Top Six Greeting Card Apps for the iPad & iPhone

The holidays are the perfect time to express your love for family and friends. Many people do this through the simple act of a greeting card. Whether you send a card in the mail or digitally through an e-card, greeting cards are an excellent and affordable way to solidify and strengthen bonds.

For those iPad and iPhone users, I have assembled this list of the top greeting card apps. I included both apps that integrate traditional direct mail and apps that are strictly e-card focused. Feel free to agree or disagree with this list as the biggest criteria I looked for was the apps wow factor or something truly unique that distinguished it from all other similar apps.

1. Lifecards - Postcards
Developer: Vivid Apps
File Size: 39.9 MB, Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch and iPad
Developer Website: www.mexircus.com
Overview: Lifecards is excellent if you want access to a wide range of templates. With over 350 templates in Lifecards - Postcards and over 50 templates in their Christmas Lifecards version, these apps offer easy customization, a professional look and quick email or submitting options for Facebook, Twitter or Flickr.  Lifecards enables you to apply filters to your photos and finish off each card with your own finger written signature.

2. Postcards From Santa
Developer: Camera Shoot Photo Postcards LLC
File Size: 1.5 MB, Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch and iPad
Developer Website: santapostcardapp.com
Overview: As a printer, I have to give this app praise. Postcards From Santa successfully merges digital technology with printed direct mail. This app does exactly what you think, sends your child a postcard from Santa straight from the north pole. After you customize and order your postcard for $2.99, the postcard is printed on a high-gloss cardstock and mailed straight to your recipient.  If you have multiple children you want to send a postcard to, each additional postcard only costs $0.99.

3. Simply Postcards
Developer: Simply Postcards
File Size: 4.1 MB, Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch and iPad
Developer Website: www.simplypostcards.net
Overview: There isn't anything flashy about this app except it is another great option if you want to digitally create postcards from your phone or iPad and have them printed, stamped and mailed the old fashion way. This is an easy to use and free to download app. Considering the low cost and high quality of the printed postcards, this is a must have app for any fan of postcards sent through the USPS.

4. Jubilee - Birthday Cards
Developer: Vemedio & Marfil
File Size: 9.6 MB, Compatible with iPad
Developer Website: www.vemedio.com/products/jubilee/
Overview: While this app would not make the list for the most customizable template options, it does make it on account of it's integrated calendar feature. Simply keep a list in your calendar of important contact birthdays to remember and never forget to show your congratulations again. This is ideal for the sales rep who has multiple birthdays logged into CRM software or just for the person who wants to be a better friend!

5. Build-a-Card (Holiday Edition)
Developer: ISBX
Files Size: 6.5 MB, Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch and iPad
Developer Website: www.isbx.com
Overview: This is a great app if you want to have a little fun with your cards. The "Picturizr" tool allows you to add a variety of items to your photo such as a Rudolph nose or an elf hat. Another great feature of this app is the ability to easily pull photos straight from your Facebook account.

6. Card Shop
Developer: miSoft, LLC
File Size: 10.0 MB, Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch and iPad
Developer Website: www.miSoft.com
Overview: Card Shop enables you to create and send an array of cards for all seasons. The app features a custom stamp and postmark creator as well as a Clip Art gallery that you can use to enhance your card with a variety of graphical elements. This is also one of the only apps that enables you to add an audio voice message attachment to your card.

Others to check out:
Vintage Holiday Cards
C@rd

No Press Checks #2: Florence, Italy

On the steps of the Duomo in Florence, Italy

In late September, my wife and I had the opportunity to visit Italy for the first time and see Rome, Florence and Venice. For foodies like us, this was the trip of a lifetime. I can still vividly recount almost every hour of the week long journey and I'm currently working on a Blurb photo book to help capture the memory.

Between all three cities, Florence was my absolute favorite. From the Tuscan food and wine to the overall city vibe, I have never been happier from simply being somewhere.

While Florence is most commonly known for leather markets, great food and amazing renaissance art, a lesser known fact is Florence's association with printing and paper. Back in the 17th century, Florentines invented a marbleizing technique to create hand-decorated paper goods. This same technique is used today and the skilled craftsmanship used in this creation of highly customized paper products, makes Florence the stationary capital of the world.

Many specialty stores throughout the city specialize in these high-quality paper products. The hand-decorated paper isn't just made for common stationary items either as you can find an assortment of custom books, journals, photo albums, notepads, leather-bound diaries, calendars and other paper products.

To give you a printer's taste of Italy, I have listed below a few of the specialty paper stores found in Florence. I have left many off this list, including some of the most noteworthy (Johnsons & Relatives Stamperia Toscana), as I only included shops that I was able to find a website for. Ciao!

Fabriano
Parione
Pineider
Giulio Giannini e Figlio
Il Torchio
Il Papiro

Be a Yes Man? No Man.

Is what you want to hear different than what you need to hear? One of the biggest problems in business communications, is that too many people are out there screaming yes. We call them yes men. Yes offers immediate gratification and seems harmless at the time but often results in future peril. No requires discipline and the ability to think clearly. Yes is easy. No is hard.

People sabotage themselves on a daily basis by agreeing to the impossible or just hiding the hard truth. It is easy to view no as disappointing, letting someone down, not coming through or not being a problem solver. However, sometimes no is exactly the right answer.

Reasonable people shouldn't expect you to be perfect all the time but if they do, are those the type you want to sustain relationships with? The only thing people should expect of you is to live up to what you say you will do. By always saying yes, you are setting yourself up to let them down.

While I'm an advocate for the power of no, saying no and thinking no are two different things. If your propensity is always to please, you can still say no while thinking yes. Just because you can't personally produce for someone or tell them what they want to hear, doesn't mean you should leave it at that. Instead, try offering an alternative solution or recommending a competitor. People will grow to respect you more as a result.

As you gather with friends and family on this Thanksgiving, take a moment to remind yourself of the power no. Perhaps you can check out a classic Thanksgiving Day movie, Miracle on 34th Street, that certainly embraces this concept. One of the class scenes from that movie shows Kris Kringle, a Macy's store Santa Claus, sending a mother to the competitor Gimbels for a pair skates that her young daughter wants. Word of the generosity spreads like wildfire and Macy's ends up with even higher sales as a result of their new strategy to send customers to competitors if they don't have it.

Now Kris could have said yes and over-promised on something that he couldn't deliver on (after all, Santa Claus isn't real). He also could have simply said no and left the young girl very disappointed and sad. Instead he chose to truly provide the maximum value to the customer by saying no but thinking yes, I can still help. All people would do good to remember this timeless business principle that truly wins customers for life.