Kool Ade

This Valentine's Day, ditch the perishable gifts (chocolates, flowers, kittens) and stock up on sturdy journals from Ex Libris Anonymous. Determined to "rescue hardcover books from a fate worse than death," the Portland-based company creates spiral-bound blank books from its ever-changing collection of beautiful vintage tomes, including cherished childhood classics, Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys mysteries and pre-molecular gastronomy cookbooks. The old-school titles live on not only through their original covers but also inside the new journal, where the Ex Libris elves scatter a few pages of the original book amongst the fresh white pages for posterity.

New York's Museum of Modern Art demystifies everything from woodcuts and engravings to photographs and modern-day digital wizardry in The Printed Picture, a new website based on the publication and exhibition of the same name that focused on the history of the printing of pictures. Developed by Read and Note with Richard Benson, former dean of the Yale University School of Art, the site includes eight hours worth of videos that trace the dominant technologies used for printing pictures throughout the modern era. Despite its museum origins, Benson focuses not on museum masterpieces but on "everyday pictures," many of them gathered through his 40-year career as a photographer, printer and junk collector.

Rare is the design buff who can resist a good World War II poster, from the classic "Loose Lips Sink Ships" variety to the less catchy call to "Save waste fats for explosives." Across the pond, the Imperial War Museums (IWM) recently launched the first in a series of apps devoted to Great British Posters from the Second World War. Developed by Artfinder and available as a free download at the App Store, it brings 30 posters from the massive IWM collection to your iPhone or iPad, where you can scroll, pinch and zoom to your heart's content on graphical implorations to Keep Calm and Carry On, grow your own vegetables (Dig for Victory), and walk short distances. The app includes the stories behind each poster and details on its designer.

"Take a picture of a picture from the past in the present." That's the simple directive that brings new life to old photos on Dear Photograph, the wildly popular site helmed by Ontario blogger Taylor Jones. With terse, epistolary captions that range from clever to heartbreaking, each user-submitted image on the two-month-old Tumblr places an old photo back its original setting, whether the Grand Canyon, a backyard pool, the front steps of a childhood home, or Disneyland's Main Street, U.S.A. "I've got tons of emails from people," Jones told CBS News recently. "They say Dear Photograph has given them a reason to see their parents and look through old photographs together."

Go back to the future and raise some eyebrows at that big meeting by dressing your iPad (or iPhone) in an Etch A Sketch costume. The childhood toy gets a high-tech update just in time for its 50th anniversary thanks to Headcase, an Orlando-based company that has inked an exclusive agreement with Ohio Art, the makers of Etch A Sketch. The cherry-red plastic case features rubber feet, a retractable kick stand, and windows that won't obstruct an iPad's various switches, ports and buttons. Will it protect your cherished device? Sure, but that's not really the point. "Buy it because it is fun," notes the Headcase website. "Hey, with over 150 million Etch a Sketches sold, the whole world will recognize and love this iPad case." If you'd prefer to keep your Etch A Sketching private, the official App is just a download away.

What happens when a classic of American literature meets the charming retro stylings of the Nintendo Entertainment System (circa 1990)? See for yourself by playing The Great Gatsby for NES, the Internet sensation that reimagines F. Scott Fitzergald's tighly plotted tale as a 8-bit video game in which Nick Carraway must avoid baddie butlers and battle tommygun-wielding cronies to find the elusive Gatsby in the wilds of West Egg. Master the simple instructions (space bar to jump, z to shoot, arrow keys to move right and left), click start, and watch out for dizzy flappers, Old Sport!