I can't create a christmas card, the flash won't load.
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Sorry, Jason,I don't have a link as the whole process was so slow to load I only got to step 3 before giving up and I have a fairly new and fast computer with a cable connection. It's still trying to load as I type this. If anyone else has had this problem, I'm sure they'll let you know.
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Sorry but I couldn't even get past the first step. I even tried closing my browser, and reopening it, and I still couldn't get any further. It looked cool though.
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I really like the idea. My son just updated the Flash on my system today so I thought that was going to keep me from having the problems others here have experienced.

But while it let me look at the themes, when I went back to select one, it wouldn't load. So I came back here and tried to get it again from the link, and it won't even load the site at all.

So, I wish them luck, but I think there are some problems they're going to have to straighten out first.

(And DARN it, because it looked so cool and I was going to send slideshows of my kids to Nutcracker music, since they were all just in it!)
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I have been stuck at step 5 for over an hour now. It won't let me go forward or backward. It's still loading...

I finally got it to work, but it's not exactly how I wanted it to be because I lost my patience.

It also did not successfully post to my Facebook. Very frustrating.
Source(s):
http://www.storyblender.com/holiday-letter/xmas_music.asp
http://www.storyblender.com/flash/view.asp?v=94447177820081222163220

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http://www.storyblender.com/holiday-letter/xmas_landing.asp?v=94447180820081222174153

I liked that you could submit photos of your choice for a slideshow to make it unique. The mass uploading worked very well and I liked that you could see the progress of each photo uploading. With a slow system and dialup, most mass uploading systems I have tried don't work. I really liked the rolling ornaments theme and the Santa Claus flying with his reindeer. I liked the framing on the pictures for the snowball fight theme with its green border and three dimensional looking ornaments hanging down from the corner. The photos and explanations of the steps on the snowball fight were especially clever. I liked the choices of music although I did not try to listen to any of it because my system is too slow so I skipped previewing the sound after choosing my song and went to the next step. Once the card was done, it did not seem to have added the music, so I guess the default is you have to listen to it first - but I usually don't because of my slow system.

Here are some problems I found. I found the first screen confusing. I clicked between various photo themes and had them almost all clicked before I ended up on the many ornaments page and it started to move, and the rolling ornaments were beautiful! If I had not clicked on that one and just gone to the next step I think I would have missed that they are animated. I realized that with animations in card services they usually say the card is animated or not so you know to wait. Also they have a moving ball to signal that it is loading, but the rolling ball was not visible at the start. I also ended up liking the Santa theme with the flying reindeer but almost did not click on it. Santa and snow to me sounded like a fat fellow trudging around in snow. Maybe you could call it something more exciting like Santa flying or Santa sled. I did not like the use of red in the cards for the framing or the ornaments, preferring a green or blue instead as I find it jarring. It was good that you could remove the frame in some of the pictures if you wanted to because with landscapes for example it looks much better. For some reason, the system would not let me skip over the full explanation of the parts of the card and I had to listen to it all at the start. With my system being slow that was a real problem. I wanted to go back and view some more of the themes to see the animations, but was afraid that I would get stuck needing to watch the full explanation of each part of the card over and over again and it would just take too much time. I did like the snowball fight card so just stuck with it, as also animations tend to load faster than real photos on my computer so I prefer to use them. Once I realized that the cards were animated, then I understood why the pictures had been disappointing and dark and maybe not so clear. You would not want the background to distract from the animation that was happening. Initially I thought that I had caused the system to slow down for everyone because maybe no one could have imagined toggling a system to wait for someone with as slow a connection as mine. Then I read something in your Twitter and realized that probably thousands of people were trying the cards out at the exact same moment and the slowness of the system was just a temporary problem perhaps. As I don't have webcam capability I can't comment on it but it sounds like a great idea to have a webcam incorporated into a card to make it really unique. Great idea for the cards! Hope it works out for everyone once thousands of people come to the site in smaller bunches :) I did not realize that so many pictures could go in the slide show so I did not have that many prepared. Below is another one that I might have added to the card:

Creative Commons by The_Gut
Source(s):
http://www.storyblender.com/holiday-letter/xmas_landing.asp?v=9444718082008...
http://www.twitter.com/jasoncalacanis
http://www.storyblender.com

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You can get free christmas card creator here to create card yourself http://www.convert-video-dvd.com/tutorial/christmas-special-offer-guide.html#115
Source(s):
http://www.convert-video-dvd.com/tutorial/christmas-special-offer-guide.htm...

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