Great news from Flickr and the Library of Congress. They are offering 3,000 public domain photos to the web as creative commons. This means that most of these photos can be added to books or websites without copyright restrictions. MemoryPress currently allows you to add your own photos from Flickr. Who’d like to add photos from this historical collection? While anyone can download the photos from Flickr or the Library of Congress website and then upload them to their MemoryPress account, it would be possible to make them available inside your MemoryPress account so that you can drop them right into your book. What do you all think? Who would use this service?

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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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In changing iMemoryBook to MemoryPress, we feel that it is extremely important for those who use MemoryPress to understand the importance of typesetting your book with a real typesetting system.

“Typesetting involves the presentation of textual material in graphic form on paper or some other medium. Before the advent of desktop publishing, typesetting of printed material was produced in print shops by compositors working by hand, and later with machines.” - Wikipedia

World Class Typesetting
Three powerful typesetting systems are responsible for almost every modern book, magazine, catalog, and newspaper you have ever seen or read: TeX, Quark Xpress ($749.00 software package), and Adobe InDesign ($699.00 software package). Hiring a professional typesetter to run these systems for you would only set you back $1,000 to $2,000 per book. MemoryPress delivers the power of TeX to your family library, making it simple for you to create a book that even Gutenberg could be proud of.

History of TeX
The following brief history of TeX will educate you a little in the importance of typesetting. You will better understand why MemoryPress is the solution to building your family library, not like simple word processors and cheap book making systems.

In 1969, Professor Donald Knuth, at Stanford University, published his first book. Knuth’s publisher produced a beautifully typeset book using the classical process, called mono-type, a century old technology for laying out the text in books. Years later, in 1977, he completed the manuscript for a new volume of his book. This time Knuth decided to try out the new computerized typesetting systems. He received the galley proofs–previews of what his book would look like–and compared them to the classical book he had previously published. The galley proofs were awful. After a futile search for a computerized typesetting solution, Knuth decided to take a year off his work to create the needed solution. He got hooked and he started on a 12 year journey creating TeX, one of the world’s most stable and advanced typesetting systems. Consider the differences in the following examples from TeX and Microsoft Word.

Example 1 - Common Ligatures

Example 2 - Real Small Caps

Example 3 - Real World Example

TeX (professionally typeset) Microsoft Word (many errors)

When typesetting just one small example of words in Alice in Wonderland, note three major differences between professional typesetting, powered by TeX, and Microsoft Word. First, look carefully how TeX uses contentual intelligence to determine that a ligature is needed to combine the “f” and “i” in the word “finishing.” Second, TeX avoids placing “So” on its own line, making the sentence easier to read. Finally, TeX also produces a more balanced text block by extending the last sentence out on the final line, instead of leaving “been” hanging. Professional books are built upon this attention to balance and detail.If MS Word makes this many mistakes in a simple 86 word excerpt of Alice and Wonderland, how many mistakes are there going to be in a whole book?

Because of these and many other advanced typesetting features, TeX is used as a standard for publishing the most demanding mathematical textbooks at most of the world’s academic presses (including books published by Addison-Wesley, Cambridge University Press, and Oxford University Press). Since TeX release, other world class standards like Adobe InDesign ($699.00) have adopted TeX state of the art algorithms for creating beautifully typeset books. TeX isn’t a dinky word processor; it typesets books on a professional grade.

Although TeX has typeset millions of professional books over the years, the TeX program was too complex for most people* until now. TeX is the typesetting engine behind MemoryPress and will produce a finer typeset result than other book making systems. Why would you trust your family history with anything less than world class typesetting? MemoryPress makes you an expert typesetter without making you learn TeX. Even better, you don’t have to purchase and learn $699 to $749.00 software applications.

Are you familiar with TeX? We would love to hear your comments. Tell us what you think of this post.
* This article refers to LaTeX, a macro programming language that simplifies typesetting in TeX (at least for a programmer). Most people even think LaTeX is very difficult to learn.

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In 2004 we launched iMemoryBook, a simple system that allows families to turn photos and memories into hardbound books. Three years and several thousand family histories later, MemoryPress will soon replace iMemoryBook.

We just purchased www.MemoryPress.com and are getting very close to the change over. This change has been in our plan for several months now. iMemoryBook BETA 2.0 is currently being used to test and develop the MemoryPress system. The change in names is about positioning really. Over the past 3 months, we have conducted multiple surveys and have done a lot of research. MemoryPress is simply the right name for our position. MemoryPress will be the world’s first professional online typesetting system. It will be the solution to creating your family library.

New Features
We have listened carefully to requests from all of you over the past three years. Here are some new features that will be available in the MemoryPress system:

• Microsoft Word Import.
• flickr photo import.
• A completely redesigned user interface (UI).
• iMemoryBook’s 80lb paper will be improved with the 100lb paper of MemoryPress.
• Guaranteed Library Certified Bindings on all books.
• Multiple photo uploader.

We believe that MemoryPress will revolutionize the family and personal history genre for the next generation. From baby books to wedding stories, retirement gifts to your own life story, MemoryPress helps you compile, typeset, print, bind, and ship your creation direct to your door.

Personal & Family History Focus
With the new MS Word import finally coming to fruition our focus for the next few months will be on family and personal histories. Take a look at these stats:

• 33 million Americans (15 percent of those surveyed) want to create a legacy to pass on to future generations.
• 24 million Americans (11 percent of those surveyed) have already written a personal or family history.
  *thanks to MyFamily.com for the research!

We will be giving you the power to easily put that personal or family history, currently sitting in your Word document, into a professionally bound book!

Previews of the program will be posted over the coming weeks on www.MemoryPress.com. Before the official MemoryPress release date (anticipated in August 2007), FamilyLearn will announce how MemoryPress will work for existing customers and partners (personal historians, bookstores and funeral homes).

Stay tuned for further information on the world’s first online typesetting system by leaving your email at www.MemoryPress.com .

Let us know what you think. We would love to hear your comments.

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ComputerWorld named the hottest five technologies to know about in 2007.

We’re using two of them:

1. Ruby on Rails.
2. Amazon’s S3 and EC2.

However, we didn’t switch to them because they are voted “hot” technologies; we’re using them because they solve problems for us. In the case of Amazon’s offerrings, they empower us to do things we couldn’t have afforded to do otherwise. Ruby on Rails makes our engineers’ lives easier (at least until they need to look past the magic of ActiveRecord to speed things up). Thank you to the collaboration that has made these technologies possible.

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Hi folks.
Many of you, especially personal historians, have asked why we haven’t transitioned to the new iMemoryBook when it is so much better than the old one. I had announced at the APH 2006 that we’d make the transition by January 1st. I apologize for misleading the group we told. Although in our tests, it has worked fine, we’ve encountered things on certain installations of IE 7 that we didn’t anticipate. We also faced some heavy backend work to handle all the traffic. The reason we haven’t transitioned yet is because users on the new system have told us that it isn’t ready (Thank you for all your feedback!). We’ll transition from BETA as soon as you tell us that beta.imemorybook.com is working better for you than www.imemorybook.com.

So, use the “Report a Bug” at the bottom of the screen whenever you encounter something you’d like to see done better and we’ll get there much faster. Also, feel free to comment here when you think we’re ready.

Thank you all!

The iMemoryBook Team

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