When my first child was born I had a baby book, first-year calendar and a journal where I wrote down her milestones and first words. With my second it was the book and calendar. My fourth was lucky to get the calendar! Offline solutions for recording precious moments and memories as my child grows don’t seem to be working and that’s why I’m intrigued by Keepaboo.

Keepaboo is not an online scrapbook, which is appealing to someone like me who’s never had an interest in scrapbooking and doesn’t want to think about page layouts and design. But it also isn't as DIY as starting up a blog, pulling elements together, and ending up with a basic way to post photos, videos and pictures in a chronological stream. Think of Keepaboo as more of an online suite replacing the standard baby book and even scrapbook. You can collect, record and even share moments and milestones from your baby’s first year. You can keep a parent diary, create picture galleries, track your baby’s growth and “write down” the memorable things your baby is sure to say.

Everything you record is put into your baby’s LifeBook, an online 3D book you can browse like a real baby book. Plus you can create custom books with themes such as Baby’s First Birthday or Grandma’s Brag Book. Keepaboo plans to offer the ability to print hardcover versions of your keepsake books, which is clearly their money-making strategy - great for us, because it means the site itself is completely free to use.

Keepaboo is a wonderful way for parents to capture those first-year (and second-, third- and fourth-year) memories in one place and share them with family and friends. It’s the perfect solution for a mom who’s online as often as I am and tired of dusting off her daughter’s current baby book! - Emily H.

Love keeping up with friends and family through instant messaging, the web, or your cell phone? Twitter is a newer service that new parents can quickly incorporate into their lives. I wrote earlier about keeping track of baby’s milestones using a simple wall calendar, but for new parents out there who are technology lovers, Parent Hacks recently pointed out that Twitter may be right up your alley.

When using Twitter, users keep in touch with friends and family by making quick and easy 140 character updates of what they are doing, also called tweets. Updates can be made from the web or a cell phone, as often as you want. Users can approve who follows all of their tweets, too.

It's a great idea for tracking baby's milestones and sharing them with loved ones. It is quick, easy, and can be done from anywhere. It is so much faster than trying to journal an entry in a baby book or keeping up a blog, which makes it that much more likely for me to do it. Friends and family across the country and around the world can easily stay up to date with all of the tweets. I am also a Facebook groupie, and it is easy to install an application that will use your most recent Twitter update as your Facebook status (search "Twitter" on Facebook to find out how).

Is your curiosity piqued? Check out these articles with more information on Twitter for parents:

• 5 Reasons New Moms Should Be on Twitter


• Using Tumblr for Tweet Backup and Safekeeping: Tumblr automatically downloads all of your updates to a blog where they will be saved for the long term.


• Family-Friendly Twitter Tips

- Sara I.

If you're looking for a creative way to share your new baby's photos online, Scrapblog may be your new best friend. Although a signup is required, use of the tool is free, and you can save your creations as a jpeg to then either print off somewhere, or to just email them to those you love.

You can make scrapbook pages, invitations, or even birth announcements using a simple drag and drop interface - Scrapblog has already supplied the pages, which you can customize them by adding stickers ("embellishments" to those in the scrapbook world), frames, text, or a swapped-out background, and all the basic photo-editing tools you'd expect from a fun, free online photo application, from cropping and flipping to rotation and one called "reflection," and you can turn color photos into sepia-toned or black-and-white ones or blur the edges for a true vintage look. The process can be as simple or as complicated as you would like it to be, with a wide range of styles to choose from, including the Olympics, "rockstar," and even Ugly Betty layouts. I created this birth announcement in about 30 minutes, but I was being particular - I could have simply uploaded the pictures I wanted, dragged them onto the page, and voila!

They have holiday themes as well, and with Christmas right around the corner, this might be just the way to make some fun and easy holiday cards.

I wish I had discovered this program before we had our daughter, because I would have used it to create my own announcements. What better way to creatively show off those pictures you have of your new bundle of joy? - Trisha