It’s hard to believe that our website is six months old!   We’ve been growing with the digiscrapping community.

Our goal was to provide information & this  site has allowed us to do that more easily.

• Blogging has become a fun way to share information and we enjoy responding to people’s requests!
• The forum is active & we answer questions there quickly
• We have searchable Frequently Asked Questions
• And our wiki provides the look & feel of a website with links
• A Video tutorial was added yesterday, so we have them in 3 formats now
• and most importantly, there is all the friendships that we’ve made!

Please sign up for our newsletters:
Our newest improvement is that we’re offering two types of newsletters.  I am very excited to be able to include graphics & nice links.  Signing up is easy!  There’s a sign up box on the top right of the blog & on our home page.  You just need to provide your email address & choose if you want the ACDSee information and/or the blogging, marketing & software info newsletters.  (Yes, this means we’re sending out two newsletters now!)

Here’s another way to upload photos to the net, or take images from the net to post on your blog

Picnik.com is quite an interesting little application! Here’s why:

• nothing to install & it’s free
• uploads directly to photo sharing sites like Flickr & Picasa Web
• it’s an image editor as well as can apply special effects
• has a Firefox plug-in - so it HAS to be good!
• works on Mac & Windows!

People were asking for something to post images on their blogs fast.

Here’s how it works -

• Open www.picnik.com (you don’t need to be signed in)
• Click on Get From Computer, Browse to your image
• After Picnik uploads it, in the Create tab there are some photo editing options
• Click on the Save & Share tab
• If you’d like to upload to Flickr, you sign in
  • you can have the images private
  • once the image is at Flickr
  • Rt click & choose Copy Image location
  • Paste into your blog

Do you have an easier way to upload photos to a blog?

Want to see it in action? Here you can watch a video on how to use masks to do templates: Using Masks with PSD Template files

Oh, and on this link there is a free template for you and coupon for any of Ronee Parson’s templates in her store. Here is a link to Ronee’s latest template set.

Connie and I also provide a pdf tutorial on using PSD templates and that technique is a little different. I like this technique for paper or things that don’t need to be inserted precisely. I like using the technique in the video above for inserting photos into templates, where you want to place it precisely.

Interested in trying or buying ACDSee Photo Editor? ACDSee has now reduced the regular price on ACDSee Photo Editor to $49.99 and if you already own ACDSee PhotoManager the price is $34.99. Click to take you ACDSee’s website for the trial or option to buy Photo Editor.

Want to buy Photo Manager and Photo Editor and get a free bonus CD of digital kits by:

• Misty Cato
• Sue Cummings
• Lie Fhung
• Karah Fredricks
• Vera Lim
• Gina Miller
• Kellie Mize
• Tracy Robinson
• Traci Sims
• Vicki Stegall
• Amy Teets
• Jen Wilson

Here is a quick preview of the Four Seasons Collection, head to this website to see the kits larger:
Get ACDSee Photo Editor, ACDSee Photo Manager & the Four Seasons Collection for $79.99 USD.

Well, I am a librarian, so this shouldn’t surprise you too much to see a book review, should it?

Word of Mouth Marketing by Andy Sernovitz is a great book that really makes a person think about common sense things in regard to promoting your product or site. He explains how Ikea is a great example of awesome marketing.

And what I loved best about this book was how he used really technical terms like ’stuff’ and ‘things’. It’s a quick read with lots of great advice. Word of mouth marketing is based on getting people talking about your product & telling their friends & family.

He gives four rules and expands on them:

• Be Interesting
• Make People Happy
• Earn Trust & Respect
• Make People Happy

My favorite part was the idea that the ‘customers are in control - get used to it’. Isn’t this so true in the digital scrapbooking community? What I love to see is when someone needs a certain kit & within a week’s time there are 3 for sale (& usually someone makes one for free for the person asking). That is SO awesome!

If you’re interested in seeing other types of books that I enjoy reading, check out my bookshelf at the Library Thing. (And if you like to read, browse around there. My favorite is the Zeitgeist tab.

And don’t forget your local library! I have to put a pitch in because I think too often people forget they can borrow these types of books & then return them!

These also look interesting:

• The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly
• The New Influencers: A Marketer’s Guide to the New Social Media

About a month ago I blogged about the chocolate fountain that I had at my daughter’s graduation reception. It was quite lovely!

Most every day I check blog stat’s & today I saw an interesting search that found our blog

Check out the last one! So I mentioned it to Heidi & she had seen it too. Then she asked if I had seen the chocolate fountain on the Food Network? (which of course I had!) I’m a big fan of this show too (click on the image to link you over for more info):

So what about the chocolate fountain on the food network? Well Heidi said to herself “I know how to fix it!”. That’s what I said to myself TOO!! The fountain wasn’t flowing right. We knew from our experience with mine that it needs to be turned off so the air bubbles can escape, then turned back on. Maybe the people at the Food Network were in a hurry?

Think we should let the Food Network know how to avoid it in the future?

Just a quick reminder that the ACDSee Creative Team Call is open for one more week.

All of the info is here.

And here’s the Four Seasons kit that is included in the compensation package.

Consider applying!

Today I received an email from Happy Scrap Girl asking me if I’d link to her blog here. Of course I will!

People love these kinds of links. Heidi has already added Happy Scrap Girl’s blog to our blog roll.

She has a daily list of freebies. So enjoy!

Other News -

Happy Scrap Girl included a nice note thanking us for the information we share. And I want to take a couple of minutes to comment on that. Our digital community is such a warm & welcoming place because of all the people that are willing to share their time & talents with each other! It is SO gratifying to share resources & get positive feedback. So to Hummie, Maggie, Christine & all of you who have supported us - a huge THANK you! This has really turned into a fun adventure.

Heidi & I foresaw a need & we are glad to be able to fill part of that. Sometimes I worry that I talk too much about marketing tips & people are looking for scrapbooking tips. (This happens when I see people unsubscribing… ) But we do try to provide information that makes your digiscrapping life easier. It may not necessarily improve your style! But maybe we’re more about the tools - the computers, external hard drives, software, and internet resources to make your life easier.

A quick note about our forum, Heidi mentioned something that I’ve been thinking about too.  And that is that the busiest area of our forum is at the bottom.  I’m going to move it up so it’s more convenient (and hopefully not break anything while doing it!).   So don’t get lost the next time you go into our forum - ok?!

In the next couple of days I need to help Heidi finish setting up newsletter software. I’m VERY excited to be able to send out newsletters with images, colored backgrounds & links that look prettier than the mass emailings I’ve been doing. We have the ability to create newsletters on different themes, so I need to decide if I should continue to run it all together, or should they be themed, like marketing, ACDSee tips, general hardware & software? What do you think?

Have spam on wordpress comments?

Akismet is a good way to keep the spam out. With recent wordpress installations, the Akismet plug-in is already there, it just needs to be activitated and given a key. So if you already have the plug-in, skip the downloading step.

1. Download the plug-in: Akismet Download
2. Upload the plugin file to your WordPress plugins directory inside of wp-content.
3. Activate it from the plugins menu inside of WordPress.
4. Get your API key
   1. Go to Wordpress.com
   2. If you use wordpress.com as your host, then you already are done with this step. If you host your own wordpress blog, register at wordpress.com and select “Just a username, please.”
   3. You will need to activitate your account and sign in to that account.
   4. Go to My Account | Global Dashboard, click on Profile tab and look for a key:
   5. 
5. On your own blog, Go Plugins | Akismet Configuration. Enter your key from the step above.
6. It should now be configured and running.
7. If you want to see what is being caught: Go to Manager | Akismet Spam and you can view the comments that are caught as Spam. You can mark any that accidently get put there. If there was mistake Akisment should “learn” from its mistakes.

Since we installed it, it has caught 1500 spam comments. That’s a lot of deleting manually if we didn’t have it.

Ok, I’m not sure if I should keep telling all my secrets! LOLOL I see people using my tactics!

But you’re all learning & I think that’s great! How do I know? Well CoComment is helping me keep track of blog comments. I see that on the genealogy blog, my loyal readers turned out in full force to talk up digital scrapbooking! Way to go girls! (Hummie & I have a friendly little banter of who gets there post in first. Before I shared my secret of Google Alerts, she had wondered how I got there so quick). I see now she’s posting comments first! You go girl!

I do have to give mention of these girls that are spreading the joy of Digital Scrapbooking! Christine Smith of Scrapquick.com; Maggie of Dragon Flaire Studios; Hummie has her own information blog like ours. You’re all rewarded with trackback links!

Now before you go thinking I have WAY too much time on my hands to be going back to check on comments I have left, I really never used to. Honest! A couple of weeks ago I installed a bunch of new toys & CoComment was one of them. Now I have a good example to show you how it is helpful. That first one wasn’t the point though. I was just tickled with seeing how my friends are popping up in the same places as I am with similar blog comments. Go browse the genealogy post if you want to get the whole picture.

About CoComment - it’s free software that tracks each comment that you make on blogs. About once a week something will prompt me to open it & review the new comments left. I installed it for one main reason. I’ve been reading Web 2.0 marketing blogs & those guys always comment back on their blogs, but I hated trying to remember which posts I had commented on. (Ok, maybe I comment too much?! but it is interesting to see their responses to my thoughts - that’s the whole point of blogs!).

So, here’s how it works after it’s installed:

1) When I go to post a comment on a blog, a little line is put under the posting box and I’m given the option to tag my comment. Like I could put ‘digiscrap’ or ‘marketing’ to later know which type of blog comment it was. If you look closely, the box is checked.. I can uncheck it to not keep track of that comment (like on our own blog when I reply to someone).

Then later when for some reason I want to review the comments, I click on the ‘CO’ shortcut that’s in my toolbar. That opens up a window that tracks the blogs where I’ve left comments. It looks like this:

If the text is in bold - there are new comments I haven’t read.

On the one I circled, I had commented on Dogwood Mama’s blog.

• When I was reviewing comments, I saw someone asking for a review of digiscrapping software
• I had just seen one, so I posted it there & clicked on the person asking the question
• On her blog I posted the info that she had asked for (because why would she go back & read comments?)
• and I linked back to my blog - and she came & thanked me for the info on our blog!

Why bother? Well, I think that if you’re putting the time into:

• following google alerts & rss search alerts
• going out & commenting

then why not follow up in case someone has posted a question?

And it also keeps me informed on all blogs that I comment on in case someone responds to me too. I’ve come to enjoy this little Web 2.0 app. It helps me to more easily help others!

Summer means fun & games, so we’re going to kick it up a notch as my hero, Emeril, says!

ACDSee is joining us at DigiScrapInfo.com more ways to win this summer. And if you like to chat, you may be in the money! or at least a lucky winner. Watch our blog for where we’ll be chatting at & when because we’ll be giving out ACDSee software and it’s great fun! We had a blast at 3Scrapateers on National Scrapbook Day!

Maggie from Dragon Flaire Studios has invited us over on Friday June 29th at 9 pm est. See her ad for other ways to win. Put it on your calendar & we hope to see you there! You can register here at her forum in advance.