Hi everyone! Ross here to say hello and see how our beta testers are hanging in there??  Some of you have been very quiet and we understand it may be because we’ll be wiping the slate clean before we officially launch.  Rest assured, we’re working extremely hard behind the scenes to bring you the best hybrid scrapbooking website in the world.

There are so many things going on and we’d love to scream them all out to the whole world, but now’s just not the time.  I like to think of it as a horse race and right now we’ve got the future Breeder’s Cup champion being groomed and in training on the home turf (behind the scenes).   We have a lot of confidence in our development team and have given them a laundry list of site improvements we’d like to see.  Most all of the suggestions came directly from all of you, so thank you for your input.

We will definitely be launched before the end of the year (planning on sometime in November but hate making promises we can’t keep) and have some huge plans for CHA this year.

Stay tuned for important updates and in the meantime please continue to play around with the builder application and let us know what you like/don’t like, or what seems to be intuitive and what remains difficult to navigate for you.

On a more personal note, I’m having a fantastic day after getting myself back in workout mode after about 6+ months of pure ScrapHD development.   It’s easy to make excuses when you’re so in love with what you do, but I finally decided to try an “at home/at office” workout dvd since the majority of the time in Chicago it’s difficult to find a treadmill or machine that’s open when I want it.

I had scheduled myself to run the Chicago marathon on Oct. 11th ‘09  about a year ago, and yeah, that didn’t happen!  I’m not sure if it will next year, either, because I’m soooooooo dedicated to helping everyone here at ScrapHD get our very own marathon completed.

What I love about being web-based is that we can be working on versions that have yet to be seen and then release it when it’s ready overnight without having you all download anything to your computers.  That night is coming soon, and then we’ll be right back to work on the backend and always be bringing our future Club Members fantastic upgrades.

I hope you’re all as excited as we are.  Please trust that we’ve got something special in the works for all of you and we’ll be bringing you the most affordable way to enjoy hybrid scrapbooking at its best!  Oh, and I shouldn’t forget, the easiest and most customizable way, too!

Thanks everyone for playing around – please help us by continuing to build and publish pages so we can see your incredible layouts.

Cheers!

~ Ross

This morning I was reading through my emails and some of the comments we’ve gotten and couldn’t stop thinking about how thankful I am for all of the feedback we have gotten so far. We can test for hours and hours on our end, but what’s most important is what YOU are experiencing. There are so many different internet connections, operating systems, and other variables that go into how ScrapHD is going to work and your reports back to us are really appreciated. Here are just a couple of the things that we have been able to modify this week

• Some users were experiencing an RSL error when opening the builder – this has been resolved. If you do experience an RSL error, please make sure you have the latest version of flash installed on your computer
• We have also fixed the ‘To Front’/'To Back’ buttons for layering. You should no longer experience random grabbing of objects not highlighted
• Speed is getting better, but not fully optimized. We hope to be upgraded by the end of this week!
• Keyword searching is improving each day
• Tons of new assets have been added to the builder
• …and more! (to see even more of the updates we’ve made click here).

DON’T FORGET! Time is running out to win our awesome Halloween Prize Pack! It’s filled with goodies from Karen Foster Design, Teresa Collins, Zutter, and Mrs. Grossman’s stickers!! The contest is open to everyone! Spread the word because the more beta testers we have on the site, the better.

That’s all I’ve got for now. I’ll keep you all posted!

Congratulations to our 3 winners! You’ve each won an entire year ($99 value)  for FREE on ScrapHD when we launch the official site! You can thank Ross over here at ScrapHD, I had him pull the names

Lfields624

Pigglet

Pharmgirl

I’ll send you each an email to let you know you’ve won!

Thank you to everyone who participated! Please keep the feedback coming. We are working on every single topic that comes up.Enjoy the long weekend and take lots of pictures to scrap!

Hello Beta Testers!

I wanted to talk a little bit about beta testing as we get more and more testers coming from different avenues. Hopefully I can help keep everyone on the same page! We appreciate all of the blogs/twitter posts/facebook mentions, etc. The more beta testers we have the better. The more the merrier, right!?

~The whole purpose of beta testing is to get the technology kinks out and modify the builder to be as user friendly as possible. This is where we are counting on your feedback. We want to have everything working in tip top shape before we fully launch. We also want to add features and functionality that are important to YOU! Now is your chance to speak up (and even win a free membership)

~ What you see is NOT all you get..We’ve held some of our plans back to keep some suspense before our launch What you see is the overall look and feel. So far we haven’t even touched on Make it Hybrid! and some other things..We can’t give ALL of our secrets away before we launch!

~Printing is not available during beta testing, but there WILL be professional print options (with the most competitive prices around) AND printing from home options – all in traditional scrapbook sizes!

~Beta testing is completely FREE!! Even after testing you can have a FREE account, create scrapbooks, and print professionally. After beta testing we will also offer a Club Membership which will give you unlimited use of thousands of backgrounds and embellishments. You’ll never have to worry about the cost to create a digital layout or theme because its all included! You’ll even be able to print from home at no additional cost!

~When we launch you will have to create a new account. The beta site will be going away. This is because we are working on the back-end to complete all of the improvements. ScrapHD.com will be a clean slate with all of the updates we completed based on the beta testing.

So hopefully that gives you all an understanding of what beta testing is all about. This is our opportunity to listen to your questions, comments, concerns, likes, and dislikes of the functionality and creation of scrapbook layouts. We’ve got BIG plans and cannot wait to reveal all of them to you!!

We look forward to hearing from you!

♥ Katy

It’s already Wednesday which means only a couple of more days to be entered into our contest for a FREE ScrapHD Club Membership for an ENTIRE YEAR! This is really the EASIEST way to have unlimited access to THOUSANDS of backgrounds and embellishments.

Ummm, where else can you get 7gypsies, American Crafts, Art Gone Wild, Imaginisce, Jenni Bowlin, Kaisercraft, Karen Foster, Mrs. Grossman’s, My Mind’s Eye, Piggy Tales, SEI, Teresa Collins, Three Bugs in a Rug, and We R Memory Keepers digitally and all in one spot!?!?

Guess what, that’s not it..Now you get the full infomercial As a Club Member you’ll have unlimited access to ALL of the assets in our builder as well all of the themes that will be created by the designers from our partner companies! Also, you’ll  have unlimited storage for as many scrapbook layouts you can create, you’ll have the ability to upload your own .png files, you’ll be eligible to enter exclusive contests with awesome prizes, and you’ll be able to print from home for no extra fee! All of that is included in a Club Membership! (and don’t worry if you don’t win on Friday, all of this will only be $9.99/month)

Here’s a reminder of the rules:

• Create an account on the ScrapHD Beta site (www.scraphd.net) – if you already have an account you’re one step ahead of the game, just use that one!
  
• Publish at least 3 scrapbook pages by 12pm CST on Friday, Sept. 4th (can all be in the same scrapbook, not limited to three)
  
• Leave us a comment, question, suggestion, and yes, even criticism
  (we’ll take it constructively, of course ) via the Feedback buttons on the Beta site, an email to support@scraphd.com, or a comment on this blog post (or the previous one posted about this contest). Be sure to include your ScrapHD profile name so we know who to give the membership to if you win!

This is almost too easy! We value your opinion that much though that we are giving away THREE of these memberships. Keep the feedback coming and publish those scrapbooks to enter!

Thanks Guys!

♥ Katy