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Mac Attack…

December 13, 2007

I am the first one to tell you how much I love my Mac. I’m on my fourth one and it’s like… my baby. My entire life is on that cute lil’ white machine (I have an iBook - pre-Intel, but upgraded to Leopard, thankyouverymuch) - photos, music, my writing, my CSS editor…

So when I first started here at RocketLife, I was BUMMED that this cool new product wasn’t going to work on my baby.

And I (gulp) crossed over to the dark side. I bought a PC. Shameful, I know. I did, however, put one of those cute white Apple stickers on it for solidarity.

The funny part is that THE ONLY thing I do on my new PC is use RocketLife, so you can probably imagine just how badly I am anticipating RocketLife becoming Mac-friendly.

I can’t confirm any specific timeline, but RocketLife should be Mac compatible some time in 2008. We’ll have a party over here - trust me.

In the meantime, I certainly don’t expect that you’ll buy a PC like I did. But you can always borrow a friend’s or use the PC at the office (not that I’m condoning spending your work hours playing around with RocketLife… ok, maybe I am) or convince your boyfriend/husband/son/neighbor kid to stop playing that World of Warcraft game for, like, five minutes so you can make a photo book, pretty please with a sugar on top!

Posted in Heart to Hearts | Tagged , , | 2 Comments »

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A Scrapbooker Shout-Out

December 13, 2007

Kim Guymon over at ScrapBizness gave RocketLife a huge shout out today. Kim’s a serious scrapbooker and her blog is really at the heart of the industry and the craft.

I have to admit that I find it really interesting that so many scrapbookers (of the die-cut and special glue and fancy markers and stickers genre) are really digging RocketLife photo books. I think it comes as such a surprise to me because I thought a scrapbooker really enjoyed the careful, time-intensive part of their creations (much in the way that I prefer to knit my own scarves - wipe that surprised look off your face! - versus buying them at the store). It’s the handmade factor - the love and care that goes into a project that makes it that much more special to you.

But Kim makes a really good point - there’s so much customization (and love and care!) that CAN go into making a photo book with RocketLife. Here’s what she had to say about some her favorite RocketLife features that let her really get creative with her project as a scrapbooking girl in a digital world:

Smart Arrangement technology (their Secret Weapon) - their program snatches the photos from your computer file and auto fills the book. The cool thing is that it pretty much knows which photos to group together. The result is a really fast book! You could literally order it in 5 minutes. You don’t have to upload them all to their site first and then drag them over to your project.

BUT! Being a scrapper, I need to rearrange things and add journaling. But, even that is easy. You can just click a button and it will change the layout on a page several times rearranging the photos each time. Then, add some journaling and a drag and drop coordinating graphic and away you go!

You can change up the backgrounds within a theme by clicking the button that lets you use other options in the theme. You can go deeper into it and change the color of each background. Basically, you can do as much or as little as you would like to do to each page.

You can order the same book in different sizes without having to re-size the pages by hand. Shoot, you can snatch a page and order it on a mug or puzzle without doing anything but ordering it. So, you create ONCE and can order a variety of products. Cool!

What do you guys think?  Are you a scrapbooker who thinks making a photo book is just as fun?  Or do you still prefer the traditional way, but like making other photo projects on the side?

And, if you’d like to share some of your creations with us here at the RocketLife Blog, please don’t hesitate to send them - just click here to email me some screen shots!

Posted in Cool Stuff, Photo Books | Tagged , , | 1 Comment »

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RocketLife Gets Mentioned on PhotographyBlog.com

December 7, 2007

You can check it out right here!

Posted in RocketLife News | 2 Comments »

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Holiday Gift Coundown - Calendars!

December 3, 2007

It’s TOTALLY that time of year when people are shopping around for calendars. Why? Because we need to know what day it is next year too… Duh.

I’ll confess - I made my mom a photo calendar last year (with one of those other sites) and it was a little…. dull. But this year we’re gonna do it RocketLife style and make something that’s finer quality, more attractive, and downright fun.

Today we’re gonna go over a calendar made QUICK. In my next post, well, we’re going to do it again, but spend a bit more time and go over different ways that you can customize your work.

But first, let’s do it the super-fast, super-easy way:

Launch RocketLife and select Start a New Project. Then select a set of photos from your directory. I’m going to choose the “Family” folder in My Pictures since this calendar is for my mom again.

From the Product Catalog, choose Monthly Calendars and click the green button - Customize and Order.

Calendar

And… well, you’re almost done! Your photos have been arranged for you to fill the calendar. Pretty cool right? If you want to keep customizing (we’ll do that next), you can. If you’re ready to order, just click the Order button and you’re good to go.

Order

How’s that for speedy?!

Posted in Calendars | 1 Comment »

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Forgive me…

December 3, 2007

I’m sorry, guys.  I’ve been totally under the weather for the past week.  Finally back to my old self and ready to get started with the holiday countdown.

First project will be up today!

Posted in Heart to Hearts | No Comments »

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Holiday Cards, Lola Style

November 19, 2007

Is it really that time already? Seriously? In addition to holiday shopping and the enormity of cooking a Thanksgiving meal (brine the turkey - trust me… you’ll thank me later), it’s about time to get those holiday cards off to the post office.

Since Lola is my roommate and best friend, I like to feature her in my holiday cards. It’s so much more personal than something generic from the store.

So check out what I made:

Pugnificent Holiday Card

(and yes, that does say “Have a Pugnificent Holiday)

Want to know how I did it? Keep reading after the jump…

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Holidays, Note Cards | No Comments »

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Make a Photo Book in 2 Minutes or Less

November 15, 2007

I know, I know. You’re reading the title of this post wondering how it is even remotely possible that you could ever make an entire photo book in 2 minutes. If you’ve ever attempted one before with one of those other sites (you know, the kind where it takes eighty-nine million years to upload your photos), you probably got irritated and frustrated and decided that you had better things to do with your time than upload and rename and rearrange your photos for hours on end. Which is why you’ll probably be amazed when I show you how to make a photo book in as much time as it takes to, ahem, upload a handful of the aforementioned pictures.

So here we go - start the clock!

Step 1: First I launched RocketLife and selected my photos. I’ve traveled quite a bit in the past year, so I thought it would be cool to make a photo book of all my travels. Within The My Pictures folder on my computer, I had set up another folder labeled Travels with about 60 of my photos in it, so I selected that folder. Then clicked Add Photos. This part is super fast - like maybe 20 seconds. So fast that you kind of wonder why it takes so long to do that on the other sites.

Choose Your Pictures

Step 2: Select the project. In this case, I picked the photo book (the cool thing is that my own pictures show up on the preview of the photo book) and then clicked on Customize and Order.

Select Photo Book

Step 3: This is the really cool part. After I clicked Customize and Order, my book was created for me (it’s that nifty Smart Arrangement Technology again). Just like that. All 26 pages were laid out beautifully with that one click. I love that RocketLife somehow knows the right way to lay out all of the photos. It’s the way I would have done it if I had arranged them myself.

Book Layout

Step 4: If I want to, I can further customize my book - change themes, rearrange photos, add placeable graphics, edit photos. But I can also click the Order button and call it a day.

So there you have it - a beautiful photo book in 2 minutes. And just think of all the cool books you could make - family vacations, weddings, baby showers (or a baby book even!), an anniversary gift or a collection of photos from your first year in college. The possibilities are truly endless.

Now it’s your turn! Give it a try and tell me what you think!

Posted in Cool Stuff, How do I do that?, Photo Books | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments »

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Ace the SAT

November 13, 2007

“SAT?” you ask.

Nope, I’m not talking about the ol’ pre-college assessment test. I’m talking about Smart Arrangement Technology. The ingenious behind the scenes fanciness that makes RocketLife so easy for anyone (and I mean ANYONE) to use. All you have to do is pick the photos that you want to use and this Smart Arrangement Technology organizes your photos FOR YOU. So instead of spending, like, HOURS uploading photos and arranging them and making changes and… well, you get the point. Instead of the headache, your pictures are arranged and good to go in literally seconds.

Here’s how it works. First, choose your photos from your local hard drive - whichever ones you want to use for your project. In this case, I’m using some pictures that I took on a trip to Philadelphia this summer with my dear friend, Linda. After you select your photos, click on the kind of project that you want to make. I’m going to make a couple of posters (get ready for photo books tomorrow!). Next, click Customize and Order. Just one click and then… ta-da! Your photos are already arranged in beautiful collages for you! Of course, should you want to, you could always further customize and get creative. But with RocketLife, you really don’t have to. One click and you’re done!

SAT 1 SAT 2

So what do you think? Isn’t this easier than spending hours trying to get things “just right?” RocketLife gets them just right every time. And that’s how you ace the SAT.

Posted in Collages, Cool Stuff, How do I do that? | No Comments »

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Commitment Phobic?

November 9, 2007

I don’t know about you, but I have a slight fear of commitment. I freak out on date three. I get anxious about signing a six-month lease. And my car loan?  Scares me to death. Will I still REALLY love my cute little hatchback in 48 months?

That’s one of the things that I like about RocketLife. I don’t have to sign up and create yet another username and password that I’m pretty much guaranteed to forget in a few days. I don’t have to spend hours uploading my pictures, then renaming them, then finally creating something with them. I can get started right away, choose the photos I want and let the Smart Arrangement Technology do its thing.. It’s kind of like little elves in your computer that create cool things for you. And I’m all for that!

Let’s say that you’re making a photo book and you’re about halfway through but you have to go pick up the kids from a soccer game or meet up with your girls for a Starbucks and shoe shopping run. You can save your project with the click of a button. Only the really cool thing is that it’s not saved out in never never computer server land, but right to your very own hard drive.

And, when I get back to the project, if I decide that I’d rather make a calendar instead - no problem.

RocketLife - making life easier for commitment-phobes everywhere. Including yours truly.

Posted in Heart to Hearts | No Comments »

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Turning a Pic into a Background

November 7, 2007

While there are lots of cool backgrounds and themes via RocketLife, sometimes the best backgrounds are the ones you make yourself using your own pictures.

During a recent beach trip with my best pal, Martine, we snapped a lot of pics - us on the balcony of the beach house, us at dinner, us in the car, the beach… We like to commemorate everything, I ’spose.

So when it came time to putting the pics together, I wanted to really showcase how beautiful our surroundings were. I mean, check out how gorgeous the day was:

the beach

So how did I do it?

First, choose your pictures and select your project. I picked an 8×10 collage print. Then click Customize Collage Prints.. The first thing you’ll want to do is change your theme. I chose a classic theme and made it plain white. White sounds kinda boring, I know. But just wait. We’re gonna spice it up. After selecting the theme, click the Done button (the big green one at the bottom).

From there, you’ll want to choose the picture in your collage that you would like to set as the background by clicking on it. Then select Copy Photo to Background. Ta da!

Shea & Martine beach

Cool, right?

So what do you think? What other kinds of fun pictures would make great backgrounds too?

Posted in Collages, How do I do that?, My Stuff | No Comments »

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