The Final Countdown

• posted by: Sarah
• posted in: Uncategorized
• on: January 8, 2012

It’s almost here! I’m so excited I think I’m vibrating with energy!

Here are a few things to keep in mind as we launch the changes to the site.

1. This crazy internet world has a lot of technology behind it. We are actually changing the physical internet server that the site lives on (we needed to update the physical technology of the site too). All of the internet connections across the globe will need to “learn” the new location of the Fiskateers website. For most of you that will be instantaneous and you won’t even notice. But for some of you it may take the internet 24-48 hours for the connections to fully learn the new location. If you are having trouble seeing the site after Monday that is probably what is going on. We have put in place as many things as we can to let those connections know where the new site is and there shouldn’t be too many bumps, but there may be a couple. If you encounter a bump, give it a few hours and try again.
2. Orange and green! Yes, the Fiska-elves have used orange and green as the primary color scheme. It looks so awesome and so pretty in the Fiskateer colors. I think you are really going to like it. You’ll know you are seeing the improved website if you are seeing orange and green instead of the current purple and blue color scheme.
3. There may be some down time on Monday as we switch over. Please be patient. We don’t anticipate it being more than a couple of minutes.

There were several questions that came up from the last couple of posts.

Tara #4402: Is it going to be more like the Fiskarettes UK site?

Yes and no The Fiskarettes website was created more recently than the Fiskateers website - you inspired the world and now there are Fiskarettes in the UK, France, and most recently Finland. We are going to have some of their feature - but also so much more! With your feedback in the Summer of 2011 we were able to know what was most important to you and make enhancements to the site based on that.

Betsy #2572: Will we be able to share our personal galleries with a “non Fiskateer”?

No, Betsy, you won’t. They will need to be logged into the Fiskateers website to see your personal gallery. In today’s world where it’s difficult sometimes to tell if what you put on social media sites is going to show up somewhere else, we wanted to make sure the Fiskateer environment was a place were people felt comfortable knowing that if they posted something in a personal gallery, it would only be seen by others in the Fiskateer community.

If any bugs come up, we’ll work through them as fast as we can. Remember that you can email me at ambassadorservices@fiskateers.com if you come across any problems. There will also be a “Report a problem” link at the bottom of every page on the new site for you to use. Those too come to me and we’ll work through them as fast as we can.

I’ll be blogging with the Leads over the course of the next week to show you some of the cool new features, how to use them, and to answer any questions that come up. There are a couple of chats scheduled next week as well where you can ask questions too.

As you use the new website I’d love to hear your feedback. What you like. What you’d improve. Other ideas you have to make the community an even more awesome place. I hope you like the site improvements as much as I do

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A Sneak Peak at Some of the New Website Features

• posted by: Sarah
• posted in: Uncategorized
• on: January 4, 2012

Are you excited about the new site coming on Monday? I am. The Fiska-elves have made a LOT of changes. They started with fixing all of the little things on the site that drive us all nuts, added a bunch of new features, and giving the site a whole new fresh look. It’s going to be so much fun sharing projects, ideas, tips, tricks, RAKs, events, and all that good stuff.

Here are a few of the new things to look forward to starting on Monday.

In the gallery you will be able to post multiple images for the same project as a single gallery post. So, let’s say you made an awesome card and you want to show everyone the front of the card and the inside of the card. With the updates to the gallery you can upload those two pictures together and they will always stay together. The Fiska-elves have also broken your personal photos out of the main gallery. When you upload a photo for your avatar (headshot), it won’t show up in the main gallery anymore. You can post crafty goodness to the main gallery and you will have your own personal gallery under your profile where you can upload pictures of other things you want to share but don’t want showing up in the main crafting gallery.

Have you ever missed a chat because the calendar said it was at 8:00pm but that was actually in a different time zone than you are in? The Fiska-elves are giving you the ability to set what time zone you are in so that you don’t have to worry about translating from Rebecca in Eastern Time to Tami in Pacific Time. And if there is a chat on the calendar that you want to attend, you can RSVP to it with the click of a button and it will show up on a calendar in your profile.

One of the biggest pieces of feedback we received was how difficult it is to search for topics. The Fiska-elves are updating the search feature on the site so you can more easily find what you were looking for. Was there a thread on the message board a month ago that gave a tip that would be helpful in the project you are working on? You can search just the message board. Are you looking for something that may be in the gallery, on the message board, or on the blog? You can search all three at the same time. Want to tag a gallery post with the tool you used so that others can find it just by searching that tool name? Now you can add tags to your gallery posts.

The Fiska-elves are also making the site more cohesive. Your one login will work for everything. Right now you need to add your name and email address to a blog comment, with the site updates you won’t need to do that anymore – the blog will automatically know who you are when you are commenting. And your beautiful avatar that shows up on your message board posts and comments will also show up next to your blog comments.

Here’s the big question. Will the site be down over the weekend as the Fiska-elves work to launch the new website? No, it will not. However, this site has almost six years of message board threads, gallery postings, profile information, and blog posts that we need to move over to the new website. That is going to take a lot of time. The Fiska-elves are going to start moving data tomorrow so that it all gets done in time. Therefore, anything you post starting tomorrow and going until the new site is up may not make it over to the new site. It’s only a couple of days, but if you don’t see something from this weekend when you log on Monday, we didn’t have a chance to bring it over.

I’m a whole bundle of nerves with everything the Fiska-elves need to get done over the next several days. It’s going to be very exciting and I hope will like what they have done as much as I do. We’ll be taking comments and feedback and working to continue making improvements on the site over the next months, so once the new site is live, feel free to share your thoughts and ideas with me.

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