Good News Everyone! New Website Launch!

We've Got A Shiny New Website Launching This Weekend!

This new site corrects a slew of issues with the current website while adding or improving a number of features we think should please everyone. Because of the downtime needed to transfer & verify data from the old site to the new,

Our Website Will Be Unavailable From 2:00pm MST Until 8:00pm MST, This Saturday February 25th.

After that, the site will be ready to take orders through our new streamlined order process.

Given how long we've been kicking around on the web, there's a ton of content that's being migrated at the same time, so if you happen to come across something gone awry (that we didn't already catch), we'd be awful appreciative if you could use the handy form that we'll be providing (links will be posted with the new site) for reporting missing/broken content, bugs, and of course general feedback.

Also, because of the way the passwords are encrypted on the current site, all passwords will be reset for the new site. In order to avoid spamming people, this will be purely opt-in, meaning you'll only be prompted to claim your account & set a password the first time you try to log in.

While the majority of the work that's been put in to overhaul the site was done in the back end, there are a few things of note that are coming with the new website:

• Speed! - With a new website comes both shiny new hardware and new optimizations, resulting in massive speed boosts across the website.
• Streamlined Checkout - We've trimmed down the number of steps it takes to run through the checkout to make things nice and speedy. You can still place orders without having to login too.
• Wishlists - Something we've been wanting around the office, not to mention one of the most often requested features.
• Product Notifications - Another feature we've been hounded for, you can now opt to receive updates on stock, documentation/examples, comments via Email & RSS.
• Commenting - Long overdue, we've added commenting to our news posts and products.
• Revamped Catalog - Not only have we simplified our catalog, we've made it easier to browse, search and navigate in general.
• Easy Accounts - Ordered from us before without creating an account? Now you can create an account using the email address you've used for previous orders. When you do, you'll be able to review past orders, create wishlists, subscribe to products, etc. without having to reenter your contact information, address etc.
• Open Source Photos - All of our photos are will be covered under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 license. This means you'll be free to use our photos for your instructable, blog, tweet, etc etc. as long as you give proper attribution and the photos are used only for noncommercial purposes. Want an image for some other use? Let us know. For our distributors, we'll be providing waivers by request to allow for commercial use.

There's also a ton of new features and content I can't talk about just yet, but rest assured that there are some very cool things on the horizon.

On a final note, as part of our commitment to Open Source and the sharing of knowledge, I'll be posting about some of the issues I ran into and the solution to those issues, particularly those that were previously poorly/undocumented APIs (ie Paypal).