Clinch App Review

Noah is definitely a ham. He is just like his mama. I used to love being the center of attention on videos and in pictures. Noah is the same way. He loves when I make little videos of him on my phone or camera. He has his own camera that he produces episodes of The Noah Show on. It has a theme song and everything. I have so many little videos of Noah throughout the years; it is hard to know what to do with them all.  I recently learned about an app called Clinch. You can mix your photos and videos to make really awesome keepsakes and videos for loved ones. You can also mix them with your family or friend’s videos and photos.  I absolutely love this idea because when we have family get-togethers there are so many of us and it is hard to remember to send the photos or videos to 20 different people, this way it can be sent to just one of us, probably me, and I can email it or put it on Facebook for everyone to see.  Clinch is also really cool because, my sister and brother in law are horrible about sending me pictures and videos of Noah that they take when they are visiting.  I am hoping Clinch will give them more of an incentive.  I will include unseen footage of Noah too. The last video I received from them of Noah was from his third birthday, when they taught him how to beg for money. It was so cute and funny, until a police officer walked by. Thankfully he too thought it was funny, and didn’t say anything but smile and laugh. I think that Clinch would be great for wedding videos too.  Almost everyone has an iPhone or an iPod or an iPad to take video of the couple’s happy day during the reception or special toasts.

Here is some information from the developer:

Description

Clinch - My Video Butler. An automatic video editor that creates amazing short movies from all your best videos and photos. One of Clinch's coolest feature is that it helps you create a collaborative movie by mixing and editing your videos and photos with friends around you.

To make your movie even more stunning Clinch offers you to add the best related photos from Instagram, panoramic views from Google, nearby tweets and more cool stuff, all based on your location!

It all happens automatically:
Record or upload videos and photos from your camera roll. Add captions, choose a theme, a soundtrack and add more clips from your friends...

With a click of a button Clinch analyzes the best parts and adds more cool related stuff from around you. It then edits it all together (hands free…) with amazing transitions, filters and more.

Clinch is especially great when you and your friends go together to music concerts, sport events and parties… Capture it, and let Clinch do the rest. You can also explore movies by other users, see what’s trending around the world and what’s popular nearby. Follow other clinchers to add them to your movie feed and share movies on Twitter, Facebook and Email.

Features:
+ Automatic video editing (Everything is edited and stored in the cloud).
+ Clinch finds and combines all related videos and photos around you.
+ Choose how and who to mix your videos with.
+ You control the privacy of your content.
+ Unlimited uploads and storage!
+ Browse, Like and comment on friends and other clinchers’ movies.
+ Follow other users and get notifications when your video stars in other movies.
+ Explore popular and nearby movies.
+ Live feed of your friend’s best and favorite movies.
+ Instant movie sharing to Twitter, Facebook, and Email.
+ More cool stuff!

You can find Clinch in the iTunes Store for free. Great editing software for free!!

For more information and to download please visit Clinch

Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 5.0 or later. This app is optimized for iPhone 5.

The Birth of Social Media

Everyone is always joking about what we did before Facebook or social media. It has been a topic that is always brought up and surely due to our dependency of social media. I am a blogger so of course it is a huge part of my job. The real question is what did they do before social media? I am 31 so obviously I haven't always had social media or the Internet. So, what did people use? Sure there was regular mail and the phone but to share with everyone that would be a lot of time on the phone and many stamps. They had weekly dinners and would see people at the store or at the beauty parlor and around town, but that didn't reach everyone. I guess they spent a lot of time wondering where people were or did they?  Was there perhaps a "Facebook" before Facebook?

I often get bored and search things. I am constantly seeking to learn new things about anything I can. I have always been interested in family history and learning more about family. My grandma Rose wrote a complete family history of her dad’s family. I used to read it over and over. I loved to hear stories about my family. Family is really important to me. So, I decided to yet again Google my Grandma Rose's name, I am not sure why as there is never anything new. I ended up adding her city because there was another person who was dominating the search results.  I had found all the normal information about this person results, an article a distant relative wrote about our family history and even her obituary.  I also found something I had never seen before. A newspaper clipping that my Great Grandma wrote, thanking her children for taking care of her when she was sick. This was actually the newspaper. I kept looking through newspaper articles that I found and there were a ton about my family.  It wasn’t really news as in the traditional sense. It was like Mr. and Mrs. SoandSo had their children over for Sunday Dinner and Mrs. SoandSo is sick and was taken to the hospital and is now at home resting.  I really love those people that decided to scan in old newspapers so I could discover this really cool family history.

I thought it was really cool that I was reading about all of this. My grandma Rose always wrote things in datebooks. You could look at it and find out who called that day, who visited, who she called, what she did every day. I still like to look at them.  At first I thought, they must have no news in this town. I knew it was a really small town as I have visited them still having family living there.  I had to share this with my mom thinking how cool it was and how she would probably get a kick out of it. Then I realized, this was their Social Media. This was the way they communicated with each other in their town. This is how people in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s did it. I obviously know that newspapers have been around for forever, but now you can’t find out that your neighbor had their family over for dinner or your neighbor’s granddaughter was a finalist for the National Merit Scholarship Award.  Those are the things we would write about on Facebook or tweet on Twitter.  They didn’t have the internet so they couldn’t just send an update instantly.  If they haven’t see Thelma in a while, they couldn’t have signed on Facebook and saw that Thelma was in the hospital. They would read about it in the paper.  The news in the paper wasn’t always about crime and politics and traditional news. It was about your neighbors’ news, the people that you shared your lives with daily, your friends, that was the most important news.

 In my opinion social media has been around a lot longer than you think, it just wasn’t digitalized until recently.

Sitter Pals Review with $50 Outback Steakhouse Giveaway

One of the toughest choices about being a parent is deciding who will watch your child when you have to work or if you just want a night out. It is important to find someone who can be responsible and trusted enough to watch your most precious children. Most people in trust their children to a family member but not everyone has the luxury of that. Whether it was a job change or the family has all moved away, the parents now need to find a sitter. It is no longer the time where families live down the road from each other and moving away was pretty much unheard of, and if someone moved it was a huge deal, because it could mean it would be a long time before you saw your loved one again. Where do people find someone to watch their children? I am sure you could get a referral from a neighbor or a friend. Maybe your friends don’t want to share their awesome babysitter because they need them on the weekends and don’t want to be without a sitter for that party. So, we turn to the internet. There are sites out there that help parents find sitters and help sitters find work.

After browsing some of the sitter sites in the past, I found out about a website called Sitter Pals. It is the first social network for parents and sitters. As a blogger and someone who is very involved with social media, I love this concept. It helps you share sitters with friends, maybe you know three or four sitters that you trust but you have a regular sitter. You could help those four sitters find work and have a night out with the girls or a date night. I remember when I was babysitting, I would receive three or four calls for the same weekend to babysit. I passed out fliers door to door and had done a lot of babysitting. So, my client list was pretty long. I am sure those parents would have loved to just log on and see if I was busy or not. I hated not being available to all of them, but it was a first come first serve basis for me. I had friends who also babysat so I would refer them and they would refer me. Sitter Pals brings finding a sitter to a whole new level. Sitter Pals was created by Amanda Armstrong, who I think is a genius for this idea.

The other babysitting sites are more like finding a random sitter. Someone you didn’t know, that listed their information on a website. I tried to get babysitting and nanny jobs on a few of them. I went to the interviews to meet the parents and most of them were so far away that it wasn’t worth the gas to get there. I also was spammed all the time, by people trying to scam me. I am sure some of the people are good quality sitters, but I love Sitter Pals because you are able to share with your friends who is good and who is trustworthy. You can also book at the last minute and not have to go through your contact list to see who can babysit. You just post the job and watch the sitters come to you. You have full control with who you share with, which sitters you share, and who babysits your children.

For more information visit Sitter Pals.

Thank you to Sitter Pals for sponsoring this giveaway.

I have a giveaway for you.
One (1) lucky reader will win a $50 Outback Steakhouse Gift Card.

Mandatory Entry:
Tell me what is the most important quality a sitter should have?

Extra Entry:
Like Sitter Pals on Facebook

This giveaway is open to US Residents only.

This giveaway will end on June 4, 2011 at 11:59 pm ET

Twitter

So I finally got Twitter. My Twitter name is Sheilacakes7. Someone already had Sheilacakes so I just added a 7.