; we chose 9 a.m., 3 p.m. and 9 p.m. Print size can be preselected as medium, large or larger — a feature that helps older users with poor eyesight.

We entered our credit-card information and created an email address. This address will receive messages only from those whose names and emails are added to a list so as to prevent spam or unwanted email.

Finally, we scanned a list of optional subscriptions before choosing a few, including a weekly health column; a daily Sudoku puzzle; and a Dave Barry humor column that comes out each Sunday. Other optional categories included food and recipes, arts and entertainment and travel.

We unpacked our printer, plugged in its power and phone cords, inserted its included ink cartridge and loaded 50 sheets (the maximum amount) of paper. We never had to turn it on or off; the printer automatically dialed into Presto the first time its phone cord was connected. Unlike a fax machine that audibly dials, the Printing Mailbox works silently until it churns out a message, pleasantly chiming to indicate new messages.

Even though we receive many emails on a daily basis, the sound of the Presto chimes had us up and dashing to the printer to see which friend or family member had sent us something and what it was. The Printing Mailbox prints embedded or attached photos but not attached Microsoft Word documents — a feature Presto may add in the future. The photos looked good, even on basic white paper. Users could insert photo paper for printing, as long as it was the same 8½” by 11″ size.

By default, an attractive pale green border printed around each personal email, with the subject line prominently centered at the top of the page. The Presto account manager can set the style for all printouts, such as Birthday or Wedding. Or anyone sending email to a Presto user can go to Presto.com to select an email style. Each style has a designated code that, when used in the subject line, produces the printed template for the receiver. We tried this by labeling a subject line as “Hi Walt [Presto YellowWave]” and the printout had a pale yellow design on its top and right edges.

The printer itself is handsome with a shiny white patina and the cartridge and loaded paper hidden from view. It has just three buttons: stop, volume up and volume down; the notification chimes can be adjusted to one of six noise levels. Holding stop while pressing the volume up button twice forces the printer to dial in and check for mail, a handy feature if you can’t wait to receive something.

The printer and its ink cartridges can be ordered through the Presto.com site. They cost $25 for a cartridge that will print about 330 pages and $35 for a 580-page cartridge. The printer’s ink level can be monitored from the Web site, letting the account manager order more ink when necessary.

The Presto service and its accompanying H-P Printing Mailbox offer a simple and relatively affordable way for friends and family to feel included in the otherwise intimidating environment of email. We wish Presto offered a way for recipients to respond, but this service might be just enough for its target audience.

Email: MossbergSolution@wsj.com