Back in January, RocketLife took home the DIMA Innovative Product Award during the PMA show.  And now, RocketLife has another award to add to the shelf - the Computer Times Editors’ Choice Award!

The Computer Times’ editors had lots to say about RocketLife:

RocketLife is a fast and easy way to create unique, personalized products that will impress your friends and family. A gorgeous photo book that you designed yourself would be a great Christmas present for your parents, or a puzzle for your youngsters, a collage poster of your rocker sweetheart’s debut on stage, or a mug with your favorite gorgeous celebrity for you to drink out of every morning. With so many ways to make these products your own, Rocket Life is a must for creative people who like to have control over every aspect of their creations.

We have to agree- there are tons of opportunities to create awesome, unique products with RocketLife!

I don’t know about you guys, but I’m a big fan of time-savers and shortcuts.  Here are a few super useful (and fun!) shortcuts to help you in your creative RocketLife endeavors.

The Rocket Engine sidebar is kind of like a Swiss Army Knife - it’s a really useful, all-in-one kind of tool.  Here’s what each of the options does:

1. Try Theme Variations - Want to see how your layout looks with a different variation of the theme you’ve selected?  Click the link to watch your super cool layout get a super cool new background.  Click as many times as you’d like - there are lots of options to choose from.
2. Try Photo Rotations - This is one of my favorites because, in general, I like tilting my photos a bit.  Click this once or many times until you’re satisfied with the result.
3. Try More Layouts - Want to see what your creation will look like with the photos re-arranged?  Click until you’re happy with the snazzy new layout!
4. Lock Layout - Lock the layout so that you don’t inadvertently mess up your perfection (take it from someone who has done it before…).
5. Remove Photo -  Select a photo, click the link and - viola! - the picture is gone.
6. Remove Month - (Note, this one applies to Calendars) Don’t want to make a 12 Month Calendar? Click this to remove the current month.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, could be worse than creating something awesome with RocketLife, only to re-size a photo or quickly try another layout and then realize that you really liked it better the other way.  Previously, there wasn’t a way to “undo” your last step.  Now, however, THERE IS!

Cheers! Applause! Confetti!

Meet Undo and his sister Redo:

With Undo & Redo, you can handily take a step backward and then a step forward at anytime during your creation process.  Pretty awesome, right?!

As part of our new software release, we’ve changed the way things look a bit around RocketLife.

Lemme show ya:

First off, notice the numbers in the upper right hand corner. Those are there to guide you along in your RocketLife experience. 1 is the Catalog, which is where you can check out the different products available and decide what to make. 2 is Customize, which is where all the magic happens. Seriously - the Smart Arrangement Technology happens here and I kind of think it’s magical (but that’s probably because I don’t really understand the highly technical stuff behind it). Step number 3 is where you actually order (and I like that you don’t have to order stuff until after you’ve made lots and lots of fun products). Step 4 is the checkout and you’re good to go!

I’ll keep covering the new stuff over the next few weeks.

As always, I love your feedback, so bring it on and leave a comment!

I’ve been home from Las Vegas for a few days and the PMA afterglow still remains.  Why, you ask?  Because RocketLife was… rockin’!   Our booth was constantly overflowing with awesome people eager to hear more about RocketLife.  All of us had so much fun and even though I was wary of the microphone at first, I loved demo-ing our new release.

New release? You ask.  Yup, that’s right.  We revealed an awesome new release of RocketLife at PMA.  There are so many new, cool features that I can’t wait to show y’all in the coming days.

There’s something else really exciting that happened at PMA… RocketLife won an award!!  We were awarded the DIMA Innovative Product Award!  And, not to toot our own horn, I’d say we earned it!

A funny thing is happening.  Everywhere I go, stores have already started setting out items for spring.  Like at Target, where I’ve been known to shop a little too frequently, the patio furniture is already starting to take over the back of the store.  Now I don’t know where you live, but here… it’s cold.  And I don’t forsee myself spending a lot of time in a lounge chair in 2o degree weather.  And I’ve seen bathing suits for sale!  I don’t plan on donning one of those bad boys for a few more months, thankyouverymuch

…Of course, there is another holiday on the horizon… Valentine’s Day.  The day that is both loved and hated and generally known to put me in a sugar coma with all of those little conversation hearts.  Wouldn’t this be a great time to make something extra special and very personal for the one that you love?  Maybe a photo book of your wedding day.  Or a collage full of family pictures.  Or maybe a mug that can be taken to work, where your significant other can smile at your favorite pictures every time they take a sip of coffee?

Some of us (ahem) are sans Valentine this year.  So, if you’re like me, why not take the time to make another one of your Valentine-less friends a little something special.  I think my good buddy, Camille, will really dig this mug of the two of us:

Guess what?  Some of the RocketLife gang (including yours truly) will be at PMA 08 in just a few weeks!  If you happen to be there, please be sure to stop by and say hello (and show me some of your photos since you’ve seen so many of mine!).

What’s PMA?  It’s the worldwide community of imaging associations.  Basically, it’s an association of people involved in the photo imaging industry ranging from photo and scrapbook retailers to wedding photographers and videographers.  PMA 08 is a conference and trade show with lots of opportunities to learn more about the ins and outs of photography and the products that make the industry so cool.

So mark your calendars and don’t forget to pay us a visit!  We look forward to meeting with you!

From all of us here at RocketLife, we’d like to wish you and your families a very happy new year!

(Lola would have wished you a happy new year too, but she was busy playing in the snow)

Lucky me… My PC has a nasty virus. And I don’t mean a bad bout of the common cold. I managed to infect it with a trojan horse. Basically, that means I have spent HOURS with anti-virus/anti-spyware software trying to clean it back up.

Since it is nearly the end of the year and a good time to do general housekeeping and whatnot, consider this your friendly reminder to NOT download something that seems a little questionable and ALWAYS keep your anti-virus software up to date. And, most importantly, BACK EVERYTHING UP.

That said, since I haven’t been able to use RocketLife for a week now (am having withdrawals, thankyouverymuch), I’d love to open the blog up for your submissions. Send me your creations and you can be the blog star of the day!

If you’re looking for a little inspiration, here are a few ideas to get you started:

1. It’s time to bust out the 2008 calendars! Make one for your family and friends with RocketLife! Aren’t pictures of your family better than, say, pictures of dogs and cats or tropical scenery?  Unless, of course, they’re pictures of your own cats and dogs and vacations to tropical locales…
2. Use some of your holiday pictures to create your own custom thank you cards. Writing a thank you card NEVER goes out of style and gets even more stylish when you make one using your own photos.
3. Make a photo book of all of your favorite holiday moments. You can start a new tradition - a new holiday book for every year!
4. Make collage prints using your holiday photos. They’re quick, easy, inexpensive and great for tucking into those thank you cards.

So start creating! Send your screenshots here!.

One of the fastest and easiest ways to add some pizazz to your creations is to change up the theme or what we like to call a theme variation, which is, uh, a varion of a theme.  And if you can see all of the variations to a theme by clicking a button, that’s a good thing, right?

Let’s say a theme catches your eye and you want to make a series of cards or mugs or photo book pages or calendar pages, but you don’t want them to all look the same… Or maybe you’re not totally crazy about the theme but you like the overall idea of the winter theme, for example.

Just click that lil’ theme variation button and change things up!

Here are some examples of how your theme can change:

So go for it!  Give the theme variations a try!