Treasure-Book's Blog

20% Boxing Day Promo Code

2011-12-28T11:18:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Thank you for your continued support in the past year!

20% Boxing Day Photo Books Savings!

Save 20% between Dec 26-Jan 31st 2012
Not much to do between Christmas and New Year? Why not work on a  Photo Book project and save 20% on Book orders placed between Dec. 26th and Jan. 31st, 2011

Use Promo Code:     Boxing20
Get started now and save money!
(See Coupon Box below for details)

20% offer NOT valid on Calendars or Cards.
For these, use promo code TBPDC10 for a 10% saving

Save 20% during "Boxing Weeks Photo Books Savings!"

Coupon Code: Boxing20

Enter the code into the coupon space at check-out. You will not be prompted, so look for the coupon space.
Click SUBMIT to activate the code.
Offer only valid on Photo Books. Cannot be exchanged for cash.
Code cannot be combined with another one. One coupon per order. Multiple use is permitted within the promotional period. No discount credits after ordering, code MUST be used at check out when order is paid for. Print this page and keep it in a safe place.

Offer Valid: Dec. 26th, 2011 - Midnight Jan 31st 2012

We are moving to a new home for Treasure-Book

2011-11-23T22:34:00.000-08:00

After 4 years in business at a leased building in Langley, we are pleased to announce that we will move into our own building during the weekend of 26 and 27th November, 2011.

Our new address will be:
Treasure-Book Printers Inc.
7 - 5508 Production Blvd.
Surrey, BC V3S 8P5

Although it is a Surrey address, it feels more like a Langley location as we are located on the Surrey/Langley border, just off 56th Ave, a few steps passed the "Welcome to Surrey"sign.

Our local telephone number will change as well on Monday 28th November to: 604-539-8211
The Toll Free telephone number will remain unchanged at 1-877-513-8261

Those of you that have placed orders with us and selected "PICK UP" as there delivery choice should check carefully when the completion e-mail arrives. If it is this week, you can still pick up your order at the well known Langley address, but otherwise, pick up from 28th November onwards can only be done at our new permanent location in Surrey, BC.

We will make absolutely sure that the move will be executed with great care and that we will have as little disruption to our business as humanly possible.
Our server will stay connected on the old address until we have assured Internet access in the new building.

Meanwhile, please keep working on those Christmas books, remember to use the WCW15 coupon code at check out, click SUBMIT to activate the discount.

Photo Book as Christmas gift - 15% discount promo code available for all readers

2011-11-09T14:19:00.000-08:00

It is that time of year again......
We have noticed a nice increase in business already for the Christmas period.
If you have plans to create a book, calendar or greeting cards for the Holidays, now is the time to get started.
No matter where in Canada you live, we can get it to you quickly and guaranteed before the gift giving season if your orders reach us no later than November 30, 2011.

Compared to our offerings of last year, we now have a brilliant 11 x 14" landscape book available, with a starting price of just $ 59.99 in the standard hardcover execution with leatherette or suede exterior.
That price includes 10 sheets for a total of 20 pages.

Before you start, please make sure you have the latest Treasure-Book software on your computer and that you have the latest Java software installed as well.
You can get the latest Treasure-Book from our website and to check on the latest java software, please check this website out.
Both upgrades are a free download, but are vital to a flawless operation of our software.
The latest version is more stable and has addressed a few issues that we had for customers who have Telus as their Internet provider. The settings and server connection compatibility have now made sure that all users can download the software and are able to upload files to our server for printing.

Then: take 15% off your order by using promo code WCW15 at check out.
Click SUBMIT to activate it.
Offer valid till December 31, 2011. Can not be combined with another code, no cash value, no refunds if product ordered without the use of this code. Code only valid if entered at check-out.

Thank you!

Winners of $ 50 Gift Certificates West Coast Women Show

2011-10-24T12:24:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we exhibited at the West Coast Women Show and had a Lucky Draw for 10 Gift Certificates.
The lucky winners are:
Theresa Hain, Surrey
Debbie Miki, Cloverdale
Bonnie Wetmore, Abbotsford
Shyla Cuddeford, Surrey
Marg Little, Surrey
Cora Sharma, Abbotsford
Lisa Tran, Surrey
Linda Mauch, Chilliwack
Marian Aikema, Langley
Jenni Traill, Langley
All winners will receive their Gift Certificate by e-mail!

Our Congratulations to the 10 Winners and a big Thank You to all people that visited our booth at the show and took the time to fill out the draw ticket!

Westcoast Women Show

2011-10-19T17:24:00.000-07:00

As we did in 2009 and 2010, Treasure-Book will exhibit again at the West Coast Women Show in Abbotsford, BC, to be held at the Tradex Building, located at the Abbotsford Airport.
The Show will be held Friday October 21st, Saturday October 22nd and Sunday October 23rd. 2011

For opening times, ticket prices, transportation etc. please visit the official website of the show.

Visitors to our booth can see a demo of our latest software, browse samples of all styles of books that we offer and can have a look at greeting cards and calendars as well.
A 15% coupon will be offered to Treasure-Book booth visitors, which is located on your right hand side after entering the show, booth number 184.
Furthermore, all visitors will be given the opportunity to fill out a lucky draw ticket. We will draw 10 lucky winners on the last day of the show, each receiving a $ 50 gift certificate that can be used towards purchases from Treasure-Book.com
The show will also give you an unbelievable opportunity to buy all sorts of great bargains, early Christmas gifts, see the latest and the greatest in beauty products, household items, food products. Don't forget to sample the many free food and beverage samples that are handed out in large quantities.
With an average of 35,000 visitors, this is one popular show you don't want to miss!
You can even bring your hubby or boyfriend.....there is lots of eye candy for them as well!
Come by and enjoy a fun filled, day, morning, afternoon or evening at the West Coast Women Show!

New User Guide available now + Coupon News!

2011-10-14T11:11:00.000-07:00

A quick note today!
We have reworked and rewritten our Treasure-Book User Guide to reflect all improvements and added features available inside the latest update of our Photo Book software.
If you would like to print a copy, simply visit our website here and download the latest version if you have not done so yet.
Start the software and on the opening page you will see our user guide and a printable PDF version right away.
Take a few minutes to read through the information, it will make working with the software instantly comfortable and will introduce you in easy language to to all features and tricks that the software has to offer, saving you time and frustration.
The incredibly busy Christmas season is upon us......We urge you to get started on your Christmas photo book gifts now and do not wait until the last moment. If you have a need for personalized calendars or greeting cards (your own Christmas cards!) now is the time to get started.
Moreover, we have a nice 15% coupon available for you.....visit bargainmoose.ca and find the Treasure-Book ad that you can see on the right-hand side. This coupon is valid until Dec 31, 2011
Important: coupons MUST be used at check out in order to get validated. There will be no "after the fact" credits or refunds, if you send your order without using the coupon, it will be billed and shipped at regular prices. However: Multiple use is allowed and you can inform your friends or relatives of this coupon as well.

New Treasure-Book Software available today!

2011-09-22T15:58:00.000-07:00

Our message today is a very good one!
The software developers have come up with a new version of our software, available for downloading from our website today: www.treasure-book.com
There are new features inside the new program in addition to about 300 improvements that have been made to make the photo book creating experience more comfortable, easier and in a more stable platform with overall fewer reasons for frustration.
One of the more important improvements is the fact that the software now allows for uploads behind so called proxy servers. We had received some files on our server that arrived incomplete or were completely empty in the past 6 months, so this needed to be fixed in a big hurry....
It appeared that the software did not work well in the "upload" action in connection with an Internet proxy server, a pretty technical description for most people, including your blog writer. Some Internet providers apparently are using proxy servers and it increases the level of security barriers that need to be taken down before a file can get a "free pass" from your computer to our FTP server. The new software version has addressed that issue: it will work better with these servers. Hopefully the upload troubles will be minimal from today onwards.
In the photo tray at the bottom of the screen in our software, images show larger when they are selected, so it makes it easier to see what is on the picture before it is placed on a page. A great new addition is a Red Eye tool! Hopefully most of you will use this tool anytime an unsightly red-eye problem shows up on a picture.
Then there is integration with leading photo share sites such as Flickr, Google Picasa and Facebook.
The addition of captions and text boxes has been made easier and now provides the ability to have different fonts or font sizes in one text box. And how about this one: it now contains a spell checker!
One of my favorites: Auto Save is now included, so you can tell the software to save your book every so many minutes (users can set that time frame)
The Greeting Cards and Calendar software has also seen major improvements, new templates. For example, users can now create and save their own calendar templates, like you can do in books.
We encourage you to start our software if you have it already on your computer, click the "help" button and select "check for updates"
Allow the system to install our new version, which is build number 5.5.6052.
There you have it!
In the next few days we will re-write our user guide to reflect the new features that have been added to this new version of the Treasure-Book software.
Start working on your Christmas books and calendars quickly. Time goes fast and November and December will be an incredibly busy period for us to supply products. Beat the crowds and secure "on time" delivery for Christmas.

Wireless Internet

2011-09-09T16:46:00.000-07:00

Today some words about the wonders and failures of wireless Internet.....

These days many people are connected to the web with a wireless connection, to check their e-mails, send messages, work on Facebook, Twitter and so on....Wonderful!
However, in our business, where customers are sending us files of many hundreds of mega bites of information, Wireless is a poor choice. Wireless is an unreliable choice for the transfer of large files and we have experienced many cases where people sent their photo book files only to hear from us a day or so later that the files are either damaged, incomplete or can't be opened at all. Even ea split second of communication error with the router will result in the failure of a few bits of information to get transferred. That causes these huge files to get damaged and they can't be opened and can not be printed. The only way to safely send photo book files over the internet to our FTP server is by connecting your computer to a fixed wired connection with the Internet. The old fashioned cable plugged into your computer that goes to your router or goes to your modem for direct contact.
Laptops are often the ones causing the problems, as these are mostly used "wireless". Another issue with laptops is that they are not constantly connected to the Internet and therefore miss out on important Java software upgrades. Without having the latest version of Java on your computer, software such as ours can stop working properly. Check if you have an up-to-date version of Java here: www.java.com and download the latest version free of charge.
Last but not least: Laptops tend to be configured to go to sleep after you have not touched the mouse pad for a short while, for reasons of power savings. Once that happens while a file upload is in progress, problems with the file may be the result as the smooth transfer of the upload is interrupted.
Lots to think about, but you can avoid a lot of frustrations if you take care of these points before you send a file to our server for printing.
Other than that, things are good and business is developing very nicely.....Thank you all for your continued support!

Flash use

2011-06-01T15:49:00.000-07:00

The single most important issue we see time and again are images in books that are too dark.
Why would that be?
Well, for one thing, people are of the opinion that a flash should only be used when photos are shot indoors.
This assumption is not correct.
On overcast days, a fill-in flash will make faces better visible and will light up the subject of your photo. Or how about this one: Very often subjects are placed with a light source in their backs, such as the sun. Of course the camera will snap a picture easily, but because of that light source, faces will be dark or even invisible. A fill-in flash solves that problem immediately, by lighting up the subjects. There are settings on a camera that most people fail to ever use. It would be much better if the camera manufacturers would spend more time on designing a camera that works automatically in the various light situations. Maybe it is better that the flash is always engaged and that you would need to change settings to switch it off. That would be the single biggest improvement to your day to day snap shots.
Another issue is the limited reach of the built in flashes on compact cameras. They only work to about 3 to 5 meter. Anything passed that will show dark in the image. Keep that in mind, next time you shoot a party of 12 at a dinner table. If light conditions are not ideal, you could also enhance the light situation by perhaps switching on more light fixtures in the room. Remember, photography is all about light. In the correct light settings, even the simplest of cameras can produce very good results. If your camera is equipped with some more advance features, try to change the ISO value to something like 400 to get a better balanced result on low light situations. If none of this is what you did, there is still hope....
While creating a photo book with our software, right click on an image and select the image enhancement button to get a "perfectly clear" picture. You will be surprised!
Another tool would be to import your photos first into Picasa (available for free from Google) and work on the quality of your photos first before importing them into a photo book. At the same time, Picasa will also allow you to remove red-eye problems that may have crept into your shots.
Currently, a 10% discount is available for all our customers: Use coupon code TBPDC10 and click SUBMIT to activate it at check out. That saves in most cases a nice chunk or even all of your shipping and handling charges.

Twenty Off for Mother's Day !

2011-04-11T17:29:00.000-07:00

It is that time of the year again: Preparing a gift for Mother's Day!
New to Treasure-Book.com? Download our Photo Book software and user guide here.

For the first time we are giving you a chance to take off 20% from a PHOTO BOOK order.

All you need to do is create a Photo Book that has a regular price of a minimum $ 54.79

As an example, this $ 54.79, is the equivalent regular cost for a 40 page Standard Hard Cover book in 8.5 x 11 format, so this gives you a good idea of what it is that you would need to order to qualify and receive the 20% off.

Use promo coupon code: MOTHER20

Enter it at check out, into the coupon line. Click "SUBMIT" to activate it.

The system will allow this discount only when a minimum amount of $ 54.79 at regular cost is ordered.

Check our website's photo book pricelist before you select a book size, it is fairly easy to calculate in advance what your regular cost will be.

For those who are not able to create a photo book with a minimum of 40 pages or reach the minimum of $ 54.79, use this 10% discount promo code: TBPDC10

Enter it at check out into the coupon line and click "SUBMIT" to activate it.

Please take a minute and read the simple rules below.

Print this blog post to prevent losing the Promo Code!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Your coupon promo code is:

Mother20

create a Photo Book order of minimum $ 54.79

Enter this code at check out as soon as you see

the coupon line on your screen. Scroll down a bit

if you don't see it right away. Click "SUBMIT" to activate the code, then complete the check-out procedure. Offer not valid on Calendars or Greeting Cards. Can not be combined with another promo code. Multiple use is allowed. Each use of this promo coupon must have a minimum of $ 54.79 excluding shipping & handling and taxes where applicable.

No cash value, offer strictly valid on orders received between April 12th and May 8th, 2011. Offer only validated when used at check out. No rain checks, no "after-the facts" redemption or refunds. Offer Expires midnight, May 8th 2011

All other cases: use TBPDC10 discount offer, no minimums on this code.

Multiple use allowed as well, expires February 28, 2012. This code valid on all purchases.

Code cannot be combined with another one, no cash value, code only valid when entered at check-out, no refunds after the facts.

The daily e-mail deals

2011-04-05T15:18:00.000-07:00

A while back I wrote a post about the phenomena that is called Groupon.
As you will surely know by now, Groupon is a deal arranger for consumers who sign up for a daily e-mail blast that informs members of the "deal of the day". At a first glance this looks to be a great opportunity for business owners to get a ton of attention, even if it is only for one day.
I signed up for this daily "deal flash"at Groupon and others, and have observed over the past 6 months that the deals are not always such a great showing of diversity. What I mostly see come by are deals at hair, nail or tanning salons, small restaurants, or bike rentals. I still have to see the first coupon that promises a brand name camera at half off. Or a new car at half the price....wouldn't that be nice?

Why?
The answer is pretty simple: when you buy a coupon that arrives in your in-box during the early hours of the day, it usually gives you a 50% discount, or more, on one particular offer.
That sounds great, right? Yes it does, and for some consumers it can be a great deal if the offer is something they need or want.
For Groupon it is a marvelous deal too. But for the service provider it is not all that great, to put it mildly.
When you buy a 50% off coupon, say a $ 100 service for just $ 50, the service provider or vendor has to share half of the $ 50 revenue with the coupon offering website, i.e. Groupon or one of its competitors.
Yes, you read that correctly: half the proceeds of the coupons are retained by the e-mail sender. And it does not stop there. The vendor is also charged for the credit card commissions, easily another 3 to 3.5%.
Groupon isn't alone anymore. The coupon hoopla triggered a whole bunch of copy cat companies that came out of nowhere and are now competing for vendor deals..
The word of the juicy commissions apparently leaked out and quick thinking entrepreneurs thought:
"I can do that too!"
For companies such as ours, producing products that are subject to a lot of fixed costs, it is painful to give away 50% of a 50% discount coupon; on top of that, getting dinged for the credit card fees is even more painful, why would that not be shared as well?
Of course, they told us: "you get a lot of exposure, it is like an advertising expense" Yes, sure, no disagreement, but at what cost?
It is impossible for us to provide consumers with a $ 100 photo book that nets us less than $ 25, minus 3% over the $ 50 coupon price, for a "net-net" amount of just $ 23.50
A restaurant or a hair salon has the customer physically at their location for a while and have at least a chance to do an up sell, such as appetizers, deserts, alcohol sales or hairsprays and shampoos.
You would think.
I have checked the results of these coupons with a restaurant owner that I know and also with a hair salon proprietor. Both of these owners were disappointed with the final results. Yes, the coupon buyers come in and claim the "half off" meal or haircut.
However, "up-selling" is tried but hardly gets results as the vast majority of these customers are the type of people that buy lots of these things and go from deal to deal.
They mostly do not return to these places to have a meal at full price or a hair appointment at regular price. This is becoming clearly a negative trend for the coupon sellers. Moreover, the many e-mail coupon companies make the market a lot slimmer too as more coupon sellers have to fight over fewer interested vendors. I checked today. In the USA alone, there are 128 Daily Coupon companies.
You can check them out yourself by clicking here

It will mean that as a result of this, over time, the cost for vendors will have to come down.
I have already seen that happen. One of the coupon sellers has lowered the commission already from 50% to 30%. Only if these fees come down to a more reasonable level will businesses start to line up and will the offerings and your choices become much more interesting, because it is a powerful selling tool, no question!
But if it stays the way it is right now, this coupon selling by e-mail may go the way of the dinosaurs much quicker than many observers think. It all depends on the offerings, people will get tired of the umpteenth hair deal or sushi at "half off", much greater variety is needed and that won't come at 50% commissions.
In the light of all this it is interesting to know that it was only a mere 6 months ago that Google offered to buy Groupon at a mindblowing $ 6 billion......
I believe Groupon had something like $ 450 million in sales at that very moment. Six billion? Huhh??
It would be so easy for Google to just brush them aside and start their own coupon business. They could place their coupon offers on the Google home page every day.......free......everyone could read them.
Why fork over $ 6 billion?
Apparently Google makes too much money too easily (I know what we have paid them over the years, and believe me it is a lot of dough) and therefore think they can buy everything by offering inflated sacks of dollars for a company that will see its margins drop over the next few years due to fierce competition and what I sense to be the most important issue: Vendor Reluctance.
The brass at Groupon declined the Google offer.......Can you believe that? Said "No" to $ 6 billion for a company that had less than half a billion in sales (sales that is, not profit!)
This is on par with the foolishness that took place in the Boardroom over at Yahoo when they declined a sum of money equal to the GDP of many a small nation when Microsoft knocked their door and offered to buy them. Shareholders must have really liked that decision.......
That refusal started the Bing search engine. Good for Microsoft, a whole lot cheaper and equally effective. Yahoo seems to have dropped to third.....after being one of the first out there......

Groupon is diversifying and opened shop in International markets. That will give them growth for a number of years. However, they will trigger copy cats in these new markets too and will run into the same kind of fierce competition as we are seeing here. That is good for consumers and most likely also good for vendors such as Treasure-Book, we may end up with a coupon some day......
For now, we "pass" on coupon type deals through these daily e-mail providers. It is too expensive and makes only dubious business sense, having heard first hand how it did not result in additional, steady business.
Stay tuned and read this blog and our news letters. We may do one of these deals by ourselves, targeted at our loyal customers. That is also fair and more honest. Why should we give a book away at a ridiculous price to only those that happen to have signed up with a coupon company? Would it not be much classier if we were to give this opportunity first and foremost to folks that have supported us in the past? Exactly!

File Export / Import Feature explained

2011-03-11T12:56:00.000-08:00

Today some explanation on the new Export - Import feature in the Treasure-Book software.
This makes it possible to move a photo book file, with all pictures in it, from one computer to another one. How does it work?

While creating a photo book, save the file with the "save-as" button and give it a name for an easy identification later. Then: close the file.

Click on "photo books" in the left upper corner of your screen.

Single click on the file that you want to export (so do NOT open the file, just "select" it).

Next: click on "Export"

Choose a destination for this file, for instance a DVD or another external device, large enough to contain the exported file.

Now save the file to the new destination.

Once the file has been exported, you can use a second computer, or somebody else's PC to import the file and continue working on it.

Photo book files can be large, so if a disc does not have enough capacity, you can also use a file transfer service such as "yousendit.com" to send the file to another person or to an e-mail address for down loading.

This feature is handy if you start a project but then go on the road. You could continue working on it on a laptop.

It is important to know, that this file exchange only works within the Treasure-Book version of the "Myphotocreations" software.

Files can not be opened by any other type of software.

You must therefore download our Treasure Book software also on the second PC or laptop so that there is instant recognition.

To order a book:

The file must be sent to Treasure-Book from the computer that was used to finish the book, in order to receive a book of all completed pages. Alternatively:

You can export the file again from the second computer (as described earlier) and import it once more into your main machine.

One last thing today:

"Java" updates are very important for proper workings of the software.

Please make sure that your Java software on your PC is always up-to-date. If an older version is used, it may cause problems that can lead to file damage or nasty upload issues.

For Windows users: Click on the small arrow in the bottom task bar of your screen, the one next to the clock. Look for the Java icon (an orange coloured cup coffee...)

Click on it and let the system tell you if a new version is available.

Download the latest if you need an update.

X-Large 11 x 14" Photo Book now available!

2011-02-09T22:53:00.000-08:00

We have mastered the printing, binding and finishing of the new 11 x 14" Landscape Hard Cover Photo Books!

Your orders can be placed now and the results will knock your socks off, they are that good looking!

If your current software version does not show these size selections yet, please visit our website and download the latest version for your operating system.

Available are:

11 x 14 Landscape Standard Hard Cover (leatherette of suede exteriors)

Base price, incl. 20 pages $ 54.99
Additional pages $ 1.55 each

11 x 14 Landscape Key Hole Hard Cover (leatherette or suede exteriors)

Base price, incl. 20 pages: $ 57.49

Additional pages $ 1.55 each

11 x 14 Landscape Photo Wrap Hard Cover

Base price, incl. 20 pages: $ 64.99

Additional pages $ 1.55 each.

Maximum pages: 200 for all three executions.

To celebrate this new arrival, please remember to use our current Discount Promo Code

WBlues15 at check-out when ordering. Enter this code into the coupon code line and click SUBMIT to activate it. It will take 15% off your purchase.

Code will expire on March 15th, 2011. No rain-checks, no cash value, cannot be combined with another offer. Multiple use allowed during the promo period.

MUST be used at check-out, no cash discounts after the fact when not entered

while ordering and checking out!

15% Winter Blues Discount Available Now!

2011-02-04T13:36:00.000-08:00

get your 15% discount coupon here

What better way to fill some cold and unpleasant winter weekend than by making a nice photo book?
Even better when a juicy discount can be taken off the bill!
Click on the above link and you will be able to pick up your coupon code and get started right away.
Not yet familiar with our photo books?
Visit treasure-book.com and start reading the "how it works" page.
Next, download your absolutely free copy of our "industry best" software and get started, you can be up and running in a matter of minutes.

The 15% discount will work on all photo book orders received before midnight of March 15th, 2011
Pacific time.
See coupon page for details by clicking the link.on the top of this post.

15% boxing weeks discount must be claimed no later 16th January!

2011-01-14T15:09:00.000-08:00

A 15% discount is available for anyone ordering a photo book from Treasure-Book.com.
This discount was introduced on Christmas day 2010 and will expire after 16th January 2011 at the stroke of midnight! If you are working on a project and are able to send us the file before the deadline, please do so and pocket a 15% saving!

This discount code BoxDC15 only works at check-out when any of our many photo books are ordered. It won't work when you order cards or calendars.After uploading the file, check out with a credit card. But first look on the fisrt page of the check out area for a coupon line. There you can enter BoxDC15. Click SUBMIT to activate it and to deduct 15% from the purchase amount. Shipping/handling fees and taxes are calculated over the new, lower net purchase amount, that amounts to some savings too.

If you can't make it on time, use discount coupon code TBPDC10 and get a 10% discount. This coupon will also work with calendars and greeting cards.

Coupons MUST be entered at check-out to be redeemed. They cannot be exchanged for cash. Rainchecks will not be given. One coupon per order only, they cannot be combined.
Multiple use per customer of each coupon is permitted and are available to anyone wishing to order products from Treasure-Book.com.

Thank you for your support!................................. Anything new?

2011-01-13T16:27:00.000-08:00

Treasure-Book.com did a lot more business in 2010 than during the prior year 2009. We would like to extend a warm "Thank You" to all of you who jumped in the deep-end and ordered a photo book through our on line service. We made absolutely sure that during the crazy weeks leading up to Christmas we had it all dialed down and all orders placed with the expectation to be delivered before Christmas were indeed delivered on or before the 24th of December.
What will 2011 bring? Hard to say, but the first 13 days of the year showed us that our customers did not stop ordering after Christmas had passed. Sure, the amount that comes in now compared to the last 8 weeks of 2010
is definitely not in the same league, but compared to the early days of 2010, we are doing pretty OK and that is where it counts. Anything new for 2011? Well, we are testing a brand new book size, the 11 x 14 inch coffee table size. A great format for wedding projects or nice vacation trips. We are currently waiting for special end sheets that will complete the binding process that we need to master on this size, as the finishing process will be slightly different from our other, existing sizes. But these will become the Flagship book size...Final pricing can only be announced after we have made a few samples to see how long it takes to complete a book in this size. It will be available only in landscape orientation (horizontal). Another development is that we are now open to very special projects that can be delivered to us on a CD Rom: If you want to publish a manuscript of a book that you have written, please contact us as we have found a way to get it printed!
After we had tried out some special request projects on biographies this past year, we have decided that we are ready to start accepting similar jobs from the general public. If you have a story and have it all typed out in a Microsoft Word file, you can contact us to have it printed and bound into a beautiful hard cover book. As you may know, MS Word will allow you also to insert pictures as well. We think this is an exciting new offering. Pricing for these all depend on the size and volume of the books, and therefore, prices can only be quoted once all details have been shared with us. Write to info@treasure-book.com or contact us toll free: 1-877-513-8261

15% Boxing Weeks Savings!

2010-12-24T19:15:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Thank you for your continued support in the past year!

Save 15% between Dec 25, 2010 - Jan 16, 2011

Not much to do between Christmas and New Year? Why not work on a Photo Book project and save 15% on Book orders placed between Dec. 25th and Jan. 16th, 2011

Use Promo Code: BoxDC15

Get started now and save money! Visit http://www.treasure-book.com/ if you have not downloaded our free software yet.

15% offer NOT valid on Calendars or Cards.

For these, use promo code TBPDC10 for a 10% saving

Save 15% during on all Photo Books during the "Boxing Weeks Photo Books Savings!"

How to get your 15% discount?
Enter the code into the coupon space on page 1 at check-out. You will not be prompted, so look for the coupon space.

Click SUBMIT to activate the code.

Offer only valid on Photo Books and cannot be exchanged for cash.

Code cannot be combined with another one. One coupon per order. Multiple use is permitted within the promotional period.

Offer Valid: Dec. 25th, 2010 - Jan 16th 2011

Christmas Orders - There is indeed still plenty of time!

2010-12-04T15:44:00.000-08:00

Today, Saturday December 4th, 2010 we are working hard to get all orders received in the past week out the door and delivered to our customers homes. We are coping really well, turnaround time is still pretty fast, as we work longer hours and weekends.

For those of you wondering by what date the orders should have been received to secure a "before Christmas" delivery, please note the following dates:

Canada:
Maritime Provinces and Quebec: December 12th, 2010
Ontario: December 13th, 2010
Manitoba / Sasketchawan: December 14th, 2010
Alberta: December 17th, 2010
British Columbia: December 19th, 2010   (outside Lower Mainland)
Lower Mainland of BC:   December 21st, 2010
When in doubt:   Call us as schedules can change, depending on Volume received.
Toll free:   1-877-513-8261
If you are late and you want it by overnight or express delivery, call us for arrangements.
Surcharges will apply!
If your date has come and gone, call us, we may still be able to help you!

U.S.A.
West Coast:    December 12th, 2010
Central states: December 10th, 2010
East Coast: December 8th, 2010
Hawaii / Alaska: December 7th, 2010

International:
December 5th, 2010

So it is really not too late, you can start today and have it delivered before Christmas!

We're busy.....but don`t hesitate to send an order!

2010-11-26T23:39:00.000-08:00

It seems that the Christmas shopping rush starts earlier every year.
We have been receiving almost twice as many orders as we did in November of 2009.
That is a very good sign. After two and a half years of really hard work and pioneering a brand new business model, the idea of creating your own photo books, calendars or greeting cards at home with the use of free software is finally becoming mainstream.

When we started, we found that just 3% of Canadians had heard of this type of service and only a handful had ever tried it.
The vast majority of these early users had to order their books from one of the sites in the USA as Canada had very little to offer when we opened up shop in May of 2008.
We have meanwhile built a pretty substantial group of loyal followers. What is clear, is that most people that tried us out, have rewarded the company with a lot of repeat visits to our check-our area.

It is to those people, who had the courage to try us out in the early days that we owe a great deal of gratitude. They are the ones that allowed us to slowly build a reputation and gave us credibility when they told their friends and relatives about their positive experiences when buying photo books or other items from Treasure-Book.com.
This past year 2010 saw the introduction of the highly successful Photo Wrap hard covers, the arrival of the 5.5 x 8.5 books and the complete overhaul of our software in July.

Why Treasure-Book?
Well, for starters, each and every file is examined by one of our experienced printing staff members. We correct red-eye problems and fix lay-out mistakes. We also light up dark images. If we catch a glaring spelling error, we fix that too.
Done to provide our customers with the very best quality that our company can produce. Within a very quick turn around time too! All that, at prices that are among the best in our industry.
It is obvious that none of our large competitors are ever able to give you that peace of mind. We constantly hear horror stories from customers who came to us after they had received an unsatisfactory product from one of the big companies.
At Treasure-Book your files get personal attention and a live voice is available for help on our toll free phone number.
E-mail requests for help are also looked after within just a few hours of receipt.

The fact that over 50 professional photographers have their books made by Treasure-Book tells us something too: It has to be good!

There is still time for orders to be delivered before Christmas.

Anything received before December 10th will be fine and delivered on time in Canada.
Destinations closer to the Vancouver area can even order later.
A date schedule will be posted here in the next week or so, as we will first gather the orders that are in the pipeline and get a good idea of how much we have to produce in the next two weeks.
When in doubt, please call us at 1-877-513-8261, we'll pay the dime!

Winners $ 50 Gift Certificates West Coast Women Show

2010-10-25T10:26:00.000-07:00

That was a great show for Treasure-Book.com!
Over 2,000 people stopped at our booth to have a look at our Photo Books and learn a bit more about the process of creating one.

476 people entered into our Lucky Draw for a chance to win a Fifty Dollars Gift Certificate.
Here is the list of the 10 lucky winners:

Mary Makara
Tom Currie
Annette Leyenhorst
Kathy Robinson

Wendy Pasedinik
Monica Maletz
Kathi Allison
Jocelyn Nap
Cherri Johnson
Janet Wiens

Congratulations to all our winners!
All winners have been notified by telephone and will receive their Gift Certificate plus instructions on how to redeem in their e-mail in box within the next few days.
Thank you all for your time at our booth and we hope to see your creations arrive on our server in the next couple of months!

Long time no news

2010-10-14T15:56:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since our last posting on this blog.
Mainly because I have been away for a break. That happens sometimes....
Fortunately our business just kept moving forward as I left my duties in the very capable hands of Ray Tremblay.
For those of you who live in the greater Vancouver area: next week we will be exhibiting during the
West Coast Women Show that will take place at the Abbotsford Airport Tradex facilities, Friday October 22
through Sunday October 24th.
At the show you will be able to browse a whole lot of book samples and ask us questions about how to make books or how to use all features that come with our free software.
A Mac computer and a Windows PC will be at our booth where we will run Demos at your request.
Obviously, like last year, we will organize a lucky draw, with ten $ 50 Gift Certificates to be won.
Just fill out the name and address cards that will be available at our booth and drop it into the large Glass Fish bowl on the table. The draw will be held on Sunday Oct. 24th at 5.00 pm at the booth.
Keep this weekend free and come and see us in action at the show. We would love to have an opportunity to meet with you!

This show is also the start of the Christmas season. If the coming 2.5 months will be anything like last year, please send your orders for Christmas as soon as possible. Avoid the crowds and avoid disappointment.
Order now and have your Christmas books and cards or calendars ready for you on time!

Seen the paper today?

2010-09-13T16:56:00.000-07:00

Treasure-Book featured today in a question and answer session in The Province newspaper, a very popular and widely read circulation in the province of British Columbia!
And boy were we in it! Our website traffic today more than doubled compared to a regular Monday and we also received many more telephone calls than normal.
For those of you that missed it, you can still read it by clicking this link

As a result, many people came to this blog as well, perhaps wondering what this is all about....
Well, we have written lots of posts about making photo books, simple tips for amateur photographers to make the quality of pictures better without too much efforts..

Just click on the various months on display on the side of this story and browse the many articles written in the past 18 months or so.

Maybe there is something in there that could help you, or maybe there is something in there that is just a fun thing to read, as not all posts are about photo books and the making of.

If you have decided to give our services a try, start by reading the "how it works" section on our website
it will give you a good idea on what to expect.

Christmas is the busiest season for our company. In order to have your photo books, calendars or cards ready, on time before the Holidays end of December, do not delay and send us your files as soon as possible.
This avoids disappointment and stress. Not only during the time it takes to create a book, but also in the subsequent days of waiting for the book to arrive on time.

Watch this space for further announcements for cut-off times for orders being delivered on time for the Christmas season. For now there is nothing to worry, but boy, does time fly!

Top Gear

2010-09-09T15:35:00.000-07:00

Zapping around the channels a few weeks ago, I stumbled upon a program called "Top Gear". Broadcast on BBC Canada almost daily, it's a show about cars, usually expensive, exotic super cars.
Presented by Jeremy Clarkson and assisted by James May and Richard Hammond it is a daily dose of absolute entertainment, even for those that are not so much into the world of automobiles.
The shows we see here in Canada are kind-a old, but a test of a Mercedes McLaren SLR in 2005 still makes for great TV in 2010. A chance to see a rare car like that in action is a feast for car lovers. All three presenters are pretty good drivers that can steer a car around twists and turns with great authority, but for their track test times, they use the services of a professional racing driver. A part of the show is the fun they make about this guy. His identity is kept secret and he's addressed as "Stig"
On each show there is always a celebrity guest who talks about cars and who's there to show a recoding of his or hers lap around the track. A table shows clearly who the fastest person around the track is and it's fun to see all these celebs telling Clarkson that they don't really care how fast they went (in a reasonably priced car, usually
a cheap Chevy or Suzuki 100 horse power middle of the road vehicle).
However, all of them lean forward in their seat when they are about to hear what their time was.....
Fun a few days ago was when I heard Clarkson read out an e-mail from a viewer, asking for tests and presentations of more affordable cars, his response was: "yes, we'll do that as we get so many of these requests, so tonight our show will be dedicated to the cheapest Ferrari"
There is also a huge (acted?) rivalry between the three presenters and the result of it all is a fun show with lots of contests....
For instance: how about Clarkson trying to be faster from London to Monte Carlo in an Aston Martin
versus May and Hammond by High Speed train?
Or Clarkson by Mercedes McLaren SLR from London to Oslo versus the two other guys by plane and ferry? Fascinating stuff.
So guys, Hockey won't start for another month, check it out and get hooked!
Channel 137 on the Shaw cable box in Vancouver. Check for listings in other cities.

Groupon

2010-08-20T16:55:00.000-07:00

A fairly recent phenomena on the Internet is a website called "Groupon.com"
This site was established to offer shoppers deals on certain items or services.
How does that work?
The concept is nothing new, really, it makes use of the power of large numbers.
But the way this was set up borders on sheer brilliance. Clever and well thought out.

According to Groupon, 9.8 million people have signed up meanwhile, so numbers like that work like a magnet on Vendors.
Every morning when you open your e-mail, Groupon will send you a message with "the deal of the Day".
One deal per day only.
Read the message and decide if you like it. If so, you can buy the "deal" or the Groupon Coupon straight from their website. You will receive the coupon for redemption at the vendor that sold the deal that day.
There is always a time limit for members to buy the deal, 1 to 2 days.
As an example, the GAP had an offer yesterday: Buy a $ 25 Coupon and get $ 50 worth of clothes.
Noticed that in the Vancouver area they sold some 4600 of these. Not bad, eh?
Sure it is not a cheap way of getting people in the stores, but then again, regular advertising isn't cheap either, and for sure with this method, people will come through your door, guaranteed, and hopefully spend a bit more than the $ 50 they can get at a $ 25 paid for value.

The offers are usually very good and it mostly concerns businesses in your local area.
Restaurants, any kind of retail, or services such as spa's or hair salons. Most deals are for around 50% off.
There are Groupon deals available in most large cities across the USA and Canada. So, visit that site and sign up.....it's a fun place to start your days over a coffee!
And......who knows, perhaps a Treasure-Book Groupon participation is coming soon......we signed up too,
just be patient and check it out!
For now, check our current deal on our website www.treasure-book.com and click on the "discounts?" button. After that, you may want to sign up at www.groupon.com as well!

Additional Size Choices

2010-08-04T14:36:00.000-07:00

After a super busy month of July, August has already arrived.....
It always feels that summer goes quicker than any other season, but of course that is just imagination.

Our "Buy-One-Get-One" (BOGO, actually: get two for one) came to an end on July 31st and it was remarkable to see how many of our customers waited until the very last minute to send us their BOGO files for processing and enjoy a second copy hard cover book for exactly $ 0.00

Some were just books of the "twenty page" minimum variety, but some customers really understood the nature of this promo best and ordered large books with large number of pages, second copy free.....
That is now all behind us and we can look back to an expensive, yet highly successful promotion as we were able to welcome a great number of new customers that had not ordered from Treasure-Book before.

Smart shoppers also know that it always pays to check our website or this blog to see if there is something we give away, before an order is sent in. On our website, always check and click on the "discounts? click here" button to see if there is a coupon available for you.
At the moment, we are "recovering" from the BOGO of last month, but we realized that we need to show some sort of a discount during these "dog days" of summer.
Use coupon code: TBPDC10 at check out and click SUBMIT to activate it and take 10% off your bill.

Furthermore, we received requests for a new size book a few weeks ago, and, because we listen to our customers, we are pleased to announce that we have added a new size to our choices, in 4 different executions. The book size that has been added is 5.5 x 8.5 inches (for Metric lovers: 14 x 21.6 cm)

Here are the details:
5.5 x 8.5 (14 x 21.6 cm)
Maximum 200 pages, includes 20 pages as a minimum.
Standard Hard Cover Landscape (horizontal orientation)
Standard Hard Cover Portrait (vertical orientation)
PhotoWrap Hard Cover Landscape (horizontal orientation)
PhotoWrap Hard Cover Portrait (vertical orientation)

Prices, all including 20 pages, each. additional page: $ 0.75
Standard Hard Cover: $ 26.99
PhotoWrap Hard Cover: $ 29.99

The new size will be showing up in our software upgrades in the next few days.

And, for those who have not yet downloaded the latest incredible free version of our software, visit our website and click on the Download page to get started!

Treasure-Book launches New Photo Book Software today, 11:00 pm PT

2010-07-20T17:34:00.000-07:00

After months of testing and tweaking, we will be launching our new software for downloads tonight, after 11:00 pm Vancouver time.
All projects can be made with one set of software:
Photo Books, Cards and Calendars is now all in one package!

The new software comes with lots of new tools and features!
Many additional backgrounds to select and goodies such as Clip Art and fun photo frame shapes, like stars, circles or ovals.
Scrapbooking was never this easy!

Example what's new?
Type away your captions and with one click make them all show in the same font, font size and font color through out the book. Same trick can be used on frames and frame colors!

How to get the new Free Software version?
Visit our website and download it from there.

For existing Treasure-Book software users on Windows based computers: You don't have to do anything.
Once you start your existing Treasure-Book software, this latest update will be installed on your computer automatically.

No worries about existing files, as the new software will find these on your hard drive and move them into the new software version.

Users of Apple Mac computers: please visit the website and download the new software from there. You do not need to uninstall the old version if you have that already on your Mac.

NEW: we have written a comprehensive User Guide.
Once the new software has opened, the guide will show on the first page.
It would be a good idea to make a print-out of the Guide and keep it handy while working on a new project. We have tried our best to keep it as simple as possible. Basically, the software works the same as what you have been using in the past, but better with more of everything...

Need assistance? Please send us an e-mail to info@treasure-book.com or call us during business hours Mon-Fri 09:00 am - 5:30 pm, Vancouver, toll free: 1-877-513-8261 or 604-513-8261 if you are local.

Buy One Get One - Full size Hard Cover Photo Book @ www.Treasure-Book.com

2010-06-29T10:50:00.000-07:00

Summer is finally here and that means that most people spend more time away from their computer. In order to reward those that still plan to send us a photo book file to print we have good news today!

If you send us an order between now and July 31, we will ship you one extra copy of that book for free. We'll even pay the extra shipping cost for that.

Here's how to get a hard cover photo book from us:
Download our software, if you haven't done that yet, and create any a hard cover photo book in any of the sizes or executions. Could be a regular, a Key Hole or a PhotoWrap hard cover. But they have to be Hard Covers to qualify.

We allow for one free book per customer, one free book per order.
So if you order 6 books, you will get 7 in the mail, not 12.
How to redeem?
Once your file has uploaded, you will enter the shopping cart to check out.
In the comment box on the order sheet, please enter: BOGO (buy one get one)
We then know that you have read the Promo Offer and we'll send you the extra book free of charge.
Keep in mind: If you need 2 books, just order and pay for 1 book, and write BOGO
in the comment box to get the free extra copy shipped to you.
If you need 4 books: order and pay for 3, write BOGO in the comment box and we will shop to you 4 copies. Simple.
Please note: The free book must be the same as the one paid for. BOGO does NOT apply to two different books for 1 payment.
For those who need quantities of 10 books (all the same): contact us for a special discount.
info@treasure-book.com or toll free: 1-877-513-8261
Please note: Discount Coupons can not be used in combination with our BOGO promo.
Offer expires July 31, 2010, offer can not be exchanged for cash.

New size Photo Wrap Hard Cover added

2010-06-21T10:16:00.000-07:00

As per tomorrow, Tuesday June 22, 2010, you will be able to order a small hard cover book with a photo wrap cover!
We used to carry a 4 x 6" book size in the soft cover and standard hard cover execution.
The time was ready to introduce this size also in the Photo Wrap hard cover execution as these are so much nicer than the current soft covers.
Even though the print quality is as good as all the other books that we print, the spiral binding system that comes with soft covers isn't such a great choice for a small 4 x 6".

Obviously, a photo wrap hard cover is more expensive, but we have tried our very best to keep the prices at an affordable level.
This new 4 x 6" Photo Wrap Hard cover will start at $ 17.99 for a 20 pages book. Additional pages are just $ 0.50

As soon as you start your software (Windows version) the system will look for this upgrade and you will be able to start ordering these beautiful minis, a great size to easily fit in a purse!
Mac users would have to re-download the software to get the latest version on their desktop.

In any case, the Photo Wrap Hard covers have really taken off as a choice for most people. They are now easily 50% of all photo book orders received since their introduction in January and if they do well in the 4 x 6 as well, we may even decide to phase out the 4 x 6" soft covers over time.

Father's Day Coupon

2010-05-25T15:10:00.000-07:00

It is time for another few weeks of savings at Treasure-Book.com
What better gift to give Dad than a beautiful Photo Book?
It will last forever and will produce the biggest smile that you have ever seen!
Even better: Mom will love it too!
Use this coupon code: FatherDC15
At check out, scroll down the first page of the shopping cart and enter this code in the coupon space. Click "SUBMIT" to activate it. Fifteen percent will instantly be taken off your bill!
Make sure to check out the Photo Wrap Hard Covers.
Only $ 34.99 is the starting price for an 8.5 x 8.5....and that is before you apply your discount!
Use the code multiple times, and send it to your friends and relatives! Everybody saves!

Code can not be used with another one, offer expires June 20th, 2010

Flash Photography Revisited

2010-05-18T15:36:00.001-07:00

Of all the the issues that we see in books that we print, the number one, without a doubt, is the quality of indoor photographs.
To fill a room with artificial light in order to make a shot look good, a truly powerful flash is a must.
Not a single camera comes with one that is up to this task. Not even a $ 1500 SLR body that may have a built-in flash.
The flashes that come with cameras are kind-a "OK-ish" for shots within a range of about 3 meters.
Anything wider, longer than that is doomed to fail.
In such a case, one gets a bright area in the centre with a lot of darkness around it.
These smallish flashes work somewhat acceptable when you shoot portraits, or close ups of a bunch of people. However: make sure you have placed your menu at the back of your camera in a mode that corrects ugly red-eye problems associated with flash photography.....
We have seen quite a number of books that all have great looking outdoor photos.
Then a few pages show up that can really make a book look kind-a "so-so"....
These are the pages with photos of dance floors at weddings or graduation halls in schools where camera flashes have no chance of doing a half decent job.
The result is obviously painful: pages with dark images filled with half visible faces and ugly light flash shadows thrown on white walls.
In a situation like this: if you do not have a powerful add-on flash, refrain from taking a single photograph that intend to show anything over a 3 meter distance.
Stay within that range and get closer to your subject. That is the easy part!
A dancing newly wedded couple is a much better picture up-close than from a 10 meter distance anyway. Or what about reception photos?
Use close-up shots as much as possible, avoid anything outside of that, it is a waste of time and very disappointing when the final results show up in a printed version.
Also: your flash works on a relatively slow shutter time of just 1/60th of a second.
That is the time that your flash fills the room, just enough time to light up your photo.
Even though 1/60th of a second sounds awfully fast in other circumstances, it is not enough to really freeze moving objects in motion.
For this same reason, a lot of indoor shots can look unsharp when the objects are moving.
Unpractical, but really the best option would be to have a camera sit on top of a tripod for that critical amount of extra stability.
You, the photographer, must keep this in mind all the time while shooting indoors: Keep the camera steady and solid, no sudden moves! Ask your subjects also to stand still while you shoot.
Hard to do that on the dance floor, so make a few and select the best. Delete the poor ones right away. Even though add-on flashes can cost hundreds of dollars, they don't work any faster than the synchronisation time of flash light firing vs shutter open and closure than the 1/60th of a second we discussed in an earlier sentence.
But they do something much better than your built in one: These add-on flashes provide you with the all important issue that come with great looking indoor photographs: Light.....lots of it!
If you own an SLR (even some non SLR, compacter models accept add-on flashes!) right after selecting and buying a good camera bag and a quality zoom lens, the next purchase should be a decent add-on flash. You will get more satisfaction out of that than out of a huge tele-photo lens. Buy one of the same make as the camera. They work seamlessly together....
On the topic of a 'must-have' lens:
For indoor shots, at receptions for instance, a good choice would be a 24~70 mm zoom lens.
This lens type at 70 mm will provide you with million dollar portraits and couple photos, waist-up, with great detail and clarity; The 24 mm setting is plenty good to make group photos!
That extra bit of money on an add-on flash will pay itself back quickly!
It is a great way to become recognized amongst your peers for doing great jobs with a camera at parties and other "get together" events.

New software version coming soon!

2010-05-07T15:01:00.000-07:00

The last months have been very busy for our software developers in getting a complete overhaul of our software ready for introduction to you, our customers and interested folks wanting to become one!

Once all the testing and bug fixings have been completed we will link the new software to our download button on the website at treasure-book.com.

It will be spectacular!
The biggest improvement on the download side will be that the two previous programs, one for photo books and one for the calendars and cards, is now going to be combined into one.

Miraculously, the total size of this new program isn't any larger than the previous single photo book software, and downloads will be even faster than before.

The look and feel of this new application is smoother and slick looking; working with the software is not much different from what you have been used to.

The software contains a massive amount of new background choices and also has an extensive library of clip-art that can be easily inserted inside your creations to give your work that extra touch of uniqueness.
In order to save bulk in this application, many of the new backgrounds are individual downloads and will be added to your pages as soon as these are clicked. In a split second these backgrounds will be downloaded to your computer on a case by case, when needed basis, so that the software download won't become top heavy with all sorts of stuff that you might not need.

So stay tuned and check it out in a few weeks!

Meanwhile, keep those projects going and remember to use the 10% discount that we have in place, promo code: TBPDC10
Enter this code inside the coupon code line at check out, followed by a click on the SUBMIT button to activate the discount.

Twitter

2010-03-25T15:45:00.000-07:00

So the people that are "in the know" had convinced me (I was reluctant to be convinced.....) that I needed to open a Twitter account as that would "bolster my Business"
OK, I get an account, it's free and easy, looked at the screen....staring at the space that is needed to be typed in: "what is on your mind?"
Wooow, what is on my mind? Well, for starters, like any business, we need more of it, to be able continue to pay bills, maintain our staff and progress in life!
But do I want to bore the Twitter members out there with a constant barrage of "buy my stuff" tweets?
Nah, I don't think so. Most people find it excruciatingly painful to have to deal with tele-marketeers over the phone, so why would you want to be exposed to so much more of it, just because it is the "in" thing to do?
So I browsed a whole bunch of tweet pages for a while and soaked up page after page of mumbling nonsense that is spouted out by individuals with phony names.
It is amazing what people say or write, if they are not personally accountable and can hide behind a made-up name; the BS is really unbelievable.
OK, I tweeted a number of times, to see what it would mean in terms of responses.
I have meanwhile amassed a total of 6 followers, God knows who these people are and why on earth they want to read my thoughts....
At least, on a blog like this, one can speak one's mind in flowing sentences and is one not limited to just 144 characters, as is the limited case on Twitter.
If you care to follow a celebrity or sports figure, well yeah maybe that works.
I understand that Oprah Winfrey has many thousands of followers who are dying to know every minute of the day what the Queen of day time TV thinks or does.
She is a phenomenal personality, one who has more individual power over people than any politician or any other celebrity. She gives everything she endorses a huge amount of credibility. And no, that does not stop with say, uhh, Doctor Phil!
If Oprah endorses a product or a service, that particular company can start hiring people by the boat-load as business will get fired up in a way that no amount in many millions in commercial airings can do for one's business.
So, rather than me Tweeting, the trick apparently is to get Oprah to endorse your product on her show.....and have her tweet about it!
Well, keep dreaming Fred, that won't happen.
All I can do is keep writing a few blogs now and then, get some interest going this way, keep advertising on Google, Bing and Yahoo and hope for the best.
We got the best possible product, with stellar reviews from people who did place orders, and we'll have to work hard on it to keep moving forward, the old fashioned way.
I'll throw out a tweet once in a while, so Tweeters can learn about the odd coupon or other goodies.....and if you really want to know what's on my mind, just give me a call at the toll free number.......
For that you first have to go to our web site and navigate to the contact page.
While you are there, browse the site and download our software. It is great stuff, and, it's free....You only pay when you order a book, it is that simple.

Mother's Day Coupon!

2010-03-22T14:48:00.000-07:00

Mother's day is still a number of weeks away, but time flies!
This year should be the year that you finally get it done: a self created Photo Book with images that will make Mom happy for years to come!
Sure, we are all super busy with the kids and hockey and soccer, work, and household chores...
But Mother's Day is not going to disappear and it is about time that we make something special.
Why waste 45 bucks on flowers and chocolate that only last a week at the most?
These 45 dollars will also get you a 20 page hard cover book in a generously sized 8.5 x 11 format.
So, to make it even more attractive, we have a Promo Coupon for you:

Take 10% off: TBPDC10

You may use the code as often as you like, keep saving the 10%.
Coupon expires: May 5th, 2011
How to redeem?
At check out, after the file upload, look for the coupon line on the first page of the shopping cart.
Scroll down to see it. Type in the code TBPDC10 and click SUBMIT to activate it.
So hurry and download our software here as soon as you can!

Let's just pretend this is a coupon on today's Oprah show....makes you feel good, right?

Waterworld: A Photo Wrap Hard Cover

2010-03-09T15:31:00.000-08:00

Click on the images to see glorious details!

Click here and browse the book to see it all!

Recently we have had the privilege of receiving orders from Bob Semple Photography in Halifax.

Bob is a longtime diver and loves to make underwater photographs of his adventures, sometimes with friends, sometimes with his family.
Bob has been diving at many exotic locations on the planet and has created a Photo Wrap Hard Cover book with our software called "WaterWorld"

In the two years of producing photo books for our customers all over Canada and the USA we have to say that WaterWorld is one of the most beautiful books we have printed for a client!
We would like to congratulate Bob with this stunning work and hope this may be an inspiration for our readers to go out and create something this beautiful as well.
It does not need to be under water scenery, any subject will do. Just look at how this cover is made and appreciate what a really nice product you could create for yourself or as a gift. Don't delay, download your free software here today!

Is it March already?

2010-03-05T15:20:00.000-08:00

Unreal how time flies!
It seems just days, not 8 weeks that we cleared the Christmas stuff off the floor at home.
The Olympics are already a memory and looking outside today in Vancouver, you know for sure that Spring is in the air.
Our backyard is turning green again, all shrubs, trees and bulbs are starting to push their fresh leafs and flowers to the exterior to soak up as much sun and CO2 as they possibly can, to grow lush and large for another beautiful Summer. Another 8 weeks from now and we are approaching Mid May.
Indeed, before one knows, one is senior and grey. I remember as a kid that time moved forward at a snail's pace.
Our 6 weeks summer vacation seemed absolutely endless. Grow up, and you will notice the difference in a big hurry.
You will also feel it in your bones. At least I do.
Waking up in the morning needs a little work these days. Getting on my feet is not that supple and smooth as it used to be, the old back and legs need to get warmed up first and usually after having had that morning shower things start to get better.
Oh well, I looked at my beautiful grandson today (see picture top left of this blog on the book cover) and wondered what it would be like by the time he has a grandchild.
We are talking, say, the year 2060.....
My mind is a positive one and my believe and trust in human ability is infinite.
With all the issues of today one sometimes wonder what it will be like in 50 years from now, but hey, just think back how things were 50 years ago.
That brings us back to 1960.
If you would start writing pages with inventions and progress that the "homo sapiens" collectively achieved during these 50 years....incredible.
Obviously, that won't stop. The human mind will still go further and our natural curiosity will continue to drive the hunger for more knowledge.
Who knows, perhaps in 2060 we have evidence for other forms of live out there in space.
And with a 100 billion stars in our Milky Way galaxy, many of which are similar to our Sun, the chance for life to have developed elsewhere on a planet around another Sun like star is pretty good.
Exciting! And if not in our own Milky Way, then perhaps inside one of the other 100 billion galaxies elsewhere in the Universe.
Who would have thought 30 years ago that we would all have handheld cell phones so cheap that literally everyone can afford one? Or how about 200 TV channels? Not that anyone could possible need all of those, but still: all available inside your living room.
Rather than saying: "these times ain't good, it was better in the old days" I think it is wiser to just enjoy the moment and enjoy the greatness of the type of life we can live. Healthier, longer and lived in comfort and convenience.
The fact that you can just go to a website such as this and download free sophisticated, yet easy to use software to create your own photo books on a computer and have them printed and bound like a real book is simply amazing.
If you have not tried it, you have not lived in the year 2010.....It's exciting, and everybody can do it without breaking the bank!

Back to normal

2010-03-02T16:35:00.000-08:00

What a game last Sunday......riveting!
Some of the people in our group clustered around a large screen plasma in the neighbourhood, could not take the tension and left the room after Zach Parise scored the equalizer 24 seconds from the final whistle. The tension was unbearable.
For a long time during Canada vs USA in men's hockey's Gold medal game the Canadians looked good and were cruising towards the finish line of this epic event with the Gold medal in their pocket.
How different the truth was.
Team USA played a phenomenal game of Hockey, Kesler's goal was a sign of things to come.
They pressured and pressured, inching closer and closer, placing our boys with their back against the wall.
If it wasn't for some great play by Niedermayer, Nash and Luongo it could have been a National Disaster.
The tens of thousands watching the game from public areas in and around Vancouver were all hoping and praying for a win.
The equalizer 24 seconds before "full time" felt like a dagger in one's back.
It deflated our room and we all felt hurt and upset.....
OK, 15 minutes break, let's open another beer and catch our breath.
20 minutes 4 on 4 hockey followed that extra break in which the game flowed up and down the ice, from goalie to goalie. Our Roberto Luongo did his part and kept his goal closed with a sheet of plywood it seemed.
Then, close to 8 minutes into overtime Sidney Crosby wrote history by scoring a beauty on a pass from Jarome Iginla. Before goalie Ryan Miller could see anything, the puck was in the back of the net and Canada Hockey Place errupted in an orgie of jubilation. What a moment!
Crosby had a chance earlier in the 3rd period to settle the game and score the 3-1 on a breakaway, but Miller poked the puck and Crosby's shot fizzled out to a harmless stutter.
This tournament was to become the Podium for Syd to confirm his status as Canada's best player. He played OK, scored the deciding shootout shot against Switzerland and then of course his most important of all, the overtime Goal last Sunday.
He did not make the tournament's all star team, and rightfully so, as he performed too average.
Guys like Nash, Toews, Getzlaf, Perry and even Iginla played more important roles in getting on the score sheets over the 7 games played.
But then again, all we will remember 20 years from now is Crosby's overtime goal that won us the Gold. It will be the only things that matters. Yes!
Good for him, well deserved, there are at least 3 more Olympics to follow where he can shine.
The kid is only 22 years old. Much bigger things are yet to be seen from Crosby and if his development continues in this high pace, on par with what is happening with some of the juniors that are on their way to the big leagues, Canada will be in good shape!
The Games are over and it feels kind-a empty.
No more 3 channels with top sports to choose from, we are back to watching the Cannucks play Columbus.
Hours and hours of talk radio in Vancouver were spent on "post Olympic" views and reactions and what strikes me most is the overwhelming feeling of disappointment that it is all over.
The people here have truly adopted these games as their own, submerged completely into the experience and enjoyed it all to the fullest.
A news flash this morning announced that of all 34 million Canadians 26 millions had watched parts or the whole Hockey game last Sunday. Unbelievable numbers....
That game was followed by 14 million viewers that tuned in to see the closing ceremonies.
All though I personally do not care all that much for Nickleback or K-OS, it was very well done and the start of the show where the organizers clearly made fun of themselves was unforgettable.
That was a great touch to show that we admitted guilt to that flaw at the opening and made up for it with this hilarious sequence.
What is left for me is the Blu Ray DVD set that I ordered at CTV, a 6 disc set that shows all highlights of the games, the opening and closing ceremonies plus documentaries on everything that made these games the success that they became. Highly recommended.

Gold on Sunday?

2010-02-26T09:55:00.000-08:00

Whether or not Canada wins Gold at Men's Hockey on Sunday will make little or no difference to the outcome of these last two weeks at the Olympics in Vancouver, Richmond and Whistler.
If they do, it will be Icing on the Cake and it will boost the country's self esteem a notch or two higher.
If you have been in the Vancouver area during these past two weeks and had a chance to see an event or just walk the streets in downtown, you can only draw the conclusion that the games were a spectacular success for the organizing city.
Sure, there were problems, one of them very serious, with the deadly accident at the luge track of that young Georgian Luger, but overall, with the exception perhaps of some issues with rented buses or beer on the ice after the women's Gold medal Hockey game (why is that an issue?) the games have been a triumph for the people that organized it, from Vancouver Olympic Committee to the many thousands of blue clad volunteers that went out of their way to make sure that visitors were comfortable and cared for. And those protesters?
Well, at least our system allows for people to protest, that is a good thing.
Try to do that in one of the last remaining Marxist's states that these people adore so much....they would throw your behind in jail so fast and so long and a lawyer would be out of the question.
That these folks thought it necessary to break windows and throw paint around while wearing balaclavas is a sad thing. But hey, we all know, these are the people that protest as a profession, make a mess wherever they can, to further an extreme left wing political agenda.
One always wonders how these people find the time to do all that, whether it is here at the Olympics or elsewhere in the world at a G20 meeting. The rest of us just work for a living.
Fortunately, it got controlled very well and after some of these protests at the start, it died out quickly, probably also because the local population had embraced the Olympics by the hundreds of thousands.
The many pavilions were all extremely busy and long line ups formed each and every day.
Not a single peep was heard in complaints about that. People waited in line, chatted with others and made waiting in line an event by itself. Imagine: a six hours wait for the Robson Square zip-line was the norm during the past two weeks. Six hours! yet, not a single problem was reported about that.
During Stephen Colbert's taping of the "Colbert Report" for the Comedy network, close to 7000
people showed up spontaneously...... True, the glorious weather helped a lot!
Then the transportation: we were all asked to leave our cars at home and hop on the sky trains
to get to town. We all did, and even though long line ups formed at stations frequently, it was all done with a smile! During the cold evenings, volunteers of the Salvation Army were handing out hot chocolate.....what an atmosphere....
And then there was Holland Heineken House. Those fortunate enough to get a chance to visit this place in the evening hours, were treated to the best party in town. Very good and tight sounding rock bands from Holland were flown in, as well as some of the largest names in the music business from the Country behind the Dikes.
A sea of Orange would be on the dance floor night after night, and Heineken beer tasted superbly good! Ice Cold and the way it should be served: in smaller cups, so that your beer has no chance to become luke-warm, the nightmare of every knowledgeable beer lover!

Photo: Ooompah Band "Kleintje Pils" (small lager) turning Heineken House in a Carnival on the night of Hollands 1500 meter men's Speedskating Gold medal by Mark Tuitert!

And then the sport:
Sure, we had some issues with the warmer than normal weather (El Nino was responsible for that) but there was a full week of glorious sun shine that made the City and the Venues look like a million dollar. What an amazing sights!
On days like that, the Canadian West Coast is truly one of the best places in the world to live.
We are extremely fortunate to be able to call B.C. our home!
What the world's best "winter sporters" demonstrated to the world was spectacular.
There was drama such as Sven Kramer's wrong lane change, men's figure skating results with an unexpected winner, but it was all mesmerizing, from the opening ceremony to the last days with the climax of the Men's Hockey still in front of us.
The many tens of thousands of photos that were taken during these games deserve a good home.
This is a once in a lifetime event and should be preserved for generations to come.
Download our software here and start working on your personal Olympic Memory book before you lose your photos on your computer or your disc.
The Games won't come back, so re-shooting photos will be impossible.
Other than that: "Go Canada Go"! Get us that Hockey Gold, the women already have theirs, we are close, but the job has not been completed yet! Perhaps it does make a difference after all....
And for the few Vancouver Olympic haters out there: just so you know, you are part of a minority....how does that feel?
Last Sunday Canada's Men's Hockey team played the USA: 22 million Canadians from Coast to Coast watched this round-robin game on television....a television executive's dream come true!
And best of all? We could see a re-match of that game yet again if Team Canada does its
duty tonight by beating Team Slovakia in their semi final game.
As of this writing, team USA has already qualified for the final, let's make it happen and let's erase the embarrassing loss of a week ago!

File Sharing Now Active!

2010-02-19T11:53:00.000-08:00

Today we are happy to announce that a new and exciting feature has been added to our software: File Sharing!

For existing Treasure-Book software users with Windows based computers:
It is an easy update: all you need to do is start your software. The update with the file share capability will be updated and installed in mere seconds!
Mac users: unfortunately it is a bit more work, you have to download the latest version from our web site.

Once you have downloaded and installed our free software, and you have created a photo book with it, you can now click on a "share on line" button.
The book is quickly uploaded to our server and a Internet link is created. You will then be shown a screen on which you can type a book title, message and an e-mail address that will automatically send an e-mail to your friend or family member containing a link.

The receiver of this mail can click on the link and immediately see your book on their computer, and flip through all its pages!
It is a handy tool for those of you that are making projects on behalf of others and so even half way through you can show others what your project is all about and if required, you can ask for their input!
The book share link shows your book in a smaller version than in reality, as we have to keep the files small to let this upload and compressing go quickly.

Of course, the pages that you can send to friends over the Internet do not compare to the magnificent experience that you would get with an actual printed copy of the book!
That remains the ultimate and most beautiful part of this whole process.

On the share link e-mail, your friends are able to click a button and download the software for themselves and start making a book of their own.

For now, our latest discount coupon is still valid!
Use it at check out and click SUBMIT after typing in this promo code: WrapDC10
it gives 10% discount off your bill, but hurry, as the code will expire on February 28th, 2010.

New to all of this? Click here and start downloading your free software today!

Great time to be in Vancouver!

2010-02-18T11:29:00.000-08:00

When in 2003 the Winter games were awarded to Vancouver, it seemed like centuries before it would finally come around.
Now, 7 years later, we are in the middle of week one, and I have to say, it has been very good so far.
The opening ceremony was perhaps not Beijing-esque, but it shone nonetheless.
When we watched it at home on our HD screen, we were all filled with pride and thought that the organizers had done a spectacular job in showing the world what Canada and the West Coast are all about.
The world was shown a wonderful spectacle, with great special effects and other visual feasts.
Who would have thought that a pod of spouting Orcas would swim by? Not sure how they pulled that off, but that was incredible.
Nobody is talking about the closing ceremony just yet, after all, we are only on day 7 of the total 17 days of great sports, but one may assume that that will also become one of those "must see"
hours of television.
For those unfortunate enough to not have tickets to any of the competition, it is still very possible to become part of it!
Richmond's O-zone, not too far from the Richmond Oval where speed skating events are held, is a great place to hang out. Numerous pavilions, all free to visit, concerts, and best of all, the world famous Holland Heineken House.
To get there, take a the Canada Line to Brig House station and follow the crowds onto number 3 road, the festivities are all in the O-zone around Richmond City Hall.
I had the pleasure of visiting Holland Heineken House on Saturday 13th February, the day that Sven Kramer won a Gold medal on the 5,000 meter speed skating.
The House was preparing for a massive celebration and on a night like this with a medal winner from Dutch origin, entry is limited to Dutch passport holders....
We got in and other than drinking $ 4.50 Heinekens and eating some Dutch delicacies such as the "kroket" (a minced meat sausage like snack, breaded and deep fried. OMG, how good these are....even McDonald's sells these in their Dutch restaurants) we got sucked in on the dance floor
right in front of a stage where Sven Kramer himself showed up to bask in the applause and cheers from the many thousands of Orange clad Duchies.
Heineken, no expense spared apparently, had flown in Dutch triple A singing star Marco Borsato and his band for a 40 minutes concert and the crowd went wild.....

Yesterday, we decided to explore Vancouver. Tens of thousands of people had the same idea. We drove to Scott Road's Park and Ride and hopped on the Skytrain to Granville.
It all went smoothly, no issues, no problems of any kind.
The atmosphere was great, street performers, large TV screens everywhere to follow the various competitions and we walked down to the waterfront to see the cauldron with the flames of the games. Phenomenal!
After a stop for dinner, we headed back to Granville and walked down to Yale Town.
Everywhere there were thousands of people, all with big smiles, having fun.
In Yale town we lined up to get into the Live City, a fun, free event. Check it out here:
http://www.discovervancouver.com/events/this-week/best-free-vancouver-olympic-events-live-city-yaletown

Don't let the long line up put you off. It really moves quickly, we were inside within 10 minutes.
The delay is only for a security check.
Inside there is lots to do, eat, see, experience. There are free concerts daily, fireworks every night, for as long as the games last.
You can find pavilions by Coca Cola, Samsung, Acer and Panasonic where you can attend a free 3D introduction to new TV technology. Yeah, sure, it's like walking into a commercial, but hey, these things are free and it is interesting to see nonetheless.
Outside on each side of the stage are giant HD TV screens, where we witnessed the
proceedings inside BC place and Whistler, where the medals of the day were presented.
Watching that in the company of perhaps 20 thousand or more people is stunning and must be experienced to be believed.
Wow, and all this will be going on for another week and a half! If you live in or around Vancouver, make sure to soak it all in before it is back to reality after March 1.
This will not come back.....
I am not sure how many photos got shot last night, but it must be in the tens of thousands.
You see a constant deluge of flash light all around you.
And hey, should one not do something great with all these once in a life time photos?
Yes, for sure!
Download our software and start creating a book with your experiences of this unbelievable February month in Vancouver, Richmond and Whistler!

Discount Coupon still going!

2010-02-15T15:59:00.000-08:00

Just a reminder: our latest 10% off coupon is still valid!
Type in WrapDC10 inside the coupon code line on the first pae of the shopping cart, click SUBMIT and get an instant 10% off your purchase.
The coupon will expire Feb 28, 2010, so better hurry and send your project without any further delay!

Check us out at http://www.treasure-book.com/

You will be glad you did!

New, lower prices in effect today!

2010-02-09T11:36:00.000-08:00

Good news!
With immediate effect, we have lowered down our base prices on all hard cover Photo Wrap Books and also on our 4 x 6" and 8.5 x 8.5" hard covers with leatherette or suede exteriors.

The purse size 4 x 6" in either landscape or portrait can now be ordered starting at just $ 14.99, down a full 5 bucks from the original $ 19.99.
A 8.5 x 8.5" starts now at $ 29.99 down from the previous $ 32.50

Photo Wrap hard covers now start at as little as $ 34.99 for a 20 page 8.5 x 8.5"

Check out our new, lower pricing at http://www.treasure-book.com/ and save a bundle!

The first job to do....IMPORTANT

2010-02-03T15:57:00.000-08:00

It has been a while, but today we have to talk a bit about the issues that give some photo book makers an unbelievable headache.
It seems convenient to simply leave photos on a memory stick, removable hard drive or plain CD ROM or DVD. You create a book and at the end of your work session the creation is "saved" with it's own file name.
Of course the photos that you had stored on the exterior storage devices (memory sticks, CD's , DVD or exterior hard drives) have now been saved inside my book file and I can remove these devices from my PC.
Wrong!
When this is what you have in mind, big problems will occur the next time you want to open your book and continue working on it. Suddenly, the images you placed in your book last time have vanished into thin air. Gone. Disappeared. How can?
Here is what the issue is:
The software does not save any actual photos inside it's book pages. All it saves are File extensions and locations of where to find the photos.
The reason for this is easy to understand. Each and every photo is a sizable file and a good sized book can easily hold a few hundred images.
If the images are all inside the software while working with it, the program would become top heavy and all you would do most of the time is wait, wait and wait a bit longer for all these files to load.

The quick and easy solution is of course a simple one:
As clearly described inside our "how it works" page on the website, the first thing to do is this:
Copy all images to a fixed and permanent location on your hard drive, in almost all cases, the "C-drive".
Create a new folder for each project inside "my Pictures" give that folder a name that won't confuse it with another project and load pictures into the software from this new folder only.
After copying the photos, you can safely remove the external devices and get the job done without any problems. It is now smooth sailing all the way to "send to Treasure-Book" and check-out.
And because the images are safely stored in a rock solid location on the computer's main drive, the software will always be able to open the file, as it can find the photos in the locations where it knows they where left behind last time you worked on this book.
Leave 'em there, don't move 'em around or delete them, unless you are 100% sure that you won't need a copy of that book file any longer.

Have a look at this gorgeous Photo Wrap Cover

2010-01-29T16:27:00.000-08:00

Details at www.treasure-book.com

Promo Code - Pay Less untill 28 Feb, 2010

2010-01-26T16:18:00.000-08:00

A newsletter was e-mailed to all customers that have made a point of registering during their check-out procedure.

For those of you who are new to www.Treasure-Book.com or if you did not get the e-mail:

We have recently introduced a new type of hard cover photo books: Photo (or Image) Wrap hard covers.
See the two previous posts in this blog for details and to read what it is all about!

To celebrate the introduction of this new and exciting format, we have activated a new discount code for anybody to use until 28 February 2010: WrapDC10

At check-out, find the Coupon Code space in the shopping cart (first page bottom)
and type this code in that space. After that, do not forget to activate the code by clicking on the SUBMIT button, underneath the coupon code space.
Take 10% off your bill instantly! Multiple use per customer is permitted, one coupon per check-out only, can not be combined with another one.

New Software Available now!

2010-01-19T15:22:00.000-08:00

The newest version of our software that includes the feature to create hard cover books with photos and text printed on front and back covers is available for download from our website as per today!
If you would click on "photo books" on our website, you can also see what a Photo Wrap hard cover book will look like.
Basically, what we do is replace the leatherette or suede by a printed sheet of self adhesive. Your choice of photos and text will be printed on that sheet.
Next is a step that will laminate this sheet to make sure that the cover will be durable and remains free of dirt and stains.
After that, we use the self adhesive sheet to finish your hard cover and bind the book-block inside the cover.
There is a lot more labour involved in making these Photo Wrap hard covers books.
A second very special printer is involved that is capable to print these huge one piece sheets of self adhesive.

As a bonus to you:
The software is not yet capable to accept text to be placed on the spine of the book.
So, if you create a Photo Wrap hard cover book, we offer you the opportunity to place text on the spine, something like: "Summer Vacation 2009 Volume 1"
How to get this text to us?
Create the Photo Wrap hard cover book using the new software and send the file to Treasure-Book.com by one simple click.
Once the file has been approved by you and you are directed into the shopping cart to check out, type inside the Comment Box on the order sheet:
Spine text:
"Summer Vacation 2009 Volume 1" (or what ever else you want to show up on the spine. Specify the text colour and font if you like.
We will then open the file and insert this text exactly into the right spot and your printed Photo Wrap Hardcover will be delivered with this "unique in the industry" feature on your hard cover photo wrap book! There is no cost for you, as explained, it is your bonus!

Please check it out at www.treasure-book.com
There you can see a picture of one of these Photo Wrap hard covers and you can check out the prices. You'd be glad you did!

New book choices!

2010-01-18T11:42:00.000-08:00

We have worked hard lately to offer our customers a wider choice of book formats and we are happy to announce that we are just days away from including the so called "photo wrap hard covers" inside our list of choices.

What exactly are "photo wrap" hard covers? Over the past 12 months we have repeatedly been asked whether or not we would be offering hard covers books that would allow our software users to place custom photos and text on the front and back of the book covers.

Of course we listen to our customers and started to work on this process a few months ago.
We are now in the last stage of testing and expect to be ready and allow the software downloads and upgrades to include this new feature in a matter of days.
The covers will be finished with your design. You can take one photo and "wrap" it all around front and back of the book and insert captions anywhere you like.
Or place a collage of photos there, as always, your creativity is the only limit to what you can do.
The exterior photo sheets that we place on your hardcovers will be laminated as well, and so your photo wrap cover will be protected against dirt, even moisture, to last long in tip-top shape.

The software does not allow for text to go on the spine of your book. However, we recognize that this might be an important issue for some of you and so, as a bonus, at no cost to you, we will insert any required text on the spine of your "photo wrap" book. How to get this text to us?
Once you have created a "photo wrap" hard cover book, place a request for a spine text inside the comment box of your order and we will take care of the rest!
These new hard cover "photo wrap" books will be available in the following sizes:
8.5 x 11 Landscape and Portrait
8.5 x 8.5 Square
11.5 x 11.5 Square
Key holes will not be offered for these books.
To see a few samples of these new books, visit our website www.treasure-book.com and click on "photo books".
There you will also find the prices for these new books.

Resolutions

2010-01-05T11:59:00.000-08:00

It has been a while since our last post about photo quality but after seeing many files that came in during the very busy past two months, we noticed that a lot of people still do not understand that they can produce much better photo quality by simply placing the camera settings for image quality in a high resolution mode.

Why cameras aren't set at a high resolution as a default is something the manufacturers should change.
It is obvious that the average camera buyer does not read the thick manual that comes with a purchase.
For most, it is too complicated to read and also too time consuming.
People want to unpack the box, insert the batteries into the camera and start shooting photos right away.
For any photographer not familiar with this issue:
Low resolution photos look bad in print, specially when the images have been enlarged in size.
Sure, they will still look good on the 2.5 inch LCD screen on the back of the camera, but once a low resolution photo is blown up to a 5 x 7 or 8.5 x 11 size
all detail will be gone as this shot simply does not contain enough pixels to store all that information.
So, if you are one of those people that isn't all that techie with equipment:
Take your camera out of the bag and switch it on.
Press the "menu" button and look for the image quality settings.
If you are not comfortable with this task, ask somebody else to help. Kids are very good at jobs that require negotiating menus on electronics.
If your camera has a 5.0 Megapixel capacity, that is a good start. The higher the Megapixel number, the better. A higher number allows your camera to take higher resolution photos, that show all the details that you want to see, even in large prints.
Rule of thumb: the fewer photos will fit on your storage card, the better your resolution. The more photos will fit on your card, the progressively worse will your photo resolution be.
Digital photos are built up by vertical and horizontal lines, just like a TV screen.
Each line contains a large amount of tiny squares.
Obviously, the denser the amount of lines, the more information (= details) can be stored in the image file on your card.
A digital photo is basically nothing more than a bunch of tiny squares. Each square contains a bit of detail. It is easy to understand that the more squares you fill with details, the better the photo will look. So we have to make sure that the amount of squares is as high as possible as that results in High Resolution.
For the purpose of photo books, low resolution photos can really ruin a project, no matter how creatively it was put together. There is no tool to fix a low-resolution shot!
Keep these away if you can, or, keep them small. Do not use these shots as backgrounds, it will look bad in print, even though perhaps on your computer screen it looks kinda OK. If the software warns you for "low resolution" take it seriously.
While making a book, place the mouse cursor on an image in any of your pages and look at the bottom of the screen.
There it will show you the "Dots Per Inch" (DPI) print value of this photo.
Or background.
For good, crisp, sharp and clear printing: you want to see this number to be 150 or higher.
Anything between 120 and 150 is still acceptable. Numbers below 120 should be looked at with an intention to either shrink the size of the image or remove it all together. You can increase the DPI value by making photos smaller.
Click on the image inside a page, then click on any corner and drag the image corner to the inside to shrink it.

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-23T11:38:00.000-08:00

Today the Google team sent us an e-mail wishing us "Happy Holidays"
Every time I see this overcooked and oh so Politically Correct statement from businesses such as Google, I wonder what the hell is wrong with these people.
We are celebrating Christmas and the traditional Christmas wish is "Merry Christmas"
How could it possibly be offending to a non Christian?
Would I be offended if somebody wished me the traditional wishes for any other religion or other cultural celebration? Of course not!
While living in the Far East for so many years, we just adapted and wished the local people the local phrases for their Holidays.
Wishing somebody a "Merry Christmas" means a lot more than just that.
It is by far the most widely celebrated Holiday period of the year and no matter where you live, with a few exceptions perhaps, Christmas as a celebration is observed in almost all countries of the planet.

Google and Co. should send messages wishing it's customers a Merry Christmas.
Seasons Greetings or Happy Holidays does not do it for me and it is about time that we stop with this nonsense of fearing that we insult a group in society that is not religious or are follower of other faiths.

Christmas is the one moment of the year where the whole world comes to a stand still
to take time for a family get together.
For some probably the one time in a year where a meal is shared with the complete family. For me, and I am sure all of you, this time is valuable and should be a "Merry" time.

From all of us at Treasure-Book.com: Merry Christmas Everybody!

Boxing Week Sale!

2009-12-17T14:27:00.000-08:00

Of course we are still taking orders for the Christmas rush (see our post of yesterday) but today we have also announced in an e-mail to all our members that we are giving away 15% off any purchase done between December 24th, 2009 and January 6th, 2010.

Many people have time off during this time and what better thing to do than to sort out the many photos that you have and create a beautiful Treasure-Book photo book?

Here is the Coupon Code for those of you that would like to have something great to do during the Holidays and save money at the same time:

At check out, scroll down on the first page in our shopping cart and enter the following Coupon Code:

BoxingDC15

Next: Click on SUBMIT to activate the code and continue the check out procedure.
So, now is the time to start preparing a real nice book with many pages as a 15% saving does not come along all that often.
Keep in mind, our base prices are the lowest in the business, and so, no matter what others are offering in ridiculous numbers such as "40% Off" don't be fooled by the fact that the 40% is taken off a much higher amount in the first place and is therefore meaningless.

Treasure-Book has "every day low, no nonsense prices"!

There is still time for Christmas!

2009-12-16T16:27:00.000-08:00

Today is Wednesday December 16th and we are proud to say that we are still on schedule for any order received that is meant to be a Christmas present!
Our staff have worked full speed during the last 5 weeks to get the Christmas order rush produced and shipped out.

If you live in the area around Langley, B.C. Canada, there is still time to get an order sent to us. It will be at your door on time, as long as we have your order on our server no later than Sunday Dec. 20th 2009.

"Pick up" orders can even be accepted until December 22nd for a timely collection date at our office.

For those living in Western Canada, let's say up to and included the Calgary / Edmonton north - south line, Your order can still be delivered on time if we have the file on our server no later than Thursday December 17th.
For those of you still working on a project and the destination of your order is East of the Calgary line, call us. We can make arrangements for delivery by
Xpresse post at a nominal extra fee. Our toll free number: 1-877-513-8261.

2009-12-11T14:39:00.001-08:00

Software issues

2009-12-10T16:21:00.000-08:00

First this: our software developers have been working hard on a completely new version of our software.
At this very moment the so called Beta Tests are running in full swing. We expect that this exciting new program will be available for distribution through our website sometime in the first quarter of 2010.
The exciting news is that we are going from two sets of software, one each for photo books and cards/calendars, to just one download that will contain just one program to do it all!
There is a complete new look and feel of the software, with emphasis on "easy".
"Easy" as in "easy to use".
Even though the previous two versions were a combined total of some 170 mb of download, the new version, containing both programs into one, will be slightly half of that!
It will download quicker and install faster too. The architecture change that our developers went for is responsible for this very positive change.
The new version will have an enormous new database of backgrounds for you to choice from and some other new features will be introduced, such as clip art for the photo books!
For those of you that have made a book with our software, perhaps this is a bit old news, but I thought it good to bring it up.

If you select a book format that has a key hole in the front cover, please note that the 1st page of your book is locked.
All you can do is insert a background and select and place a key hole photo in the designated space.
It is not possible to write any text on that first page.
You can get around that by first selecting the "Fast Track" wizard to make a book.
There you will have the chance to insert one line of text underneath the key hole picture.
We know this is somewhat cumbersome, but that is how it is.
The reason behind this is simple: The Key Hole photo must be positioned exactly on its location.
A slight movement in any direction would mean that the photo would not fit in the exact space of the key hole and that would ruin the book. Such an accident would easily happen if the user were to be given tools to start messing around with that page.
That is why the key hole pages are "locked". It avoids huge disappointments!

Christmas deadlines

2009-11-26T16:12:00.000-08:00

It has been about two weeks since my last blog posting, but gee, we have been so unbelievably busy with printing and binding that there was hardly any time left for anything else.
That, of course, is a pretty good development for our Treasure-Book.com business.
Compared to just a year ago, the whole concept of what we do is getting known to more and more people. With every book or calendar project that we ship out, we know that the products are seen by a multitude of people and that is actually the very best advertising (word to mouth) that companies can get.

We have also found out that we are one of few companies that keep the files that people send us
on discs in an archive.
Very easy for us to reproduce the order the exact same way if customers wanted a few more copies at a later stage.
All we need is your name and order number. Even without order number we will be able to locate your file as long as we get an indication of an approximate date of the original order.
Our search engine inside our shopping cart will be able to locate all your orders in a matter of seconds.

It is now November 26th and there is still plenty of time to place orders for Christmas.
However, start your projects as soon as you can to avoid disappointments.
After all, we still need some time to print and finish the orders and then there is delivery by post, which, in December can be a bit challenging.

Order Deadline for Canadian Shipments to get on time delivery:
-Locations East of Manitoba: December 5th, 2009
-Locations in Saskatchewan and Manitoba: December 10th, 2009
-Locations East of Kamloops and all of Alberta: December 12th, 2009
-Locations in British Columbia, outside of the Lower Mainland: December 13th, 2009
-Lower Mainland of British Columbia: December 15th, 2009
-Pick-up orders: December 17th, 2009.

For USA shipments:
-East Coast: December 1st, 2009
-Central and Mid West: December 5th, 2009
-West Coast: December: 10th, 2009

For International Shipments:
December 1, 2009

Busy as can be

2009-11-10T13:47:00.000-08:00

After a relatively slow October, things are heating up at Treasure-Book.com
November has arrived with a Big Bang, a constant stream of orders finds its way into our server every day.
I know from my days in wholesale and distribution prior to starting this wonderful on-line company , that October is the weakest month in retail.
People are hardly in the mood to spend money on anything and photo books is no exception. Halloween is on people's mind, more than anything else.
However, as soon as November comes along, all those feelings of keeping a lid on the wallet seem to be forgotten.
No sooner had November arrived, or the trickle of orders that we registered in October changed in a steady stream. A deluge!
Amazing!
In the first full week of November we reached a milestone by registering order number 1,000 and we already know, that for us to reach number 2,000 will be done in probably just half the time or less than it took to get to the first 1K.
Finally, after so much hard work and effort, we start to realize that the phenomenal technology that we have on offer for our clients is being discovered by a much larger group of people.
Thanks to our television appearances on Global TV and CityTV we have had a start, followed by the strings of TV commercials that we aired between March and July of 2009 on CityTV and the OLN Network we saw increased visits to our website.
The problem with this business model is that one can't measure right away what the direct results are.
What we do know now, after all these months, that many people visited the web site, looked around and saved the web link in their "favorites" for later use.
That is what is happening now. And it is great!

Can't get enough of it.....

2009-11-06T14:27:00.001-08:00

Bad weather is...... good for us

2009-11-05T16:26:00.000-08:00

This week the weather has become really November like.

We have rain and stormy winds howling around our building; my wife just phoned on her cell to

tell me that we are without power......That probably means no hockey game tonight.

Well this weather makes people do more computer work and that is good for us.
We have seen a dramatic increase in orders coming in since Sunday and we are preparing for non stop work between now and December 24th.
Why people always wait till the last weeks before Christmas to get started on a book or calendar is beyond me, but that is what it is.
To make things a bit easier on your wallet, we have a coupon going now for our blog readers: FallDC10
Type this code inside the coupon line at check-out in the shopping cart and save 10%.
Click SUBMIT after typing it in to activate it, very important, otherwise it won't work!
If you live in the US or Eastern Canada , we need your orders no later than December 10th to make a smooth Christmas delivery. International customers: December 5th.
Western Canada: December 15th would work, but in any case: the sooner you can submit your orders the better it is and delivery won't be an issue.

The week after

2009-11-03T15:41:00.000-08:00

It has been a week since we came back from the West Coast Women show.
For a while we thought: "why did we do this?"
The first few days after the show it was the big silence, it was almost deafening.
Sure, orders were there, but just a few trickled in, and these were not related to any show activity.
Happy to announce that it has all changed for the better.
Suddenly yesterday the phone started to ring at a more comfortable frequency.
We know now that a great many people have started a project. They are working on a book or calendar. Suddenly we see that our website traffic is going up day by day.
A lot of people have come to realize that Christmas is coming really fast once Halloween is behind us and so, now that the pumpkins are behind us, it is time to start thinking Christmas.
This post is a reminder for all of you to start working on that project without any further delay.
It will be extremely busy and everybody wants his or her order delivered before the biggest holiday season of the year.
Again, for those that did not pick up a West Coast Woman brochure with a coupon, you may use this coupon code: FallDC10
Enter this code at the first page of our shopping cart, scroll down to see the coupon space.
Enter the coupon code and click SUBMIT to activate it.
Ten percent will be taken off your bill.
With the 10% off, our prices are the best in the business, as our base rates are lower than anybody else
Check it all out at www.treasure-book.com

Trade Show experience

2009-10-29T15:31:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was our first try at a trade show to promote our photo book, calendars and card business http://www.treasure-book.com/

I dare say that it was a phenomenal success. Of the 3,000 brochures that we printed a little more than 25 were left over. We hope the information contained in these brochures plus the 10% promo coupon will be widely used in the weeks leading up to December 31, the date that the code will expire.
Information on the code is available also in our previous post "discount coupon" of a few days ago for those that were unable to make the trip to the show.

Over 3 days we have performed some 120 "one-on-one" demos of our software. The booth was equipped with a PC and a Mac attached to large monitors.
Without exception, everybody that went through a demo was blown away with the features and ease of use of our software. More than once we heard the comment that it is so much better and more versatile than the software offered by the Big Box operators.
In addition to that, people were all very much impressed with the quality of our printing and binding. The suede covers that we have in our assortment were very well received.
Pricing is no issue either. We heard 3 days in a row that the cost to make photo books is extremely reasonable, specially because the very sophisticated yet easy to use software is a free download!
If you have not downloaded the software yet, do it tonight and enjoy all the features that it has to offer. You can really work like a pro and let the creative juices flow into your project!
And....for all the scrapbookers out there: Making a Treasure-Book photo book is inexpensive.
Need clip art? Just google "clip art" and hundreds of sites show up where you can download clip art that can be placed inside a Treasure-Book photo book.
Some sites are free, the better ones with tons of clip art can be used for weekly or even daily memberships some as little as $ 6.99.
Compare that with what you would spent in a scrapbook store on stickers alone.......
This new technology is fabulous, it is waiting for you to be discovered.
Visit http://www.treasure-book.com/ and check it out!

Discount Coupon

2009-10-26T15:11:00.000-07:00

For those unable to visit the West Coast Women show and pick up a discount coupon, no worries, here is one for you to use as well!
Take 10% of your purchases between now and December 31, 2009.
Promo coupon code: FallDC10

One coupon per purchase only.
Type it in the coupon space on the first page in the shopping cart at check out.
Scroll to bottom of page to see the coupon space.
After that click SUBMIT to activate the code.

Christmas deadline for guaranteed delivery:
Shipping addresses east of Calgary: Dec 5th, 2009
Between Vancouver Island and Calgary: Dec 10th, 2009
USA: Dec 5th, 2009
International: Dec 1, 2009

Enjoy!

West Coast Women Show Raffle Winners!

2009-10-26T11:07:00.000-07:00

We have just returned from 3 successful days at the West Coast Women Show.
At the show, we handed out a few thousand brochures, had many hundreds of people look at our samples and go through a one-on-one demo of our software....
Happy faces all around!

A few hundred people filled out our Raffle Tickets for a chance to win one of ten
50 dollar Gift certificates for products to order at Treasure-Book.com.

We are pleased to publish the list of the 10 lucky winners:

1. Lori Kowalchuck, Abbotsford
2. Nadine Schroeder, Abbotsford
3. Tami Hadath, Chilliwack
4. Katharine Martin, Surrey
5. Amanda Klaver, Abbotsford
6. Joy Saathof, Abbotsford
7. Sandy Muller, Aldergrove
8. Lori Mueller, Surrey
9. Jo Ann Jenewein, Mission
10. Darline Woloshyn, Maple Ridge

Our congratulations to these winners! Each winner will receive a personal e-mail with the details of the Gift Certificate!

Autumn

2009-10-21T14:08:00.000-07:00

For many people, autumn isn't a great time of the year.
Days are getting shorter, trees are shedding leaves, rain, wind and in some parts of the continent snow and ice have already returned.
Looking out of a window on one of those dark grey days is pretty depressing for some people.
Not for me. Of course summer is my favorite season, but I also find that the other 3 seasons have lots to offer.
During summer, most of my time off is spent outside. We are blessed with a wonderful home in the country and have a lot of space around our house.
But now that autumn is here, more time is available for other things, such as reading or doing research on the world wide web.
I don't know about you, but I find the public available Internet one of the best things that humanity has come up with over the past few decades.
When back in Hong Kong in the early 1990s, I attended a conference organized by Hong Kong's Internet provider "SuperNet". Honestly, I had not heard much about "the Internet" but listened that day with much interest what the guys on the podium had to say and show about this "technology of the future".
I am always a bit skeptical on anything new that comes along, but boy, these guys back in that hotel conference room were so right.
Our business would not exist in the way it has been set up. It is phenomenal that you can run a business, allow software to be distributed, orders and payments to be received through cyberspace. All through an Internet connection anywhere in the world. It doesn't matter anymore where I work on our business. Surely, most of the time it is from our brick and mortar office building, but sometimes I travel and with the help of the Internet I can work as good and provide answers and services as quickly from another place in the world.
Some of you received answers from a computer located in Europe or Hawaii and last year even from a cruise ship sailing through Alaskan waters.....
Which takes me back to colder weather.....
It is a great time to take a camera out and shoot the very colourful forests that we see around us in October. The colours red, yellow and many shades of brown are dominantly present and specially in the days just before leaves start to fall in large numbers, beautiful photos can be made of the change of the seasons.
If this weekend is not reserved for a visit to the West Coast Women Show in Abbotsford, then take the camera out and shoot some dramatic scenes of trees with their autumn leaves. You will be glad you did once the results show on your monitor.
Next, of course , create a Treasure-Book with these images....get your free software here at http://www.treasure-book.com

Quality photos result in quality products!

2009-10-20T16:36:00.000-07:00

The topic of photo quality has been discussed in these pages on a few occasions in the past 6 months.
However, looking at some of the work that we receive from our dear customers it is clear that we have to raise the issue yet again.
Even though an image can look acceptable on a computer monitor, it is of vital importance that settings on a digital camera are placed at high resolution.
A simple rule of thumb is: the more images fit on your storage card, the worse the resolution of your photos will be. The lower the number of shots that fit on your card, the better the resolution.
High(er) resolution photos make digital prints so much better.
Digital photos are built up from tiny squares. Each square contains a part of the image. The more of these squares you have in a photo, the denser the shot is and the higher the resolution. The better the resolution, the more you can enlarge the image. If our software warns you that the resolution is too low, do not ignore that message. Fix the problem by reducing the size of the photo.
Another problem we see here every day is Red Eye in photos that were shot with the help of a flash.
Most cameras have a setting inside the menu that will compensate or reduces Red Eye.
If you see bad cases of Red Eye, fix it before you send the file to us, you will be glad you did when the book gets delivered.
If your camera does not have the Red Eye reduction setting, run all your photos first through a free software program from Google called Picasa.
All imperfections can be fixed easily by Picasa.

For all our readers in the Lower Mainland: do not forget to come and see us this coming weekend at the West Coast Women Show at TradeEx, Abbotsford Airport.
We will be handing out goodies to visitors at the show!
During the show we will demonstrate the use of our software on a Windows Computer and also on an Apple Macintosh.

Watch us on TV

2009-10-17T11:34:00.000-07:00

Steely Dan very much alive

2009-10-16T11:16:00.000-07:00

Back in 1973, I worked a summer job in Schiedam, Netherlands, as a postal worker.

We started very early in the morning, sorting the mail for my walk in the exact sequence of the route. It took about an hour and half before you would hop on your bicycle and ride to the first address to start delivering the morning mail. (yes, in those days people were fortunate enough to get two mail deliveries per day, a second one in the afternoon!)

While sorting the mail one morning, a song came on the radio. Loud music was always blaring in the mail sorting hall. Much to my delight of course, as I had anticipated to enter into a boring world of mouse grey, stiff semi government postal workers, similar to Newman, the arch rival neighbor of Jerry Seinfeld.

I was blown away by that song, because it had a fantastic, very distinct rock guitar intro, played so velvety and so sweet to my ears that it stayed with me for the day and the week that followed.
The radio DJ did not announce who that artist or band was, all I could remember was something about "Reelin".

I tried to find out about it, but had very little success. Remember, these were the days without Internet....so all you could do is listen to the radio and wait for the tune to be played again. No luck.....

So I headed out to the Free Record Shop in Schiedam (now a giant CD selling chain of stores) a tiny location deep down in the basement of a 18th century building. Their first location.

These guys were importing vinyl LP's from abroad and I chatted with the proprietor behind the counter to see if he had any idea what that song was all about and more importantly: who played it?

I explained "Reelin" to him and tried to hum the tune as best as I could.
He thought for a while and grabbed a box from his storage room.
A stack of 45s entered daylight.
On top was one that was called: "Reelin' in the Years" / "Dirty Work"
He said: "these have just arrived, I think I can help you"
A photo on the front cover showed 6 skinny guys with extremely pale skin, indifferent looks.
They looked as if they could use a bath and a good meal.
Above the photo, the band's name: "Steely Dan"
My hero in the store placed the single on a turntable and let the song come to life as soon as the needle touched the vinyl. With the turntable at a speed of 45 turns per minute, the guitar intro sounded loud through the tiny store. Here was my song!
The cover of the single showed a copy of the Steely Dan debut album sleeve on the backside: "Can't buy a thrill"
"Do you have the LP?" I asked the shop keeper.
"No, but if you want one, I can order a few copies and reserve one for you"
Two weeks later I owned Steely Dan's debut album "Can't buy a thrill".
I played it every day, for weeks on end. It drove my Mom nuts.
Ever since the summer of '73, I have been a die-hard fan. Bought all their albums. Bought them again on CD's when these got invented.
After I moved to Canada, I finally had the chance to see them play live.
First in 2001 in Portland, Oregon, then in 2004 in the Gorge in Washington and then again last Tuesday evening in the Paramount Theatre in Seattle, a Majestic venue, with fantastic acoustics.
Nothing worse than a concert in a concrete sports arena, so this was the perfect setting!
The band actually revolves around the two founding members: Donald Fagen and Walter Becker.
They wrote all the music, all lyrics and are by definition Steely Dan. They own it.
For recording and concerts they surround themselves with the "creme de la creme" of session musicians and they did not disappoint, yet again.
They played two nights in a row. On Monday night, the complete "Aja" album was played.
One of their best, but I opted for the following Tuesday when the complete "Royal Scam" album was performed.
This one is my favorite as I am a bit of a guitar junkie. This album stands out as their most electric of the bunch. Besides, the songs on this album are all absolute gems.
And what about this pleasant surprise: the second half of the concert was given to play most of Aja anyway, so we enjoyed the best of both evenings.
After two hours of playing, the encore was an electrifying version of "Reelin' in the Years"
and the crowd, all of them well over 50, went wild.
My wife, who had joined me on this trip to Seattle suggested the next day, when we stepped into our car to drive home, to turn around and drive to California.....
They were scheduled to play in the Sunshine State on October 16th........
For a moment I thought, hmmm, why not.....but then common sense prevailed.
On the way back home, The "Royal Scam" filled the car once again, followed by the more recent "Two against nature". Another timeless classic. Check it out, you will love the music and will chuckle, listening to the sometimes weird, complicated, but always humorous lyrics.
These guys are both English literature majors, and it shows. Never a dull moment, no weak filler songs, just top, top quality from start to finish.

Time to think about Christmas

2009-10-15T16:00:00.000-07:00

How time flies....
Ten more weeks and we are all getting ready for Christmas Eve....the last frantic trips to the Mall to score that all important last gift...
Why wait so long?
The first item to consider on your list of things to accomplish before Christmas is your choice of Christmas Cards.
OK, sure, you can buy them at a large Box retailer, and these will be nice enough, but they are the same old tiresome Christmas cards as the ones that you have been sending around the world for years.
Cheesy snowmen or an even cheesier group of kids around a 19th century Village Christmas Tree in the snow. Seen these? Yeah, a million times....
Oh, and keep in mind that these cards are not all that cheap either.
This year, do something different. Make your own personal cards with the help of our software. Our pricing is such that the more you order, the cheaper they will get. Envelops are included with the folding cards.
Have a look and give it a try. You will be assured that your cards will be noticed and will not disappear inside the stack of "same-old, same-old" cards that your friends and relatives will receive yet again.
Or, you could make a nice personal gift, one that makes a 12 months statement, by producing a personalized calendar with our software!
Our most popular size cost just $16.99 a perfect amount for a small gift.
And....you will be assured that your gift will be used, as it will hang on friend's wall for the whole following year. It can't get better than that! Avoid the risk of your gift ending up unused inside a drawer or a closet.....create a calendar!
The ultimate gift from our assortment, obviously, would be a phenomenal photo book.....
But why wait until December and get all nervous to see if the order will be on time?
Start today, send the file and sit back and relax! Beat the crowds and have it delivered in the next few weeks. Smart people would....procrastinators, well, 'nuff said.

West Coast Women Show

2009-10-14T15:24:00.000-07:00

On October 23, 24 and 25 the annual West Coast Women Show will be held in the Tradex Building at the Abbotsford airport in British Columbia.
Treasure-Book.com will be represented at the show, and booth number 287 will be our home for these three days.

What can you find at our booth?
First of all, we will have a raffle going on that weekend, with a number of nice Gift Certificates at $ 50 each to be won.
How to participate?
Visit our booth and fill out the special raffle tickets that we will present to you.
Your name, address, phone number and e-mail address are to be filled out and the ticket than to be placed in the glass container at our booth.

Winning tickets will be drawn on Sunday October 25th at 4 pm at the booth.
Winners will be informed about their prize by e-mail and the Gift Certificates will be sent to winners also by e-mail.
These certificates can be used for any item that is available from our software, be it a photo book, calendars or greeting cards.

In addition to this raffle, we will present to interested visitors how our software works and what it takes to send a file with an order to our server.

Demos will be presented on two different computers, one on a Mac and the other on a
Windows based computer and will be available all through the 3 days of the show.
Questions will be answered and we hope to achieve that potential users of our software will gain a certain level of comfort using the free software after having seen it in action at the show.
Of course, we will show you a large selection of sample books, calendars and cards that people have made and ordered through our services. And last but not least, pick up a brochure with vital information that you need to get started on your project!

40,000 visitors are expected to visit this show, and we encourage you all to pick one of these days, come see us at our booth and at the same time explore the many other wonderful exhibitions at the show.
Entry tickets are just $ 10 and parking is a low and affordable $ 4 per vehicle.

Hockey is back!

2009-10-09T10:03:00.000-07:00

It's early October and Hockey is back!
In Vancouver, fans have seen a bleak start of the season with 3 games lost in a row.
Hard to digest when expectations run so high.
The Vancouver Canucks have been around in the NHL for 39 years or so and have yet to win the Cup. Fortunately last Wednesday evening the first 2 points of the new season could be marked to their standing stats after beating a tired looking Montreal Canadians Team convincingly: 7 - 1
Next up is a meeting with the Dallas Stars on Sunday, at home in GM place.
When it comes to Hockey, the people living in the Lower Mainland, east of Vancouver and east of the Port Mann Bridge have been given access to two enjoyable and inexpensive options when it comes to watching a game "live".
The brand spanking new "Langley Events Centre" in Langley is home to the Langley Chiefs, a junior BCHL team and seats 5000 spectators.
Then there is the new Team on the block: The Abbotsford Heat.
This is the closest you can get to NHL hockey at a low price.
The Heat is the AHL farm team of the Calgary Flames.......Why the Flames placed their farm team in the centre of Canuck Territory is beyond me.
Would it not make a lot more sense to have the Canuck Farm team in Abbotsford?
and the Flames farm team in Winnipeg?
Think about all the travel that can be avoided by the Canuck prospects and the fan base that a second Canuck team would draw.
Hockey can learn a thing or two from how the age old football Leagues in Europe are structured.
Teams have the main team playing in the (in England) Premiere League, but at the same time have a second team (the reserves so to speak) playing in a league of their own against the reserves of all other Premiere League Teams. Good football, low ticket prices.....
So, the reserves of Manchester United are also called Manchester United, play in the same jerseys, play in Manchester as their home base. It seems so simple and logical, doesn't it?
Why not have a second level of NHL with the exact same clubs playing their reserves?
It is a great opportunity for fans with small budgets to see their club play "live"
and for players to get better after an injury, without having to travel half way across the continent to be with the Farm team.

The good news about the AHL and the Junior Leagues : it is affordable!
You can enjoy an evening of great hockey with the family and spent just 100 bucks.
Do the same with the Canucks and realize soon that a ticket to get in costs easily $ 125 (if you can get one!) Parking a ridiculous $ 25 and a lukewarm beer in a plastic cup will set you back some 8 bucks. A family of 4 would easily spend $ 600 to see an NHL game in Vancouver.
Out of reach for the average hockey fan who isn't in a position to get free tickets from corporations that own a bunch of season tickets to shower on their clients.
Missing in North American pro sports is also the various divisions that one sees in Europe's Football leagues.
The clubs at the bottom of the table at season end, relegate to a lower division.
The one that finishes dead last, relegates automatically, the teams ranked 2 and 3 from bottom will run a play off series with the finishers 2 and 3 of the division below it.
The champion of the lower division automatically promotes to the Premiere league.
Bad teams will be punished for losing, good teams will be rewarded for playing well and winning.
It brings also a phenomenal amount of excitement during the last weeks of play as the clubs at the bottom have to fight hard to stay alive and avoid relegation.
In North American Sports, losing teams just stay in the league no matter what they do
and also lose interest to play hard when their chances of making the play offs are gone. The mind of these players is already on the Golf Course in late April.
It will never be implemented in Hockey or Basketball but I believe it would make the Leagues a lot more interesting for the Fans.
Anyway, Canadian Thanksgiving weekend has arrived.
Monday October 12th is Thanksgiving in Canada, some 5 weeks earlier than in the USA.
Our office is obviously closed on the 12th, but of course, you can send orders in at any time of the week or day.....we are always open for that!

Watch our TV Commercial here:

2009-10-07T15:05:00.001-07:00

Treasure-Book on YouTube and Trade Show

2009-10-07T12:46:00.000-07:00

We have finally taken the time to upload one of our commercials that showed on Canadian television from March to July 2009.
For those of you who had not had a chance to see it, you can watch it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP7RCaw0jME

For sure we have increased our exposure to consumers in our market, but then again, compared to what we spent on it, the results of the expenditures was somewhat disappointing.
Hard to explain what the reasons are behind the fact that so many people visit our website, but relatively few decide to take the next step and download the free software and create a book, card or calendar.
Is it security issues? Reluctance to pay with a credit card on-line?
Fact is that all visitors who decided to give it a try have all been served well and all received products from us that were up to or exceeded expectations.
Fact is that many people that tried it once, are coming back for more. Time and again we see the very same folks come back with new orders after a very good first experience.
In order to work some more on our PR, we have decided to attend the West Coast Women trade show, Oct 23 - 25 at the TradeEx in Abbotsford.
We have rented a booth there and will personally be present to introduce our services to the approximate 40,000 women that are expected to visit the show, based on numbers from previous shows in years past.
Of course, men are welcome at the show as well....
If you live in the Vancouver area in British Columbia, come and visit us at booth number 287 at the show. You will be impressed by what we have to offer.......
There will be discount coupons for show visitors, so please come by and save!

Blog pause till October 6th

2009-09-27T22:42:00.000-07:00

Folks, I will be unable to write posts until October 6th and so new entries will start showing after October 6th, 2009.
See you then!

Hello Again!

2009-09-21T12:58:00.000-07:00

Noticed this morning that the blog entry dated back to September 15th.
That is not good. The idea was that we would post every business day and take the weekend off to reload the creative battery and come up with stuff to write about.
In addition to not having that much inspiration last week, we have also been super busy on the business side. We are currently working on a very large order placed that we need to complete with the next few days.
Consequently, I have been spending my days in the book cover making department.
Perhaps you did not know that yes, but at www.treasure-book.com it is like home cooking: we make the books from A to Z in house. That means much stricter quality control and books made by truly dedicated people who have a lot of pride in what they do for a living.
It works like this:
After you have uploaded your file, the automated system sends us an immediate e-mail with a confirmation of your payment.
An invoice with all your details, including the all important JOB ID number of your book are generated. You get a copy in your e-mail in-box, and we get a copy as well.
So, in the morning, we print a copy of each new invoice and we generate the shipping label at the same time.
A second check is made if the funds have been confirmed as "received" by either of our two payment processors (PayPal and RBS WorldPay) and if all that checks out OK,
a file is made containing your invoice.
The files go to our "file examiner" who opens each and every file that we have received based on the JOB ID numbers.
These numbers have been deposited on our server and are now opened to see if all has been received well.
The examiner checks your book, page by page.
Even though we are not really supposed to do that, we look for obvious spelling errors, typos or other irregularities. If we see dark images, we try to light them up in PhotoShop. If customers sent in files with a lot of red-eye problems, we fix these as much as we can.
Some people will get contacted by our staff in case the file is damaged or has other issues that we can't fix by ourselves.
This process sets us apart from other companies. There, files get sent in and printed regardless of what is on the pages. Most of this is an automated process.
What this means is that the final result could become a disappointment.
After the file is examined and declared "OK" we go to print.
While the printer is humming, another staffer makes the cover for your book.
The invoice shows the size and orientation of your book and whether or not a key hole is required. It also shows your colour and fabric choice.
The material is selected and cut to size. Then a special machine is used to produce the cover in exact size, with a book spine inside that matches the number of pages of your book. The more pages, the wider the spine.
Next is the cut-out procedure for a key-hole (if selected).
When that is all done nicely, the cover is taken through a lamination machine.
Not to get laminated, but for a heat-treatment, so that all possible air bubbles are removed from the cover and to make sure that the cover fabric is attached perfectly onto the cover board.
Meanwhile, your book has left the printer and is now being cut at our laser guided cutting machine.
Once that is done, the pages get stitched and a firm book block is the result.
The next and final step is the actual binding process, where the book block is permanently bonded inside the cover spine. Two self adhesive end sheets are then placed inside the front and back and your book is ready.
The last step is the final visual inspection by our Quality Control person.
Packaging and labeling are next, Canada Post will do the rest!

Flash photography

2009-09-15T13:55:00.000-07:00

Of all the the issues that we see in books that we print, the number one, without a doubt, is the quality of indoor photographs.
To fill a room with artificial light in order to make a shot look good, a truly powerful flash is a must.
Not a single camera comes with one that is up to this task. Not even a $ 1500 SLR body that may have a built-in flash.
The flashes that come with cameras are kind-a "OK-ish" for shots within a range of about 3 meters.
Anything wider, longer than that is doomed to fail.
In such a case, one gets a bright area in the centre with a lot of darkness around it.
These smallish flashes work somewhat acceptable when you shoot portraits, or close ups of a bunch of people. However: make sure you have placed your menu at the back of your camera in a mode that corrects ugly red-eye problems associated with flash photography.....
We have seen quite a number of books that all have great looking outdoor photos.
Then a few pages show up that can really make a book look kind-a "so-so"....
These are the pages with photos of dance floors at weddings or graduation halls in schools where camera flashes have no chance of doing a half decent job.
The result is obviously painful: pages with dark images filled with half visible faces and ugly light flash shadows thrown on white walls.
In a situation like this: if you do not have a powerful add-on flash, refrain from taking a single photograph that intend to show anything over a 3 meter distance.
Stay within that range and get closer to your subject. That is the easy part!
A dancing newly wedded couple is a much better picture up-close than from a 10 meter distance anyway. Or what about reception photos?
Use close-up shots as much as possible, avoid anything outside of that, it is a waste of time and very disapointing when the final results show up in a printed version.
Also: your flash works on a relatively slow shutter time of just 1/60th of a second.
That is the time that your flash fills the room, just enough time to light up your photo.
Even though 1/60th of a second sounds awfully fast in other circumstances, it is not enough to really freeze moving objects in motion.
For this same reason, a lot of indoor shots can look unsharp when the objects are moving.
Unpractical, but really the best option would be to have a camera sit on top of a tripod for that critical amount of extra stability.
You, the photographer, must keep this in mind all the time while shooting indoors: Keep the camera steady and solid, no sudden moves! Ask your subjects also to stand still while you shoot.
Hard to do that on the dance floor, so make a few and select the best. Delete the poor ones right away. Even though add on flashes can cost hundreds of dollars, they don't work any faster than the synchronisation time of flash light firing and shutter open and closure than the 1/60th of a second.
But they do something much better than your built in one: These add-on flashes provide you with the all important issue with great looking indoor photographs: Light.....lots of it!
If you own an SLR (even some non SLR, compacter models accept add-on flashes!) right after selecting and buying a good camera bag and a quality zoom lens, the next purchase should be a decent add-on flash. You will get more satisfaction out of that than out of a huge tele photo lens. Buy one of the same make as the camera. They work seamlessly together....
For indoor shots, at receptions for instance, a good choice would be a 35~70 mm zoom lens.
This lens type at 70 mm will provide you with million dollar portraits and couple photos, waist-up, with great detail and clarity; The 35 mm setting is plenty good to make group photos!
That extra bit of money on an add-on flash will pay itself back quickly!
It is a great way to become recognized amongst your peers for doing great jobs with a camera at parties and other "get together" events.

BBB now in effect!

2009-09-11T13:37:00.000-07:00

As per last night, our website has seen a last little change.
Our membership application at the "Better Business Bureau" has been approved and so http://www.treasure-book.com/ is now part of a BBB accredited business.
What does this mean?
Well, it makes shopping for people that have not had any dealings with us more reassuring.
Membership at the BBB can only be granted if a company passes the BBB strict rules and regulations that go hand in hand with an application.
Membership accreditation means that we have been critically looked at by a team of professionals. We have been checked out from A to Z.
Before accrediting a company the BBB will carefully check for any bad history with financial difficulties, they will talk to customers that have had experiences with our company and they also check out whether or not we are the subject of court cases, law suits and the like, making absolutely sure that the BBB logo is only granted to companies that have a solid reputation and are a genuine and trustworthy company on a fixed address in a brick and mortar building.
They also check the people that own the company and have a few face to face meetings.
It means that if people are hesitant to use a credit card to order a product on line, the BBB accreditation provides a lot more peace of mind, it almost equals worry free shopping.
It means that you do not need to be afraid that we would take your money and not ship an item. It means that we will 100% honour our return policy commitments, our privacy policy and that we will act under all circumstances in accordance with the laws.
Please visit our website at http://www.treasure-book.com/ and click on the BBB logo for further information and for details that are listed on the Treasure-Book Printers page of the BBB website.
BBB accreditation does not imply an "endorsement" by the BBB. The BBB is a non profit organization with consumer protection as it most important issue. The Bureau does not recommend any one particular business.
But you do know when shopping at a BBB accredited company, you are dealing with a solid and serious business.

Self Publishing

2009-09-10T16:34:00.000-07:00

The other day over lunch I grabbed a local Vancouver paper and saw an article about how people are trying to publish their own book.
These could be persons with great cooking talent who try to publish a number of their own culinary creations and recipes that desperately need sharing and preserving......
Or perhaps a photographer that has made a special image report about one particular subject.
And then there is the person that has written this great thriller manuscript but can't find any of the big powerhouse publishing companies agreeing in printing it.
We understand, as that can be a huge and costly issue for a publisher. These folks are in no position to print small runs of perhaps 5, 10, 25 or 50 books.
Well, there is no need for these people to be frustrated.
At www.treasure-book.com you can create your own books, upload it to our server and have us print the quantity that you feel comfortable with.
You can start with 1 copy. Then, order 3 or 4 more, maybe 10 or 25.....100.....
Obviously, for initial small print runs of anything below 10 copies, our regular prices apply.
But talk to us about any other project that you might have in mind, we are very interested in your work and would love to be able to help you out and print your creation.
We are able to print up to 750 pages if needed.
Yes, our software states it won't go over 200 pages, but we can help if you have a thicker book!
Sure, that will be kind-a pricey, but if you really only need 2 or 3 of these, say for a family, start by making a toll free phone call to 1-877-513-8261.
We will be more than happy to guide you on your way to publishing!
It is simple to arrange and easy to set up. Just talk to us, we have lots of tricks available that makes publishing a breeze......Just phone us, you talk, we listen and help. You could be on your way in no time at all!

Back to school

2009-09-08T14:59:00.000-07:00

Today, September 8th, is the day that schools re-open their doors.....
As you know, it's not a real, full size schoolday. It's just half a day. Pick up supplies, books, learn your new class rooms and meet your class mates and teachers for the coming semesters.
School will start for real only tomorrow. For a very short 3 day school week.
Easier to get used to it this way and then another weekend!
Most parents will be relieved that their kids are back inside a class room and that regular life has once again returned. Hard to remember how that felt, May seems like ages ago, doesn't it?
For us it is the start of the last 4 months of the calendar year, a period in which we are expecting, as we did last year, to produce the vast majority of books, calendars and cards and finish the year on a high note.
Of course, during summer months, we can understand that you do not want to sit inside a room and work on an indoor activity such as creating files for a photo book or a calendar, while outside the temperatures are pleasant and the sun lights up the back yard........
It is early September now.
There is still plenty of time to get a nice project under way and finished well ahead of schedule and well on time for the gift giving month of December.
Moreover, we have still a 10% discount going on for orders that reach us no later than September 30th.
On a large book that can shave easily $ 10 or more off your bill.
Visit our website www.treasure-book.com and pick up the discount coupon from our home page!

Better Business Bureau

2009-09-04T15:07:00.000-07:00

One reason why folks might be reluctant to go on line, download software, create a book, calendar or card and check out with a credit card could be fear of their security.
And with good reason. Credit card fraud is rampant these days, identity theft is a scary thought.
But let me be clear: your credit card information is only seen and handled by the Bank.
We do not receive those details, we can't even touch it. That all stays away and is covered by the huge security blankets that RBS WorldPay and PayPal both have in place.
People that have placed orders with us and received their creations in the mail or came by for a pick up are in overwhelming majority extremely pleased and satisfied with the product that we produce and deliver.
We take better care, spend more time on each project, we check files, we talk to our customers directly, we do not have one of those horrible automated phone systems and we respond to e-mails with questions in an instant. Yes, also during the evening or during weekends.
We do this because we realize that most people work on books or calendars during their time off from work and so when somebody runs into a problem and wants to be able to continue the job what could be better than receiving an immediate response?

To remove the amount of insecurity that there obviously is, we have applied for and have been granted membership at the Better Business Bureau.
Soon the BBB logo will proudly be displayed on our web pages, making it again easier and more comfortable for the reluctant among you to download your free software and create a book or calendar.

Even though when checking out you see a screen that tells you that we are not responsible for bad images or typos, we do care about your project and we will always do our utmost to make sure that all will be OK.
Each and every file is individually examined. Text is read as much as we can.
If we do find issues that need attention or modification, we will contact you and give you a chance to have it rectified resulting in a happy and satisfying product!

Bing!

2009-09-03T21:45:00.000-07:00

The last couple of days have shown increased visitor numbers to our website....
It looks as if the new website at http://www.treasure-book.com/ is found more frequently by the crawlers inside Google, Yahoo! and Bing search engines.
In case you have not heard of "Bing" yet, you will very soon. Let me explain please:
It's owned by Microsoft, the Giant from Redmond, Washington, just a few hours South from where we are located.
In May of 2008, just weeks before the nastiness of the recent economic woes started to show its ugly head, Microsoft was negotiating with Yahoo! to purchase the shares of Yahoo! for a cool $ 42 billion......Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft realized that he was missing his share of the big advertising dollars that he saw ending up in the coffers of the Google boys in Palo Alto, California., and he feared to lose out over the years as Google keeps marching on.
Jerry Yang, Chairman of Yahoo! and his board members voted against this (most thought) very generous offer and decided to just continue competing with the Big Bad Wolf called "Google" as before.
Just months after that, stock markets crumbled and the Yahoo! Board looked like a bunch of idiots. Yahoo! share holders lost many billions of dollars in the process and Mr.Yang resigned from his post of Chairman at Yahoo!
Recently Microsoft re-opened discussions with the new CEO at Yahoo!. Not to offer a bunch of billions again, no, this time Microsoft made a deal with Yahoo! to work together against the ever increasing search power (= advertising dollars) of almost monopolist Google.
In exchange of a share in the future Microsoft search advertising income, Yahoo is now providing Microsoft search technology.
It saved Microsoft valuable time in not having to develop its own. It could start right away.
Yahoo! will benefit, as Microsoft is expected to bundle the new Microsoft search engine, which they baptized "Bing", inside their new PC operating system "Windows 7" which will start shipping in the months before Christmas. It will replace Windows Vista, a program that wasn't as perfect as Microsoft would have wished it would be; that being said, the latest version of Vista is apparently flawless.
What will all this mean?
Well, we all know the power of Microsoft. They were single handedly responsible for the demise of web browser pioneer "Netscape" after they started bundling their Explorer browser with the Microsoft PC operating system software.....Does anyone still remember Word Perfect? Or what about Lotus 1,2,3?
These were companies that were the Gold Standard for word processing and spread sheets.....worth nothing more than a shadow of their former selves, two seemingly untouchable brands in the 1980s and early 1990s. Both were King in the days of Microsoft DOS operating systems. All bulldozed away by Microsoft Office.....
Will the same happen to Google? Not very likely. Too much money! But Microsoft has already announced that they too will be giving away
free software in the foreseeable future. As Google does. It will be interesting to see how these two Titans will either thrive or suffer.
Google is rumoured to be working on a new Operating System to compete with Windows.
Will it be free?
What does it mean for us?
Well, we have started to advertise on Bing.
It not as crowded (yet); Our ads show up more regularly and the cost per click is much cheaper than on Google pages. One must "bid" with competitors to get a good ad ranking, we all want to be on the first search result page.
Over time, more companies will divert some ad funds to Bing and it will all balance out. At least, that is what is likely to happen.
For now, Treasure-Book has jumped on board with Bing and will enjoy the benefits for as long as we can. We can't afford to leave Google, but the hope is that the arrival of a new competitor will bring down cost, which at the end of the day is good for you, the consumer, as competition will drive prices down or prevent them from shooting up.
Microsoft meanwhile has the best deal it seems. It keeps $ 42 billion of assets on the balance sheet and at the same time only has to pay for the Yahoo! goodies with future advertising earnings. Bill Gates can be proud!
And Google? A fun company that we have supported from the days that I read about them
for the first time in a Newsweek article back in our Hong Kong days. Long time ago!
Remember, in the early days of web surfing Yahoo! was King.....how that position slipped away from them is a mystery.....

December will be here soon!

2009-09-01T14:59:00.000-07:00

With Christmas just months away, there are a few things that can help making the holiday season a bit more comfortable to get through. But first this:
An important reason why it can be stressful, lies in the fact that many people procrastinate.....
"I have lots of time to do all these things" is what goes through ones mind more often than not.
Of course last Christmas you swore that in 2010 you would do things differently and would start the Christmas chores way ahead of the crowds.
Sure, there are people that start buying their next year Christmas gifts on December 26 and keep them 363 days in the basement waiting for these purchases to be presented. Hopefully they will then still remember "whom" they bought "what" for.....
By doing this, you can pick up wrapping paper at half price and buy last years hot Christmas items at Boxing day "door crasher" prices. So perhaps the really smart shopper has a point.
The only thing is that perhaps that hot item in '09 ain't that hot anymore in '10.
Presenting one of those "has beens" could be a bit embarrassing too, to say the least.
Anyway, the real smart shopper starts working on Christmas stuff in September.....
No sooner have the back-to-school shelves been emptied after labour day weekend, or in come the first Christmas items. Of course, there is first also a short burst into Halloween stuff, but Christmas rules the last 4 months of the year.
By end of July, Costco moves summer stuff such as camping equipment off the floor and in come the first pallets with Christmas Cards and cheesy plastic singing rein deers.
A few more weeks and all you hear in stores are Bing Crosby and Andy Williams singing their praises of the Holiday Season in an attempt to get you into the mood for Christmas.
Well, in a way there are indeed a number of things that should be done now and not delayed until end of November or later....
Now is a great time to start working on your personal Christmas Cards.
They are inexpensive and the folded ones even come with envelopes!
Another super suggestion would be to make a personal Calendar using your own photography.
These make for great gifts with Christmas!
Check out the various prices and formats that we offer.
Start by downloading your free calendar and card making software here: http://www.treasure-book.com/
Order before End of September and get 10% off by using this coupon code at check-out:
SummersaveDC10
Enter it inside the coupon code space on page 1 inside the shopping cart (scroll down the page to see it) and click on SUBMIT to activate it. Your discount will be instantly taken off your bill!

September.......

2009-08-31T14:38:00.000-07:00

Summer went by fast this year, or is it just me who thought so?
It feels like yesterday when we had the office staff over for a summer BBQ at our place on July 5Th. Yet, today is the last day of August, 3 more weeks and it is officially fall!
Many people are running around getting all their kids ready for school....I was at a Staples this morning and found myself in a line up checking out my new printer purchase....
All though I prefer summer over the other 3 seasons that there are in a year, fall is a pretty good time too. Here in the Pacific North West we are often blessed with some beautiful Indian Summers, days with glorious sunshine, never hot; cool and clear nights. Leaves turning brown and red make for great photo opportunities.
The light to shoot some photos can be truly magnificent at dawn or dusk and so, take the opportunity by the horns and go on a photo safari around where you live.
On foot is great. Walk around the river near you, or a lake and be amazed at what you can see and capture with your digital camera.
Blue Herron, Geese, an Eagle, even ordinary Ducks can make for wonderful pictures!

Hello Again

2009-08-28T16:13:00.000-07:00

This week has been a busy one, so I missed a day or so posting new entries.

So, as they do in television land, today, Friday, I will take the easy route and repeat a post that was entered much earlier this year:

You have taken your photos and uploaded them to your computer.Nicely done, in pretty good resolution with smart use of fill-in flash, subjects positioned well and you also created interesting compositions!The thing to do next is to download photo book sofware from our website at www.treasure-book.com. No worries: it's 100% free....Click on the "download software" button and select a download that matches your computer, either Windows based PC or Apple MacIntosh and follow the instructions.There are other service providers out there that offer you to make photo books while "on-line".What that means is that every time you select a photo to be included, it has to upload to the server of the service provider and that means that you will spend a lot of time waiting. It is only as stable as your internet connection and if many people are on line at the same time, this process could be painfully slow.By getting your own Treasure-Book software copy on your own computer, all the work is done off-line and the whole process of creating a book is much faster. It also a stable way of doing it, with no risk whatsoever to run into communication errors while working.It is your work, made with your software, on your own computer at home (or on the road).You can save your book and continue the next day, next week or next month. Flexibility!Once the job is done, you upload the file completely, with one click to our server for processing, printing and binding.Sure, the upload can take some time, but the actual work is finished. Have a Java and come back to check progress 20 minutes later. Once the upload is done, the shopping cart will pop up and you can check out....It's that easy!In our next posting we'll be sharing some tips and tricks with you.Stay tuned!

Departures in Madagascar

2009-08-26T15:38:00.000-07:00

The one episode of successful OLN series "Departures" that we had not been able to see yet was the one seeing Justin Lukach, Scott Wilson and Andre Dupies travel to the 4th largest island in the world: Madagascar.It was definitely worth the wait.

This place is uniquely different from other places one can visit.

The island broke off the African mainland's east coast a gazillion years ago due to plate tectonic movements and volcanic activity; it has slowly drifted a few hundred kilometers eastward. Obviously, during the many millenia that followed the separation, flora and fauna on the newly formed island had a chance to develop into a uniquely Madagascan flavor, undisturbed by influences from other areas, so isolated it was. A situation similar to what one sees at the Galapagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador in South America.

Had Darwin travelled to Madagascar, we would know more about these trees.......

Just look at this picture of the Baobab tree, and you will agree that indeed this is something that looks straight out of a Startrek movie, found on another planet!

These trees apparently have hollow interiors that contain a lot of water.

When our heroes travelled through Baobab Avenue as they called it, the scenes were very surreal, but beautiful, very beautiful!

While renting a Mitsubishi Patrol 4 x 4, they were assigned a driver who also doubled as "guide".

The roads are not great as one can imagine and the travel from A to B in Madagascar is tiresome and exhausting. Another park is visited where we get introduced to some weird, but awesome looking chameleons and creme coloured monkeys with black faces....

As always the cinematography is breath taking and Andre Dupuis is showing again what a masterful camera man he really is.

What follows is a voyage by train through the interior of the island, on their way to an area where a thousands year old tribe is still ruled by a King!

The boys realize that Kings need gifts when visited, and so their guide explains that an animal and rum would do the trick.

The train makes many stops and each and every platform is filled with hawkers, selling everything from bananas and other assorted fruits to chickens, water or gum....

Justin falls for the sweet looks of a grey rabbit and baptizes the long-ear "Pan Cake", mainly because earlier that same morning breakfast wasn't all that fantastic.

Their newly purchased friend travels with them in a plastic basket bag and in a few scenes we see Pan Cake sit motionless in-between Scott and Justin on the train bench.....he doesn't move a hair of his whiskers.....

At a next stop, Scott ads a chicken to the family, which they (logically) call "Waffle"

After buying a few litres of Rum, they are ready to meet with Royalty!

At the village they find out that Rabbits have never been offered to the King and so they elect to keep Pan Cake; Waffle however and also the Rum are offered up as gifts.

The Royal visit is kind of tame by Scott and Justin standards and so we move on to a few happy scenes that the boys have with the village children.

Justin does not know what to do with Pan Cake and so after playing some games to find out who would best be taking care of Pan Cake without him becoming a supper menu item, a girl is selected to be the next caretaker.....

The train and road trip scenes are very pretty to watch, maybe not so easy to endure as per Justin's comments. The pictures that Andre shot of the various makeshift ferry crossings are particularly worth the price of admission.

Once again, check it out, OLN Network, Departures airs daily. To me the best travel show on television in the last 10 years.

Humble Pie

2009-08-25T09:36:00.000-07:00

So last Friday I spent hammering my keyboard for about an hour writing a story on the modern day version of the "slide show".
The issue that I brought up most was the fact that the portrait shots are on their sides on your screen and so in order to watch these on a TV screen, you have to bend your neck and upper body to view these shots. Unless, as I lectured, you would first do proper prep work on your PC and place them all in the correct upright position.
Now, that is still 100% true for the majority of camera owners.
However. Last Friday evening I was asked to take some photographs of our grandson. That was a nice opportunity to get the Sony SLR from its case and screw on some mighty impressive lenses on its equally impressive body.
Fortunately, the battery was fully loaded and so the flash could be operated liberally!
All of this has zero-zero to do with the topic of "slide shows" but then again, I found something out that I did not know. Your humble blogger got taken by surprise.
The SLR automatically places portrait shots in the correct upright position......
Apparently I had not read the manual all that well.....
So, the whole Friday post is only of any use to you if you own a camera that leaves the portrait shots in a horizontal position for you to correct afterwards. You may wonder why it took me so long to figure this out. Well, it is simple, really.
I was fully aware of the portrait/horizontal issue for a number of years and just assumed that all cameras would have that flaw. I made a point of only making landscape photographs with my compact Canon and so that habit also moved with me to the Sony SLR.
So thanks to my dear wife who asked me to shoot a photo in certain position this issue has been resolved and I can now make photos with my SLR in any position I think is best for the end result.
Of course, I had wondered often why this would not be done automatically, but I did not get a copy of the memo explaining that more expensive cameras are now fitted with that feature.
For those with cameras that have the automatic upright feature: I hope you still enjoyed the post....... it must have made you feel good that you did shell out the extra dough for a better equipped camera!

The twentyfirst century slide show

2009-08-21T13:23:00.000-07:00

This past week we have gathered around the TV and watched slide shows of the many hundreds of photos that our youngest took during her 3 months travelling in Europe.
We went through 3 sessions.....
Her new Casio 10Mp camera did an awesome job; I have to say, she came home with a whole lot of memorable, well lit, well composed photos, good job!

All though we do have a high-end Pioneer plasma screen in our TV room, we noticed that digital photos do not look all that great on this Hi-Def device. We tried a few and then decided to move up to the rec-room and play them on a last century style Sharp CRT tube TV.
The quality of the images showed much better here.
It is actually the same with classic analogue TV signals, these look mediocre on a Hi-Def television set; digital and Hi-Definition signals look stunning on the Pioneer, watching a Blu-ray DVD on this screen is really like being there.

Anyway, the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about classic European cities of course is church towers or other imposing buildings that need quite some acrobatics to fit completely inside a photograph.
So, what you do is take the shot in a portrait (vertical) way.....
All good, no problem....until you want to present a slide show of your treasured European cities tour on a TV screen.
Needless to say, without any prep work on the photos, you will all end up with a stiff neck as the portrait shots will show side ways on your TV screen.
So what to do?
No big deal. Before scheduling a slide show off your digital camera, load all the images first onto your computer. Save them in a new folder, in "My Pictures" as an example, or, better still, store them all in Google's free photo software "Picasa". (download for free from Internet)
Here you can work on each image and move all portrait shots one by one into the correct upright position. One does this with the tool that gives you the ability to turn the image clockwise or anti clockwise.
Once this is all done, save the images.
The next step should be to critically examine all the shots and throw out those that don't make the cut. Over or underexposed images should be deleted. If such bad image is the only one you have of a particular location, use the Picasa tools and try to make the image lighter, darker or anything else that can be done to enhance the quality.
A good slide show is one that keeps the viewer interested. Showing 12 different photos of that one church or that one village square will make your audience lose interest in a big hurry.
Keep it lively and make sure the show has a variety of stuff to see.
Vibrant colour shots are key too , so flash-back to your trip: always include some colourful shots of your travels. Shoot flower baskets, store fronts, flower fields, people in pretty dresses....
A sun flower is an excellent slide show enhancer....these look great too in your photo book.
People do not want to sit through a slide show that comprises of 2000 photos.
Select the best and make it a highlight reel of your travel experience.
So once all this prep work is done, copy all the selected photos in the right sequence onto a DVD or CD Rom. Label the disc properly as that will avoid losing the photos that you spent thousand of dollars to get. Once on a DVD or CD ROM, play that disc first to see if the copying job was done correctly. Convinced that all is there and all is good, you can proceed deleting the images off your camera storage cards.
Call your friends, ask them to sit in front of the old style CRT tube TV, get some beer and popcorn ready, slip the CD Rom or DVD into the DVD player and start the slide show!
All necks will be sitting straight up all night and all your photos will guaranteed get the attention that they deserve. It will make you truly proud!
After the shows are done, you can start working on your hard cover Treasure-Book photo book.
The colossal 12 x 12 books that we have with up to 200 pages, are splendid to find a home for your many hundreds of pictures.
On these 12 x 12 pages, 20 photos can be placed and still be very well visible! More is possible too, and so is less, it is all up to you.
Have fun while doing this, it is really gratifying!

This and that

2009-08-20T15:52:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, my daughter came over with her new born son!
That is always a pleasure as grandparents sometimes seem to enjoy the new family member as much or more than the actual parents do! Easy explanation:
The enjoyment is truly "enjoyed".... grandparents only need to deal with the nice parts of being around new born babies as the mother takes care of all the other issues, such as feeding at night or dealing with an episode of prolonged crying.
After all, we went through the very same thing some 25 years prior and so it is for that reason that grandparents just get to enjoy the new kid in town! It is truly deserved....
When all the pleasantries have passed and we are looking to put our feet up, guess what, the baby leaves, goes home to another place and stays there until such time that grandparents are longing for a renewed encounter with their new found love. How convenient, how wonderful!
Of course this kid will get spoiled rotten.....I can see it coming already:
It's a boy, so, what better thing to do than building sand castles on Kaanapali Beach, camping in the woods of British Columbia or going to see a game of hockey or soccer? Building a kite from scratch? Can't wait!

While my daughter was packing to leave last night I could not help but notice the many safety and warning labels hanging from the stroller that she has. I counted 5 of them....
I read a few of these things and realized that manufacturers are all believing that we consumers are extremely dumb and careless.
Well, no. This is the result of lawsuits and big legal battles, as we the people have become terrible in taking responsibilities for our action and blame everything on the products that we buy. All these suppliers and retailers do is cover their liability issues with seemingly over the top warnings and precautions.
The most extreme label that I ever read was in a "Toys R Us" in Hong Kong.
They had Superman costumes hanging from racks in the store. A label in the neck of the costume read: "Do Not Attempt To Fly"
I laughed 30 minutes, non-stop.......but then again, perhaps some people are really not all that intelligent. And when TV ads by law firms are encouraging people to contact them immediately if they have been in a accident of any kind, you know that trouble is brewing for a manufacturer, a retailer, an employer....just about anybody with money and liability insurance.
For sure, if people get hurt due to faulty products or irresponsible behaviour, compensation should be looked for and legal aid is useful.
But companies such as Wal-Mart have large legal departments working full time to deal with the many hundreds of lawsuits against them, the majority frivolous, from people slipping on a wet store floors (maybe on purpose?) to the customer that claimed to have found a mouse dropping in his candy box.
Just for the record: allthough we believe we are kind-a low risk when it comes to liability insurance with our photo books, we do have it, just in case.
You never know if somebody ever gets "emotionally distressed" from flipping though one of our books.........

Checking out

2009-08-19T15:22:00.000-07:00

I feel there is a need to clarify the action that is to be taken when you are ready with a creation and then wish to finalize the work by buying your photo book, card or calendar.
A wise thing to do is to go back to page 1 and start flipping the pages (click on the arrow at the top of the screen) to see if you are happy with the product and if all is in its right place.
If you are not sure about an image quality (resolution) hover your mouse cursor over the photo and look at the bottom of your screen: if the DPI (Dots per Inch in print) value is 120 or higher, the image will look OK in print. For an image to look really good, the higher that number, the better it will look.
Real quality starts at 150DPI.
Resolution starts with the source and as we have written many times before, make sure your camera is shooting photos in a high resolution setting. Change it in "menu" on your camera when in doubt.
When images are really low in resolution, you can fix that problem only by shrinking the photos in size. You can check it easily with the mouse to see what happened to the DPI value after making a photo smaller.
After all this is done, click the "Send to Treasure-Book" button.
The file will now be prepared for printing.
A screen will show up where you can see progress of this process.
This can take a bit of time as these files can be ginormous.
Once this is done, a screen will show up and asks you to "view the file".
It is a good idea to click "view" and check the actual file that we will print.
You are now looking at the Acrobat PDF file. If you click view 100% you can see the actual size of the print.
Here you will be able to see for your self what a low resolution shot will look like in print.
Once this is done, click out of the PDF file and now click on the "I agree" box to complete the order. (if you are not happy with the result, cancel out of this and go back to your book creation pages and make modifications if so required, then "send to Treasure-Book" again).
After the "I Agree" has been ticked, the file will upload to our server and when that is done (patience please...)you will enter the shopping cart!
If you are a new shopper, first thing to do is register as we need your personal data in order to send you your purchase, data such as name, address, e-mail address, telephone number....
You will have the choice to sign up as a member. If you elect to do that, we will send you an e-mail from time to time with news or special promos that could save you money.
Once registered, you can check out and complete the order.
Once quantity has been set (1 is the default, if you need more than one, change the quantity and update the cart).
In case of hard cover books: Here you will also see the choice for cover material and colour.
The default is Leatherette Burgundy.
If you don't want that, no problem, click on the small arrow next to the Burgundy and select the material and colour that you would like to have.
In case you order 4 books, select one colour.
If you want different colours for all 4, then leave the colour as-is, but type that request with the colour breakdown inside the customer comment space.
In the event that you have a special discount coupon, or a gift certificate number:
On the first page of the cart, there is a space that asks for a coupon code.
Type that code or certificate number in that space and click "SUBMIT" to activate that code.
Continue checking out.
You will now go to the secure part of the cart, there where we ask you to tell us how you want to pay for your order.
You can select PayPal (and even with PayPal you can pay with credit card) or click on RBS Worldpay for payment by VISA or MasterCard.
Just so you know: we at Treasure-Book do not see or know your credit card information. Ever.
That information is typed in the secure area, only visible to RBS WorldPay or PayPal.
When all is typed in and you click the completion button you are done.
We will receive an e-mail confirming that you have paid with your order number and you will receive confirmation (check your in-box on your computer) a few seconds later as well.
All that is left is for Treasure-Book to go to work and start your file.
We first check the file ID number and check all pages that you submitted.
If there are obvious errors in spelling that we see, we try to fix that for you (although we say earlier during the process that we are not responsible for your typos....)
If there are any other problems with the file or with some of your pictures, we may call you and ask for a new file from you with improvements. We will then also tell you how to get us the file without having to go through the check-out procedure again. Remember: you paid already!
All of that is really easy to do, just take the time to read the pages and follow the simple instructions.
By the way: do not forget our coupon: SummersaveDC10
Use this as often as you like, provided the order is placed and paid for before September 15th, 2009. You will save 10% off your bill!

Of blogs and gondolas....

2009-08-18T21:20:00.000-07:00

When I started writing this daily blog back in April, the thing that came to mind first and foremost was: will I have enough stuff to write about?
So far that has proven to be the case, with the exception of a few weeks in late April when I was vacationing in Hawaii and just one or two other weekdays that I either had no time due to busy schedules at http://www.treasure-book.com/ or the one day that I just had zero inspiration and had absolutely no clue what I should write that could trigger at least a tiny bit of interest from you all......In a case like that it's better to not post anything at all and just move on with work waiting for that tiny bit of an idea that pops into my mind.
As far as I am concerned I do my very best to present a new posting every (work) day as I have noticed that some of you are loyal blog followers and come back almost daily to see what I have cooked up that particular day.

Speaking about followers:
Seven individuals have taken the time and effort to sign up as official Treasure-BookBlog followers! Seven seems tiny, but in the massive environment that the Internet is and where hundreds of thousands of Blogs are competing for attention, I am flattered and happy with each and every follower that signs up. I have also noticed that blog visitor numbers are creeping up, from just 8 or 10 a week when I started to now on average 12 to 17 readers a day.
The counter at the bottom of the blog was installed only on June 15th and shows that 419 visitors came to this blog and read at least one post.
So, in the days past June 15th, 419 people visited over 33 days for an average of 12.7 per day.
These are certainly not Perez Hilton's Blog numbers, or Andrew Revkin's over at the New York Times, but the fact that our blog is read in the first place gives me lots of encouragement to continue!
Today I am typing these words at 9:35 pm.....
The weather has been very nice in Vancouver lately and so my wife and I decided it was time to take our convertible out of the garage and drive top-less to Whistler!
Wanted to see the state of the "Sea to Sky Highway" after the many billions that were spent on improving this infamous road to Whistler.
This is such an improvement.....I assume all will be done on time for the Winter Olympics in February of 2010, but the drive down was just very pleasant and so much easier in spite the fact that not all is 100% ready as per today.
We enjoyed a superb lunch in the Village at "Araxi", where we found a shaded table outside on the patio. Not only was the food out of this world, the presentation of it are just pieces of art!
If you are an exclusive meat and potato person, this is not your place to eat. But if you can appreciate some fine cuisine in a wonderful surrounding, this is it!
After that we rushed to the Village Gondola station and bought two tickets to ride the brand new "Peak to Peak" Gondola.
$41.99 plus 5% GST gets an adult on his or her way to the top of Whistler Mountain.
Once there, look around and enjoy the view. Next we hiked 10 minutes down to the bottom station of the "Peak Express" chairlift which will take you quickly to the top of Whistler Peak at 2,182 m or 7,078 ft.
You have 360 degrees of views from that point and these are truly breath taking.
Somebody on the ride up had told us to take this lift and then hike down again towards the new "Peak to Peak" Gondola.
Rather than riding the chair lift back, we opted for the hike down, a 45 minutes down hill walk that is rich in unforgettable views and vistas. Flip Flops or sandals are a "no-no" here, robust hiking or walking footwear is a must. The road you walk on is covered in gravel and the decent is quite steep at places where solid footings are a must.
Taking the "Peak to Peak" after 45 minutes was easy. No line ups. The 11 minute ride to the top of Blackcomb mountain is something else, and must be experienced to understand what this is all about.
While crossing the valley below in between Whistler Peak and Blackcomb Peak, the Gondola hangs a spine chilling 436 meters above the valley bottom.....unreal!
The distance between the two pylons that hold the cables over the valley is staggering.
I have never seen anything like it anywhere in the world.
The start to finish 4.4 km ride is travelled in 11 minutes......
Doppelmayer, the Austrian ski lift supplier and installer has done a masterful job here at Whistler. Everybody should ride it at least once.....
After arrival at Blackcomb, get a refreshment and enjoy the view before taking the 2 stage chair lift down to Blackcomb base.
The whole experience took us a good afternoon. We took off from Whistler base at around 2 pm and were down at Blackcomb again at 5.30 pm, just in time for a Starbucks and the expiration of my prepaid parking ticket at 6.00 pm.
If you live nearby or come to visit Vancouver, give it a try!

The best software at Treasure-Book.com

2009-08-17T13:43:00.000-07:00

Over the past few days I have been doing some corporate research and found out that many of our competitors have a lot of limitations on how creative you want to be while making a photo book.
First of all, there are companies that provide you with tools that will allow for a maximum of 4 or 6 photos per page only.
Not only is that annoying, but these pages also come in a a predetermined template that you have no other choice than to follow like sheep. All you can do is fill the frames on the pages with your photos. Even the backgrounds are predetermined and so that makes for pretty boring photo books. Our software leaves all the thinking and creativity to you.
You can insert as many photos per page as you like. You want to show a collage of 50 photos on one page? No problem....knock yourself out...place them the way you think is best and select a background that you believe is the best for your creation.
I once got a call from somebody asking if all in black and white would be cheaper.....
No, that is not cheaper. We charge per page (after the base price with 20 pages), regardless of what is on the page, 1 photo or 75, colour or black and white , it makes no difference.
A very good book is one that has a variety of pages. Some with just 1 large photo, others with
a photo as a background a touch faded in black and white with some other colour photos on top.....some great captions in a font and colour of your choice......
On our new web site, check out the sample books that we have for you to see.
Browse these pages and get some great ideas to use for your next project.
Highly recommended!
New on our web site is also the ability for international customers to check out the exchange rate on our prices. Go to the "Pricing" page and check it out!
American customers in particular will be pleasantly surprised as all our prices are on average 10% lower in US$. At the moment, a US$ dollar is worth some 10% more than a Canadian buck.
In addition, we do not charge any taxes on export orders to the US, so Americans can save twice!

New web site is up and running

2009-08-14T17:04:00.000-07:00

After a bunch of teasers in the last couple of weeks, we are proud to announce that our brand spanking new web site is up and running!
We went live this afternoon at 4:45 pm Pacific Standard Time, and those of you that have ordered products through our site, and have signed up as "members", have also received an e-mail with this news.

I hope you will all try out the new site and check out the sample books that we have on line for you to browse.... see it here at http://www.treasure-book.com/
If you work the mouse by clicking on a page of a sample book you can flip the page like it were a real book!
You can of course also just sit back and let the website flip the pages for you or click the arrows....
To celebrate this new milestone, we have extended the summer savings period until September 15th, 2009.
Use this coupon code at check out SummersaveDC10 and save 10% off your bill at check out.
Don't forget to click SUBMIT after typing in the code to activate it.
You may use the code as often as you like, give it to your friends or family members as long as it is used before September 15th!
Enjoy the weekend and happy Photo Booking everybody!

Technology...a great help, or?

2009-08-13T17:33:00.000-07:00

Compare what you have at your finger tips today with what you had, say, 15 years ago....
Are you ready?
You have a cell phone, a digital camera, a DVD player (maybe already in the Blu-Ray format),
a personal computer, an i-Pod or other MP3 player, a flat screen HDTV, Blue Tooth connectivity in your car, you tweet, you browse, you surf, you blog......
Most of the words in this last sentence did not appear in any dictionary 10 years ago......the spell checker on my PC does not recognize the word "blog"yet and that tells me that I need to upgrade to a newer version of MS Word......another reason for that is that "Obama" is constantly being corrected by Office 2003 to "Osama" which is kind-a annoying to say the least.
Anyway, technology changes fast and we don't even appreciate that this happens so seemingly effortlessly...for us consumers that is.
Sure, the very first edition of a new item is always extremely expensive and only true consumption pioneers find it fitting to allocate some of their disposable income to that first flat screen or that first i-Phone.
Mass production and competition do wonders and make the latest and greatest accessible to the average consumer in suburbia at a dazzling speed.
All that stuff ages quickly too....
I worked in Seoul Korea in 1984 and our head office was pushing us to buy a fax machine for the office. Until then we had communicated with Europe and the rest of the world strictly through the good old telex machine, a device that most younger people have not even heard of, let alone seen and heard in action!
South Korea was a country that had just started to develop some 10 years prior to my arrival there and the Government had a strict set of rules when it came to the import of consumer items. The country was in dire need of foreign exchange, and so imports were discouraged and huge amounts of duties were slapped on any item deemed "unnecessary import".
Our first fax machine was purchased for US$ 12,000.....
It was one of those with thermal paper, paper that would have the text vanish in a few weeks if you would not quickly make a photo copy.
On this same topic, making an international call from Seoul in those days was a luxury as well.
Calling Mom to wish her Merry Christmas would cost us $ 10 a minute.
The calls could not be made directly, all went through an operator. You would sit around the phone for 20 minutes or longer before you would finally get a connection with Europe or the USA, and people told me that was done because all international calls were screened and recorded.
Remember: technically, the South was and still is at war with the North, as what they have achieved in 1953 was just a pause in the fighting, a declaration of peace has never been signed, until this day.
And then there were the first mobile phones. Motorola was a pioneer as most will remember.
Those first phones were portable, for sure, but these things were heavier than bricks. They actually looked like bricks. Watch 1987 movie "Wall Street" with Michael Douglass as Gordon Gecko and notice his mobile phone while on the beach talking to Charlie Sheen's character. Priceless! (by the way a follow up is in the making and shows Gecko's live after serving his time behind bars, again with Michael Douglass!)
When these Motorolas became sort of mainstream we lived in Hong Kong.
The Hong Kong business man who does well, loves to show his pals that he is rich and successful.
Not only drives the guy a Porsche 911 or Ferrari in a place without highways and strictly stop-and-go traffic, but in the late 1980s he would arrive in a restaurant and clunk his Motorola on the centre of the table, for everyone to see. He would then instruct his office to call him a few times, so that it at least had the appearance that he was super important!
Europeans and Americans visiting Hong Kong at that time frowned upon such behavior and could not imagine that this would become mainstream.....
These same people now have just replaced their umpteenth mobile phone (or cell phone) and wonder if they should allow their 9 year olds to own one as well as "all my friends have one too!"
The excuse is always he same: "It is good that Johnny can be reached at all times".
I guess you can't stop progress.......
Here in Vancouver we now have a discussion going on whether or not we should ban the use of cell phones while driving......many countries have already taken this step.
You can see people send text messages, eat burgers and drink pop while operating a vehicle.....all at the same time....multi tasking at its best or should we say "worst" ?
Some of them even complement this picture with a cigarette or doing make-up.....trying to
discipline their kids in the back seat and shout at other road users and showing them a certain finger...
The question is: do we really need laws to ban this type of behaviour?
I am no proponent for more bans of this or that, I would prefer people to behave with a tad more
common sense. Common sense people do not need more government enforced bans in their lives than we already have. But pin-heads that behave as described can't probably do it on their own, need society to take action and send police officers their way to stop them from being a danger to themselves and others. Of course this will remove these officers away from more important duties. Sigh.......
Anyway, the new technologies are a blessing to human kind. If it were just possible to include something inside these devices that would prevent certain behaviour..... Like driving and texting at the same time from a driver's seat.......or phones that only work in cars with a hands free system.....We can fly to the moon and back, let's hope that this will be fixed inside the technology so that we can keep the law out of it and use the resources that we have for issues that really matter......

Christmas is approaching fast......

2009-08-11T13:30:00.000-07:00

Last December, we were absolutely flooded with orders.
Obviously a photo book, personal calendar or cards make for great Christmas items or Christmas gifts.
However, experience tells us that if you need photo books or calendars for Christmas of 2009, the time to start working on such a project is now.
Our regular turn around time that we have during the rest of the year will not be the same in December when all the folks that waited till the last moment are sending in their orders and push us to hurry up, while they had 12 months time to work on a project. We are a nation of procrastinators and Christmas shopping is one of those things that most people wait for until the stores and parking lots are unbelievably crowded and when discounts are nowhere to be found until boxing day comes along...
After Christmas that is.
Another thing: we will not give any discount or coupon to anybody ordering between November 15th and December 24th. That is the time when we are so busy that work becomes live, when sleep will be secondary, when meals will be eaten out of a brown paper bag.....
We have a 10% off coupon going at the moment, why not take advantage, work on that Christmas gift and just keep it under wraps until December 25th?
It just makes too much sense. Come on folks, visit www.treasure-book.com and write down that coupon code and read how to redeem your discount!

Important stuff....

2009-08-10T15:01:00.000-07:00

The one question that comes up more than any other is this one:
"I was working on my book, saved the file and left it. Two days later I opened the file again, now I lost all my photos, nothing gets loaded, I am afraid that I lost all my work. HELP!!"

This is the easiest thing for us to solve.
And why would that be?
Simple. When working on a book (or other project) the software loads the pictures nicely into their destinations inside your project, there where you want them. However: what it saves when you hit the "save" or "save as" command, is just the file extension of that particular photograph.
In other words: It does not move the actual picture inside the book, just yet.
The reason for that is pretty easy to explain. Each and every picture can be 1, 2, 3 even 6 mega bites of information. A book with say 150 pictures could be as large as 600 MB to 1GB.
If the pictures were all permanently copied inside your book while you still work on it, the file would become very large and thus very heavy to work with. It would take quite a while to start the program and slow motion is the last thing you would want to see.
That is why it is crucial and super important to copy your photos all to your hard drive the minute you want to start a new project. Create a new individual folder for this new project and store all related photographs in that file, as a sub-file in "my Pictures".
We have encountered customers that were working with CD Roms, DVD's or Memory sticks that contained their photos. Of course it is almost obvious to assume that the photos are in the book as soon as you have moved them in there. But they are not, for reasons of sheer size.
As long as the CD Rom, DVD or Memory stick stays inserted into your PC or Mac, indeed that seems to be the case. Remove the device and your software won't be able to find and load the photos.....
Once you start the program again, the software will look for the photos in the same location where they were when you first placed them into your project.
It saves only the file extension and location where to find the image, and so, if on your hard drive in "my pictures" (or any other destination as long as it is on your C-drive) it will find the images quickly and will re-load the book the same way as you left it the last time.
You can then continue and finish the project.
Once you are completely ready and want to order from us, you click the "send to treasure-book" button and the file will then convert your book, including all pictures, text and back grounds into an Acrobat PDF file. That file is the one that we print as that is the one that gets uploaded from your computer to our server........
Obviously, on our website at http://www.treasure-book.com/ we explain in detail under the "how it works" button how to get started with a project. The first thing mentioned in this chapter is:
"copy your photographs from your digital camera to your hard drive"
We are working on a completely new version of our website and will re-write this sentence to read:
"copy your photographs from a digital camera, CD Rom, DVD or Memory Stick onto the hard drive of your computer. Failing to copy the files to the hard drive may result in (temporary) loss of images in case a project takes more than one work session. If you work with a CD Rom, DVD or Memory Stick, this device MUST remain attached to the computer until the file has been uploaded to Treasure-Book.com"

In other news: those that read this blog regularly will remember that we were grand parents to be! Well, last Saturday August 8th at 07:32 am our daughter gave birth to a healthy boy,
Mateo Leo. Six lbs, 3 ounces 49 cm tall......A wonderful addition to our family!
Obviously Grandpa will have to get into action and make a bunch of photo books, calendars and what not.......

Super Large Projects

2009-08-07T15:42:00.000-07:00

The other day we were visited by somebody who was interested to see and hear if we would be able to print and bind an autobiography.....
A vast body of work that had taken 10 years to write and decorate with photos and other interesting items.
The file was all prepared and done in photo shop and MS Word, so really, the material was not needed to be sent through our photo book software.

The customer had visited many print places, but nobody was able or willing to print and bind her autobiography in a very small issue of 10 copies.
The last company she visited told her to check with http://www.treasure-book.com/
This book will be big. I mean really big.....
Seven hundred and fifty pages big!
So last night, we tried to make a prototype and I must say: it was not a problem at all!
In fact, the final result is a stunning piece of work that would be a jewel in any body's book case!
Not only is it thick, but we used a special padded cover material underneath the suede cover fabric and the book looks and feels like a million dollars.
Obviously, we used a tad thinner paper than in our regular photo books, but boy we are excited about the possibilities here.
In addition, we offered also to provide these books with a printed book jacket (or dust cover) like the ones that are always protecting hard cover books bought at a bookstore.
Anyway, the thing is this: if you ever have something out of the ordinary like this to be printed in a small run from 1 to whatever number, give us a call and we'll work out a quote for you.
No other publishing or printing company is able to deliver this type of requests....
So, all your aspiring novelists or cook book writers out there: call us if everybody else has turned you down.......Toll free: 1-877-513-8261
Be prepared to pay some money, as these books will be calculated as per our price list on the website, minus a discount for high page counts, but then again, at least you can get it done in a way that will make you proud!
Remember these books will be hand crafted and therefore the price per unit will be higher than hardcover books in the "sales" section at Chapters, Indigo or Barnes & Nobles.
Enjoy the weekend and work on the constantly delayed projects!

Solicitations

2009-08-06T16:34:00.000-07:00

We receive plenty of phone calls every day and that is a good thing!
Customers call for all sorts of reasons and we are always more than happy to listen to their issues and answer their questions to our best abilities. These are extremely valuable conversations.
I am sure you get calls every day too, usually while at the dinner table, from all sorts of sales people or charity collectors, who collectively try to solicit business or gift pledges over the phone.
They are the crowd that most people rather see evaporate.
Hundreds of charities are competing for a chance to offer you a way to buy off your guilt by working on your sentiment. All good causes, for sure, and I can say that we support a good number of them. But you can't possibly give to them all.
And what good does it do me to sign up with Telus TV if we are already on Shaw Cable?
Or why should I change to Shaw Phone services if we have been served very well by Telus for a great many years?
Even though I have tried to reason with these callers on a few occasions and asked them to remove me off their list, they are very persistent, annoying and a total pain in the butt.
Then there are the calls that boast "you have won a free weekend in Whistler" or
"a free cruise in the Caribbean".....yeah, sure, but please also sit through an afternoon of time share sales waffle.....
After brushing off several of these people in the past, they now call and you hear a recorded voice telling you the exact same thing. It's easier to get rid of those....just hang up! Sign up for call display service and let the 1-800 numbers just ring....or better, sign up for the "do not call list" available in Canada.
Obviously, these calls also follow you at work.
Not the same type of solicitations, but solicitations nonetheless.
"You have to check your credit rating, this is our final call" is a popular and very annoying one. Cold calls for advertising dollars are very common too....
Today I was in the middle of a big job and I received 4 calls in a row, all soliciting business...taking up a great deal of very valuable time that we would like to spend on our bill paying customers.
When the fourth one in a row (The Yellow Pages) called for our business, I had it up to here (the nose area) and told the woman on the phone that I wasn't interested and hung up.
Minutes later she phoned again (as she had been taught at the "learn cold calling techniques" seminars paid for by The Yellow Pages).
This time she wanted to know what kind of business we actually were.
She must have known that, as we are pretty well known after months of TV advertising, and so, she must have picked up our phone number from our website.
Anyway, the "technique" calls for a follow up call and then work on the receiver's sentiment by saying: "hey, you hung up on me, don't you realize I could be a potential customer?"
Sure, I sort of apologized for the hanging up on her, but then again, we have a "No Soliciting" sign on our front door to keep roaming cold callers out the door and the tough sales crowd trying to outsmart you by phoning, instead of showing up at the door are of course not exempt from our door sign.
Hey, Yellow Pages sales person, if you want our business, approach us the old fashioned way: send us a proposal with your rates by regular mail.
If we have time, we'll look at it and if it is good stuff, we may even sign up.
But for now, our policy remains unchanged: "No Soliciting"
Neither in person nor by phone.
And, for our www.Treasure-Book.com customers and customers to be: please call as often as you like, we will help you with all your questions!
If Mrs. Yellow Pages phones again, but this time regarding our business instead of hers, we will give her the Royal Treatment, I may even reach for the coupon box and have her enjoy a Treasure-Book at a reduced price!

Travel Update: Conclusion

2009-08-05T21:59:00.000-07:00

Regular readers of this blog are aware of the fact that our youngest daughter has been away on a 3 months European trek.
We are happy to announce that she has safely returned home last night, or better, early this morning.
After a train ride from Rotterdam to Brussels, she switched onto the Channel Train to London, where, after two last nights in Europe she boarded a flight to Toronto.
The schedule was for her to connect in Toronto for Seattle.
If all had gone well, she would have arrived in Seattle around 8 pm on Tuesday evening.
Severe thunderstorms in Toronto voided all that and threw this flight plan out of the window.
Her plane from London sat 3 hours on the Toronto Airport tarmac, while 60 other planes were doing the same, waiting for permission to get attached to one of those gate bridges.
When she finally was allowed to disembark and fished her backpack from the conveyor, cleared Canadian immigration and customs, she hurried to the border crossing officials. After clearing that second hurdle, she was told on the US side of the airport that her connecting flight to Seattle had meanwhile departed.....Ouch.
Back with her heavy backpack through Canadian customs and immigration to the Canadian side of the airport ("How long have you been away? Bringing anything back?"), trying to scramble for whatever flight she might be able to score to get her to the Far West of the continent. Pierson in Toronto is a huge airport and so lugging a 30 lbs backpack in an up tempo pace through uncoorporating crowds is a painful challenge.
Of course she travelled on a cheap ticket. One of those triple "nons":
non refundable!, non endorsable!, non reroutable!
Hundreds of stranded passengers were screaming, yelling and shouting and each and every swear word known to man got uttered all around her. Police and security personnel were dispatched into the area, hoping to avoid a small, but potentially explosive riot among extremely upset passengers.
On moments like this working for an airline is definitely less glamorous!
You'd be surprised to see how seemingly civilized people morphe into raging tigers when told that they might not be able to continue their travel....
Anyway, she was extremely lucky and secured a last seat on a late flight to Vancouver. After she got her boarding pass on Air Canada 033 she telephoned and told us to follow the departure info at Toronto and arrival at Vancouver. All 3 "nons" were waived by Air Canada as they realized that giving here an open seat on a plane that would fly regardless of her being on it or not was the better option. It would have cost them a night accommodation in a Sheraton had they not given her the seat. At least, that would be reasonable, right? Common sense prevailed!
To make a long story short, we saved ourselves a round trip car ride to Seattle courtesy of Air Canada, or 5 hours behind the wheel in exchange for a two hour ride sans border crossing, that only started when we left the house at 00:30 this morning.
AC 033 touched down at 02:16 and of course we were very happy to see her come down the stairs into the arrival hall.
It was a very happy encounter, so pleased, and also relieved, we were that she had made it back in one piece without any major problem that you hear and read about all too often.
Now it is story telling and most of all: photo viewing!
Three months of photos have to be sorted and prepared for the mother of all photo books. It will be a monster, I might even have to ask the production boys to allow for a book with way more than the maximum 200 pages.....
12 x 12 will probably be the format to select, it absorbs good sized photos in large quantities!

New website!

2009-08-04T13:49:00.000-07:00

This week will mark the arrival of the completely overhauled website of
wwww.treasure-book.com
It is a departure from the familiar blue, white and red with emphasis on more earthy colours. It will be so soothing......
The website will be more intuitive than the previous one that served us very well during the last 18 months.
We realized that there was a definite need for potential customers to be able to see our final work in great detail. For that reason we have found a number of friendly customers agreeing to allow us to display their creations, their books on our website.
You will be able to click on a button located on the "photo book" main page and select a book that you want to browse.
A next screen will then take you to the book's front cover.
By working your mouse, either by clicking on the arrow to flip page after page, one can also just flip the pages by taking the mouse to a page corner click and drag... You really turn the page manually this way, very cool stuff!
The site will also show a variety of pictures of the various sizes and formats of books that we offer, with a clearer indication of cost, not just on the price list page, but also on the category pages themselves.
We have also reworked the help and F.A.Q. section and made it more intuitive for you to navigate these pages.
I don't have a definite publishing date just yet, but I am so excited about these developments that I just wanted you to get a "heads up" and have you check the new site soon and be one of the first to explore it.
The web link remains the same: www.treasure-book.com
We invite users to share their opinion about the new site with us as soon as it is up and running to hear about possible bugs or inaccuracies as soon as possible. We edit these pages extensively, but as you can imagine it is so much text, that there is always something that will escape our attention.
Stay tuned, I will announce the publishing date on these pages!

August long weekend

2009-07-31T16:03:00.000-07:00

Canadians are a fortunate bunch!
We live in one of the best, maybe the best places in the world. I think I can pronounce that with a certain amount of authority as we have lived and worked in 4 other countries before making Canada our final destination, so I do have something to compare.
Today is "B.C" day. We celebrate all the goodness that B.C. has to offer and with the real summer weather we are enjoying at the moment, that should not be too difficult.
Other Provinces celebrate their own version of this Civic Holiday.
Unfortunately, some of our fellow B.C.-ers are not that fortunate today, as forest and brush fires are a big problem for folks in a number of areas.
So, I'll take it easy and will just write these lines to let you know that I, uh, don't want to write anything today....
I will be taking a book and retire to the backyard for an afternoon of reading and perhaps a glass of wine around 5 before the BBQ is rolled into position!
Enjoy everybody!

Another look at this

2009-07-30T15:28:00.000-07:00

This photo was taken with a 5.0 MP Canon compact camera. The light in this shot is stunning, the sun sits behind the tree, shadows are thrown towards the camera.
Location: Kaanapali, Maui, Hawai, April 2009
Now that we have placed the resolution of our cameras in a high resolution setting, (see post of April 8, 2009) it is time to go out and shoot pictures.
Make sure your camera battery is fully charged, or in case you use regular disposable batteries, bring a fresh battery change with you in case you run out of power while shooting photos.
For most, the battery pack will be a rechargeable variety and it is a good idea to have a fully charged back up battery on you, just in case.
Here are some very basic, but crucial points to think about when taking pictures.
The most important issue that we have to deal with is light.
Nothing makes a picture worse than the wrong light (either too dark or too bright).
The vast majority of people use their camera (as they should) in the automatic mode.
One points the camera and the mini computer inside the camera calculates in a split second what the exposure details need to be.
Most cameras deliver a remarkable job at that, but it can do only this much.
The photographer of course is still the one that decides what will get inside the shot and so composition is something that the camera won't do.
For example: a lot of pictures that we see in the books that we print could have been much better if the photographer had just done a tiny bit of extra work.
We see way too many photos of people standing with a light source in their backs (artificial, or the sun). This results in dark faces, ruining the photo. That could be easily solved by using the flash on the camera liberally.
All cameras with a built in flashes have the option to turn it on or off.
So use the flash when shooting people or animals that are positioned with a light source behind them.
On overcast days it is a good idea to use your flash all the time when photographing people or close by subjects, even when outdoors.
Of course, these camera flashes have only a limited reach, but they can still make outdoor photos look brighter and better, with good contrast.
Most people leave the flash on "automatic" at all times and that spoils a lot of photos. The camera concentrates on how much light is in the viewing area. So if there is a sun out, it won't fire the flash once the shutter is pressed.
If your camera has an "anti red eye" setting for the flash, use that as much as you can when taking pictures of people and animals.
Compose your photos in a way that the viewing area is filling.
Zoom in if you shoot portraits, zoom out completely when shooting a landscape.
A nice tree in the foreground works wonders to make a composition great.
When shooting kids, go down on your knees and work from their height. Even photos with adults that pose in front of an object look better when the photographer has lowered down somewhat.
For indoor shots, be aware that the average pocket size camera has a flash that works upto 3 ~ 5 meters (9 - 17 Ft) so that explains why photos at concerts are alway disapponting or those dancefloor shots at that wedding you just attended.
Oh, and here's another one: avoid flash photography in front of a window or a mirror, not good!

Forgotten shoe boxes...

2009-07-29T13:25:00.000-07:00

If you are like me and became an adult in the early 1970s, it is very well possible that somewhere in your attic, stowed away in a number of shoe boxes, a whole decade or more of personal history is waiting to be rediscovered.
Cob webs and dust have been the guardians of this material for years, and it has hopefully survived numerous moves, from city to city, or as in my case, from country, to country, to country, to country....
Over the years my employer (1977 - 1997) transferred us from the Netherlands to Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong. When I finally resigned in 1997, we emigrated to Canada and settled in the Vancouver area. Needless to say these moves were all done in steel shipping containers. Our stuff, that is.
We flew on the plush seats of a Cathay Pacific Airways Jumbo Jet, with our two cats in comfortable crates inside the cargo area.
The shoe boxes that we assigned to hold our historical photo records, back in 1983, when we packed for the first time, have survived unscathed all these years!
We are fortunate to have lots of room in the house where we live these days, so the shoe boxes were actually promoted to a spot inside an IKEA rack in my home office, away from a lonely and dark existence high up in the attic.
You must have guessed by now that this story is about a relic of the past:
The 35mm Slide.....
Gone are the days when you would spend a weekend cutting slides and placing them one by one in their individual plastic frames. Your holidays were meanwhile weeks behind you and suddenly the postal service delivered your slides in an envelope!
Framing and sorting time! Place them one by one in the cartridges, in sequence, puhleaze! O.M.G, they sit up side down!! Do it again!
When all 144 were finally done, you would set up a film screen in your living room, close the curtains, lower the blinds, rearrange the room, place the slide projector on a table, (where is that extension cord when you need one?) positioned to reach the screen with its light beams.... Of course, you would then have to move the screen backwards, forward, side ways, up, down, just as long as was needed to get the picture completely on that pearly white screen. I remember that a "Metro Rotterdam" phone book came in handy to get the projector height a few inches up.
Living room slide-shows: a great way to test your marriage....let me tell you!
After forty five minutes of moving each object in the room at least twice:
"Now it's perfect! We can start the show! Dim the lights dear!"
Ooops, until after 9 images into the presentation that first "Portrait" slide showed up....top and bottom cut off...horror! Rearrange the screen once more...."I got it under control, Mom, no worries...I really know what I am doing!"
Well, all of this would repeat itself on a minimum half dozen other days until such moment that all family members and friends had sat patiently through the two hour ordeal, all invited to "see our holiday slides"....
After that, the slides would be placed in a box to never see the light of day, ever again...
The unfortunate thing is that my wife and I have never been able to show our girls what our vacations were all about back in the 1970s. My problem is that the screen we had back in Rotterdam was a borrowed one, it never made the 40ft container to Seoul. Secondly, my last projector will probably still work, but because it was one purchased in Zevenbergen circa 1977, (population 5,500, Google it, is a nice little town!) it runs only on 220V, 50 Hz and that is a "no go" in Canada where all we have is 110V, 60 Hz from a regular wall outlet.
Sure, I could buy a transformer, but that still leaves me without a screen.
So, I have now decided to spend a few of the coming winter weekends to make a selection of the many hundreds of slides that we own and take 'em to a place where they will scan and save the images on a CD Rom.
You can scan them yourself, but that is a tedious, time consuming job.
When all that is done, I will then place these slides and thus our lost years and vacations inside a Treasure-Book!
Finally, our girls will be able to see what is was like for us to be in Greece, on many campsites in France, sun and beach in Spain.....and what Dad looked like without bald spot and slight inner-tube around the waist! Bell bottom pants!
Or what about those hideously looking, super wide neck-ties in painfully bright colours whose lowest points would hang 2 inches above a wearer's belly button?
And then the dress shoes of those days! Remember, men's shoes had domes on the toe boxes....laughs will be plentiful once we have it all in print!
So, go upstairs tonight and look for your own version of these forgotten shoe boxes...
It will be worth your while, guaranteed!

Time for a Slurpee....

2009-07-28T14:33:00.000-07:00

I picked up the Vancouver Province over lunch earlier this afternoon and read a story about the King of Slush Drinks: The Slurpee!
The Province has wonderful reads today in the run-up to August long weekend, on what to do during this Sizzling Summer. Above all: how to keep one's head cool?
Quote:
No other slush drinks on the market has achieved the commercial success of the Slurpee. It's been over 40 years since 7-Eleven first served what was then called an "Icee".
A few facts from slurpee.com

- Globally, more than 11.6 million Slurpees are consumed each day.

- Slurpees are best at - 2 Celsius

- The scientific name for "brain freeze" is Sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia
Unquote
The Province reported earlier this month that Winnipeg, Manitoba has been crowned "Slurpee Capital" of the world, for the 10Th consecutive time!
If that isn't enough trivia for you just yet, let me explain how a good friend of mine demonstrated during a lull on the floor at a Trade Show in Salt Lake City a few years back, how to consume a Slurpee and..... above all, how to remove the last bit of yummy stuff from the container.......
Surrounded by a dozen grown men, he was happy to introduce me, uneducated European, to the delights of consuming this true bit of North American culture!
As he had reached the bottom area of the cup (or shall we say "Tub", as it's size was jaw dropping......) his consumption was paired with a very audible, yet amusing, sucking sound.
The next step was to remove the straw and place the edge of the Tub at his mouth, while tapping gently with one free hand at the bottom of the Tub.
Slowly, but steadily the reddish iced slush sank into my friends eagerly anticipating mouth to a round of rowdy applause from the onlookers, a crowd that had meanwhile swelled to a good 30 guys! He had managed to remove each and every bit of the Tub's content without spilling any on his shirt!
Ever since that memorable day, the Slurpee has become a representative of "fun" for me......
In the years that followed, I asked him on several occasions to perform that Demo once more, as this is easily acted out without the actual prop.......A round of laughs was always guaranteed!
I have yet to buy one, I hear the brain freeze isn't one of the more pleasant moments of the Slurpee experience.
But then again, we will be grand parents soon, so in all fairness, having one with a grand child must be, without question, one of lives better moments!
Expect me to surrender and head over to the nearest 7-Eleven, let's say during the Summer of 2014!
For now, I will keep my head cool with a dive in the pool, followed by an ice cold Heineken! Cheers!

Summer Concert

2009-07-27T15:29:00.000-07:00

My favorite band Steely Dan is touring again this summer. Such musician ship, such phenomenal songs....I have had the pleasure seeing them in action twice. Once in the Rose Garden in Portland, Oregon in 2001 and then again in the best summer concert settings of them all, The Gorge Amphitheatre in George,Washington State, just West of the Moses Lake area, on August 2nd, 2003.

This venue is the nicest I have ever been too, and there have been many.
I have seen rock bands perform in many places all over the world, but this Steely Dan concert has stayed with me as the most memorable of them all.
Everything is extremely well organized. Huge amounts of (free) parking, friendly attendants....the venue has camp sites available (must book in advance to get a spot). You park your vehicle and leisurely stroll down to the Amphitheatre.
Anyone walking over the edge into the concert area for the first time, will be blown away with what unfolds in front of their eyes.
The picture sums it up nicely: gorgeous views down over the Columbia river, mountains in the distance and always that beautiful sun-set.
People can either book seats close to the stage or hang out on their picnic blankets dotted over the surrounding hill.
The acoustics are great too, but best of all is the great combination of ones favorite music, the always warm summer weather and that priceless view......Incredible.
Anyone living in the Pacific Northwest should attend a concert at the Gorge at least once.
As you can imagine, many people bring cameras and try to capture the stage action.
Problem is that the sun sits right behind the stage and that causes issues of over exposure. One is best advised in a situation like this to bring a tripod and shoot the action after the sun has gone down. Flashes are of no use at such a distance and so the tripod is needed to make sure that your camera is 100% stable and free of any movement when the photo is taken.
Place the settings to a higher ISO value, such as 400 or even 800 and experiment a bit with several shots to see what gives you the very best results.
That is such a nice thing about digital, you can snap away a few test shots to find the best setting and simply delete the ones that are of no value to you.
This summer, the closest Steely Dan will come to Vancouver, B.C. is Las Vegas.
The great thing this year is, that on certain evenings they play complete albums from start to finish plus a number of requests that people can ask for via the Steely Dan website.
As far as I know, the Band has never played the Canadian West Coast, which is a shame.
Most of the world's top-acts make stops in Vancouver and I have no idea why we are never included. Of course Montreal and Toronto will be blessed with a visit, but the Far West apparently is exactly that: Too Far and Too West!