FamilyLobby.com is now closed but we can help

FamilyLobby.com shuttered it’s servers this week. Since our previous post we have had hundreds of signups that we attribute to FamilyLobby refugees looking for a new home for the family website. If you have the zip file that you could purchase from FamilyLobby then we can help you transfer that data into a Familycrossings.com family web site. Please call us for personal service @ 877-765-2655.

 

Familycrossings.com does a lot more than FamilyLobby ever did. It may take a few visits to get the family digging into your content, so we’ve included a couple of audience building tools like Question of the Week, Birthday Alerts and Cards, Family Polls and eBox.

Our core features include

What’s Included

Share family photos
Upload, View and Store your memories with ease
Our simple interface allows you to post and view your photos easily without special tools or software. Categories and meta tags allow you to quickly sort and search photos based on user, location, date and more.

Get Family News
Don’t miss the family’s coming and goings
Post family newsletters, stories, announcements and more. Now you can quickly and easily post and view all the family news that is fit to print!

Share recipes and remedies
Keep your favorite family dishes and cures here
Mom’s apple pie, Thanksgiving stuffing, nightmare cures; these are the things that make life’s events special. Now you can be sure you’ll always have them.

Family Calendar
Post birthdays, anniversaries, schedules and more
Soccer games, work, music lessons, class schedules; Family life is hectic. Make sure your family’s paths cross every chance they get with our easy to use, shared family calendar.

Wish Lists
Never buy the wrong gift again!
Is dad tired of getting ties every Father’s day? Did mom get dishes when she really wanted jewelry? Not anymore! Now each family member can post their wish list for every birthday and holiday to make shopping easy!

Store Family Addresses
Easily save and find phone numbers, email and home addresses
Does your rolodex look like a scrap book? Are family addresses scattered in multiple locations? With our simple system, the entire family can share one address book. Now you can email, make calls or mail letters with ease!

Hold Live Family Chats
Secure family style chats for the entire family
Have an old-fashioned gab session! Our chat system allows your entire family to talk to each other, at once, day or night without the fear of predators or scary phone bills.

Preserve Family History
Keep your family stories alive for generations to come
Keep your family’s stories, photos, news and more alive and safe for future generations. Offsite storage of back-ups means your family history is safe theft and natural disaster. Even your family secrets!

Crossings
Visualize your family data with maps, time lines and tag clouds

READY TO START? SIGNUP HERE

 

 

A FamilyLobby.com Alternative

It was recently discovered (July 5,2017) that Familylobby.com has decided to close its subscription service. While we spent some time looking at our competitors’ viability we did not expect them to enter End-of-Life stage.

Familycrossings.com has been in business for over 10 years and wants ALL families that use Familylobby to know that we will help you transition. Familycrossings.com new FTP function makes uploading the FamilyLobby photos fast and efficient since when the zip file is unpacked all the photos are rendered into new galleries. As an alternative to starting over creating a family member directory you can create a .csv of first name, last name, email address and send everyone in the family new invitations to Familycrossings. Using these two tools will save hours while you are creating your alternative to Familylobby.com.

We will not charge you to help you move the files to your new home. There is no waiting period we have everything ready today! We will not charge you for each family member and you upgrade your storage as you require.

You can signup right here to start sharing your family news, family photos, family stories, family videos, family contact information and much more.

If you need to contact us please email us or call us for information.

A New User Interface Update

An often requested user interface improvement for Familycrossings.com has just been added. The feature allows administrators to select a photo to use as a background behind family content. Additionally the feature allows you to control the transparency of the foreground.

 

Start by clicking ADMIN

Complete this administration area to customize your family website portal
Complete this administration area to customize your family website portal. Select “content opacity to let the background show through under the content.
Select your content transparency
An example of what your family site can look at with a background image.

The background can be any jpg, png file. Here is the image we used.

You can use this image for your background.

Enjoy the update.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Its a New Look for Family Crossings

It started in June of 2016 on a Sunday afternoon. Our lead web developer sat down with Bruce Collen to flesh out the redesign for our Family website product. The MyFamily.com customers had shown us where we could improve the product now we needed to focus our energies. So we re-read all of your feedback email, watched your actions during training session, & reviewed the survey results from our various customer polls. If you are a member of a Familycrossings.com site we hope you will enjoy the new responsive interface. It will work well on any computer or mobile device. You won’t need an app just login.

So here is what you get:

1) A new, cleaner interface. We have removed the left navigation system completely. You can now use our simpler top tab and sub navigation to move through the different site sections. In a tab the Active section is now underlined to better show the active feature. On the right hand side of the navigation you will find Tools/Actions- click this to add, change or delete content from a section.
2) Image of Day (IoD) is now a vote based process. Every photo has a vote function located to the right of the image. Click it to register your vote. The home page Image of Day will immediately change. If another image is voted up by more people than the existing image the new image will replace the other image immediately. All Image of the Day photos will be available in the IoD Photo Album.
3) More Storage – Standard now includes 500 MB of storage. Premium now includes 1 GB of storage. If you order extra storage you will now get twice as much for the same price ie get 2 GB for the price of 1 OR 4 additional GB for the price of 2 GB
4) Save as you write function has been added to Stories and Database
5) Parenting Center section has been changed to Requests
6) Photo Galleries section has been changed to Photos / Album thumbnails enlarged
7) Family Database has been changed to Library
8) Personal Profile section has been moved to upper right
9) Larger text in Help area
10) Feedback- Has been moved to the Admin area and can only be used by Administrators
11) Removed “Family Site” text from the label of site

12)Added the ability to use an image as a background with set transparency

13) Increased Address Privacy- It is now possible to hide your personal information by clicking on your Profile, click on My Addresses, scroll down to Privacy Options, click the button for Selected Members and then choose ONLY the family members who SHOULD see your address and email account information.
14) Shopping- This section is revamped with brand new stores offering uniques products and special savings. Want to save $10 on groceries every week? Check out our Coupons area.
15) History Medical section added 10 questions

So what are you waiting for? Go login here and start adding new items to share with your family.

 

Family Crossings Update

For the hundreds of MyFamily clients who converted to Familycrossings.com your wait is over. We listened to your feedback and have delivered a new Family friendlyfeature.

Located in the “What’s New” area the link named “New to Me” will bring you every photo, every story, every comment that you have not clicked on. The site will start by bringing you the last 30 days of content and then will start removing from this page the items you clicked. There is a “dismiss” function if you wish to delete from “New to Me” all the content by area or by each item.

An update to our navigation will be coming soon.

Question of the Week – New Feature

We have recently uploaded a new feature called “Question of the Week”. The feature is designed to encourage more interaction between your family members. It is a semi-automated processes that will allow you to either select from standard questions (like how was your Fourth of July) or create your own and then pre-schedule the questions to be deliverable by email to your family members.

Each family member can click the link and respond with a suitable answer. The next step is to publish the answers to your family site. The whole process takes only a few minutes to get a year’s worth of questions into the Familycrossings system.

Enjoy!!!

Member Bytes

This morning we uploaded a new feature to Familycrosings.com called Member Bytes. It is an alternative to the Home Page and What’s New.

Member Bytes shows ALL the content and comments added by each Family Member and can be sorted by “Most Recent”, “Member’s Name”, or “Content Score”. Content score references the amount of content and comments that each Family Member has added.

Check it out the next time you log in.

MyFamily Alternative Making Subscribers Smile

Familycrossings.com new FTP function makes uploading the MyFamily photos fast and efficient since when the zip file is unpacked all the MYFamily photos are rendered into new galleries. As an alternative to  starting over creating a family member directory you can create a .csv of first name, last name, email address and send everyone in the family new invitations to Familycrossings. Using these two tools will save hours while you are creating your alternative to MyFamily.com

MyFamily.com Final Answer from Ancestry.com

On June 25, 2014 Familycrossings received the email below from Ancestry.com regarding our requests that they step up and provide additional support for the subscribers of MyFamily. Our development team has worked quickly to provide you with a way of importing your members and adding your photos. Both tools work perfectly however we will not be able to provide any further tools to make for a better transition because of Ancestry.com’s response.

Click the image below to read the actual email.
Ancestry.com answer regarding Myfamily.com

Familycrossings.com will continue to assist Myfamily.com subscribers in transitioning to our family web site product.

Real Holiday Helpings from Bobby Flay Cuban Style

Turkey Cuban
Roasted New Potatoes with Blue Cheese Ranch Dressing and Green Onions
Oven Roasted Apple-Cranberry Crisp with Creamy Spiced Chantilly
“Stuffing” Crusted Turkey Cutlets

(Family Features) – It’s time to heat things up and set the holiday table for delicious food. Chef Bobby Flay has teamed up with Hellmann’s® and Best Foods® Mayonnaise to help parents prepare a holiday meal of real, nutritious ingredients the whole family will love.

Complement your holiday dinner with delicious sides that satisfy family and guests alike. Roasted New Potatoes with Blue Cheese Ranch Dressing and Green Onions are sure to please even the pickiest of palates. For an appetizing main dish even the kids will eat, try “Stuffing” Crusted Turkey Cutlets. Finish the meal with a simple, seasonal dessert like Oven Roasted Apple-Cranberry Crisp with Creamy Spiced Chantilly.

Bobby Flay

Lost when it comes to leftover ideas? Celebrate the day after the holiday by using your leftover turkey and traditional holiday sides to create a Turkey Cuban. For a simple twist on the classic day-after turkey sandwich, mix some mayonnaise with leftover cranberry relish to create a creamy cranberry sandwich spread.

For more real food recipes, tips and videos from Bobby Flay featuring simple, nutritious food you can feel good about feeding your family this holiday season, check out the Real Holiday Helpings Web series at www.hellmanns.com or www.bestfoods.com.

Turkey Cuban

Ingredients

  • 1/4 cup Dijonnaise
  • 2 tablespoons leftover cranberry relish
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 4 slices good quality Italian bread
  • 8 slices thinly sliced Swiss cheese
  • 4 slices thinly sliced deli ham
  • 6 slices leftover sliced turkey, white or dark meat or a combination
  • 8 dill pickle slices
  • 4 tablespoons Hellmann’s® or Best Foods® Real Mayonnaise

Preparation

  1. Whisk together the Dijonnaise and cranberry relish in a small bowl and season with salt and pepper.
  2. Put the bread on a flat surface and spread each slice with some of the Dijonnaise mixture. Top 2 of the slices of bread with 1 slice of the cheese, ham, turkey another slice of cheese and pickles (in that order). Place the remaining bread on top, mayonnaise side down.
  3. Heat a hot skillet over medium heat or a panini press. Wrap a brick in heavy duty aluminum foil (if not using a panini press).
  4. Spread 1 tablespoon of the mayonnaise on the top of each sandwich and place in the skillet if using or in a panini press, mayonnaise-side down. Place the brick on top of the sandwiches and cook until the bottom is golden brown, about 2 minutes. Remove the brick, spread the top of the sandwiches with the remaining mayonnaise, turn over, place the brick back on top and cook until the bottom is golden brown and the cheese has melted, about 2 minutes longer. Cut in half and serve warm.
  5. With real, simple ingredients including eggs, oil and vinegar, Hellmann’s® or Best Foods® Real Mayonnaise is a great complement to any post-holiday sandwich.

Serves
Serves 2

Roasted New Potatoes with Blue Cheese Ranch Dressing and Green Onions

Ingredients

  • 2 pounds new red or yellow potatoes, halved
  • Canola oil
  • Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 3/4 cup buttermilk
  • 1/4 cup Hellmann’s® or Best Foods® Real Mayonnaise
  • 2 cloves finely chopped fresh garlic
  • 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
  • 1/4 pound crumbled blue cheese
  • 4 green onions, thinly sliced

Preparation

  1. Preheat oven to 375°F. Toss potatoes on a baking sheet with the oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast in the oven until golden brown and tender, about 25 minutes. Transfer potatoes to a platter.
  2. Whisk together the buttermilk, mayonnaise, mustard and garlic in a bowl and season with salt and pepper. Fold in the blue cheese and green onions. Spoon the sauce over the potatoes and serve.

Serves
Serves 4

Oven Roasted Apple-Cranberry Crisp with Creamy Spiced Chantilly

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup very cold heavy cream
  • 3 tablespoons light brown sugar
  • 1/4 cup Hellmann’s® or Best Foods® Real Mayonnaise
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1 cup plain granola
  • 5 granny smith apples, cored and cut into eighths (about 2-1/2 pounds)
  • 1 cup fresh or frozen, thawed cranberries
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar

Preparation

  1. Combine the cream and brown sugar in a bowl and whip to soft peaks with a large whisk or hand-held mixer. Whisk together the mayonnaise and cinnamon in a medium bowl and fold in the whipped cream until combined.
  2. Preheat oven to 375°F. Combine the apples and granulated sugar in a medium baking dish and roast until slightly soft, about 15 minutes. Stir in the cranberries and cook until the apples are very soft and golden brown and the cranberries have popped and released their juices, about 15 minutes longer.
  3. Divide the fruit into 4 bowls or goblets and sprinkle with the granola. Top each with a large dollop of the spiced chantilly mayonnaise.

Serves
Serves 6

Notes, Tips & Suggestions

Substitution: This recipe is also great when substituting 5 peaches for the apples and 1 pint of fresh raspberries for the cranberries.

“Stuffing” Crusted Turkey Cutlets

Ingredients

  • 2 cups panko breadcrumbs or regular dried bread crumbs
  • 3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh flat leaf parsley
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 1/4 cup Hellmann’s® or Best Foods® Real Mayonnaise
  • 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
  • 1 teaspoon poultry seasoning
  • 4 turkey cutlets about 1/2-inch thick
  • 1/4 cup canola oil, divided

Preparation

  1. Combine the panko and breadcrumbs on a large plate and season with salt and pepper.
  2. Whisk together the Mayonnaise, Dijon and poultry seasoning in a small bowl and season with salt and pepper.
  3. Season the turkey cutlets on both sides with salt and pepper. Brush one side of each cutlet with some of the Mayonnaise mixture and coat in the breadcrumbs.
  4. Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a large nonstick sauté pan over high heat until the oil begins to shimmer. Place 2 cutlets in the pan, breading side down and cook until golden brown and a crust has formed, about 3 minutes. Flip the cutlets over and continue cooking until the bottom is golden brown and the cutlets are just cooked through, about 2 minutes longer.