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Facebook's 'Scrapbook' puts all of those baby photos in one place
There are way too many baby pictures on Facebook. And they need to be organized. Starting today, the network rolled out an optional "Scrapbook" feature that lets parents sort through the digital heap of their children's photos. On the site, under the Family & Relationships tab, a party-hat-wearing blue elephant gives you the option to add your child's (or pet's) name to start the album. The tool then automatically places photos tagged with that name in one place. According to the site, the scrapbook "grows with your child" so it will continue to gather your photos as long as you're feeding it.
Beautifully chronicle and share your life with StoryPress
On the surface, StoryPress looks like any other photo journal app, but its unique mix of audio, visual and written storytelling is far more captivating. The oral traditions of storytelling are a lost art. These days, we tell all of our stories on social media, pictures and texts. While I'd rather converse on Twitter than anywhere else, something is always lost in translation when you can't hear someone's intonation. You miss out on some of the "heart" of the story. That's where StoryPress comes in. It blends the best of both worlds. It captures the spirit of oral storytelling and puts it in a digital package. Available for the iPad, iPhone and also on the web, the app lets you share every aspect of your life, not just what's happening right now. Reflect on your childhood or college years. Chronicle parenthood, travels or holidays. Recount milestones and funny moments. Use the app as a diary, so that you never forget those small, but important, moments. To help you tell your stories, there are templates called story guides. Each story guide prompts you with a different set of questions. Every question represents a chapter in your story. Some of these questions can get pretty personal. The "living bio" template asks you about your relationships with your immediate and extended families. How close are you? Do you like each other? Are holidays fraught with fighting? Okay, it may not ask that last question, but you get the idea. There are also questions about your spiritual beliefs and personal philosophies. This might seem like a turn off, but it's the point of the app. It wants to create a full picture of who you are and how you've lived your life. If you're using it to catalog deeply personal events, StoryPress gives you new way to get introspective and reflect on your life. You don't have to get personal. Record significant or funny moments, like marathons, weddings or simple get-togethers. To get started, select a story guide topic. Tag each chapter with "who," "where" and "when." Then, upload a photo or video. Next, click the microphone button and start telling your tale. When you are done answering one question, swipe to the left to reveal the next one. You do not have to answer every question in a story guide. It's up to you how much information you want to share. If you don't find any of the guides relevant or helpful, you have the option to create a custom story. While you don't make typical status updates, StoryPress is a social media app. You follow people just as you do on any other network. However, there is a "private" option so that you don't have to share every story with your followers. If you did want to give a Twitter or Facebook-like update, you'd have to create a new chapter and record your status. Not everyone is going to like this app. Recording yourself telling a story can be awkward for a lot of people, myself included. Despite that fact, I really love StoryPress. By verbally telling your story, you add layers of context to key events and memories. If you want a fun, beautiful and unique way to chronicle your life, you need to give StoryPress a try.
Editorial: Facebook's my digital scrapbook first, social network second
I never wanted to join Facebook. I never wanted to join anything online, really. I was coerced into creating a Xanga at some point, and eventually -- when Facebook opened up to NC State email addresses -- I begrudgingly created an account there, too. I had a "thing" about opening my life up to the internet. I knew already that prospective employers would inevitably go digging through shots of me celebrating at an NCSU basketball game and spike my resume in the trash can beside his or her UNC degree. More than anything, though, I just didn't care what anyone else was doing. I kept a handful of comrades close to my chest, and everyone else was a mere acquaintance. At the time, I blamed it on the 21 hours of courses I was taking entirely on Tuesdays and Thursdays -- who has time for online networking when you're in an educational torture chamber? -- but now I realize the truth: I never wanted Facebook to be a social network.
Daily Mac App: iClip
I missed out on iClip during its initial heyday a few years ago, so I was pleased to see it make a comeback. The OS X utility keeps a copy of almost anything that can be sent to the clipboard. It'll also organize those into scrapbooks or however you want. iClip sits off to the right side of the screen and acts like OS X's dock. It's normally hidden by default, and the preference options are robust and allows you to customize how big the iClip dock is and where on the screen it is. If you have a second display hooked up, you also can set iClip up to be used just on the main display. When you copy an item to the clipboard, it immediately gets sent to iClip. I had a little trouble distinguishing among the different clips at first. Right clicking an older clip will send it back to either the program you have active or the clipboard so it can be used immediately. Double-clicking on saved URLs automatically takes you back into Safari. If you select an item and click the arrows next to the individual bubble in iClip, the down arrow will copy it to iClip and the up arrow will send it to the program you're working in. With text, you have the ability to open the clip and edit it as well. You can create a text clip from scratch in this manner as well. You're also supposed to be able to drag and drop clips from one bin to another, but I wasn't able to do that, and that's pretty frustrating. A program such as iClip can be very useful, and I see myself using it in my design work to keep basic elements at my fingers that aren't always stored in an InDesign library. Some might balk at the price. It runs US$9.99 as an introductory price, and those who are using older versions of iClip will have to pay to upgrade. I think it should probably stay around this price level, if not go down a couple dollars to compete with other programs such as Clipboard History, which is $4.99.
The Road to Mordor: Middle-earth scrapbook
Even for a four-year-old MMO, Lord of the Rings Online is singled out as one of the most visually lush titles on the market. From its sweeping vistas to its intricate ruins, LotRO is a screencapper's dream. I know I'm not alone in wearing out my screenshot button, and whenever I play, I'm constantly on the lookout for a good photo-op in the middle of saving the world. Unlike some MMOs, LotRO skews more to the "realistic" side of the visual spectrum without descending into the creepy, plasticy, uncanny valley that I've seen elsewhere. Instead, the art team created a place with solemn character, exuberant life, dreadful decay and rich history. Long after I grow bored of the game's mechanics, I suspect that I'll still be very much in love with its looks. Guess I'm shallow that way! So today, I'm going to present to you 37 of my favorite screenshots that I've taken over the past year in the game. Some are chosen for their significance; some, for their details. But most were picked simply because I thought they looked rad. Join me on a scrapbooking journey through the world -- and when you're done, hit the jump to read my commentary notes for each (many pardons for the awkward setup, but we're having issues with the galleries showing captions)! %Gallery-121186%
GayGamer's E3 scrapbook series
The boys over at GayGamer.net put together a video scrapbook of serious questions they asked members of the gaming press during E3. The series features folks from several of your favorite gaming blogs, sites and magazines. There's no embed code and we referenced a couple of these during the week, but here they all are in one neat, perfectly trimmed, little package with a link to each episode: Part 1: Who won the E3 press conference war? Part 2: What character or franchise do you hope you never have to see again? Part 3: E3, GDC or Pax? Part 4: Would you rather sleep with Marcus Fenix or have your Gamerscore reset to zero? Part 5: Best game of the show? Part 6: Worst game of the show? Part 7: What is your E3 pet peeve? Part 8: Do you manscape? GG tells us they'll be doing another video scrapbook at PAX in a couple weeks and asking the same type of hard-hitting introspective questions of random attendees. We definitely had fun with this and hope to see them do it again.
World of WarCrafts: Conjured photo frame
Every Thursday, Shelbi Roach of The Bronze Kettle guides you in creating WoW-inspired crafts using real world mats with World of WarCrafts. Mages deserve some love. Providing hundreds of biscuits and polymorphing adds for your raid is sure to take a toll on even the hardiest of magi. Not to mention removing curses, stealing buffs, and making everyone temporarily smarter. Oh yeah, there's that damage dealing thing they do too.So take some time to express some gratitude for your under-appreciated arcane ally by conjuring up this custom photo frame. Here is what you will need: Scrapbook Frame Acrylic Paint Soft Glitter Paint Scrapbook Paper Fine Glitter Gems (also used in the Voidwalker Doorknob Hanger) Mod Podge Wooden Letters Wooden Sheep Shape Ribbon Scissors Xacto Knife Paper Cutter Pencil Toothpicks Paintbrushes Click on the images below to view a gallery of step-by-step instructions. %Gallery-27243%
iScrapbook 1.0 ships
Last month we noted the upcoming release of iScrapbook from Chronos; they promised a release in April and barely made it under the wire. iScrapbook is basically a page layout application focused on the needs of "digital scrapbookers." Its features include a variety of photo frames and masks, 40,000+ photos/clipart, a selection of background papers, typography tools and integration with iPhoto.The final price has been set at $49.99 and a demo is available.
iScrapbook Pre-order
Some of the women-folk in my family are very much into scrapbooking, and once they get going it's amazing how much they can do. And indeed if you go to a crafts store like Michael's or Hobby Lobby you'll find an enormous selection of scrapbooking supplies. Now, of course, the first time I saw this my first reaction was: you should be doing this on a Mac. After all, it seems like adding masks and various designs to pictures is exactly what page layout programs were designed to do. Unfortunately, most page layout programs are expensive and more complicated than necessary, especially for somebody who just wants to have fun scrapbooking rather than learning Quark, etc. So I'm interested to see that Chronos (of SOHO notes fame) has pre-annouced iScrapbook, a scrapbooking program that integrates a iPhoto browser with a variety of photo masks, "Smart-Shapes," "Special-Effects," and more. SOHO is pre-selling iScrapbook for $29.99, 40% off the regular price, but the program won't actually ship until April and disappointingly there isn't even a beta you can download for testing. So this has me wondering, dear TUAW readers, do you have a preferred way of doing electronic scrapbooks? How do you print them out: at home or do you export them to PDF and upload them to a printing service?[Via MacNN]
