Valentine’s Day | Shweta Taneja

There’s nothing more romantic than remembering the things you did together as a couple, be it something as simple as holding hands or jumping off a plane to skydive. This Valentine’s Day, we suggest you put together your memories in a beautiful personal story for your partner. Here are the apps that can help you in the process.

Glossi

Announce your love through an online glossy. Create a magazine of your relationship with Glossi, a free digital platform which lets you drag and drop images, videos, PDFs, audio and animations into layouts inspired by fashion magazines, catalogues and even travelogues. Then add in links, headlines and write a poem or two and you are ready to gift a personal magazine to your partner. This online format can be shared on all major social networks, embedded on blogs and websites and viewed on tablets and mobiles.

Glossi.com, free.

Timehop

How about a time capsule of your relationship? Especially apt for relationships which have seen a few years, you can walk down the memory lane together by seeing the photos and updates from last year’s or last to last year’s Valentine’s Day that you spent together. The app takes your content from Facebook, Instagram, Foursquare, Dropbox, Flickr and iPhoto. Then it syncs your images together on a Mac. Once you’ve got everything set up, Timehop will show you all social activity on a particular day. It also automatically shows you good times from your past—the app will pick up a post or a photograph which was popular with your friends and feed it into your phone’s app.

Timehop.com, free on iTunes.

Heyday

Forgot to make an extra effort before Valentine’s Day? Plan the day with your partner and then using Heyday automatically record all your moments together. Launched in December, Heyday will stitch your moments with each other by keeping track of the places you go to and the things you see. It also automatically picks up the photos you took with your phone in all these places and creates collages with them putting it all together in a timeline. You can customize the collage with layouts and filters and then surprise your partner by mailing it to her/him.

Hey.co, free on iTunes.

Memloom

Tell your partner how special she is by creating a personal story for her using Memloom. Launched in January, Memloom is a storytelling tool where you can upload the various moments in your relationship, including pictures, audios and videos. Now using one of the layouts offered, stitch them together in a magazine-like format. Add audio narration to give it a personal touch.

Memloom.com, $2.95-9.95 (around Rs.190-620) a month—free for up to five stories— available on the iPad and Web.

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Online dating ideas for couples stuck in different cities on Valentine’s Day

Harish Atharv Thakur, 26, is an entrepreneur based in Indore, Madhya Pradesh. His girlfriend, Anjali Suryavanshi, 23, works as a physiotherapist in Jabalpur in the same state. In the last few years, they have only been able to meet sporadically. “But we don’t really feel that we are away from each other, thanks to the Internet,” says Thakur.

The couple uses Viber and WhatsApp for free messages. “For special nights like birthdays or dates, we set up video-chatting on Skype, light a candle for each other and talk for hours,” says Thakur, who feels a long-distance relationship would have been impossible without the Internet, though he concedes that distance and doing the same old things virtually can become boring. “You can call on the phone, email, IM or even text, but you sometimes need something innovative to keep the zing going.”

So for couples who cannot be in the same city on Valentine’s Day, here are some ideas to light up your relationship…all you need is an Internet-enabled device.

A movie date

Watching a movie at the same time, seeing each other’s reactions, laughing at a scene together and hearing comments while the movie is playing is a memorable experience.

You need: A device with high-speed Internet, a video-camera and a tub of popcorn.

How: Log in to your Google Plus Hangout (plus.google.com/hangouts) on your laptop (or any other device enabled with a video camera and Internet). Click on the Start a Hangout button on the top right side of your screen. Install the Hangout plug-in (it will take 2 minutes). Make sure your mic and camera are working on both ends by looking at your video feed at the bottom of the page. Now invite your partner by entering his/her name in the Add Names section. Once that’s accepted, open another browser window and choose a movie to screen from YouTube (www.youtube.com/movies) offerings. Now click on the Screenshare button on the side of your screen on Hangouts. In the window that pops up, choose your browser with the YouTube movie playing and click on Share Selected Window. You can watch the movie along with a video box to see each other’s expressions and voices at the same time.

Post some smiles

If you and your partner are in different time zones and there’s no way you can even be online at the same time, then here’s something you can do: Record your day as it happens, the things you do and the moments when you miss your partner the most. When your Valentine wakes up later, he/she will have all these video messages waiting in their Tango app. All he/she needs to do is open an app and smile at your day’s antics.

You need: A webcam-enabled laptop or a smartphone.

How: Download the Tango (www.tango.me) app for desktops, iOS, Android or Windows Phone 7. Tango works like other IM chat apps like WhatsApp and Viber, except that you can send messages in video format. Once you have installed it in your phone, it automatically includes contacts from your Contact list. Choose your date’s contact and then click on Video Message. Record a message and tap Send.

Share your entire day

Sometimes a mere email or even a series of messages are not enough to convey your life to each other or what you have been going through. Sharing messages isn’t enough for some people and if you’re one of them, then Couple is a way to share every part of your life.

You need: Internet-enabled smartphones.

How: Couple (trycouple.com, free for iOS and Android) is a social network app for just the two of you. You can share photos, text, “miss you” moments, take pictures and post things you see and go by, video-chat, create to-do lists, put in special dates and even sketch together. You can even thumbkiss or match your thumbs on your phones’ screens and get a vibration. Other apps which are similar and act like a digital dropbox for all your memories are Between (appbetween.us, free for iOS and Android) and Avocado (avocado.io, free for iPhone and Android).

Play a board game

From Scrabble to Pictionary to Euro-style board games—almost all the popular games are available to play for free online. Pick something you both like, and start playing.

You need: A computer.

How: OMGPOP (omgpop.com) offers cute 3D games ranging from card games to Pictionary. It has about 30 games on its list. All you need to do is take your pick from the Games list on the top and press Play Now. That leads you into a “lobby” area where you can invite others to play with you. Click on the Invite link below the game, and you can send the link generated to your partner.

Go to a concert

Love attending music concerts together? With live streaming you can go to an online concert with your partner as a date.

You need: An Internet-connected device with external speakers (laptop or tablet speakers would not suffice for a good music show).

How: IRocke (irocke.com) is a collection of live-stream concerts from around the world. Most of their concerts are free and there are many choices in terms of timing, genre and artistes. Log on to the platform and filter the shows available by Genre or Rating.

Read the complete story on the HT Mint website

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