Research Toolbox

Capture the Moment

Calendar Season Again
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 optio

Shades of the Departed – Pushing the Envelope
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 th

Lulu Adds E-Books
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 d

Surfing the Wave
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 ̵

Making Lemonade
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