Dave Winer released a free program for the Mac called Flickrfan that has ignited a discussion about the different ways to get your web based photos onto a computer or HD television.

Dave’s application only works with Mac and only pulls photos from Flickr. And while I have a Flickr account I don’t own a Mac so I can’t use the app. I’m not fretting though because I’ve found other ways to grab photos from the web for viewing on my computer and HDTV.

First off there’s Slickr. I first saw the link to this in Matthew Ingram’s post about Dave’s application. I’ve downloaded and configured it on my laptop. The app is pretty simple and works well. The app pulls photos from Flickr and displays them as a screensaver. You can choose from all public photos, a specific user, specific sets or even specific tags. You need a Flickr API key for Slickr to work properly. The key is very simple to get once you have a Flickr account.

Getting the Slickr screensaver to the HDTV is a little trickier. Then again, it’s just as tricky with Dave’s app. You need to connect your computer to the HDTV via a cable. My computer has an s-video port so that’s the way I would do it if I wanted to show my Flickr sets on the television. I believe that Dave is connecting via his MacMini.

I’ve been using another method to get my photos sets onto my Samsung LCD television. I have select image folders on my laptop set up to automatically sync photos to my iPod Touch. A few weeks ago I purchased a dock and component cable that allow me to dock the iPod and play videos and photo slideshows from my iPod on my television. This is a very simple and convenient way to make this happen. It’s also very cost effective as I don’t need to spend an extra $300 on an Apple TV unit.

Another bonus of the iPod Touch interface is the WiFi feature that allows me to view YouTube videos on my television set. I don’t do it often but it’s nice to have the option.

When I was watching YouTube on my TV via the iPod I got excited because I started to imagine how easier integration of the iPod with the web and my TV will become once Apple releases their SDK for the iPod Touch. This will allow developers to create their own applications for the iPod Touch. It seems to me that a photo slideshow app would make perfect sense.

I would love to be able to connect my iPod to the dock, then access Flickr via an application that uses the iPod’s WiFi to capture photos straight from my Flickr account. It seems to me that this is a very logical next step for Dave’s application. If he creates an iPod version of Flickrfan I will definitely download it.

Ultimately I would like to see these HDTV’s have their own WiFi access and operating systems. Why the heck not? How hard could it be for Apple to team up with a television maker like Samsung to create an LCD TV that has a built in hard drive and version of the Leopard OS? Imagine no extra box to buy. You could rent or buy a film from iTunes straight off the TV and be watching it within minutes. And you’d have a digital video and photo library right there on the the TV. Nice!