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In addition to your .Mac email account and HomePage, Apple gives you yet another way to keep in contact with your friends : iCards. iCards are electronic postcards you can send out for any occasion. To access the main iCards page, go to http://www.mac.com/icards (or http://www.apple.com/icards), as shown in Figure 10-10. Figure 10-10. iCards let you send electronic postcards.As you can see from looking at Figure 10-10, the main iCards page has an iCards Categories sidebar to the right, to help you quickly find the iCard you want. You'll also find quick links for special Holiday iCards and the Top Cards Sent. The iCards have been categorized for every occasion, including:
You'll also find subcategories listed beneath these categories to make it even easier for you to find the right iCard. For example, if you're on the road and want to send a quick iCard to your lovely wife, you can click on Missing You, found within the Love and Friendship category. Additionally, the subcategories in the Holidays section will rotate around so you'll have access iCards for Valentines Day in February, and Halloween in October. To create an iCard, follow these steps:
Figure 10-14. When you see this message, your iCard has been sent.If you want to sent the same iCard to someone else, click on the Send Same iCard button. To send a different iCard, you can return to the main iCards page or click on the Return to Category button. 10.2.1 Personalize iCards with Your PhotosIn addition to the hundreds of stock iCards provided by Apple, you can also use your own photos to create an iCard with a personal touch. To use your personal images, simply save them in the Pictures folder on your iDisk. The only real stipulation is that the images need to be saved as either JPEG or GIF; you cannot use TIFF or PNG images for your iCards.
Although it isn't necessary, your images will look best if they are sized 416 312 pixels for landscape (horizontal) images, or 312 416 for portrait (vertical) images. If your images are of another size , they will be stretched or squished to fit. As mentioned earlier, you can use either GraphicConverter or iPhoto to resize and export images files.
To use one of your own images for an iCard, follow these steps:
Once you've selected the image to use, enter the message, choose the type style, and then add the email addresses of the recipients for the iCard and send it on its way. Using your own images can add a personalized touch to the iCards you send, particularly if you're handy with any of the illustration programs, such as Adobe Illustrator or Macromedia Freehand, or with image editing programs such as Adobe Photoshop. If you think that some of your images are worthy of use by other .Mac members , you can save them to your iDisk's Public folder. That way, if people have access to your iDisk's Public folder (say, through your .Mac HomePage), they could download and use the images for their own iCards. 10.2.2 Creating a Members' PortfolioIf you think your images are good enough and you'd like to share them with other .Mac members, you could always consider creating a Members' Portfolio. If you click on the Member's Portfolio link in the iCards Categories list (shown in Figure 10-10), you will be taken to a page that instructs you how to submit your images for consideration. The requirements are that the images must be sized correctly (416 312 pixels for horizontal images, or 312 416 for vertical images), and you must be the person who created the images. To submit your images to Apple for consideration, first place the images in the Pictures folder on your iDisk, and then go to the Members' Portfolio page and click on the Submit Image icon in the upper-right corner, as shown in Figure 10-17. Figure 10-17. Click on the Submit Image icon to submit your images for possible inclusion in the Members' Portfolio section.If Apple likes the image you submitted, they will contact you and ask you to sign an agreement to include it on the Members' Portfolio page. 10.2.3 Becoming a Featured ArtistThink you're a pro? Why not submit some of your images to Apple for inclusion in the Featured Artist section (access from the iCards page at http://www.mac.com/icards). Click on the Featured Artist link in the iCards Categories list (see Figure 10-10). When you get to the Featured Artist page, click on the Artist's Site icon in the upper-right corner of the page. This takes you to another page that runs through the submission requirements. You can submit from 8 to 12 images for consideration through the iCards web page.If Apple likes the images you've submitted, you will be contacted and asked to sign an agreement that grants Apple rights to include your images for use as iCards. |
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