The burgeoning popularity of online photo-sharing sites has seen the emergence of many successful internet brands in the new generation of web 2.0 sites. Photo sharing sites have flourished as more and more people - both professional and amateur photographers - continue to post their work and invite comments, links and general debate about their photos.

Uploading your photos and sharing them online has a range of benefits. For starters, if it's your child's first birthday party and you're keen to share the photos with family and friends across the world, you'll be able to do so - both simply and affordably - by placing them on an online photo album. Sharing your photos in this way avoids the expense of having to post photos to multiple recipients by mail, and is far more convenient than emailing large photo files that can take a while to download. What's more, using an online photo sharing site can also act as storage space for your photos, so you'll be able to keep them for an indefinite amount of time without cluttering up your computer's hard drive.

If you're a budding professional photographer, placing your photos on an online photo sharing site can be a great way to get yourself noticed by your peers. Many photo sharing websites let users add tags to their photos, so that other members of the photo sharing community will be able to easily find and view photos on similar subjects or from the same geographic location.

Tagging photos that you've uploaded to a photo sharing site means your photos will have much better visibility, and will also be likely to generate more user comments and constructive criticism of your work. Search engine Yahoo!, for instance, have recently started incorporating photos of famous world landmarks into their search results.

Online photo sharing, therefore, has a variety of merits that can be enjoyed by a cross-section of web users. Whether you're a developing photographer keen to share your work with the world, or you simply want to find an easy way for your grandmother to see photos of your new baby, online photo sharing is the answer for you!

PicVix WebSite

I've always loved taking photos, which probably explains why I am obsessed with Flickr! Despite my lack of interaction with other Flickr users, I tend check my photo stream many times a day... there is something strangely addicting about Flickr!

It seems that everybody’s doing some design update these days. First Facebook, then Mashable, and Flickr earlier last month joined the redesign craze.

It seems clear that Flickr wants to promote the use of its social features and the best photos from the community, rather than simply using Flickr as an online photo album. The new design succeeds in promoting new content, whilst allowing to keep track of comments, favourite photos and contacts updates.

But most importantly Flickr is now conversational, which is in my opinion the most exiting change that could happen within the Flickr community...

I got introduced to Share on Ovi earlier this year when I stumbled into the worldwide event, Pangea Day. The event organizers promoted Share on Ovi as the site to share photos and videos.  It's not hard to see why they promoted the site.  Pangea Day was sponsored by Nokia and Share on Ovi is a relatively new service of Nokia. I checked it out a little bit but didn't look into it in details until I videotaped a special event for a friend.  She wanted to share the video with her family so I thought posting the video online in a private space would be the best solution instead of making copies of DVD's.  Since then, I posted other videos and photos onto Share. The great thing about Share is you get unlimited storage and uploads and it supports many file types. The major limitation is a single file must be 100MB or less and video is limited to display 10 minutes (the norm for most video sharing sites, like YouTube).

Earlier this week, I had to put together several postcard designs for another friend to order the cards through 4by6. I was not paying for the postcards so I was not in charge of uploading the files to the site.  However, I needed to provide the postcard files front and back separately in PDF's to my friend. With all the artwork and logos involved, the PDF files ranged from 1MB to almost 2MB each.  Both of our email accounts can handle files of that size but it became too much trouble when I had to send 6 files.  I ended up posting the files to Share in a private channel, gave my friend access and she downloaded the files at her end.  It was a smooth operation in the file sharing point of view.  There were many hiccups going through 4by6's proofing process.  May be I need to upgrade the Adobe software on my computer.

Today, I discovered Share provides embed codes for individual media and Flash type slideshows, tickers and grids. Then I remembered WordPress.com prefers using VodPod to post a variety of Flash media. A combination of Share and Vodpod allows me to display this slideshow of photos I've taken in Hollywood a few months ago:

[vodpod id=Groupvideo.1619758&w=425&h=350&fv=]

And here's the ticker of my public media on Share:

[vodpod id=Groupvideo.1620498&w=425&h=350&fv=]

Q: Isn’t Memeo just another photo sharing website?

A: No. All of those websites let people “share” links to web galleries where people only view photos. But, what about when your mom wants to print the photo or she wants to put it in a digital frame? Or maybe she just wants to have it on her hard drive so she can show it to people? These websites don’t allow you to download the full quality photos and videos that have been posted to your website.

Q: But can’t I just E-mail the photos?

A: Sure, you can, but with E-mail you can only send a few photos at a time. Memeo Share is like E-mail for your photos and videos but better. It removes all the barriers that E-mail presents, and makes it easy to exchange photos by allowing you to identify the photos you want to share, invite people to share them and be done.

Q: Can I share videos using Memeo Share?

A: Yes.

Q: Is there a size limitation for videos?

A: No

Q: What types of files can I share?

A: jpg, jpeg, bmp, gif, png, raw, tiff, mov, avi, wmv, mpg, mpeg, and m4v

Q: My children are on a Little League team, and all of us parents take photos, is there a way for us to all easily exchange them?

A: Memeo Share allows community sharing; once you (or another parent) set up the Sharing Circle™ everyone can add their own photos. Everyone will receive your photos and videos, and you will receive everyone else’s photos and videos. Of course, you have the ability to set filters to decide what you want to receive and what you don’t want to receive.

Q: I have family members that I want to share photos and videos with and I have some friends that I like to share photos with. Is there a way to separate who sees which photos?

A: In a case like this, you can create two Sharing Circles. By default they will be private so even if someone were to search for you in Memeo Share’s online gallery, they wouldn’t be able to view them.

Stick around, later this week I will answer some more questions on how easy it is to share photos with your Sharing Circle, including drag and drop features, tagging and rating content, etc.

- وب‌سایت PixelPipe

Last month our Social Media article focused on how to get the most out of YouTube.com. This month we will focus on how to get the most out of using your own photo galleries and floor plans to drive traffic using Online Photo Management and Sharing Community, such as Yahoo’s Flickr and Google’s Picasa.

Why do you use these online communities to share photos?
It’s all about building interest to drive traffic. You never know where your next lead will come from, so these online communities are a great way to show off your interior designs, architecture, community features, community events, and more – all in an effort to build a rapport with the next future home buyer. Think of online communities as a networking tool, and you will understand why these sites are important in driving traffic and delivering eLeads.

Using these online tools process an extra bonus too - they can help boost your overall SEO, because these sites count as part of your “free” links. And if people actually click on your images (and Flickr now offers video to compete with Google’s YouTube), and go to your site, then your site’s popularity increases increasing your search engine positioning.

Are Photo Sharing Websites hard to use?
Once you set up your free accounts, you just upload your photos through your photo account manager. You can even crop and edit your photos online – no special software needed! Categorize your photos by community or photo type (interior, exterior, community events, etc) and add keyword tags to these photos so your images can come up when someone searches.

5 Specific tips for Photos:

1.      Have good-quality pictures.

2.      Title the image appropriately using a one to two keywords.

3.      Add a description for the photo or write an article to go with the image.

4.      Always tag your images with keywords. Be specific, and add as many tags as appropriate, using optimal terms as phrases. Don't overdo the number of same keywords.

5.      Make photos publicly viewable - sharing pictures with news organizations, for example, can help bring valuable “free” inbound links to your site.

How much does this cost?
Here’s the best part – it’s free! It does take time to do this though…and it can be addictive! But adding something new each week is a better strategy instead of uploading everything you have all at once.

What are these free photo sharing web addresses?
Flickr.com. Picasa.com, snapfish.com, webshots.com, shutterfly.com, and photobucket.com are among the most popular.

Want more tips & tricks for maximizing your online photo sharing communities? Email me at debbie@creatingwow.com or call 321-285-1660x 4 for more help or to hire Meredith Communications to produce these videos or uploads for you. See you next month for more social media optimization tips!

Hospital Patients' Photos Posted On MySpace

The photo I've chosen to blog about this phot of an old library in Utrecht, Netherlands.  The light and use of a fish eye lens make the photo really intriguing.  I'm also drawn to it because I travelled to the Netherlands my senior year of college to study social policy.  It was an amazing trip to open up my eyes to the way the Netherlands is so very different from America.  They treat social problems as a syptom of larger issues instead of trying to stop them without first stemming the causes.  Another thing this great photo tells me is that this library was one of the places in Utrecht to escape the heavy bombings during World War II.   Utrecht was ravaged during the war and many of the buildings are very contemporary because of this. 

There's also a silly part of me that wants to straighten up all those tilted books, but that's just the librarian in me.

I LOVE MY FLICKR ACCOUNT. Flickr is pretty popular now.... but for anyone who does not know what it is.... this is for you. Flickr is an online photo management and sharing application. It’s a site where people can upload there photos and share them with anyone. It was my very first portfolio & online presence. and I have loved it ever since. It makes me happier than a website or blog. Flickr Is free and easy to use, and it features various methods for sorting, categorizing and tagging images.

You can network with other flickr users or give the URL (to view as a portfolio) to friends and family. People can then comment and rate pictures, and you can make all or just some photos private or only viewable by friends and family. I think Flickr is easily one of the best photo storage and sharing sites available. Flickr is even useful as a private gallery to backup images off-site from your hard drive. i love it because i can be anywhere anytime and be able to access my photos online at full quality. That top image is the flickr home page.I have a few screenshots from my own flickr account here:

(above)It has an awesome portfolio viewing feature that lets you veiw the selected gallery as a slideshow.

and you can do awesome stuff with your photos online, like make little album books, fun & funky size business cards, gift cards, calendars etc. The two above are my favorite. click the bar below to view my flickr portfolio.

Today I gave the photo sharing site, Bubbleshare, a try.  It's free and easy to sign up but a valid email is necessary to verify your account (teachers take note).  It features unlimited storage, clip art captions, audio captions and video captions, frames in 20 varying themes (my favorites were the T.V. frame that students could use to produce a slide show "documentary) and the beach frame), tags, a search engine, options for public or private viewings, posting to blogs and MySpace, commenting on other pictures, a gallery of photos from others, and sharing through email or URL.

At first, I thought I was going to like this site because of its clean interface and simple directions.  I thought it might be easier for younger students, in particular. However, I found it frustrating to use because I had to download one picture at a time when I was trying to put together a slide show and the worst part about it was the site kept freezing up.  I had to go in and out of the system at least 10 times when I was trying to complete my slideshow.  When I tried to send my slideshow to my sister, I don't know if it got sent because it took so long and I might have given up too soon and lost the connection.

Overall, I would not recommend this site because it's just too slow.  Although I had fun putting in the cute captions in different shapes and sizes (students could add captions to pictures to show their understanding of a concept) and comments can be left on pictures (a tool to which could enhance writing and collaboration), I just found it too frustrating.  If I found it frustrating, I can't imagine how frustrated my students would get if they were trying to use it in class or at home.

Here's another strike against using Bubbleshare.  I attached the URL to my blog so you could all see what I created.  However, when I went back to my blog to check if it worked, I was not happy to see my personal email attached to the slideshow.  Even though I have the slideshow listed as private, I could not get rid of my email being broadcast to everyone in cyberspace which I definitely didn't want so I took the link off.  Who would want their students' emails shared with everyone if you were to put their work on a blog, for example???  Yikes, good thing we're trying out these things.  If anyone knows how I can get rid of my email address on my slideshow, please let me know.

Jo-Anne

Photo sharing Sites

My thoughts aren't as scattered this week, and to prove it I've provided the following chronology of my journey to choose and explore photo sharing sites:

1.  I did all my background reading first.  I read recommended reading, reviews and articles and made a list of recommendations/sites to explore: Flickr, Picasa Web Albums, Openphoto.net, Phanfare, Webshots, PhotoBucket, Smugmug & Zoto.

2. I logged on as a student would at a workstation in the library at my school to see which ones are blocked or not functional to narrow down the list. Surprise of all surprises! None of them were blocked. At my adult high school, students have access to a less restricted web server - although most sites utilizing javascript are blocked for student use. I did discount Webshots because their images didn't display properly on the computers in the library. I'm thinking that for those schools/sites which do block some or all aspects of other photosharing sites, the free Picasa 3 download MAY be the answer. 

3. I had originally thought that I would explore Zoto 3.0 in full because I read that it would publish directly to WordPress blogs. Looking carefully at Flickr, I learned that it too can publish directly to WordPress blogs too. So based on its reviews, popularity, services and tools I chose Flickr to explore and use in depth.

4. Based on Will Richardson’s recommendation, I re-sized and reduced the file size of some select photos from a chunky 4.0 MB each to under 2.0 MB each. To do this I used the free, downloadable photo converter/editor “Irfanview” which I already have installed on my home computer.

5. I uploaded 10 photos from  yurting holidays my husband and I have taken over the past years. (see my yurting post for more information on yurting)

6. I tagged and described each and saved them.

7. I added them to the Flickr map in the  Nutimik Lake Campground, Manitoba.

8. I created a “set” and called it “Yurting”.

9. I added the photostream to my Delicious account directly through Flickr.

10. I edited one image using the Picnik application accessible through Flickrand saved it as a brighter more beautiful image than the original. (NOTE: when I was logged in at school as a student, the Picnik online photo editor did NOT work . This is good to know so we could direct students that need to edit photos to do it first using our PhotoElements software)

11. I added my Flickr photostream as a RSS feed to my Bloglines aggregator.

12. I added my Lifelonglearnerrhonda Wordpress blog to my Flickr account and sent a test. I then sent a photo to my blog with a posting (yurting blog). I then sent the above image to this blog. Click on it above to see my full photostream!

13. I changed the permissions on all my photos to “Attribution- Non Commercial Creative Commons” allowing others to use, change and share my photos as long as they credit the source and do not use it for commercial gain.

14. I checked out the New Printing service only to discover that it is not available in Canada . . . yet.  That’s okay, I’m already registered with kodakgallery.ca for printing my digital images.

15. I checked out Flickr Tools @ flickr.com/tools and notice that The Windows Live Photo Gallery will be useful for me to install before I upload any more images from my digital camera.

16. I checked out Flickr Services at flickr.com/services and had a blast with the Flickr Colour Picker @ krazydad.com/colrpickr.  I e-mailed the URL to our Art Specialist.

17. I   checked out the FlickrReplacr Bookmarklet @ www.kokogiak.com as suggested by Will Richardson to highlight words in your web browser and have them replaced with a tagged image from Flickr, but was disappointed to discover that it didn’t work in my newly installed IE beta version 8 web browser. This does give me something to explore again at work on Monday.

18. I checked out Flicktion @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/flicktion/ .

Educational Applications: The Journey Continues

My experience with using photo sharing with students up to this point has been extremely limited. I did work with the grade 12 History and World Issues teacher last year to have students from both classes create some beautiful posters using photos from Flickr and other sites. One of the objectives was to have students choose images from Flickr or websites granting permission to use the images for non commercial purposes and to cite the source properly. We found the easy to find even hard-to-find images searching for tags like "early man" or "neanderthal man". Students were required to examine the copyright permissions carefully to be sure they could add their comments and print them out as posters. The Fair Use rules Richardson describes in chapter 7 do not apply in Canada.

Just yesterday, a group of basic literacy adult students came into the library with their teacher to create visual poems using images and words provided by PicLits.com (http://www.piclits.com/compose_dragdrop.aspx). Although PicLits is not a photo sharing site, I gleaned some very useful insights from the way the students approached the site.  This is the first time I've instructed students to create an account to save their work, then e-mail their best "PicLit" to their teacher. (Note: I discovered ahead of time that PicLits didn't work for the student login, so I logged the computers on using my staff login and avoided frustration and delays.) This activity was surprisingly (or perhaps not suprisingly) successful. In the past basic literacy students have balked doing and saving simple writing tasks using Word software. None of the students seemed to have difficulty entering their school division e-mail addresses or following the saving and e-mailing instructions. I think the visual appeal is what made the difference in their motivational levels. Next time we can expand the activity to Flickr and have them write "Tag Poems" or visual stories and tag them so they'll appear @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/flicktion/ .

Up until now I've been oblivious to the educational value of the social conversations and collaborative learning afforded by the photo sharing sites. Next time I help with engaging a class in Flickr, I'll ask that they leave a comment for any photo they find appealing and especially for those they use in their work.

Now that I've learned we won't have problems with our server, I've decided to approach one of the English teachers who does a fair big of digital photography with his students to have them post some of their images to Flickr publicly. We'll follow and teach the privacy precautions as outlined by Terry Freedman in his article " Photo-sharing and clip-art". We'll teach them how to assign tags and descriptions and ask them to examine the Creative Commons licensing carefully to decided which permissions they'll allow. I don't think there's a better way to teach copyright! We can then create a group and have photos archived for existing and incoming classes. I'm sure we'll see other applications and benefits as we go along.

Additionally, as Steering Commitee Chair of my school division's Senior Years Technology Mentors Group, I'm going to recommend a PD/sharing sessions for using Flickr with our students. Even if it is blocked in all the other high schools in the division, it's high time educators re-write policy for the benefit of our students. I have no doubts that other educators will feel the same way once they've taken a first hand look at how beneficial Flickr can be.

My son as a cube.  How can you not enjoy yourself using this medium??

I have totally enjoyed trying the photo sharing site Flickr and all the different things you can do with pictures.   This is nothing short of addicting!  I got my Yahoo! email a few days ago had tried to download a few pictures (which I've already attached to my blog) but this was the first time I was going to check out all the details of Flickr. 

Right away I didn't like loading one picture at a time but I saw on the site that there was a solution to this so I easily downloaded the Flickr Uploader 3.0.5 from the Flickr Tools link.  This allowed me to drag the photos from my computer that I wanted downloaded rather that just downloading one at a time which is way too slow for me. 

Then I went through a period of confusion and wasn't sure what to do with my pictures.  Somehow I ended up downloading Windows Live Photo Gallery which allows you to organize the photos currently existing on your computer, download pictures from your cell phone (rats, I don't have one of those fancy kind that allows me to take pictures), edit your pictures and then upload them to Flickr to share with whomever you choose.  I was really impressed with the Photo Gallery and the ease with which I could tag my pictures and group them together.  It's fully searchable which is great and one of the best features of it is that it tells you in what month and year your pictures were taken.  Amazing.  Mind you, I currently have over 900 pictures on my computer so it may take me some time to get organized with this tool.

Then I went back to try and create a slide show with some of my pictures that I had downloaded to Flickr.  I remembered how easy this was with Picasa and I must say that Picasa has Flickr beat on this one.  It took me awhile to figure out that all the little fun things you can do with your pictures on Flickr are mostly creating by tools that are linked to Flickr.  So I checked out The Great Flickr Tools Collection mentioned by Richardson in his book, Blog, Wikis and Podcasts (p. 109).  I found most of these tools way over my head from a technical standpoint so then I returned to my del.icio.us site where I knew I had tagged a site that listed ideas of what do do with pictures called Webtools4u2use.

This is when I really started to have fun with pictures and I can see how students would love to work with some of these tools in the classroom and at home.  I can also see applications to the classroom such as creating an annotated slideshow of a field trip or class event, adding creative artwork to assignments and projects, creating a crossword puzzle to introduce vocabulary on a specific topic, use pictures found on Flickr as a way to activate prior knowledge of a specific subject and stimulate discussion. 

Some of the photo sharing tools/sites I checked out were:

Bubblr

Add bubbles to flickr pictures

Couldn’t get it to work

101 Gadgets for Flickr addicts

Leads you to other sites to do cool things with Flickr pictures.  This is never ending but fun!

Spell with Flickr

Cool letters

Couldn’t get it to work

Flickr Toys

Lots of cool things you can do with pictures.  Some examples follow:

Captioner

Add captions to your picture

Easy

This is a picture of my son reading a story to his cousin.

Create a Slide Show

Easy but be sure to save your URL right away

My slide show on the Indus Valley (I could use this in grade 8 Social Studies) can be seen at: 

http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/slideshow.php?id=55119

Dumpr

Very easy.

Lets you do weird things to pictures. One example was the cube you saw earlier and this museum piece of my nephew at his grad:

When I compare Flickr and Picasa they are very similar photo sharing sites.  They both allow the user to easily download pictures pictures from a camera or phone and organize them in albums or photostreams;  they allow you to publish for a specific audience (private or public access) and/or email to whomever you want; you can add annotations, tags and RSS feeds; they are free; they allow pictures to be edited before being shared; and they can be sent to blogs.  Picasa is a google app so it is directly linked to Facebook (I've used this feature and it's simple). 

However, the major differences between the two are that you can search for photos on Flickr and you can comment on others' photos in Flickr and engage in discussion groups.  So even though I prefer the multimedia applications on Picasa, I think for educational purposes, Flickr might be the better choice because it is much more collaborative and interactive in nature.  What do you other educators think is a better site to use in schools?

Before I leave photo sharing sites and move to video sharing sites in Blog #2 for our course, I hope I have time to check out a few other photo sharing sites like Bubbleshare, Photobucket and Webshots.

I've been doing some research today about using photo sharing websites in schools.  I needed to take a step back from my initial enthusiasm and think about whether there are any drawbacks to using them in the classroom.  Since this medium is relatively new, there is little research on the topic but it appears from my research that there are differing views on the viability of using photo sharing sites in schools. 

Due to the shear number of photos posted from elementary, middle, and high schools on Flickr (100,000) and school-related topics (700,000), it appears that many schools are embracing this technology Many school divisions such as the Ossining Union Free School District in New York uses and encourages the use of photo sharing sites such as Flickr in all of its schools (statistics from "Photo-Sharing Web Sites").    Since many photosharing sites such Flickr, Picasa, Photbucket, Bubbleshare and Webshots are free, this has encouraged their use amongst teachers and students.  

However, it appears that other school districts are not as quick to embrace this Web 2.0 tool.  Even if teachers may want to embrace photosharing tools, often these sites as blocked at the district or division level.  In "Photo-Sharing web Sites," author Odvard Dyrli wonders how teachers can integrate online photo sharing technologies when some school block these sites?

The problem with online sites is not difficult to understand.  Since the sites are open to all, there is a chance that students might have access to inappropriate photos.  And even though one might think this is the same as access to the World Wide Web at schools, remember that many schools block access to inappropriate sites through their filtering systems. 

It seems to me that the appropriate way of addressing the viewing of inappropriate photos by school children is to teach them how to deal with inappropriate photos if they were to arise and for the school division to establish clear policies in regard to viewing inappropriate content by students and staff.  As well, teachers need to monitor their students when using photo sharing sites just like they would when their students have free access to the Internet. 

Despite worries that students will see inappropriate sites when using photo sharing software, ideas about how photo sharing sites can be used in education abound.  In an article I read about photo sharing in education, thirteen ideas around the use of photo sharing in schools are listed as well as numerous examples of educators who are currently using photo sharing in their classrooms.  Among the ideas for photo sharing in education included in this article are:

• share, comment and add notes to photos or images based on the curriculum
• embedding photos in class and school websites to keep parents informed
• inspire writing and creativity
• create a storybook using shared images
• create motivational posters, magazine covers, cd covers
• teach students about creative commons photos and how they can find them for reports and assignments
• use tags to find photos of areas and events around the world
• combine geotagged photos with Google Earth to enhance geography lessons
• create digital portfolios with images and text
• create a field trip photoblog using shared class photos

So it appears that if we can teach students about the appropriate use of photo sharing sites and/or design assignments that still use photos from these sites that students don't have to search for themselves, there are endless possibilities for enhanced learning, creativity and sharing in the classroom.

I thought that the video that Joanne put on her trailfire "Photo Sharing in Plain English" was a good place to start to find out what photo sharing is all about.  It would be a good introductory if you were teaching your staff or students about photo sharing.  The Wikipedia decscription about photo sharing  linked to the same trail is also helpful to someone just starting out. 

Something I hadn't thought much about was its point about having a safe place to store your pictures.  I've thought about the importance of having web-based access to pictures, photo sharing being used to organize pictures, but I had never thought of sites like Flickr as safe places to store pictures.  There are other photo sharing sites listed in this video that I'd like to take a look at at a later date: Photobucket and Webshot.  I know that the video is on Joanne's trailfire but I wanted to see if I could find it on YouTube and attach it to my own blog. This is my first attempt at attaching a video to my blog so I hope it works!  Wordpress says that all I have to do is copy the URL from YouTube and it should play on my blog.  Here goes...

Jo-Anne

But there are times you can get a great deal on free products and/or services. Take for instance my Shutterfly order this morning. Upon signing up for shutterfly (which I only did because Wal Mart's photo site wasn't working for me one night not too long ago) I was given what seems to be the standard Shutterfly offer for new users: 50 free 4X6 prints AND a free 11X14 collage poster. I knew this offer would not be "free" as I'd still have to pay for the shipping; but I also knew that would be less than $10. Still, I hesitated in selecting my photos.

And that hesitation was a good thing. Because today I got an email with a code to get free standard shipping. Which COULD be combined with my sign-up freebies. So I just ordered 50 prints and a poster - and it cost me absolutely nothing. How cool is that?

I love the idea of the collage posters, too. You can put up to 30 photos on them. I only chose to put 13 on mine though, as I'd imagine the scale of having 30 on there would make it much like a contact sheet (too small to get a good look at the details of the photo) and I wanted the pictures a bit bigger than that. It was very easy to create my poster; shutterfly's tools are very easy to use. You can very easily edit your photos for printing and can crop them to show exactly what you want in the final print. Again, very easy to do while in the project creating tool used.

I am exicted to get my prints, and will definitely update and let you all know what the quality of the prints is like once they arrive. Because, even though so far everything's been awesome with shutterfly I have learned (the hard way) that sometimes a company can't follow through with a great end-product. (Stupid cafe press....) But for now I'm really digging Shutterfly. I love the sharing sites you can create... and that you can password protect them so that the only people who get to see your photos are the people you want to see them.

Viva la Revolution- Stephen Schaub

LINK TO FLICKR GROUP:

www.flickr.com/groups/figitalrevolution/

"When you're following your energy and doing what you want all the time, the distinction between work and play dissolves."
- Shakti Gawain

It’s Chumby dammit! Well, that had to be said. You know instead of It’s Gumby … well if I have to explain it… heavy sigh.

Have you seen the Chumby? It’s the take-it-anywhere cute little window to the Internet. You just plug it in to your computer to create a lineup of favorites from over 800 widgets in 30 different categories. Then it streams everything your little heart desires. You can stream entertainment, music and podcasts, photo sharing, weather, sports, AUCTIONS and messaging. That’s just a few and they’re adding more all the time. OMY  I sound like a commercial don’t I?

Anywhoo ran across them … thought they were cute. They are pricey though - $179.95. Chumby, chumby chumby .... 

Shop on!