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Creating an appropriate post to Wikipedia will take you some time. Here is how I did it.

Everything begins with research:

1. Register with Wikipedia and study their suggested readings (takes about 30 minutes):
   

   The five pillars of Wikipedia
   How to edit a page
   Help pages
   Tutorial
   How to write a great article
   Manual of Style

2. Find and read about other companies related your company. Note what you like about the articles and what you don’t like. I am a very visual person so this helped me more than the tutorials.
3. You can learn the basic write up language for Wikipedia in a short time, but I suggest that you snatch an article that someone else has already posted and then click “edit this page” and copy out all their content. You can now use this content as a template for your posting. Replace their text with your text, their images with your images, and their links with your links. In the end you will have created a well organized article.
4. Properly site any content you use.
5. External Links: You can link them to official pages on your website, your blog, and recent articles about your website. These links are very valuable so choose them carefully and make sure that they are appropriate to the cause of Wikipedia.
6. Don’t sell ANYTHING. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. The greatest danger of writing your own article is that you are partial to your business. Be careful.

Each post you make is just the beginning. Over time others will refine your article and correct your mistakes.  Please comment if you have had experience with Wikipedia.

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Today I read an article by Draco Draconis on Self Publishing. He talked about Kevin Kelly’s article on lulu and blurb. I really wanted to comment on Draco’s blog but he has made it just about impossible to write anything unless you know him personally. I suppose in the end I was just hoping for a link from him about iMemoryBook 2.0

I especially liked Draco’s mention of what is happening in the self publishing industry:

“…people start out by ordering one copy of a personal book, they quickly come back for more. Ordering 50 or more copies is not uncommon. Furthermore, once people discover how easy it is to make a book, they make a lot of them. Maybe several a year.”

We are finding the very same thing. The iMemoryBook has taken some time to get going. Virgin products are always difficult. Even my oldest brother was telling me how many projects he wants to do but it just feels like it is going to take so much commitment, funny enough he hasn’t even done one book yet, when he gets started I think he will change his mind. iMemoryBook is so easy to use.
I have now created or am creating over 7 book projects, from a baby memory book to my sister’s wedding memory book. It is addictive and feels like you are accomplishing something good for your posterity.

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Ever get frustrated that you don’t have a simple system to edit (i.e. crop, color, brighten, redeye removal…) your photos? Perhaps you don’t have $600 to buy Photoshop + 40 hours to invest in learning how to use it. Maybe you are like me, taking dozens of photos per month just to let them sit on your PC, waiting for when you have time to organize and edit them. If this is you (and you have not heard of Google Picasa) then you are going to thank me for this blog post.

Over a year ago Neal told me about Picasa. I downloaded it out of curiosity and was thrilled when it automatically found and organized every photo on my computer. Picasa found photos I didn’t even know I had. I have yet to find such a simple system for editing, printing, emailing, and preparing my photos for my iMemoryBook projects.

For example, here is a photo of me fighting to catch the garter at my friend’s wedding. You can see that the photo is dark and barely viewable (I am the one in the middle. I did catch it:)

Here is the same photo after 10 seconds of editing in Picassa:

The difference is night and day and it didn’t take more than 5 minutes to learn!

Getting Picasa:

Click here to download Picasa to your computer (it takes less than a minute).

After you have downloaded Picasa, let it go and find your photos on your computer. (If your photos are still on your camera just click import in the top left corner and go get them).

Using Picasa for your iMemoryBook:

• Select all your best photos for your current iMemoryBook project (hold down CRTL to select more than one.)
• Click “Add to” in your bottom tool bar.
• Select “New Album”
• Name your album: “My Personal History Photos” (This example is if you are creating a personal history)
• Continue to add photos to this album until you have all the photos that you want.
• Select your photo album in the “library” and click “Export” in the bottom right side. (I usually export photos to my desktop so that they are easy to find)

Great. You are almost done.

• Log in to your iMemoryBook account.
• Click on your “Photos” tab in your book.
• Click “Upload Photos”
• Click “browse” under “upload multiple photos” (this is the best photo uploader I have ever used)
• Select ALL of the photos in your newly created picasa album.
• Click “Open” and wait for your photos to upload.

Your done!

You can also use Picasa to create CDs, blog entries, and order prints from over 10 different online photo stores.

Picasa is FREE and considered one of the best bargains ever.

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I just got an automatic email from skype. It says:

It appears that you haven’t used any of your Skype Credit for a while now. Skype expires inactive credit balances and you have 30 days left to take action to keep your credit.

This is lame. I paid up front for minutes and then they are going to make them expire. Sounds like a Calling card. I have had skype for a while now and this is the first time they have sent me something like this. I wonder if it has anything to do with being owned by Ebay?

I guess to get 180 more days use on my money, I just need to use the account, a call, a text, whatever.

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Paul Allen announced in class this past week that you can get $200 in free pay-per-click advertising from MSN adcenter until January 15th. There is just a $5 fee to get an account:

$200 dollars free PPC

$100 dollars free PPC

Adcenter normal Homepage

In class the idea came up that someone could go to business door to door and sell them $200 of adcenter credit for $100. Ben was saying that if everyone here at work signed up we could get over $1000 dollars in free advertising for the launch of the New BETA iMemoryBook system.

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