We thought our MemoryPress users would like to hear that we have just launched our Online Journaling Program called Pyxlin. Pyxlin is the smart way to journal. It was created so that people can keep their daily journal online in an easy-to-use, very secure format, and then have it professionally published when they are ready. Some of you may have heard of Pyxlin before. It has been around but, just this week, it was finalized and launched to the general public. It is ready for all journal writers to come and give it a try. Use it in place of your diary, written journal, or scrapbook. If you are already typing your journal entries on your computer, then you definitely need to give Pyxlin a try. It has so many benefits to traditional journals. Here are some of the great features of Pyxlin.

1. Your journal is password protected with a 256 Bit Encrypted Log-in (we’re talking bank quality security).
2. Access your journal from any internet connection in the world. No more forgetting to bring it with you.
3. Each of your journal entries is automatically dated with todays date - Or choose any date you wish.
4. You can organize your journal however you wish. Have a new journal for each aspect of life, or rearrange your entries with a simple drag and drop.
5. You can add unlimited photos to your journal. You can place them directly into your journal entry, or have an entire page of photos. No more journals with loose pictures or ticket stubs falling out. Simply scan them and drop them right onto the page.
6. 37% of journalers have lost their journal. This is one journal you CAN’T lose. House fires, computer crashes, they won’t matter. We have all your information safely archived in 3 places.
7. Once your ready, Pyxlin will professionally typeset all your text and photos, and you can publish your journal into a professional hardbound book.

If you haven’t tried Pyxlin before, you’ve got to try it now. With your MemoryPress login you already have access to Pyxlin. Click the word Pyxlin in the upper right hand corner of your account and start a journal today.

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Below are our first attempts at creating visual tutorials. We will be posting them inside the help soon. Sorry about the low resolution, that is what we get when we use YouTube. But I am even more sorry that you have to listen to my voice in all but one of these. Next time I will try to add some more variety to them

Tutorial 1 - Edit Table of Contents

Tutorial 2 - Add a Memory

Tutorial 3 - Add a Photo

Tutorial 4 - Add a Photo Page

Tutorial 5 - Choose Your Cover

Tutorial 6 - Change Layout

In the next weeks, as we add features and make changes, we will be redoing these tutorials. But for now let us know what you think.

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How many usernames and passwords do you juggle? With OpenID you keep it to just one!

OpenID is a new optional way to sign in at any FamilyLearn website.

Have you ever felt sick of trying to remember usernames and passwords for all the websites you frequent?

OpenID is a great way to have only one username and password while visiting tons of cool websites (none quite as cool as ours, of course).

Why I want OpenID:

My friends think I have turned into an Internet Geek. It’s true, I love the Internet. But I have one major problem with the Internet. It requires too many dang IDs and Passwords! I believe this is the single greatest barrier for online applications to grow.

On the web I regularly use accounts on Google, Yahoo!, Amazon, MSN or Live, Ask, AnswerBag, Wikipedia, MemoryPress, Facebook, Joost, Skype, Ebay, LinkedIn, Zoho, QuestionPro, YouTube, Digg, Reddit, PayPal, My Bank, My Blog, Pyxlin’, Brigham Young University, Apple … sigh … these are just the places I visit regularly, I couldn’t even count ALL the places I have ever created an account with.

How is anyone supposed to keep all those usernames and passwords straight, but still keep them unique enough to keep their identity from being compromised? EASY! OpenID!

How to use OpenID on MemoryPress:

You may have noticed this OpenID logo on the signin page:

Ok, you probably didn’t notice it yet, take a look to the right side of the screenshot below:

If you click on that little OpenID logo you will see this spot to sign in with OpenID:

OpenID to be used by Firefox, AOL, and Microsoft:

I am VERY excited about using OpenID because it makes it so that I don’t have to use a different username and password for every site. THAT’S RIGHT!

You don’t have to use OpenID but if you want to you can. Here is a blip about OpenID from Wikipedia:

“OpenID is increasingly gaining adoption among large sites, with organizations like AOL acting as a provider. In addition, integrated OpenID support has been made a high priority in Firefox 3^[1] and Microsoft is working on implementing OpenID 2.0 in Windows Vista.^“

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Personal Historians,

We have started the process of branding MemoryPress to APH websites. Here is a peek at what it looks like.

We took careful consideration in the design of MemoryPress to make sure that it was brandable. We hope you like it.

This is a process, and we will not have all the sites branded by the time we release MemoryPress. We just wanted to let you know we have started.

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MemoryPress is coming together nicely. Here are some fun looks at the new User Interface.

“Add a Photo” View

Duane’s Photo Editing Tool. You can now drag, rotate, change to sepia or black & white, move, and add a caption all in one step!

We changed what you see when it is time to click to edit text.

“Add a Memory” View

Here is a screenshot of what it looks like when MemoryPress is typesetting your book. You can see the little gif that Daniel talked about earlier.

“Edit Table of Contents” View

It is now possible for you to add, move, trash, and edit chapters right in your “Edit Table of Contents” view!

Paul has been working for some time on the “Manage Custom Pages” view. This view will allow you to easily drag and drop photo-pages anywhere in your book!

Here is the new Quick Navigation

These are not complete, but this past year of hard work is starting to take form. We are getting more and more excited each day. Let us know what you think.

*to create these previews I used Latin Filler Text from www.lipsum.com.

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The most distinguishing feature of the new MemoryPress is its typesetting capability. MemoryPress is the world’s first online typesetting system.

As you make changes to your book, the application isn’t always loading (as you will experience on the rest of the web), it is typesetting. Essentially, MemoryPress typesetting takes your text and sets it into a library quality layout. Unlike word processing applications and email, MemoryPress automatically takes care of details like alignment, spacing, font size, headers, footers, page numbers, and table of contents. Using MemoryPress is like having a personal designer that worries about the visual aspect of your book, so that you can devote your attention to your memories.

Gutenberg’s invention of movable type required the characters to be set piece by piece. When you update your book on MemoryPress, it does this electronically. I’ve included a small animation that MemoryPress users will see as the application typesets their memories.

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I’ve been working full time on the new MemoryPress User Interface (UI). Some people have enough time on their hands that they actually monitor our snail-like technical progress. I figure that your dedication (and quirky hobby) deserve a special insider look at the visual development of our new application.

Here is a screen shot of the alpha version of MemoryPress.

Frank feedback is appreciated. Critical comments are condemned.

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Daniel has been working on the MemoryPress logo for a short while. Here it is. We wanted something that better represented the MemoryPress application.

It is in the top left corner of the website. Let us know what you think. Is it perfect? Is it totally off? Do you like the book? We would love to know your opinion.

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The geek squad has a load of bug fixes and new features to report today.  In addition, we’ve been working to catch up on the high demand that Christmas deadlines have brought about.  We’re happy to report that some of the major slowdowns we were experiencing earlier are fixed—although we are still working on an even better solution to the whole speed issue that we’ll report on later.

Without any further ado, the fixes and features:

• Global Spell Check! If you are an editor of a book, visit the contributions tab and you’ll find a “Global Spell Check” option at the bottom of the list of chapters in your book. Click to go to the new spell check page—you can check your whole book for typos from there.
• Multi-Photo Uploader! We’ve used the up-and-coming SWFUpload package. Sue Hessell has been begging for this for a long time . Ben thinks this is the best one he’s every used.
• The publish / checkout bug is fixed that was preventing people from getting their hands on one (or more) hardbound copies of their book.
• There was an issue with the tabs in Internet Explorer where the selected tab would obscure the sub-tabs.  This is now fixed.
• Deleting other peoples’ books is now disabled. (Thanks go to all of you who were tempted to delete someone else’s book and didn’t )
• There is now a flashy new tutorial available in the book editor page.  Try it out!  It will guide you through the basics of how the editor works.
• The quality of some uploaded photos has been improved. (But don’t worry, you don’t have to re-upload any photos, we’ve kept your originals intact and only the best quality photos will be used in the final product).
• The Invitation System had some updates: as the chief editor, you can change the deadline using the menu on the left; you can change who the book is about; and when the time comes that you need to stop accepting contributions, you can turn that off.

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I spent two years in Portugal where I took hundreds of photos and filled two handwritten journals. I’ve been wanting, for a long time, to put my photos and journals into a memory book from iMemoryBook.com. I’ve been procrastinating the task because uploading photos and images has always been such a slow and tedious process. You used to have to upload in small increments of five photos at a time.

Fortunately, however, iMemoryBook.com released the best photo uploader I have ever seen. It is 100% web based, which means you don’t have to download any software. You can select loads of photos at one time. The uploader then begins to transfer the images seamlessly from your computer to the internet. As each image loads, you will see a thumbnail size version of it. Next to each thumbnail, you have the option to enter a photo caption while the other photos are still loading! I love it!

Finally! This Christmas break I will turn my photos and memories into a beautiful memory book.

If you want to know more about the technical side of this uploader, it’s called SWFUpload. Read Duane’s blog post on it. He is an iMemoryBook programmer and as far as I can tell, a super-genius. You can also check out the deconcept blog.

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