Family Matters

Calendar Season Again

moultriecreek — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 13:31:55 +0000

It’s time to start thinking about 2010 calendars! Like many businesses, I see calendars as a promotional tool. The difference is I’m promoting family history. Everybody loves calendars – just look at how much room Barnes & Nobles devotes to them – so take advantage of this obsession to create some very affordable Christmas gifts and promote your ancestry at the same time.

Here are some creative calendar options:

Printed photo calendars. Just about every photo-sharing platform offers some kind of photo calendar where you select from your own photos to build a custom calendar. Check your favorite sites to compare options and costs. Lulu offers 11″ x 17″ calendars starting at $12.50 each with an easy-to-use calendar builder and the ability to add your own family events. Another advantage of Lulu is you can post your calendars in your Lulu “store” and let family come buy their own.
Snapshot calendars. These are snapshot-size (4″ x 6″) calendars – one for each month – that can be printed at any photo-processing location. Add a $1.79 acrylic photo stand and you’ve got an affordable gift for family, friends and co-workers. Mac users will find the delightful Happy New Year! calendar creator very handy for this. Windows users can try Calendar Creator. More adventurous types might start with some of the calendar templates being offered by digital scrapbook designers to build a totally custom image.
Desktop calendars. I talked about creating custom desktop graphics in the November issue of Shades of the Departed Magazine. Include a monthly calendar and you now have 12 opportunities to promote your family history. Again, look to the digital scrapbook designers for calendar overlays to add to your design.
Refrigerator magnets. My favorite French pastry shop puts a yearly calendar on a postcard-size magnet. Using today’s Inkjet magnet sheets, you can create your own. Although an annual calendar won’t give you much room for family history, you can easily find space to promote your blog and possibly attract some new readers.

It’s not too late to create some fun and affordable gifts and do a bit of genea-marketing at the same time. ‘Tis the season!

Shades of the Departed – Pushing the Envelope

moultriecreek — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 09:41:42 +0000

It’s always a delight when a new article from Shades of the Departed arrives in my newsreader. Even if I didn’t have a fixation for old photos, I’d find the articles entertaining and informative. And, to be included in this talented group of addicts as one of the contributors is a very special honor.

While Shades has often pushed the envelope with its content, it is now using technology to create a publication that delivers both substance and style in an elegant package – an electronic magazine. You can enjoy the articles and images in a familiar magazine style with the advantage of things like hyperlinks that work and comments. As Shades matures, additional features will be explored and included to showcase our passion for photographs.

(Click on the arrows in the side margins to turn the pages. For best viewing, visit the November issue page.)

Technology is a tool, but the driving force that makes Shades so fascinating is the people whose talents and efforts make this publication unique. Bringing us all together is the vision of footnoteMaven. How she does it is beyond comprehension, but the results are always impressive. Her managerial skills keep us all on schedule and her social graces bring out our best. She’s a joy to work with and a constant inspiration.

This is just a beginning. There’s a lot more entertainment, information and photographs to come. Stay tuned!

Lulu Adds E-Books

moultriecreek — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 03:55:13 +0000

In addition to publishing printed books in any number of sizes and bindings, Lulu has always included a PDF download option. Now, you can also offer your publications in e-book format which offers both multi-device support (iPhone using Stanza, Sony, PC, Mac and more) and digital rights management (copy protection).

You can still publish electronic documents for free, but if you decide to sell your e-book, Lulu will charge a $1.49 fee to cover their credit card processing and hosting costs and an additional $.99 if you wish to add digital rights management (DRM) to your publication.

Although most family histories include lots of photos, charts, tables and such which don’t adjust well to an EPUB format, this is great news for anyone planning to publish a text-only book.

Surfing the Wave

moultriecreek — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:20:11 +0000

Google Wave is making waves (I couldn’t resist that) in the technology community – with good reason. It’s revolutionizing how we communicate online. One problem. Like many new technologies, it’s difficult to understand the concept. And, until you understand that, it’s even more difficult to learn how it works.

Enter Gina Trapani, the creator of Lifehacker and a driving force in making tech easy to understand. She has written The Complete Guide to Google Wave and it’s awesome. She’s used a wiki format for this guide which I find very interesting. Not only can she use all kinds of media – including some interesting video – but it’s easy to update as the platform evolves.

From what I’ve read so far, Google Wave looks like it will be a great way to collaborate online. Thanks to Gina, I’m looking forward to the day my invitation arrives.

Making Lemonade

moultriecreek — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 22:59:00 +0000

Lately, I’ve been experimenting with some ideas for presenting family stories in a hybrid format – part family history and part scrapbook. While looking for inspiration, I stumbled on DesignerDigitals and Katie Pertiet’s wonderful compositions. Her use of brushes, layer modes and opacity settings – not to mention some of her delicious design elements – helped me turn some worse-for-wear slides into interesting art.

In the example below, the faded image of my father and brother at the bottom of the page is the slide that was in such bad shape. It looks like I “grunged” it, but no, it’s condition was that bad. Instead, I took a lop-sided brush and erased around the edges of the photo then reduced the opacity so it looks like it’s part of the background.

I used a similar technique in the banner to give the low resolution image of the beach houses a bit more importance. By the way, that’s me (left) and my sister enjoying ourselves in front of the camera.

If you’d like to learn more about these techniques, visit DesignerDigitals tutorials section for some great scrapbook training.

Resources:

The shell image in the banner comes from the Beachy Cluster Brushes kit.
Other elements came from the Letterbox Beachcomber Kit.
The frame around the photo is from Katie’s Stacked Vintage Frames.
The font used in the text is the Surfer (of course!) font.

Help Us Help Our Wounded Heroes

moultriecreek — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 11:13:20 +0000

It’s that time again – the annual fundraiser for Project VALOUR-IT to raise money for technology that reconnects wounded warriors with the wider world and supports their recovery. The fundraiser runs from Monday, October 26th, until Veterans Day, November 11th.

Of course, this wouldn’t be a military event if there wasn’t a bit of service rivalry to keep things lively. Each year teams representing each branch compete to see who will raise the most money. I’m supporting the Air Force team.

Project VALOUR-IT provides voice-controlled laptops, Wii gaming systems and handheld GPS systems to connect our wounded heroes with their family and friends and help them recover from their injuries. You can learn more about the program at Soldiers Angels and on Facebook.

Please support our cause. Even the smallest donation helps our wounded heroes.

Dumping Photoshop Elements

moultriecreek — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:18:22 +0000

Ever since I upgraded to Snow Leopard, the latest version of the Mac operating system, Photoshop Elements 6 has been giving me a fit. It’s constantly crashing at the most inconvenient times. Today, I thought I’d try the recently released upgrade to see if it solved these issues. I downloaded the trial and as I’m installing it I notice that it’s adding all kinds of additional applications. At that point I said enough and uninstalled the Photoshop Elements files and all the other Adobe stuff it added.

Fortunately there are some very good alternatives on the Mac side. I’ve pulled out the Pixelmator app I purchased sometime back to take another look at it. It has all the features I want in a graphics program – layers, brushes, filters, etc. – in a much lighter package. I can work with it, my genealogy software and my word processing app at the same time without constantly having to wait for my system to catch up. And, it’s a lot less expensive. The software costs $59 compared to Photoshop Elements’ $99 and to this point each upgrade has been free.

Yes, I am giving up a community of add-ons and support based on the Elements brand and I have some work ahead of me to get to the same comfort level working with Pixelmator. But it’s worth the effort. My irritation with Elements isn’t just this issue, but a number of things building over the years and I’ve finally reached my limit.

If any other Mac users are having problems with Elements and Snow Leopard, I’d like to hear from you. Leave a comment describing your experience.

Something to Celebrate

moultriecreek — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 08:00:23 +0000

On October 22, 2003, I posted the first article to a new blog called Simple Computing. I had been reading other blogs for some time and found them both engaging and informative. The blogs written by our military men and women were most addictive since they described the events in Afghanistan and Iraq from a very personal point of view – without the blinders of agenda or politics.

I don’t even know the name of the person who was my blogging inspiration. To me she was Major Pain, an Army nurse serving at Camp Anaconda. She would send emails home to her brother who posted them to a blog titled “Magic in the Baghdad Cafe”. From the hilarious story about the live turkey received as a gift from Iraqi locals to the emotional Saving Specialist Gray, I was connected to this woman.

Obviously, I had no war experiences to write about, but I did have the presence of mind to start with something I did know a bit about – computers. I had been writing technical articles and howto stuff for some time so I was able to build some blogging experience with something I knew. Later, Simple Computing would morph into Family Matters where the discussion was more focused on the technology of online research and family history.

Today my newsreader delivers the latest from more than 300 blogs covering not only the military, but also news, genealogy, technology, local interests and shopping. I’m actively writing three different blogs and contributing to several more. I’ve made friends from all over the world who inspire and challenge me. It’s still a fascinating and enjoyable pastime and something I hope to continue doing for a long, long time.

To all my blogging friends, thanks for your friendship and your support. You’re why I’m still here.

The Hybrid Family History

moultriecreek — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 09:15:49 +0000

I’ve enjoyed watching the digital scrapbooking community grow and mature and while I have nothing like the talent of today’s page designers, I do find it a compelling way to give focus to the photos, letters and other documents that are part of my family’s history. I’m still a storyteller at heart and lengthy text areas don’t fit well into today’s layout styles.

On the text side . . . I find the formal family history full of fascinating information but presented in such a way that it’s a struggle to read. Don’t get me wrong, I agree that the research details, sources and other supporting documentation are a necessary component of a good family history. There’s just has to be a better way to tell my family’s story that both genealogists and “normal” family members will find interesting.

I’m suggesting a hybrid family history combining the traditional standards with storytelling and scrapbooking elements. Thanks to today’s technology, this is not as difficult as you might think.

The Hybrid Family History details my thoughts on this idea and describes some of the tools needed to create it. Future guides will provide more howto information on each of the technical tasks involved. Any suggestions or ideas for combining the formal with the fun will be most appreciated.

The Hybrid Family History

Found on Scribd

moultriecreek — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 11:57:31 +0000

While wandering around in Scribd this morning, I stumbled upon the Cambridge (Iowa) Historical Association’s newsletter archive. They’re just getting started, but it looks very nice and will soon be a handy resource for members near and far.

I also found a very nice archive for the Redmond (Washington) Historical Society.

Both organizations – and their archives – have been added to the Genealogy Research Resources directory at Diigo.