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When I was growing up my dad had one of those huge, brick-like cellphones like the kind Michael Douglas had in the 1980s flick Wall Street. We also had a big bulky Polaroid camera and a "state-of-the-art" 8-track. Yes, even 30 years ago moms and dads were drawn to technology, looking to capture life's best moments and preserve them. Just like today.
However, those days of simple tech -- instant pictures packed into countless cookie tins -- have given way to countless shiny gadgets and online sharing. We shoot videos of our kids on phones and show them off on YouTube, shrink their mugs onto keychain digital photo frames and plop them in front of Skype Video for calls to grandma and grandpa in Florida. We blog about their first moments and share our trials and wonders on the World Wide Web.
As much as I love our high-tech world, there are a few things that parents today can learn from our own moms and dads. Right now my fiancé and I have hundreds of photos of our one-year-old son Connor, everything from the moment he screamed his way into the world to his shaky steps on his first birthday (yes, I'm a new mom). If you asked me to find any of those specific pics, it would be a bit of a struggle. I do know they're all "in the cloud," backed up for safekeeping, but I don't think I could find very quickly -- certainly not as fast as I could if they were in one of those old-school photo albums, the ones with the sticky pages.
So with that in mind, for those of you keen on introducing your families to new technologies but still yearn for the old days, here are a few tips and services you might like:
Print your family blog I have good friends in Chicago who have blogged about their son's first year. They plan to use a service called Blurb to turn the site into a printed book (which is not expensive to do, starting at just $12.95 a book).
Go ahead, print your favourite pictures I keep, share, and back up a lot of my photos on Flickr. The Yahoo! service works with Snapfish to make it easy for you to order prints, but there are also plenty of other reliable photo printing services on the web. Great pics can be blown up and fitted for a frame.
Invest in a few great photo albums There are plenty of places online, include PictureMe, that sell high quality albums. From baby albums to wedding albums to vacation albums, it's worth turning your photos into physical memories.
Send snailmail on the Web As much as e-mail is a necessity in our world, there is nothing like getting a personalized note in the mail. Teach your kids to send fun and fast postcards using a service such as Zoom and Go. From birthday greetings or an update from a trip, this site lets you upload pics and write a customized message.
Back up all your photos and videos Whether you're using an external hard drive or a service such as Dropbox, make sure that you have archived copies of your pics in a couple of different places.