Register for FREE at Snapfish, then access the Snapfish Partner Deals page.  The first coupon is for $1.00 Off a 64-Count Crayola Crayons and a BONUS offer of 48 hours of FREE printing on the new Lights, Camera, Color! web site where you can turn photos into coloring pages.  The Crayola coupon is valid through 12/31/09.   The second coupon is for 60% off  a framing order at Michael’s and is valid through 12/29/09.

Also, you will earn 20 FREE 4×6 prints when you complete your first photo upload at Snapfish!

Memories are one of the best gifts you can give someone.  Since Christmas is one week away I thought this favorite site of mine would be a good one to share for all you last minute shoppers.  Snapfish.com is an online digital photo site that allows you to store, print, order, and share your pictures. The first step is to set up an account and upload your pictures. Once you have created your account, you and your friends can link your accounts to exchange photos. You can also use Snapfish to keep up with your printing and have your prints shipped to you or sent to your local store that supports photo printing to pick up.

Although the aspects above make organizing and sharing photos easier, the best part is the personalized gifts you can make with Snapfish.  Snapfish has over 100 gifts that you can personalize and make your own. A few of the gifts that stood out to me were the calendar that someone could enjoy all year long, the charm bracelet with photos in the charms that would last a lifetime, and the traditional coffee mug to brighten anyone’s  morning.  To start your Snapfish account or to buy a memorable gift for a loved one go to www.snapfish.com and start your digital photo collection now!

Company: snapfish.com

Updated On: 2009.12.02

20% Off Site Wide + 50 FREE Prints for New Customers! Only at snapfish.com!
Use coupon code: HOLIDAY09
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through 12/31/09

50 FREE Prints + 30% Off Gifts Under $20!snapfish.com
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Free Shipping on Orders Over $30 + 50 FREE Prints for New Customers!snapfish.com
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Holiday Calendar Crazy! 30% Off Calendars!snapfish.com
Use coupon code: 30CAL2009
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25% Off Photo Cards!snapfish.com
Use coupon code: 25CARD2009
Valid from 10/01/09
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FREE Gift of the Day by hp snapfish!
No coupon code required
Valid from 10/01/09
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If you want some discount, check snapfish promotional codes.

Also check: snapfish reviews

Flickr (a Yahoo product) , Picasa (a Google product), Shutterfly, Snapfish, and Photobucket  are all photo (and video) sharing sites.  And with the holidays coming up, what better time to learn to share photos online – and for free?!

Common Craft has a great video that introduces the features common to most of the services:

With these services, you can spend hours and hours looking at photos of every possible person, place, and thing you can imagine.

To complete this Thing, you have a couple of options.

Choice 1: Go to one of these sites and explore.  Warm up by choose a favorite subject to search about (for example, Muppets, books, babies, etc.).  Now get down to work by thinking about using such a site for the library. Many libraries have Photo Sharing accounts and regularly upload photos of events held at their libraries. Here is an (old but viable) link to several libraries that are using Flickr.  Make sure to comment on a few in your blog: which ones do a good job and what can be done to improve the others?

OR (More challenging, but more fun!)

Choice 2: Create an account with one of these sites. (If you have a Google account, you’re well on the way to having a Picasa account.  If you have a Yahoo account, then you already have a Flickr account.) Sign in and upload some images to your account. How do you do this? You’ll want to take some pictures with a digital camera and put them on your computer. Then once you sign in to the Photo Sharing site, click on the link to “Upload photos” and the site will guide you through. After you’ve uploaded some photos, go back to your blog and write about your experience. Provide a link to your photostream.

OR (for the experienced users)

Challenge: Those of you familiar with photo sharing sites and blogs may be interested in using the photos you have gathered and placed on your photo sharing site appear on your blog! Blog entries that include photographs often grab readers attention more than unaccompanied text. Or go wild and try making a video to upload to Flickr to embed in your blog entry. Using the free Movie Maker download you can turn photos and video clips into a custom video that even gives you the option of putting in background music. Now that would get the attention of your readers! Need inspiration… read about one librarian’s success story with videos in the library here.

So what happens when you want to get into blogging but don’t have enough time?  This blog for one.

Why do we blog?

Right now, a couple of reasons:  sharing our story as we navigate the digital age and experimenting with the idea of a co-authored blog.

Who are we?

Andy - About to be dad, social media dabler and lover of all things tech.  I know my way around a unix box, but these days I only code for the occasional prototype or personal project.  Where I focus my efforts is more on making technology useful for myself, family and friends.  For some folks it works, others couldn’t be bothered.  Hopefully, we’ll put a few more in the first category with this blog.

• Photos – smugmug primary, flickr & picasa secondary
• Videos – youtube, vimeo and posterous (does that count)
• Music – amazon.com for a straight digial copy or I rip the physical CD using EAC
• What I’m trying – posterous, tumblr, friendfeed, openid, wordpress, pbworks, animoto, prezi

Todd – Dad and husband who tries every new web 2.0 thing that comes out. Does not know how to separate personal and professional. Finally saw a Kindle in church and felt pretty good about. Seeking ways to integrate Tim Tebow and social media more efficiently. Not sure what LinkedIN  is waiting for…just clone Facebook already. Is this thing on?

• Photos - Total flickr whore, but will double post to Facebook on occasion
• Videos - YouTube, KickYouTube, Vimeo, and Posterous
• Music - Have tried all the streaming sites and have dropped them all. Amazon.com or CD unless I can’t get the song. Then, KickYouTube. Then iTunes.
• What I’m trying – Whatever Andy said
• Big Idea – Site that allows you to record and upload audio recordings of well-known book passages and movie lines. These recordings are podcasted out and are rated and categorized. There is also functionality to piece them together to assemble entire works. Considering adding video.

Adam – Husband and new Dad. Technology enthusiast, but a new commer for embracing social media (i.e. facebook). Looking for ways that technology can make my life more efficient. Still trying to trying to figure out if social media is deserving of all of the hype.

• Photos - Facebook, Flickr
• Videos - YouTube
• Music - iTunes, Amazon, Pandora, Simply Media
• What I’m trying – n/a

Jenni -  Mom of 2, looking for ways to utilize technology to help bridge the personal gap between work and life balance.  Utilize facebook mostly as a social media tool.  Interested in learning about other tools.

• Photos - facebook, snapfish occasionally,
• Videos - youtube
• Music – iTunes and Amazon
• What I’m trying – n/a

What’s Next?

Here’s a few ideas we’re tossing around.  Stay tuned…

• Should book publishing companies follow DVDs and start including a digital copy with a purchased print copy of a book?
• One stop guide for properly monitoring your child’s mobile and online interactions
• How to set up a kid-safe home network
• How to administer digital punishments
• How to properly use robots as baby sitters
• Time savers/wasters
• Putting new ideas and tools to work for your family
• Parenting in the digital age.  Appropriate age to introduce children to various types of technolodgy.  Balancing activity with technology.
• Can you monitor your kid’s digital activity too much?
• Social Etiquette and Technology
• How to teach adults how to edit basic things (like wikis)
• Capturing, sharing, and storing digital memories of your family: A Guided Tour
  • Digital Scrapbooking

Flickr et SnapFish m’offrent l’occasion de pousser une petite gueulante en ce dimanche soir…

J’aime bien Flickr.

J’y ai même un compte Pro, c’est tout dire.

Mais il faudrait voir à ne pas prendre les gens pour des cons…

Tirage photos

Je me suis dit, il y a de cela une quinzaine de minutes, que je me ferais bien quelques tirages photos.

Ça tombe bien, Flickr a un partenaire de “confiance” pour ce travail : SnapFish, un site de Hewlett-Packard.

Tout devrait bien se passer, ça devrait être sérieux !

Premier problème : là où ça m’énerve

Le principe est simple, dans la rubrique “Organiser” sous Flickr, il y a désormais un nouvel onglet “Imprimer et créer” qui permet de sélectionner ses photos dans ses albums Flickr et de commander un tirage.

J’ai donc sélectionné un peu plus d’une centaine de photos, sélectionné mon format (20×25) et cliquer comme il faut… pour me faire dire par Flickr que SnapFish utilisait mal sa clé API.

Ça commence bien, il a fallu que je me retape toute ma sélection…

Deuxième problème : là où ça me gonfle sévère

Sous Flickr, une fois la sélection de photos faite, je clique sur “Tirage” pour voir apparaître la fenêtre ci-dessous :

Interface de sélection

En plus gros, ça donne ça :

Sélection du format et du tarif

Chouette, me dis-je, des tirages 20×25 à 0,18 € ! Je vais pouvoir me faire plein de grandes photos !

Here we go !

Sauf que… une fois arrivé sur le site de SnapFish, le téléchargement des photos terminé apparaît la page permettant de choisir les formats des photos.

Quoi ? Mais j’ai déjà choisi mon format ?

Hein ? Mais il est où le 20×25 ?

Arrivée sur le site de SnapFish

Je résume :

• Flickr annonce un format SnapFish 20×25 à 0,18 € que SnapFish, visiblement, ne connaît pas…
• SnapFish affiche un format 13×18 à 0,18 € alors que Flickr l’annonçait à 0,12 €,
• SnapFish affiche un format 20×30 à 0,99 € alors que Flickr l’annonçait à 0,89 €.

Troisième problème : la cerise sur le gâteau

Pour couronner le tout, SnapFish veut faire grand prince et offre 20 tirages 10×15 gratuits.

Sauf qu’il prend au hasard des photos du lot et qu’il les passe directement en 10×15, sans demander l’avis de quiconque, c’est plus marrant…

Eh ! Ducon SnapFish (pardon, je m’emporte) ! Si je les ai demandées en 20×25 à l’origine, c’est pas pour les avoir deux fois plus petites, même gratuites !

Conclusion

Il va falloir qu’ils revoient leur copie. Flickr ou SnapFish, peu importe le fautif, c’est leur tambouille, ça n’a pas à devenir la mienne.

En tout cas, je ne suis pas prêt de commander des tirages chez SnapFish.

Tiens, je vais en rajouter une pour la route : ces ploucs gentils commerçants (décidément…) ne connaissent même pas PayPal. Une raison de plus de ne pas commander chez eux car je n’ai franchement pas envie de leur confier des informations de ce genre.

For most of us, the holiday season means warm and fuzzy talk of food and yummy recipes. Sadly, it also reminds us of the millions of Americans who don’t have enough of it.

Just last week, the USDA reported that 14.6 percent of American households were deemed “food insecure” during 2008 — a staggering number from where I sit.  Factor in a bad economy that has led to depleted shelves in food bank, and what we have is a tragic situation that extends far after the holidays are over.

To help as much as one celebrity can, food personality Rachael Ray has taken on a special Thanksgiving project to help the 2,000 residents of Wilmington, OH, a community devastated by the economic downturn, due mainly to the shuttering of a local DHL facility.

Not only is Ray (and other organizations) keeping the shelves of Wilmington’s food bank filled for a year, she and a gaggle of volunteers are also throwing a Thanksgiving feast to be documented in a special television presentation airing Wednesday, Nov. 25 during The Rachael Ray Show.  (See the trailer: http://rachaelrayshow.com/show/segments/view/save-date/)

To support Ray’s cause in Wilmington (and other food banks nationally), photo sharing service Snapfish is offering a half-off deal on its online photo books. For every photobook purchased between Nov. 25 and Dec. 2, 2009, Snapfish will donate $1 to local food banks nationwide. Go to http://opti.snapfish.com/db/USA/RachaelRay/offer.html to create a photobook, and use promo code (RRBOOK) for the discount.

So, if you’re going to take all those family photos at Thanksgiving like you always do, help out a worthy cause in the process.

I start buying for Christmas in January. This is usually great, but when the calendar hits December and I’m not totally done with shopping- I start to panic. The most typical “hard to buy for” people are my dads, but sometimes there’s just someone who is hard to buy for. I’m going to try to do a little section periodically for the next month about “Christmas gifts for the hard to buy for”!

First idea is a photo book! They are perfect for anyone! I usually buy at least 20 books a year for various gifting reasons. There are lots of options:

• For kids- “All About Me”, “Alphabet Book”, “My Favorite Things”. For Bubba’s birthday, I made him a “Lego Book” of all kinds of Lego creations he had made this past year. I also make both of my kids an “All About Me” book each year.
  

• For family- My grandparents have everything they could ever need and more plus, the have very little room for more pictures. The perfect solution is a photo book! I put pictures from the previous year in a photo book for them. They love it because it’s portable (so they can show it off easier!) and it doesn’t take up a lot of room.
  

• For friends- It’s a great idea for friends to commemorate a special event- whether that’s a birthday, anniversary, graduation, party, girl’s night, or just a get-together!

• For anyone- you can take a series of pictures and put them together into a book! I have made a book with interesting pictures of clouds & landscapes. I also have some pictures of trees that I would like to make into a book for someone. Maybe I should get to work on that soon.

You can get photo books from many places: Shutterfly, Snapfish, Winkflash, PhotoWorks, even Walmart and Walgreens.

Keep checking back before Christmas & I’ll give you more ideas!

This is great for those scrapbookers out there, folks wanting photos to stick in holiday cards, or printing all of your summer vacation pics!

This just arrived in my inbox from Snapfish.com:

For one day only, get 100 FREE 4″ x 6″ mail-order prints with any purchase of $5 or more. It’s that easy. Just use coupon code FREE5 by midnight tonight.

Got it folks? Go order them now!

Expires: Midnight tonight, 11/17/09

My first impression of Snapfish Photo Printing service from HP is that of price. 9 per 4R print.
That is a pretty cheap deal if you ask me! Any hidden costs? If you order less than certain quantity, they will charge delivery, else it is free. No pick up location, everything via post. If you can wait for at least a week, it is fine for you. Else do head down to your local photo shop for immediate printout. The local store charges like 40c per 4R, with that I can print like 6×4R from Snapfish! So price wise, Snapfish is a good deal. Surely the price sounds too good to be true! How about the quality of the print out? First impression? Terrible. I mean it’s difficult to reproduce the “sucky” portion on screen, but if you see it with your own eyes, the degraded quality of print is terrible. It looks like a terrible dither effect. It is not like the photo is not viewable, but when you start to have a little closer look, and it does not take too hard to look, you can see the dithering effect is of poor quality. It’s quite shocking if you ask me, as I have never seen such an effect before from a computer print out other than my 1996 HP 500 Grey Scale Photo Printout. Not as bad as that, but it’s close.

I decided to take a printout from my Laser Selphy Printer and compare them side by side to compare the differences.

#1 The original Photo.

#2 Scanned Photo of Snapfish.
It actually looks good on screen if you ask me. Looks like there is some auto adjustments done from Snapfish.

Looks like the contrast has been rammed up, brightness level increased, color more saturated.

#3 Compare the Snapfish and the Selphy photo printout
The coarser look is of the snapfish, while the finer print is of Selphy.

#4 Almost full photo comparison.
The brighter photo is of the Snapfish. Note the hair color top is blue in color.

#5 Selphy Printout, very dark.

#6 Snapfish Printout

Final Verdict, will I use Snapfish services? I’d probably would. As mentioned earlier, the photo printout is not exactly not useable. The quality is bearable. Not the best definitely, but good enough if you do not take a close look. I have not ordered larger prints, but with such quality, I’d stick to smaller prints until they prove to be better.

Join Snapfish and get 50 FREE 4″ x 6″ prints plus a FREE 12″ x 18″ collage poster.  This offer is valid for new customers only and for mail-order only.  All shipping and handling and tax charges apply.  Offer for US customers only.

Thanks, For the Mommas.

Today’s Featured Cause:
Calvary Chapel Jurupa Valley – Located in Riverside County, where Christians come to study the word of God.

Save yourself some money with coupon codes and and support Calvary Chapel Jurupa Valley by shopping with Donation Street. Today’s top money saving offers:

Ashford- Save $50 on orders over $500.
Personal Creations- Take 35% off any order!

SnapFish- 20% Off SITE WIDE!
Steve Madden- 15% Off Entire Order of $100 or More Plus Free Shipping
Uniform City- Now get $1.99 shipping on ALL orders
Horizon Fitness- Save $200 plus FREE Shipping on Horizon Fitness WT751 Treadmill – Ideal for Beginners
Wrangler- Free George Strait CD With Orders Over $100
Apple Bottoms by Nelly- Take $25 Off All Orders Over $95. *applies to full price items only.

Join Snapfish and get 50 FREE 4″ x 6″ prints plus a FREE 8″ x 10″ photo puzzle.  This offer is valid for new customers only and for mail-order only.  The shipping free is $5.99.
Thanks, For the Mommas. 

Each of these photo websites have their pros and cons. We can’t decide which we like better. Snapfish has the best quality, but it is quite pricey in terms of shipping and handling fees. If you order from Snapfish, get the prepaid plan. Shutterfly seems to have the most deals (which we totally take advantage of), and we get prints free from collecting points from Pampers. Winkflash is the cheapest and has quick delivery (maybe it’s because they’re shipping from San Leandro), but the quality of the photo paper is poor.

Check out more Sites We Love!

With the economy the way it is today, more and more of us have found that traveling this year might be harder than originally expected. Well fear no longer, Walt Disney is here to save the day with cheap vacations for the budget-conscious traveler. This Florida family vacation destination has many vacation deals as well as added attractions that are opening this year.

New attractions such as Stitch’s SuperSonic Celebration, Hall of Presidents and Move It, Shake It, and Celebrate it, all located in the Magic Kingdom, are sure to excite young and old, and save money. Not only is Disney World adding more attractions, but they are also offering a number of deals valid only until January 1, 2010.

A favorite is the Magic Your Way package that includes accommodations at a Disney resort, a 30-minute arcade game card, Disney’s PhotoPass, Planet Hollywood $15 gift certificate and much more. To see what else this package has to offer, visit www.mousesavers.com/myw2009.html.

If you need a rental car for your family vacation, be sure to check out the great SUV rental deals Budget has to offer at the Orlando Airport. And for travelers who like freebies, visit Budget’s Snapfish promotion. You can get 50 free 4”x 6” prints through Snapfish just for pre-paying your car rental. The best part is that pre-paid rates are discounted, too!

Yes, this is my Nursery mattress cover 19 years ago, and I was amazed that my mother still kept it and did not throw away.
I’ve no recollection of the mattress cover but I couldn’t imagine I was so small back then.
Haha, this is certainly a treasure.
BTW, my decal has increased after my Boston trip, if you observed the background of the photo. I’m already contemplating to tear down my posters and replace with decal. Not a bad idea eh?

Cute, I love it!
The first Japanese movie I fell in love was My Neighbor Totoro.
Now I’ve to think where to hang Totoro.

My first batch of free photo prints from HP Snapfish.
The photo quality is really good, moreover, I only paid for postage costs(19 cents I think) so it’s really worth it.
Go get a Snapfish account now!

Oh and my parcel from Japan is HERE!
He’s here! He’s here! He’s here! And so cute!
*dances* Now I’ve four. Slap me.

Use the code: SLIMSHIP to get free standard shipping on all cards until Oct. 31st.

Click HERE to go to Snapfish now!

Well, the adoption profile books are here and they are do look mighty purdy.  They’re not as thick as I imagined, but all the pages are there so that’s cool.  All in all, a very easy process from initial upload to final delivery.  So here’s a shoutout and thanks to the folks at Snapfish.  They just earned our holiday card business this year.

So yeah, I’m pretty much as lazy as it gets when it comes to updating this thing.  And it’s certainly not as if nothing has been going on lately.  I’ll start off with the most recent (and important stuff) – the profile is DONE.  As in complete.  Finished.  We buckled down early last week and spent a few evenings laying it out.  First we tried to use Kodak’s online photo book application, but that turned out to be pretty user un-friendly and unreliable.  We were willing to stick it out, but when we tried to log on and finish the book the site wasn’t even up.

So we made the switch to Snapfish and things got a lot easier from there.  We finished around Tuesday or Wednesday and gave our case worker a call the next day, as she had told us she’d stop by to give it a once-over before we sent it to be printed.  She loved the pictures we chose and the layout, and the only major change she suggested was to not put the birth mother letter up front.  This wasn’t a surprise, as it is pretty long.  So what going to do instead is to glue a fancy envelope on the inside back cover and stick the printed letter in there.  We agreed that this is a nice touch, and keeps anyone reading the book for the first time from getting bored.

So with that done, we made the changes Friday night and submitted our order.  We’re getting three copies – one for the agency, one for us, and one of the birth family we eventually get matched with.  It’s all classy and leather-bound, which will hopefully allow our profile to stand out from the others.  They’re scheduled to arrive sometime this week, so hopefully they’ll be as nice as we imagine.

Once we get them we will just put the letters in and hand two copies over to the agency.  And then…the waiting begins!

So yeah, other stuff.  We are still going to our support group, not that you’d know it from reading this.  The most eventful thing to report from the past few sessions is that one of the couples announced in September that they are now pregnant.  Needless to say that was kind of weird.  I’m certainly very happy for them, as they’ve been through years of infertility hell and it sounds like they had an even rougher time than we did.  We were sent away from that session and asked to ponder how we want to proceed as a group.  We were told that if anyone felt uncomfortable having the other couple continue with us, then they would be asked to leave.

We talked about it on the way home, and my first instinct was that I didn’t want them in them in the group anymore.  I know they said they would like to stay, but it’s just too awkward for me.  It’s definitely nothing personal as I do like them and I’m happy for their good fortune but it is an adoption support group and, well, they’re not adopting anymore.  For at least those few hours a month, I need that time to spend with people who are in the same boat I am.  It would just be a reminder of past disappointments to have a pregnant couple sitting in the same room while the rest of us talk about profiles, matches, adoption fears, etc.

When we reconvened last week it seemed as if some others in the group felt the same way as I do, although I don’t know if anyone else took the step of writing to the group coordinator.  I suppose it doesn’t really matter.  We had a substitute coordinator for the week, and she offered apologies on behalf of the counseling center for springing the pregnancy on the group.  I wasn’t really looking for an apology, and I certainly didn’t feel wronged or anything like that.  Everyone did the best they could with an unexpected situation, and now we move on.

And lastly, we’re going to a baby care class this Saturday.  I know that throwing a diaper on a doll is nothing like putting one on a real baby (as a newly adoptive mother has recently confirmed for us), but you gotta start somewhere, right?

Apologies to all my many (!) loyal readers for something of a lag after posting with great regularity.  Unfortunately, some of VERY ordinary parts of my life, like work and uni, get in the way of this, any many other, enjoyable pastimes.

I have also be wrestling with some of the technicalities of blogging.  For examples, the three photos I have posted so far seem to have consumed all my storage, so I am trying to figure out how to post photos from my Snapfish account to my WordPress blog.

However, I do promise many more exciting posts are to come, so stay tuned!

Send a free card for breast cancer awareness this month through Snapfish.com. Use the code: SHARETOCARE at checkout until Oct. 31st!

You can also purchase specific “pink” items and 30% off proceeds will go to BreastCancer.org!