Scraps of My Geek Life » digital scrapbooking

WD TV Live Hub Brings All Your Media To One Central Location

Michele — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 17:58:59 +0000

It’s great that we can access most of the TV shows and movies we watch from our computer, tablet or phone, but what about when you want to sit down with your family to watch a movie on that big screen TV in your family room? Or you want to show off your vacation pictures (that are on your computer) to a group of people? Ahh! Western Digital WD TV Live Hub to the rescue!

WD TV Live Hub

Digital Storage

Not only can you watch internet TV with the WD TV Live Hub, but it has a 1 TB hard drive to store video, photos or music. I decided to back up all of my family photos to the WD TV Live Hub drive and now we can look at photos on our TV. My kids love being able to access the photos themselves.

We connected the WD TV Live Hub to our home network and now we can access all our digital files on any computer (Mac or PC) in our home. My kids often needs pictures of themselves for class projects. I have given them all access to the photos from every computer they use. That saves me from having to search through all the photos for them.

As you can see from the photo above, the menu is easy to use and you can customize the photo. My kids didn’t have any problems figuring out where they needed to go.

Watching Internet TV

We subscribe to Netflix streaming and Hulu Plus, so having access to both services (plus many more) on the WD TV Live Hub is a huge plus. And if the movie or show is available in HD and you are watching on an HD TV, you will be able to watch in HD!

WD Mobile Apps

The WD TV Live Hub works with two WD mobile apps, WD TV Remote and WD Photos.

WD TV Remote – Download the remote and control the WD TV Live Hub from your mobile device. This makes it easier to search for movies to watch or use the keyboard.

WD Photos - With the WD Photos app on your mobile device, you have access to all the media on the WD TV Live Hub and you can take photos or video and upload directly to the Live Hub.

Central Location

The WD TV Live Hub is small enough to easily add to your home media system and make it the central place for all of your digital media. Imagine being able to go to only one place to get access to any media to want to watch whether it’s personal media stored on YouTube, Flickr, Vimeo or the latest episode of Glee on Hulu Plus

To check out all the digital formats that are supported on the WD TV Live Hub, go to the website.

Be sure to check out the full WD TV Live family of products. Follow WD TV Live on Twitter.

Disclosure: I received the WD TV Live Hub media center in exchange for this review. All opinions are 100% my own. Affiliate links within post.

Let’s Talk About The WD TV Live Hub Media Center!

How do you store your media now? Do you have videos, music and photos on several hard drives and online?

WD TV Live Hub Brings All Your Media To One Central Location originally posted at Scraps of My Geek Life.

Project 365, Week 14

Michele — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 15:49:52 +0000

This week was spring break and my daughter turned 13. I ran several times and generally we just hung out at home.

Hope you are having a great Easter!

Project 365, Week 14 originally posted at Scraps of My Geek Life.

Easily Share Spring Break Photos & Win an iPad From Wondershare

Michele — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 14:48:55 +0000

Sharing your best Spring Break photos has never been easier than with Wondershare. And if you add your photos before April 16, 2012, you just might win an iPad or 1 of 20 daily licenses to Wondershare Video Editor.

Share Spring Break Photos

It is so easy to add your pictures and only takes a few minutes. Go to Wondershare’s Spring Break page and you’ll see this:

Fill in your departure city and your destination and click “Next.” Then you have the option of uploading 1 – 3 Spring Break photos along with a short reflection (you are given prompts if you don’t know what to say.) Click Finish and you will know immediately if you won one of the 20 licenses to Video Editor.

This is my finished product:

Go ahead and create your Spring Break vacation memory and share the link in the comments below. The Spring Break vacation with the Most Likes will win the iPad.

Follow Wondershare on Facebook & Twitter.

Disclosure: I was compensated for this post. All opinions are 100% my own. See full contest details on the Wondershare site.

Let’s Talk About Spring Break Photos!

Where would you like to go for Spring Break if you could go anywhere? Don’t forget to leave a link to your Spring Break photo memory in the comments.

No related posts.

Easily Share Spring Break Photos & Win an iPad From Wondershare originally posted at Scraps of My Geek Life.

Personal Journal App, Path; Daily Geek Find

Michele — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 12:00:58 +0000

Path is the best personal journal app I have found on my iPhone. Path, an iPhone app (iTunes link), was started in November, 2010 and at first I used it, but it didn’t feel natural. When I use an app, I want it to make something easier. I don’t want to be confused about using the app.

Here is my first post on Path last year.

My first post on Path in November, 2010.

Path recently went through a big overhaul and now I am in love with the app. As a digital scrapbooker, using a personal journal app is AWESOME! Let me go through a few of the Path features.

Path, Your Personal Journal App

Your path has a main photo and you have your own profile picture. This is my Path.

I took that sunset picture in the rear view mirror of my car. I love it! You can add pictures, videos, places, songs, comments, people and when you go to bed and are awake.

Adding To Your Path

Here is the screen where you start. Click on the “plus” circle.

And this menu will fly out.

Awake or Sleeping?

Click on the Moon and you can record when you “Go to Sleep” or “I’m Awake.” Do you know of any other personal journal app with that feature?

Your Thoughts?

Have a thought you would like to share? Here you can write anything you want to remember that doesn’t fit into any of the other categories.

Adding Music

Listening to a song? Click on the music note and you will get a list of songs.

Adding Pictures, Video & Places

The next two are for adding the place where you are and/or the people you are with. And the top one is for adding a picture or video. When you take a picture or video, you can choose from several filters. This one is the Old Time filter.

And here is a picture in my path.

And here is a video on my Path.

Adding Friends to Your Path

Your friends can add an emoticon (choice of 5) or a comment to any of the updates in your Path. By default, Path is a private personal journal app. Path is not the place where you will collect friends and share it with the world. You max out your friends at 150. I have decided that Path is the place where I share my personal life with those who are close to me. I won’t add everyone as a friend, so don’t be insulted if I don’t add you. I will add those who I spend time with (either offline or online.)

Social Networking Overload?

I plan to use Path as a personal journal app to aid me in my digital scrapbooking. I am part of several different social networks and each one has a purpose. Path will be a more private personal place for me.

Let’s Talk About This Personal Journal App!

So, that is Path. What are your thoughts? Is this something you will use? Does the maximum of 150 friends concern you? Is there a place for Path in your social networking bag?

Path Tries Again, Now as a Mobile Journal App (allthingsd.com)
Path revamps with ‘Path 2′: A diary for the social, mobile world (gigaom.com)
Fly Or Die: Path 2.0 (techcrunch.com)
Path. The Good, The Bad, and The Beautiful (go2web20.net)
Path: What You Need To Know About It And How It Plays A Role In Your Life (socialmouths.com)

Personal Journal App, Path; Daily Geek Find originally posted at Scraps of My Geek Life.

Gift Guide For The Scrapbooker On Your List

Michele — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 12:00:35 +0000

If you are looking for a gift for a scrapbooker, you have come to the right place. At the end of this post are all the affiliate links, just click on the small picture of the item you are going to buy and I’ll get a little back from Amazon.

Holiday Gift Guide for A Scrapbooker

Tech Gifts & More for Scrapbookers

Do you have a gift that you would give to a scrapbooker (or would like to receive?) Leave me a link and I’ll add it.

Disclosure: I received some of the products in exchange for reviews, but it was my choice to include in my Scrapbooker Holiday Gift Guide. You will see #spon next to the items I received. All opinions are 100% my own.

Scrapbooker Gift Guide Affiliate Links

Following are Affiliate links to the scrapbooker products in the list above.

Gift Guide For The Scrapbooker On Your List originally posted at Scraps of My Geek Life.

Save Your Memories With LiveOn Forever!

Michele — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 21:57:43 +0000

Do you remember the stories that your grandmother or mother told you about their life? Wouldn’t it be awesome if you had someplace you could go and see pictures and videos of many of those memories? I can’t take you back in time, but LiveOn will help you create that very place for your children and future generations.

LiveOn Forever

LiveOn will store your memories forever. Yes, forever! But let’s start at the beginning. Sign up for LiveOn and choose from 4 different subscriptions ranging from Standard (Free) to Forever.

The Free Standard version gives you unlimited standard memories. As you add more memories, you earn more time. The time equates to the amount of time that your memories are easily accessible to your descendants after you pass away. Once the counter hits 0, your memories are still kept and your descendants will have options to get your memories.

LiveOn Timeline

When you first sign on, you will see a Timeline like this one here. It is very easy to add memories by clicking on “Add Memory.”

One of the hardest part of documenting your memories is trying to remember what you need to add. LiveOn has Life Questions underneath your timeline that you can use to trigger a memory or to just answer a question.

You can add a Milestone to your Timeline as an easy way to begin to build your memories. I went through and added all the milestones that I can easily remember like my birthday, graduation, marriage, birth dates of my kids, etc. That gives me a place to start adding more memories.

Creating Memories

You can add pictures, videos, text and music to your memories.

This is my favorite part of the process of adding memories. LiveOn uses Animoto to create your memories. You add the pictures, videos, text and music and Animoto will create an awesome video that is a lot of fun to watch.

My First Memory

Here is the first memory I added to my timeline. It is from our vacation to the beach this past summer. Click on the picture to see the video.

As a digital scrapbooker, I have created pages and videos like this for some time, but they all sit on my hard drive and no one can see them. I love that this puts them in a format that is easy to follow and will be around long after I am. I wish we had this kind of technology when my grandparents were around so I could go see their timeline now.

Thank you to LiveOn for this sponsored opportunity to blog about storing and sharing my most important memories with those closest to me. Although story ideas were provided, all thoughts and opinions are my own.

Disclosure: Thank you again to LiveOn for sponsoring this blog post. Please click here to learn more about storing and sharing your most special memories. I was selected for this sponsorship by Clever Girls Collective. All opinions expressed here are my own.

Check out my blog post about LiveOn Rewind.

Let’s Talk About LiveOn!

What are your thoughts on preserving your memories forever on LiveOn? What questions do you have?

Save Your Memories With LiveOn Forever! originally posted at Scraps of My Geek Life.

Daily Geek Find! Momento Diary App For iPhone

Michele — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 21:00:14 +0000

Today’s Daily Geek Find is the Momento Diary App for the iPhone and iTouch, but it’s a bit different from most of the diary apps because it pulls in pictures and updates from several social networking sites.

Momento Social Networking Sites

The current list of sites are:

Twitter
Facebook
Flickr
Instagram
Last.fm
FourSquare
Gowalla
Digg
YouTube
Vimeo
RSS Feeds

Momento Diary App Views

There are several views in the Momento Diary app. This one is the calendar view. Each date that has a blue dot on it shows that there are entries for that day.

This next view in the Momento Diary app is the days view. It shows a list of the days and you can see to the right there are symbols and numbers. The numbers are the number of entries for each social networking site. For July 18, you see 11 Twitter entries and one Flickr entry.

This last view is a single day view. You see each of the entries whether it’s a status update or photo.

Twitter status update and Instagram Picture

Momento Check-Ins View

You can also start a new entry from scratch and upload pictures directly into Momento.

Momento will back up your entries too. I use it for keeping a record of my social networking sites. It’s like a diary of what I do and often with pictures. If you are a scrapbooker, this is a great way to keep track of your life for a Project 365 or to go back and see what you did on certain days.

Momento Diary App Discussion

Have you used Momento? What other ways could you use the Momento Diary app?

Daily Geek Find! Momento Diary App For iPhone originally posted at Scraps of My Geek Life.

OMG!! I Know What My Niche Is And It Only Took 4 Years To Figure It Out

Michele — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 19:44:20 +0000

It’s been a rough few months for me here on the blog. First my theme change took longer than I planned and just as I was finishing it all up, I was hacked. Then I moved my blog to a new server (because of the hack.) So why more changes? I’ve been blogging now for almost 4 years and I’m figuring out why I like and what I don’t like. Yes, it’s taken me almost 4 years to really figure out my niche. So, if you are just getting started and don’t know your niche, don’t worry about it.

This picture is here just because i love it!

There are 3 things I’m passionate about…technology, fitness and digital scrapbooking. Now it’s very hard to create a blog and talk about all 3 extensively. But what I figured out is that even my fitness and scrapbooking passions have a tech spin. I’m a digital scrapbooker (definitely a tech kinda thing.) Even fitness is done with technology. I run with my Nike+… I use the Wii & Kinect to fill in the off days. I track my workouts and food on my iPhone. So, what is my niche? Technology that enhances our lives. I like to call it Lifestyle Technology. So, it’s official. My Niche is Lifestyle Technology.

How Will My Blog Change?

You are going to see more of what I love about technology and how it can and does enhance our daily lives. You will see less of me posting about stuff that doesn’t fit into that niche.

You will see more ads. Yes, I have to pay the bills too. But my ads will be for products that I use and love, so view them as an extension of my blog. Another way for me to endorse the products I love and make a few bucks too!

You will see another theme change. I’m not happy with the one that is currently here. It isn’t flexible enough for me to change things around. I’m going to use Unspoken (love that name). I bought the theme and uploaded it. Now I just have to make the change.

You will see more about how I am working on living a much healthier life using technology. It’s how I make it all fun.

You will see more about digital scrapbooking. It will be interweaved in my posts. Instead of telling you all about my latest run, I may create a scrapbook page and show you. I miss digital scrapbooking and this is my way of getting it back into my life.

You will continue to see things that don’t fit into any of those 3 categories IF, and ONLY IF, it is something that I want you to know about. If I find an awesome online clothing store that sells casual clothes that fit and look awesome, you bet I’m going to blog about it. Because I want you to know about it.

You will see more of me running on the beach… Oh wait. This isn’t my wish list. This is the list of things you will DEFINITELY see. Dang! A girl can hope!

You will see more video and rumor has it, maybe even a weekly podcast.

You will see a new community so we can all keep up with the constantly changing, ever growing world of (lifestyle) technology.

You will see a Daily Geek Find just about every day. I have a life (sort of) so I might skip a day or two, but I will try to bring you a new gadget, tool, app or software each day. If you find something cool, let me know about it. Use #DailyGeekFind and Tweet it to me. (@ScrappinMichele)

All of the change will be for the good. You will see more of what you love about me and my blog and less of the stuff we don’t like. (In other words, no more blogging for a free box of cereal or a cheap t-shirt.)

Getting To Know You!

I would also like to get to know you better. So, if you have a few moments, please fill out my survey.

Please feel free to let me know in the comments or email me (michele@scrapsofmygeeklife.com) and tell me what you love, like and don’t like about my blog. I can’t guarantee I’ll change it just for you, but I might take it into consideration.

OMG!! I Know What My Niche Is And It Only Took 4 Years To Figure It Out originally posted at Scraps of My Geek Life.

Easy Digital Kit Organization With Hitachi LifeStudio

Michele — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 00:00:45 +0000

Would you like your digital kit organization process simplified so you can easily find what you need? How about having all your digital photos organized by dates automatically?

The Hitachi LifeStudio Mobile Plus external drive will automatically organize your photos and kits to make it easier for you to scroll through all your digital scrapbooking kits.

Digital Kit Organization

Do you find that you are taking a lot more pictures with your digital camera than you ever did with your film camera? I do, which means I now have over 30,000 digital photos on my hard drive. Trying to find the picture we want quickly is often difficult. The Hitachi LifeStudio Mobile solves that problem.

As a scrapbooker, I also have thousands of digital scrapbooking kits on my computer. I download kits all the time and struggled with digital kit organization for a long time. Trying to find a paper or element that I want often takes more time than creating the scrapbook page. The Hitachi LifeStudio software simplifies the digital kit organization process.

Finding Your Digital Elements

When you plug the Hitachi LifeStudio Mobile into your Mac or PC, the LifeStudio software is installed and will automatically begin searching your computer for photos, videos, documents and music.

As you can see in the above photo, the files found by Hitachi LifeStudio are separated by the file type. The “custom folders” category is for folders that you tell LifeStudio to organize. This is where I added the folder where I keep all my digital kits that I download for digital scrapbooking. This is where the digital kit organization fun begins!

The “MySocial” category is an added bonus. You authorize LifeStudio to show you the pictures you have on Facebook, Flickr and Picasa.

Once LifeStudio has found digital elements and photos, you will see all your photos or digital scrapbooking kits on the 3D wall like this.

If you move your mouse to the left or right you can move the 3D wall to see more digital scrapbooking kits. You can adjust the number of rows and how large the photos are in this view. When you find the digital element you are looking for, you can click on it and see the element enlarged. See how easy digital kit organization can be?

The icon on the far right will open the file in the browser. I click on that, it opens up in the finder and I drag and drop it into Photoshop Elements. It is so easy to find what I need for my layout. You can easily upload your finished layouts to Facebook, Flickr or Picasa when your layout is done. I was so impressed with how easily digital kit organization can be.

Hitachi LifeStudio

The Hitachi LifeStudio Mobile Plus comes in two sizes, 320 GB and 500 GB and the LifeStudio Mobile comes in three sizes, 250 GB, 320 GB and 500 GB. The LifeStudio Mobile Plus comes with a 4GB USB key to take digital kits with you when you go to a digital crop and it fits right onto the front of the larger drive. You can set up folders to sync automatically to your USB key.

The Hitachi LifeStudio also provides local backup software and 3GB online backup service so you will not lose any of your digital layouts. You can upgrade your online backup to 250 GB which includes an iPad and iPhone app for just $49/year.

For this review, I received the 500 GB Hitachi LifeStudio Plus in black and I installed it on my Mac. I was impressed with how quickly it found all my files. It was so easy to scroll through and see the thumbnails of all my photos. When I found the picture I wanted, I uploaded it to Flickr and from there I could quickly add it to a blog post. This was one of the easiest ways I have seen to organize your photos.

The Hitachi LIfeStudio models (affiliate) can be found at Amazon starting at $44.99. This drive will definitely make organizing your photos and digital kits simple!

Disclosure: I received the Hitach LifeStudio Plus in exchange for this review. All opinions are always 100% my own.

Let’s Talk About Digital Kit Organization!

What system to you use for digital kit organization?

Easy Digital Kit Organization With Hitachi LifeStudio originally posted at Scraps of My Geek Life.

What is Digital Scrapbooking and How Do You Get Started?

Michele — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 18:40:37 +0000

Digital Scrapbooking is simply creating a scrapbook layout on the computer. You use paper and elements that are created digitally using graphic design software.

Below are answers to some of the common questions I receive about digital scrapbooking.

What do I need to start creating digital scrapbook layouts?

The biggest investment would be the computer, printer (if you choose to print your layouts yourself) and the software (see next question). You can purchase digital scrapbooking kits, however, you can use a kit over and over again to create many layouts. With paper scrapbooking, once you use an element, it is gone.

What software should I purchase?

There are many different programs available starting from $29 to over $500. If you are just starting out, I recommend you start with a dedicated scrapbooking program because the software will come with some digital kits to give you a head start. A few examples are:

There are several online options which usually include a few digital kits. Often these are to create photobooks or other printed items. A few examples are:

If you would like complete control over your layouts and prefer to either make your own elements or purchase digital scrapbooking kits from online stores, then the graphic design programs are what you want. The learning curve is the greatest on these, but will give you the most flexibility in creating your layouts.

What do I do with my layouts after I create them?

Print at home in various sizes (8×8, 12×12, 8.5×10, etc) and put them into regular scrapbooks.
Upload them to a professional printing company (Kodak, Shutterfly, etc) and create a photobook.
Create slideshows and burn it to a CD or DVD.
Upload them to photo sharing sites (Flickr, Picasa, Photobucket) to share with your friends and family.

What are the advantages of digital scrapbooking over paper scrapbooking?

Digital scrapbooking is not as messy. It is very hard to scrapbook with little children around because they tend to get into your paper and scissors. You can easily save a layout before it is done and go back to it at a later date.
The digital scrapbooking kits are purchased once and can be used again and again (by the same person).
It is much easier to create a page for several people. I have 4 kids and every Christmas, I create one digital layout. Then I put different pictures into 4 different layouts. The layout for my oldest son will have pictures of him in them and I do the same for each of my kids. That way they each have a more personalized layout for their own book.
A layout can be printed out or burned to CD/DVD as many times as you would like. It is a lot easier to share with your friends and family. I have created slideshows of my layouts throughout the year and sent the slideshow out as my Holiday card.

If you have any further questions, please leave them in the comments below and I will update this post with those answers. In the next few months, I will go into more detail about the different programs, where to get the digital scrapbooking kits and how to begin digital scrapbooking.

If you would like to see a few more examples of some layouts I have created and uploaded, check my layout gallery at NDISB.

Are you a scrapbooker? Paper or Digital?

Credits for scrapbook page: Techno Geek by MIss Mint (background), Fonts/Alphas: , Neutral Date Me kit by Suzy Q Scraps (5 in title & numbers), Fonts are Cooper Black, Chalkduster, CK Ali’s Hand Official, A Whole Year, January kit alpha by Dani Alencar (Geek & glitter), 5 crazy daisy flowers by Melissa Bennet

10 Last Minute Digital Scrapbooking Gift (scrapsofmygeeklife.com)
Get ScrapHappy with Lain Ehmann – Feb 02,2011 (blogtalkradio.com)
New Digital Product Releases | 02.26.2011 (aliedwards.com)
Mixbook Acquires Scrapbooking Service Scrapblog (mashable.com)

What is Digital Scrapbooking and How Do You Get Started? originally posted at Scraps of My Geek Life.