FamilySays.com has been awarded the “Famous Website Award” by famouswhy.com:

We recommend this website because it provides simple tools to keep in touch with other family members invited within a private channel through the internet.

The “Famous Website Award” recognizes:

- originality, creativity and vision;

- fantastic design;

- excellent structure;

- user friendliness;

- professional appearance;

- the strength of “mind print” and the impact made in visitors’ minds;

Thanks for the review and award FamousWhy.com.

You can read their entire review here:
http://www.famouswhy.com/Site_Blog/FamilySays.com/693.html

We’ve heard your feedback and have made some changes … for the better.

Your FamilySays site now has the capability to upload multiple photos at one time when adding pictures to your message. The new function replaces the previous single picture uploader.

How to Upload Pictures

To upload multiple pictures, click on the “Write” tab. Add the title for your message, the message, and choose where to file it.

On Step 4, you’ll notice that the gray Browse box has been replaced by a blue “Select Pictures to Upload” button. When you click it, a window opens that lets you to browse to the picture files to be accessed. Select all of the pictures you’d like to add to your message by pressing the “Ctrl” button (Windows users) or “Command” key (Mac users) while clicking on the desired pictures, and then select “Open.”

The pictures you selected will begin uploading to your message, and when the upload for that picture is completed, a thumbnail photo will appear to the left.

When all of your pictures are uploaded, you can add captions, delete photos, and reorder photos. Photos are reordered by simply clicking on the thumbnail of the picture to move, dragging while continuing to hold the mouse button down, and dropping in the new location.

This new picture uploader requires Javascript to be enabled and Flash to be installed and running on your computer.

If you have difficulties with this new function or simply prefer to upload your pictures one at a time, there is a link under the blue “Select Pictures to Upload” button that says “Try this alternative picture uploader.” Clicking that link will take you to the prior version where you can upload single pictures.

If you should note an excessively long upload time for your pictures, you may want to try uploading them in smaller batches (i.e., 10 at a time instead of 25).

Increased Storage Space

As an added courtesy to our FamilySays users, we have raised the storage space for your pictures. If you currently have a Basic Family Plan, your storage space is now 1 GB (up from 200 MB). If you currently use the Family Reunion Plan, your storage space is now 3 GB (up from 500MB). We hope this will give you the freedom to share the photos you want with your family and friends without worrying about running out of space.

Many of the features of FamilySays.com use a technology called javascript.

In order to use your FamilySays.com site to post messages, add calendar entries, or update your address book, you’ll need to make sure your web browser has javascript enabled.

To enable javascript do the following based on what web browser you have:

Windows Internet Explorer

To allow scripting on this Web site only, and to leave scripting disabled in the Internet zone, add this Web site to the Trusted sites zone.

1. On the Tools menu, click Internet Options, and then click the Security tab.
2. Click the Internet zone.
3. If you do not have to customize your Internet security settings, click Default Level. Then do step 4

If you have to customize your Internet security settings, follow these steps:
a. Click Custom Level.
b. In the Security Settings – Internet Zone dialog box, click Enable for Active Scripting in the Scripting section.

4. Click the Back button to return to the previous page, and then click the Refresh button to run scripts.

Mozilla Firefox

1. On the Tools menu, click Options.
2. On the Content tab, click to select the Enable JavaScript check box.
3. Click the Go back one page button to return to the previous page, and then click the Reload current page button to run scripts.

Safari
1. Choose Safari > Preferences.
2. Click Security.
3. Make sure these checkboxes are selected: Enable Plug-ins, Enable Java, and Enable JavaScript.
4. Make sure this checkbox is not selected: “Block pop-up windows.”

Opera

1. On the Tools menu, click Preferences.
2. On the Advanced tab, click Content.
3. Click to select the Enable JavaScript check box, and then click OK.
4. Click the Back button to return to the previous page, and then click the Reload button to run scripts.

Netscape browsers

1. Select Edit, Preferences,Advanced
2. Click to select Enable JavaScript option.

In order to upload multiple pictures when writing a message on FamilySays.com, you’ll need to make sure you have the free Adobe Flash Player installed and working in your web browser.

You can download and install the free Adobe Flash Player here:
http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

I am a fan of blog feeds. It makes my world so much easier to just have one place to go to see what’s new with my friends instead of checking each of their individual blogs. However, one of the catches of blog feeds is that you can’t subscribe to blogs that are private. You have to go check each one of those individually, and generally with a user name and password. So I completely sympathized when one of my friends ranted on her blog about five people she knew who were taking their blogs private. But I also sympathized with those five friends, since I am also one of those private bloggers.

Fortunately, Family Says provides a silver lining for both the private and the friends of the private. Email notifications. Yes, regardless of whether you have a Family Reunion or a Basic Family Says plan, any author or guest will receive an email notification with a link to the new posting as soon as something new is added to your site. This feature can also be turned off by individual authors or guests if they desire. In order to receive email notifications, a user name and password is required to initially log into your site, but if cookies are enabled in your browser, your authors and guests can bypass the login step by clicking on the link included in the email.

It’s a wonderfully simple solution that keeps everyone happy without having to compromise privacy or staying in touch.

The Pew Internet and American Life Project has released a study about the impact of Internet and cell phone use on family communication.

Overall, the results indicate that the Internet has enabled families to draw closer together and strengthen their relationships:

One-third (33%) of online adults say that the internet has improved their connections with friends “a lot,” and nearly one-quarter (23%) say that it has greatly improved their connections with members of their family.

While the research isn’t always clear on the difference between Internet and cell phone usage, it offers some very interesting insights into how families use these technologies to their benefit.

Family blogs are just one way you can stay in touch with family and friends. This electronic medium can help solidify those family links even if you are physically very far apart.

One of the reasons blogging has become so popular is that you can share information about yourself and family with anyone you want without the feel of spamming your entire email contact list. You can even share pictures and videos without crashing email. It really is a fun way share information about yourself and exchange information with other people you care about.

When it comes to family blogs, you have to decide if you want to open your blog to public viewing or keep it restricted to those you invite with a private family blog.

Public Blogs

People like public blogs because you can search for old friends and if they have a blog, voila! You can connect. There are many public blog services available, making it accessible to anyone who has a computer.

People also like public blogs because you can subscribe to a blog feed. A blog feed allows you to enter the URLs of any website you frequently visit, and when you visit your feed page, you can see at a glance who has updated any content to their blog or web page. (Most private blogs cannot be added to blog feeds.) You can keep track of your favorite blog feeds with tools like Google Reader or Bloglines.

If you have no reservations about having what you put on a blog seen by literally anyone in the entire world, a public blog is a good way to go.

Cautions with a Public Family Blog

Anyone, truly ANYONE, can stumble on your site. Our friends posted a funny picture of their 2-year old playing with his plastic golf clubs in the backyard while he was naked. The picture was censored but the blog title was “Naked Golfer.” They discovered that all sorts of weirdos were visiting their site who had done a Google search using those key words. Needless to say, they ended up deleting that post. Blog stalkers are a reality.

If you have a public blog, keep the information as generic as possible. Try to avoid using first and last names, street addresses, other contact information like email, physical descriptions, or things like genealogical information. You don’t want to make it possible for blog stalkers to put two and two together and end up on your doorstep.

We’re not trying to scare you but rather just to caution: be smart about what you say. Some people go to the extreme of identifying family members by their initials or referring to their children as “the boy” or “the kids.” Many people don’t worry about it that much. With the millions of blogs out there, it’s easy to gamble on the chance that the weirdos probably will not find you. However, Google and other search engines will find your blog eventually and then it will be at the finger tips of anyone with Internet access.

Advantages of a Private Family Blog

If you are concerned about weirdos reading about your kid’s birthday party or looking at your family photos, you may want to consider a private blog.

Obviously, privacy is a big motivator for those of us who go that route and was one of the reasons we built Family Says in the first place.

With a private family blog, you have more control over who is looking at the things you put out there. You still have all the benefits of blogging but not as many of the risks.

Private family blogs generally require a user name and password. The good news with this is that friends and family tend to respect your desire for privacy so it’s generally not too much of an issue.

Traditionally blogs had just one author. Any visitors to the blog could leave comments on posts made by that one author. This single-author setup may be fine for most individual journal style blogs but doesn’t always work for families.

With a family, you’ll probably want to have multiple authors so that mom, dad, and maybe the kids can all share their own thoughts on the blog.

Nuclear Family vs. Extended Family

Your immediate family may only have a few people that would be authors on your blog. If that is the case, your blog only needs to support just a handful of authors. Be careful when investigating options, not all blogging services let you have more than one author.

If you want your entire extended family to share a blog, make sure your blogging service supports numerous authors. Here at FamilySays.com we have a “Family Reunion” plan that can have up to 50 authors, which should be enough to cover a large extended family.

We’ve used our extended family website to replace the traditional printed newsletter we had for years. The family blog gives people the opportunity to share news and events when they happen instead of having to go through the coordination hassle of a family newsletter.

Alan Henry over at PC Magazine‘s blog AppScout recently reviewed Family Says.

He shared how many of his colleagues have had to set up family websites from scratch for their loved ones:

Several of my colleagues have had to build photo galleries, blogs, and even message boards so their families could communicate, and while there are a ton of apps that already do this, it’s up to the individual to bring them all together and design the site so everything works smoothly. For someone without a world of technical experience, this can be a near-impossible task. Family Says wants to make the whole process easy by doing it all for you.

This is exactly why we built Family Says. Since I was the family member that had the technical expertise, I built a family blog for our family. When we saw the positive reception it got from family and friends, we realized that other families would benefit from a similar service. Thus Family Says was born.

Alan continues:

I was very impressed with Family Says. It fills the need for families who often are spread out across the globe to communicate and share baby pictures, wedding photos, and more without the need for a Web designer in the family and without having to pay someone a ton of money to set up a family site. The service is new but looks polished. Also, since it’s easy to use and is locked down to family members only, it looks much more useful than a simple family blog.

I think he described our service very well and definitely picked up on how it can make life easier for lots of families that don’t have a resident web guru.

Thanks for the great review!

Family Says got a great review today over at KillerStartups.com.

They captured the spirit of our service very well. We are indeed a “Private Family Network.” The fact that we’re private contrasts with the other social networks out there that are frequently very public. As you know, keeping your family interactions private is one of our core founding principles.

KillerStartups paints an accurate picture of what we’re trying to accomplish:

Only family members and whoever else they’ve invited have access to their pages, which means random strangers won’t be reading about your family vacations or drooling over pictures of your daughter’s graduation.

They sum up our service by highlighting two of the key benefits of Family Says:

For one, FamilySays is streamlined and simple, so that all family members, even granny dearest can use it. It’s also private, so that things are kept within the family. Basically, it’s a great way for families who are spread out around the world to keep in touch and feel connected.

Simplicity and privacy are definitely two of the benefits of using Family Says for your family communications.

If you enjoy our Family Says service, visit the KillerStartups.com review and vote for us by clicking the “Killers” button with the big plus sign: