If you haven't tried making your own photo book yet, you're missing out on a lot of fun. Apple made it easy at the consumer level through iPhoto several years ago, and then a bunch of other companies jumped in to serve the non-Apple user. The result is that we have a lot of choices now, and it couldn't be easier.

The last few years I've had a separate folder on one hard drive for our best family photos. It's really been that old shoebox we used to have where we tossed photos we wanted to put in an album someday. With digital, though, the images are automatically organized by year, and then in the order they were shot (my browser, Photo Mechanic, takes care of that). Now it's time to finally do something with those photos.

MyPublisher.com was one of the early non-Apple companies, so I wanted to give them a try. While initially they catered to the Windows user, they now also have an Apple-friendly app. The process is simple. Download their Bookmaker software, choose a template, drop your photos in and order.

What I liked best about the process is that the templates are user-changeable, on every page if you want. That means I can put pictures into a 4-up configuration, but then decide I want one really big and the other three small. That's as easy as resizing the boxes they go in.

For my first book project I used a group of photos from a raft trip our family took in Alaska in 2006. Starting with the "Classic Hardcover" design (11.25" X 8.75"), it took about an hour to complete the 30-page book. Cost was $40, and I had it in hand a week later. Cool.

Next I'm going to try a different service to create a wedding album for my niece from her wedding this summer. And for the grand finale I'm going to make family photo albums for each of the last few years. With any luck, the days of sticking small prints in an album by hand are long gone for me. I'll keep you posted on how it goes.