[1]
I was thinking about this the other day when Posterous [2] got in touch to talk about about their Posterous Groups and privacy. They want to let us know that Posterous is an easy way you can share thoughts, photos, video and documents just with the people on your list. So Scott [3] and I decided to take a mini summer vacation to try it out.
We went for a one-day road trip. These are all photos we sent to our family Posterous Group (meaning each time we sent a photo it landed in the email of our family members almost right away) and which would be completely private except for the fact that, well, I'm showing them to you here. Below is what we learned on our trip:
East of Seattle are a few places that make for a nice day trip without it being too long of a car ride, which is especially nice if you have kids in the car or, like me, get car sick pretty easily. First on our list was Snoqualmie Falls [4]. We drove up to the just-redone park where you can get some great views of the falls. On the day we visited the water was rushing harder than we'd ever seen it before and the wind was picking up the mist and covering those of us on the viewing platforms.
Since the photos only go to your Posterous Group you don't have to worry about sending a slightly unflattering or just plain boring photo to a list or site where more people than you'd really like can see them. You mom loves you and wants to see your pretty face no matter what. (I was so cold and my hair was getting very wet in photo above. Hi Mom!)
Posterous is free (yay) and super simple to set up. It does two things, it works as a simple blogging platform to allow you to share whatever you'd like with the world, and it also allows you to set up Groups to share words, images, video and attachments with only those you'd like to while keeping it nice and private from everybody else. People in your Posterous Group can also send items to share so exchanging information or keeping in touch is as easy as possible. Examples! You need to see some examples, go here on Posterous [5] to peek at some sites. And look! The Maker Faire Daily [6] is a Posterous site, awesome.
The Salish Lodge [7] is perched on the land just next to the falls (you can see it in the first photo of the falls above). There has been an inn in that spot since 1919 (the current one was was rebuilt in the 80s). Salish Lodge has an amazing brunch menu and in particular the Country Breakfast is famous for being enormous and must be attempted at least once. Brunch and then a nice stroll along the park trails to view the falls is a good start (you might need to walk back and forth through the park more than once to recover from the meal). I hear the rooms in the lodge are nice. We've never stayed at the lodge but we have lingered in the lobby while pretending that we're staying there.
When you send a photo out using Posterous the email arrives in the inboxes of your group with the sendee being your own email address, so there is no confusion over who the message is coming from. Score one for making it easy on your family.
The town of Snoqualmie [8] is a very short drive just down the road and they display old trains all along the main street, which grew up along the train tracks there. A lot of them are available for you to climb on and in, I felt like we were getting away with something. We also saw a large wedding party out to get a group photograph (the bridesmaids were wearing navy dresses with bright yellow accents, it worked surprisingly well). We also saw a couple on bicycles who were both wearing large paper crowns and totally owning the look, I liked them immediately.
The photos you send to your Posterous Group are also collected in your Posterous account, all neat and tidy and together. You don't have to worry about sorting them or uploading them somewhere else later. I really fell for this feature, the album of the trip is ready for you right away with no extra work. Nice.
Snoqualmie also has train rides out of the Train Museum [9]! We watched as one passed by, we were a bit jealous of those on board. Scott's nephew and his dad would love this, so we have a reason to return.
Posterous sizes, orients, hosts and generally makes good the photos and video you send. Get your family members set up to all post to the group and this feature might also eliminate you getting emailed giant photos of your niece at her dance recital that take forever to download and are sideways when you open them. (Can you tell this happens to us? This happens to us.)
The next town over from Snoqualmie is North Bend [10]. It's a sweet little town surrounded by looming mountains. One is Mount Si [11], a popular hiking spot which we have yet to take on, I hear the view at the top is amazing. I'll take their word on it. North Bend is also home to Twede's Cafe [12], made famous by Twin Peaks. We didn't stop and have pie, we should have had pie!
On the way back to Seattle we stopped at the historic XXX Root Beer Drive-In [13] in Issaquah. The walls are covered with old rock-and-roll posters and souvenirs and classic car stuff, it's really something to behold.
While we were out we sent photos with descriptions and notes using the email on my phone and the Posterous app (requires iOS 4) on Scott's iPhone (there is an Android app as well). My iPhone is older and takes the grainy photos you're seeing, Scott's iPhone is shiny-new and takes nice photos. I also played with his Hipstamatic [14] photo app that day, I like it.
Since we were on vacation we took the opportunity to order the XXX signature burger, an enormous creation that is about 10 inches across. That mug of root beer? Also enormous. We split both but didn't finish either. Ok, maybe one of us finished their half of the burger.
It seems like every time we stop at XXX Root Beer there is a classic car show in the parking lot next door. Shiny and red!
Because the things you send to your Posterous Group only get sent out to your list (in our case family) you can show off your vacation photos immediately without letting the whole internet know something like: "Look! We're at the Grand Canyon! And we're obviously nowhere near home right now so go ahead and steal that giant television I posted a photo of last week!"
You can tell the people who make Posterous like you. They make it easy to share information with everybody, or just the ones that you'd like, using whichever way is most convenient for you. You can post using an app, by sending the information you'd like in an email (either from your computer or from your phone) or by using the Posterous website itself. Basically anywhere you might be. Handy. And Posterous knows just what to do with the words/photos/video you send when it gets there. I'm really impressed with the care that they put into everything.
Just so you know: This is a sponsored post from a company that I like.
[1] http://posterous.com
[2] http://posterous.com
[3] http://www.scottandrew.com
[4] http://www.snoqualmiefalls.com/
[5] http://examples.posterous.com/
[6] http://daily.makerfaire.com/
[7] http://www.salishlodge.com/
[8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snoqualmie,_Washington
[9] http://www.trainmuseum.org/trains.asp
[10] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Bend,_Washington
[11] http://www.mountsi.com/
[12] http://www.twedescafe.com/
[13] http://www.triplexrootbeer.com/
[14] http://hipstamaticapp.com/
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/notmartha/~3/_jFNu1F-iSs/
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