Nick Popio's Storefront

You may have seen the messaging on the site about the brand new Lulu Studio™ for creating photo books. You may have even tried it, or you may be wondering what I’m talking about. Whatever your reason for reading this article, our aim is to walk you through the new Studio™ and help you learn more about this tool.

As with all your other publishing projects, the Lulu Studio™ begins from the publishing page. From there, if you click on Photo Books, it will take you to our new Photo Book page, which highlights the project and gives you some basic information about it. The real fun starts when you click on the “Create your photo book” button. From here, you launch into the Studio™, and get started.

If you’ve tried any of our publishing wizards out recently, you’re probably familiar with the box that will pop up after you get started. In case you aren’t, this information sets your book’s Title, the author’s name, and whether you want it to be a personal project or something you want to sell on the Lulu Marketplace. We generally recommend that regardless of your intent for the future, you start the project as a Private one. That way, you can order a copy and make sure it prints correctly, and looks the way you want, before anyone else can purchase it. If you want to, you can always go back after you purchase a proof copy and set it to General Access.

After you’ve entered this information, you will be prompted to choose a size. Your options are the standard letter sized 8.5x11 or the Landscape sized 9x7. After you’ve selected your size, you’ll move on to choosing a theme. We currently offer 9 themes, and you can always go back and change it if you decide you don’t like it later. After you’ve selected the theme, you go on to adding Images.

Here, you have a few options. The first, is to upload images from your computer. If you select this option, you will be prompted to browse for your files and then upload them. You can upload as many as you want at a time, and they will queue up to be uploaded. Alternatively, you can select images from Getty Images. These are categorized under several options like Abstract, Art, and Lifestyle. There is a small fee associated with using these images in your book. Your final option is to access images you have previously uploaded to My Lulu. Regardless, of which option you choose at this step, you can always choose one of the others during the upload stage, or go back later and add images from other locations.

Once you’ve chosen which images to include in your project, you’re ready to get started with placement. You should see all the images you’ve uploaded on the right hand side, under the Images section. I like to take care of the cover first, so I usually click over to the cover tab (you should see Interior and Cover as options at the top of the Studio™ in the center of the page) and get to work. The title defaults to whatever you entered as the title of the book, but you can choose to edit that here. You can also add an image to the cover. After you’ve chosen an image and title for the cover, you’re ready to click the Interior tab and get started on the images inside the book.

Here you have a lot of options. In the lower right-hand corner of the page, is the layout section. Click on a page and you should be able to select from several layouts that offer a different number of images, orientations, and caption options. After you’ve chosen a layout, you can click and drag images from that section onto the page. If you get an image with a red exclamation mark on it after you’ve dragged it into place, this means the image’s DPI isn’t high enough for optimal printing. You can opt to use it anyway, or replace it with an image with a higher DPI.

While you are working on your projects, there are a few features that will make working on it easier. All projects default to 20 pages in the Studio™, but you can add more pages by clicking the Add Page icon (right under the Edit menu), or by clicking Edit and then Add Page. You can also save your project by clicking the Save icon (right under the File menu), or by clicking File and then save , or save & exit. You can also add images by clicking the button under the Images section, or by clicking the Add Images icon under the Format menu. Finally, you can change the theme by clicking the Change Theme button (to the right of the Add Images icon) or by clicking Format and then Change Book Theme.

Once you’re done adding all of your images to the book, you’re ready to publish the project. You can either click the Publish button in the top right-hand corner of the page, or click File and then Save & Publish. This will take you through the publishing wizard, and let you add your royalty and set the availability of the project. Then you’re ready to purchase a proof copy and your photo book is ready to be admired by your friends and family.

If you have any questions about the Lulu Studio™, please contact our support staff here: http://www.lulu.com/support/.

You can read the point here: http://people.lulu.com/blogs/view_post.php?post_id=19644

So let me get this straight. Bigfoot and the Lochness Monster are legitimate things for cryptozoologists to study, but Dragons aren’t? It sounds as though you may be unjustly prejudiced against dragons. Did a dragon kill your family when you were a child, or perhaps eat a young maiden you fancied? I assure you that not all dragons partake in such debauched activities, though I do acknowledge that a few have indulged these base instincts. However, judging all dragons on this basis is uncalled for and I would ask you to refrain from such ignorance.

For now I will ignore your ignorance and attempt to continue this discussion as rationally as is possible with an ignorant, prejudiced opponent. I respectfully disagree with you that dragons are not a valid topic for crytozoological study, and you know who else disagrees with you? A few gentlemen known as George and Charles Merriam and Noah Webster, that’s who. Their definition of dragon is a “huge serpent”. Are you arguing that huge serpents cannot possibly exist good sir? Surely you acknowledge that some in fact do and that we cannot possibly know of all variants of huge serpents. Such a declaration would be foolhardy at best.

What, that’s not good enough for you? Well how about I drop another definition on you? Perhaps you are curious what the good men listed above have to say about cryptozoology? I am happy to oblige you with the answer, in fact it would be an honor. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, cryptozoology is defined as “the study of the lore concerning legendary animals (as Sasquatch) especially in order to evaluate the possibility of their existence”. Are you arguing that dragons are not legendary animals? I can only assume that you would not say such a thing as it would demonstrate just how far your prejudice against dragons goes. How dare you sir! I have been trying to keep this a civil discussion and you imply that dragons are not legendary? That is simply the height of hubris. I say good day to you sir, good day!

In an effort to make our Help more easily accessible and accurate, we will be moving the Support Forums from the Community Forums to the new Help tab which will be going live next Tuesday, March 29th. We will also be moving and cleaning up some of the Forums. For example, the What’s Lulu? Forum will be moved to the Miscellaneous Forums which will be renamed Information Forums.

As we rework the forums, we will be removing the Misc. Support and Feedback Forum and the Checkout, Transactions, Printing and Shipping Forum. These will be removed for slightly different reasons. The Checkout, Transactions, Printing and Shipping Forum will be removed because these issues require personal account information that cannot be resolved on the forums. If you have issues relating to these topics, you should go to your Order History and click Report a Problem. A member of the Lulu Orders team will respond to you within 24 hours.

The Misc. Support and Feedback Forum is being removed because the issues reported there generally fall under one of the other categories. When an issue is properly listed, it helps us to more quickly assess the issue and resolve it. We hope to make this transition a smooth one with the help of our Community Leaders. Any current issues on these forums will be resolved before their removal.

Are you bored and want to try something new with your music? Have you always wanted to compete with others just for the glory of saying you kicked everyone else’s ass? Then Songfight.org may be for you.

The concept is fairly simple, every week there are three themes posted (they’re even color coded into Red, Green and Blue for extra geekiness and simplicity), for example for the Songfight on 10/04/04, the Red theme is Trailblazin', the Blue theme is Tri-State Area, and the Green theme is Motor Psycho. Once you’ve chosen your preferred theme, you have a week to put together a song featuring that theme and e-mail it to Songfight’s organizers.

Once all the submissions for the week are sent in, the fighting begins. All of the songs are posted under their respective themes and users can then listen to all of the songs and vote on which one they think is the best. The following week the votes are tallied and a winner is declared. The prize is the knowledge that you won and that when you walk down the street you can hold your head high knowing that you could kick anyone’s ass on Songfight. At least this week. So run over to songfight.org and pick a theme, and fight everyone else with your musical talent.

With our next release, Lulu will be offering users the opportunity to license their content, one of the new licensing options will be Creative Commons licensing. Whatever your opinion is on File-Sharing and Copyright issues, I think it’s safe to say that something about the way music is distributed needs to change. Cheap CDs are $14 in the store and very little of that money actually gets to the artist. In a recent court decision, the 6th District Court of Appeals ruled that even if a sample has been mixed into an unrecognizable form, artists must secure the rights to use such clips. Such copyright law makes it impossible to sample even a short clip of music and make it something completely new artistically. Now, there is a new copyright license, dubbed Creative Commons, which aims to offer an alternate type of licensing. The premise of Creative Commons is to allow you to keep the rights you want and still be able to allow others to sample your work.

There are 4 conditions that you can apply to your work under Creative Commons; Attribution, Noncommercial, No Derivative Works, and Share Alike. The Attribution Requirement allows others to distribute your work on the net (by posting a photograph you took or streaming the song you just uploaded) as long as they give you credit for the work. No one has to contact you to get permission, so long as they clearly list your name as credit for the work.

Another option is to specify No Commercial Use. This allows others to use your material on their site, without asking permission, so long as they 1. are not using your work to make any money and 2. link to your license so that others know how they can and cannot use the work. If they are planning to use your work to make money (say by including your material on a mix CD they want to sell or including a picture of yours in a coffee table book) they must contact you and get permission to use your work (which is when you can ask for money for the use!)

The next option is to use No Derivative Works, which allows others to copy and redistribute your work on the internet, but only so long as they do not alter or transform the work in any way. If someone wants to alter your work in any way, they must get your permission, however they can redistribute it as long as it is not altered without permission.

Finally, there is the Share Alike option. Using this option means that anyone who transforms or alters your original work must abide by the terms you have set. So, if you select Share Alike, Attribution, and Noncommercial for your new music project, and someone wants to do a mash-up of it, they have to release the mash-up under the same terms you set, give you credit for your work and get permission before making any money from the mash-up.

There are 11 possible combinations of licenses under Creative Commons and if you so choose you can also opt for a 12th option, No Rights Reserved, which gives complete control of your work to the public. I doubt Creative Commons is for everyone, but I at least am glad there are some options out there, now if only we can figure out how to get rid of the RIAA.

This weekend, I went to a Record Exchange, and remembered that my friend Rosalie had recommended "The Killers" new album to me. I checked the bins and they had a copy so I popped it into the CD player the store had and gave it a listen. After previewing 3 or 4 tracks, I decided I liked the CD, and considered buying it. In the end, I decided it wasn't worth it.

One of the major problems with physical CDs these days is the price. $14 is cheap for a CD in the store, and I don't know about you guys, but I don’t have enough money to drop $14 on every CD I want to own. The other major problem with the music industry in general is that the artists will see almost no money from any CD I buy if it is distributed through a major label. Therefore, there is almost no incentive for me to spend $14 on a major label CD.

I couldn't tell right away if "The Killers" were on a major label or not, so I asked the clerks if Island Records (which is the recording company The Killers use) was part of the RIAA. There was a small anti-piracy note on the back of the CD and so the clerk and I decided that it was (though we had no real proof). At which point, the clerk advised me to “just pirate” the CD.

I firmly believe that there is nothing wrong with downloading music, even for free, as long as you buy what you like. As I said earlier, I don't have much money, so I can't afford to spend $14 on a CD I don't like. If however, I download a CD (at least one that's not on a major label) and like it, I usually immediately go to the artist's webpage and buy the album. I'm sure there are others who don't do this, who just pirate the music and don't look back. I disagree with that, as it takes money from artists, but I wasn't going to spend money on the album unless I liked it anyway.

Along these lines, I ran across the savebetamax.org project. Essentially, there is currently a bill called the INDUCE Act trying to be passed through Congress by the MPAA and RIAA, which would overturn the “Betamax Decision” made by the Supreme Court 15 years ago. That decision said that VCRs were not inherently illegal (even though they could be used to make illegal copies of movies) because the technology had "substantial non-infringing uses." If the INDUCE Act is passed, the MPAA and RIAA would have veto power over most new technologies (though they say it is only designed to be used against p2p software like Grokster and Kazaa). Downhillbattle.org is sponsoring a national call-in to congress tomorrow to let congress know that we do not want INDUCE passed. They intend to schedule the calls so that Congress receives a “steady stream of calls throughout the day. If you don’t take my word for it, just ask Mr. Rogers. Sign up on savebetamax.org.

Still a little tired from Dragon Con, but not too bad. probably after a little kick from the caffine Gods, I'll be right as rain. Have you ever considered that statement, right as rain? Seems odd. Much like safe as houses or mad as snakes (which is my new personal favorite.) Those crazy British, gotta love them.

Good morning, this is your friendly neighborhood philosopher, just checking in to make sure all the functions of my new storefront work.

You may have seen the messaging on the site about the brand new Lulu Studio™ for creating photo books. You may have even tried it, or you may be wondering what I’m talking about. Whatever your reason for reading this article, our aim is to walk you through the new Studio™ and help you learn more about this tool.

As with all your other publishing projects, the Lulu Studio™ begins from the publishing page. From there, if you click on Photo Books, it will take you to our new Photo Book page, which highlights the project and gives you some basic information about it. The real fun starts when you click on the “Create your photo book” button. From here, you launch into the Studio™, and get started.

If you’ve tried any of our publishing wizards out recently, you’re probably familiar with the box that will pop up after you get started. In case you aren’t, this information sets your book’s Title, the author’s name, and whether you want it to be a personal project or something you want to sell on the Lulu Marketplace. We generally recommend that regardless of your intent for the future, you start the project as a Private one. That way, you can order a copy and make sure it prints correctly, and looks the way you want, before anyone else can purchase it. If you want to, you can always go back after you purchase a proof copy and set it to General Access.

After you’ve entered this information, you will be prompted to choose a size. Your options are the standard letter sized 8.5x11 or the Landscape sized 9x7. After you’ve selected your size, you’ll move on to choosing a theme. We currently offer 9 themes, and you can always go back and change it if you decide you don’t like it later. After you’ve selected the theme, you go on to adding Images.

Here, you have a few options. The first, is to upload images from your computer. If you select this option, you will be prompted to browse for your files and then upload them. You can upload as many as you want at a time, and they will queue up to be uploaded. Alternatively, you can select images from Getty Images. These are categorized under several options like Abstract, Art, and Lifestyle. There is a small fee associated with using these images in your book. Your final option is to access images you have previously uploaded to My Lulu. Regardless, of which option you choose at this step, you can always choose one of the others during the upload stage, or go back later and add images from other locations.

Once you’ve chosen which images to include in your project, you’re ready to get started with placement. You should see all the images you’ve uploaded on the right hand side, under the Images section. I like to take care of the cover first, so I usually click over to the cover tab (you should see Interior and Cover as options at the top of the Studio™ in the center of the page) and get to work. The title defaults to whatever you entered as the title of the book, but you can choose to edit that here. You can also add an image to the cover. After you’ve chosen an image and title for the cover, you’re ready to click the Interior tab and get started on the images inside the book.

Here you have a lot of options. In the lower right-hand corner of the page, is the layout section. Click on a page and you should be able to select from several layouts that offer a different number of images, orientations, and caption options. After you’ve chosen a layout, you can click and drag images from that section onto the page. If you get an image with a red exclamation mark on it after you’ve dragged it into place, this means the image’s DPI isn’t high enough for optimal printing. You can opt to use it anyway, or replace it with an image with a higher DPI.

While you are working on your projects, there are a few features that will make working on it easier. All projects default to 20 pages in the Studio™, but you can add more pages by clicking the Add Page icon (right under the Edit menu), or by clicking Edit and then Add Page. You can also save your project by clicking the Save icon (right under the File menu), or by clicking File and then save , or save & exit. You can also add images by clicking the button under the Images section, or by clicking the Add Images icon under the Format menu. Finally, you can change the theme by clicking the Change Theme button (to the right of the Add Images icon) or by clicking Format and then Change Book Theme.

Once you’re done adding all of your images to the book, you’re ready to publish the project. You can either click the Publish button in the top right-hand corner of the page, or click File and then Save & Publish. This will take you through the publishing wizard, and let you add your royalty and set the availability of the project. Then you’re ready to purchase a proof copy and your photo book is ready to be admired by your friends and family.

If you have any questions about the Lulu Studio™, please contact our support staff here: http://www.lulu.com/support/.

You can read the point here: http://people.lulu.com/blogs/view_post.php?post_id=19644

So let me get this straight. Bigfoot and the Lochness Monster are legitimate things for cryptozoologists to study, but Dragons aren’t? It sounds as though you may be unjustly prejudiced against dragons. Did a dragon kill your family when you were a child, or perhaps eat a young maiden you fancied? I assure you that not all dragons partake in such debauched activities, though I do acknowledge that a few have indulged these base instincts. However, judging all dragons on this basis is uncalled for and I would ask you to refrain from such ignorance.

For now I will ignore your ignorance and attempt to continue this discussion as rationally as is possible with an ignorant, prejudiced opponent. I respectfully disagree with you that dragons are not a valid topic for crytozoological study, and you know who else disagrees with you? A few gentlemen known as George and Charles Merriam and Noah Webster, that’s who. Their definition of dragon is a “huge serpent”. Are you arguing that huge serpents cannot possibly exist good sir? Surely you acknowledge that some in fact do and that we cannot possibly know of all variants of huge serpents. Such a declaration would be foolhardy at best.

What, that’s not good enough for you? Well how about I drop another definition on you? Perhaps you are curious what the good men listed above have to say about cryptozoology? I am happy to oblige you with the answer, in fact it would be an honor. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, cryptozoology is defined as “the study of the lore concerning legendary animals (as Sasquatch) especially in order to evaluate the possibility of their existence”. Are you arguing that dragons are not legendary animals? I can only assume that you would not say such a thing as it would demonstrate just how far your prejudice against dragons goes. How dare you sir! I have been trying to keep this a civil discussion and you imply that dragons are not legendary? That is simply the height of hubris. I say good day to you sir, good day!

In an effort to make our Help more easily accessible and accurate, we will be moving the Support Forums from the Community Forums to the new Help tab which will be going live next Tuesday, March 29th. We will also be moving and cleaning up some of the Forums. For example, the What’s Lulu? Forum will be moved to the Miscellaneous Forums which will be renamed Information Forums.

As we rework the forums, we will be removing the Misc. Support and Feedback Forum and the Checkout, Transactions, Printing and Shipping Forum. These will be removed for slightly different reasons. The Checkout, Transactions, Printing and Shipping Forum will be removed because these issues require personal account information that cannot be resolved on the forums. If you have issues relating to these topics, you should go to your Order History and click Report a Problem. A member of the Lulu Orders team will respond to you within 24 hours.

The Misc. Support and Feedback Forum is being removed because the issues reported there generally fall under one of the other categories. When an issue is properly listed, it helps us to more quickly assess the issue and resolve it. We hope to make this transition a smooth one with the help of our Community Leaders. Any current issues on these forums will be resolved before their removal.

Are you bored and want to try something new with your music? Have you always wanted to compete with others just for the glory of saying you kicked everyone else’s ass? Then Songfight.org may be for you.

The concept is fairly simple, every week there are three themes posted (they’re even color coded into Red, Green and Blue for extra geekiness and simplicity), for example for the Songfight on 10/04/04, the Red theme is Trailblazin', the Blue theme is Tri-State Area, and the Green theme is Motor Psycho. Once you’ve chosen your preferred theme, you have a week to put together a song featuring that theme and e-mail it to Songfight’s organizers.

Once all the submissions for the week are sent in, the fighting begins. All of the songs are posted under their respective themes and users can then listen to all of the songs and vote on which one they think is the best. The following week the votes are tallied and a winner is declared. The prize is the knowledge that you won and that when you walk down the street you can hold your head high knowing that you could kick anyone’s ass on Songfight. At least this week. So run over to songfight.org and pick a theme, and fight everyone else with your musical talent.

With our next release, Lulu will be offering users the opportunity to license their content, one of the new licensing options will be Creative Commons licensing. Whatever your opinion is on File-Sharing and Copyright issues, I think it’s safe to say that something about the way music is distributed needs to change. Cheap CDs are $14 in the store and very little of that money actually gets to the artist. In a recent court decision, the 6th District Court of Appeals ruled that even if a sample has been mixed into an unrecognizable form, artists must secure the rights to use such clips. Such copyright law makes it impossible to sample even a short clip of music and make it something completely new artistically. Now, there is a new copyright license, dubbed Creative Commons, which aims to offer an alternate type of licensing. The premise of Creative Commons is to allow you to keep the rights you want and still be able to allow others to sample your work.

There are 4 conditions that you can apply to your work under Creative Commons; Attribution, Noncommercial, No Derivative Works, and Share Alike. The Attribution Requirement allows others to distribute your work on the net (by posting a photograph you took or streaming the song you just uploaded) as long as they give you credit for the work. No one has to contact you to get permission, so long as they clearly list your name as credit for the work.

Another option is to specify No Commercial Use. This allows others to use your material on their site, without asking permission, so long as they 1. are not using your work to make any money and 2. link to your license so that others know how they can and cannot use the work. If they are planning to use your work to make money (say by including your material on a mix CD they want to sell or including a picture of yours in a coffee table book) they must contact you and get permission to use your work (which is when you can ask for money for the use!)

The next option is to use No Derivative Works, which allows others to copy and redistribute your work on the internet, but only so long as they do not alter or transform the work in any way. If someone wants to alter your work in any way, they must get your permission, however they can redistribute it as long as it is not altered without permission.

Finally, there is the Share Alike option. Using this option means that anyone who transforms or alters your original work must abide by the terms you have set. So, if you select Share Alike, Attribution, and Noncommercial for your new music project, and someone wants to do a mash-up of it, they have to release the mash-up under the same terms you set, give you credit for your work and get permission before making any money from the mash-up.

There are 11 possible combinations of licenses under Creative Commons and if you so choose you can also opt for a 12th option, No Rights Reserved, which gives complete control of your work to the public. I doubt Creative Commons is for everyone, but I at least am glad there are some options out there, now if only we can figure out how to get rid of the RIAA.

This weekend, I went to a Record Exchange, and remembered that my friend Rosalie had recommended "The Killers" new album to me. I checked the bins and they had a copy so I popped it into the CD player the store had and gave it a listen. After previewing 3 or 4 tracks, I decided I liked the CD, and considered buying it. In the end, I decided it wasn't worth it.

One of the major problems with physical CDs these days is the price. $14 is cheap for a CD in the store, and I don't know about you guys, but I don’t have enough money to drop $14 on every CD I want to own. The other major problem with the music industry in general is that the artists will see almost no money from any CD I buy if it is distributed through a major label. Therefore, there is almost no incentive for me to spend $14 on a major label CD.

I couldn't tell right away if "The Killers" were on a major label or not, so I asked the clerks if Island Records (which is the recording company The Killers use) was part of the RIAA. There was a small anti-piracy note on the back of the CD and so the clerk and I decided that it was (though we had no real proof). At which point, the clerk advised me to “just pirate” the CD.

I firmly believe that there is nothing wrong with downloading music, even for free, as long as you buy what you like. As I said earlier, I don't have much money, so I can't afford to spend $14 on a CD I don't like. If however, I download a CD (at least one that's not on a major label) and like it, I usually immediately go to the artist's webpage and buy the album. I'm sure there are others who don't do this, who just pirate the music and don't look back. I disagree with that, as it takes money from artists, but I wasn't going to spend money on the album unless I liked it anyway.

Along these lines, I ran across the savebetamax.org project. Essentially, there is currently a bill called the INDUCE Act trying to be passed through Congress by the MPAA and RIAA, which would overturn the “Betamax Decision” made by the Supreme Court 15 years ago. That decision said that VCRs were not inherently illegal (even though they could be used to make illegal copies of movies) because the technology had "substantial non-infringing uses." If the INDUCE Act is passed, the MPAA and RIAA would have veto power over most new technologies (though they say it is only designed to be used against p2p software like Grokster and Kazaa). Downhillbattle.org is sponsoring a national call-in to congress tomorrow to let congress know that we do not want INDUCE passed. They intend to schedule the calls so that Congress receives a “steady stream of calls throughout the day. If you don’t take my word for it, just ask Mr. Rogers. Sign up on savebetamax.org.

Still a little tired from Dragon Con, but not too bad. probably after a little kick from the caffine Gods, I'll be right as rain. Have you ever considered that statement, right as rain? Seems odd. Much like safe as houses or mad as snakes (which is my new personal favorite.) Those crazy British, gotta love them.

Good morning, this is your friendly neighborhood philosopher, just checking in to make sure all the functions of my new storefront work.