MyHST is turning 2 years old this week, and to celebrate, we are giving away some fun and valuable prizes! And there are six different ways to enter for chances to win! First, the prizes… There are three prizes being given away, one to each of three separate winners:

1. One lucky winner will receive a free lifetime license to My Homeschool Transcripts! And if you’re already a customer, you’ll receive a full refund of your purchase price! (So there’s no need to wait to see if you won before buying a license)
2. Another lucky winner will receive a three-pack of piano CDs by Steve Sensenig (MyHST’s creator). The three CDs are “Ivory Worship", “‘Tis So Sweet", and “Peaceful Journey". (You can see more about these CDs and Steve’s piano music at Worship Keys)
3. A third lucky winner will receive free webhosting for one year from Very Simple Hosting (MyHST’s webhost)

So, how do you enter? Use the widget below to enter so that your entries are properly tracked and tabulated. Using the widget below, there are several ways you can get entries into the drawing…

1. Like our Facebook page
2. Follow @MyHSTranscripts on Twitter
3. Tweet about this giveaway (come back to the widget to do this once a day for extra entries!)
4. Leave a comment on this blog post answering the question, “How did you first hear about MyHST?" (worth two entries!)
5. Write a blog post on your own blog and link back to this post — http://www.myhomeschooltranscripts.com/blog/2nd-anniversary-giveaway — for an extra three entries! (If you want to include the widget in your blog post, too, for people to be able to enter right from your post, click here to get the code
6. And the final way of entry, worth an incredible five entries, is to purchase a license to MyHST. If you enter this way, and end up winning the free license, we will refund your complete purchase price!

You have until 11:59 PM (Eastern Daylight Savings Time) on Monday, April 15 to enter, and winners will be announced by Monday, April 22. Spread the word about MyHST, and good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I realize it has been a year since our last blog post, and that is sad because there is much going on behind the scenes of MyHST! So I want to take a few minutes to give you a little peak at what is coming in our third year.

We have made many updates and improvements over the last year in response to excellent feedback and suggestions from users. We also have found ways to improve the interface and operation of the program. Much of what we have done is invisible to the user, but trust me when I say that there have been numerous improvements “under the hood", so to speak!

This year, however, you will be able to see the changes that come. Within the next few months, we will be beta testing and rolling out some major changes (changes that are completely free to our existing customers, by the way!), such as:

• Report Card Functionality: This is probably our most-requested enhancement! For those who have students in lower grades and want to record classes that would not go on a transcript, we will be rolling out a new module (tentatively called My Homeschool Records or My Homeschool Report Cards). This will enable you to track ALL of your child’s grades and records, not just high school transcript classes!
• Customizable Transcript Layouts: Our second-most requested feature is the ability to customize the layout of the transcript. Up until now, users have been limited to just “by year" and “by subject" layouts that were pre-determined by us, with the ability only to include/exclude certain elements. We are working on a “widget"-type interface that will allow you to select the elements you want printed, and drag-and-drop them where you want them to print.
• New Program Interface: We are redesigning the interface from the top down so that there is easier navigation between items and more screen space allocated to actual data. A new tabbed interface will hopefully make the flow of the application even more intuitive for new users, and will allow us to include the new functionalities planned (as well as future functionality not-as-yet envisioned!) without cluttering up the screen with more menu options.
• More License Options: We realize that one size does not always fit all! So, we are working on ways to give our customers more choices in license purchasing, as well as easy upgrades if your initial purchase isn’t sufficient for you! This includes the possibility of using the free transcript generator and then moving into a paid license without having to start from scratch!

It’s a lot, we know, but we pride ourselves on providing the best service and solutions for homeschool transcripts, and we look forward to expanding that reputation to all of your homeschool record needs. Stay tuned in the weeks and months ahead as these enhancements become a reality. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to get instant alerts and other helpful information.

It’s hard to believe that it’s already been one full year since the launch of My Homeschool Transcripts! And to show you how excited we are about reaching one year, we’re offering a 25% discount on the purchase of a lifetime license until April 15! From now until the end of the sale, your purchase will automatically ring up at just $21.75 instead of the normal $29. But make sure to take advantage of this before April 15 ends because after that the price will no longer be discounted.

We know homeschoolers love a great deal, and this is one you won’t want to pass up. You will likely never see us offer the application at this low price ever again.

So, if you’ve been on the fence about MyHST, this is the time to snag the purchase of a lifetime license at one of the lowest prices it will ever be offered. In fact, word on the street is that before too long, more functionality is going to be added to MyHST and the price is going to go up for future purchases. But if you purchase now, you will have a lifetime license to the application, including access to any future functionality rolled into this application! You can’t beat that!

We are very excited to announce that we have begun development on an Android version of MyHST! If you have an Android smartphone, tablet, etc., you’ll be able to install this app once it has been developed, and access/edit your information from your Android device.

Why Android, and not iPhone? Well, first of all, let me assure you that an iPhone app is also slated for the future. And while it seems that most companies start with iPhone apps and then (maybe) branch out into Android apps, we have chosen to go the other direction for several reasons:

• We have Android phones and not iPhones, so testing is already possible for us on our own devices without having to purchase new and expensive equipment.
• Apple requires payment just for the privilege of developing an application for the iPhone, before you even get access to the tools necessary to develop something.
• Apple’s app store has a much stricter process to get into, and there’s actually no guarantee that your app will be accepted by Apple for sale in their app store.  Android, on the other hand, has a much easier (and cheaper) process to get apps into the Android Market.

So, all in all, Android seemed like a good first step for us into the mobile market.  We are hoping to have the first version of an Android app available by this fall, so stay tuned!

Nothing makes us happier than getting feature requests from our users. For one, that helps us know that people really are using the program and getting something out of it. Not only that, but it helps us continue to show our customers our desire to respond to improvement requests by making the program even better for our users.

A couple of recent changes came as a result of requests from users, and we wanted to draw attention to those.  First of all, in following the pattern of being able to delete subjects, classes, student enrollment in classes, etc., we now have added the capability to delete test scores.  If you enter a test score by accident (say, for the wrong child) or for whatever reason you wish to remove a particular test from a student’s transcript records, you can easily do that now.  When you are on the screen where you enter and edit test scores, you’ll notice now that any existing test score entries have a “delete" link next to them. The rest is fairly self-explanatory, I think.

Also, graduation date has now been added as an option for each student.  On the “edit student info" screen, right before the graduation requirements is a new field labeled “Graduation Date".  This field (like student birthdate and other date fields) brings up a pop-up calendar when the field is active (either you click on the field, or you tab into it from another field), or you can manually enter a date (please use mm/dd/yyyy format).

Keep the suggestions and ideas coming, folks. We appreciate your feedback and involvement!

Our free generator has been getting some traffic lately, and in doing some testing today, we discovered a rather significant bug in the GPA calculations. (This bug does NOT exist in the paid version…this was unique to the free version.) Because of the nature of the application, when we stripped down the licensed version to provide a free version, a lot of code had to be rewritten. In the course of rewriting that code to accommodate the free version, our GPA calculations accidentally left a critical step out.

So, some of you who used the Free Transcript Generator on April 28 may have experienced some strange results with the GPA that printed on your transcript. That bug is now fixed, so if you would like to enter your data again, you’ll get a transcript that has the correct calculations, we hope!

We apologize for any inconvenience, and are rather embarrassed at the fact that this bug existed in the first place!

Well, our official launch took place with much fanfare, and we have gotten a lot of feedback from customers and potential customers. Additionally, we have noticed that in various places around the web, more and more simple “transcript generation" services and online tools are popping up. For free!

So, we figured, based on the input of quite a few people, to make some significant changes to how we are offering My Homeschool Transcripts to you.

First of all, we have our own brand-new FREE transcript generator now! So it’s no longer a matter of a paid product trying to compete with a free one. We think–quite humbly, of course!–that our free generator is superior to others out there. And it’s wide open to anyone who wants to use it.

Secondly, we have dramatically reduced the price of a paid license. Frankly, we got a lot of pushback on the price we had set initially. And while I could take the time to defend that price point, I realize that value is not necessarily something you can convince someone of. They either perceive value, or they don’t. Even some of our beta testers were quite honest (and we are thankful for that!) in saying that they only perceived the value because they got to use the program. Had they been presented with the program as a potential purchase without the hands-on experience, they likely would have moved on without buying it.

So, now, we have set a brand-new price that, in our opinion, is a steal! You can now purchase a lifetime license to My Homeschool Transcripts for just $29!! That’s right, we are offering more than a 60% discount from our original price! And half of our special launch price.

Have you been one of the many people who checked out the website and moved on without buying? Well, now, you don’t have much excuse for passing it by. It’s less than $30! And don’t forget that if you’re dissatisfied with it for any reason, we’ll refund every penny of that to you!

So what are you waiting for? Go ahead. Turn My Homeschool Transcripts into Your Homeschool Transcripts today!

Finally, after many months of development, beta testing, and planning, we are officially launched! And frankly, we couldn’t be more excited about it! If you’ve been following us on Twitter or Facebook or even just here, you’ll know that we’ve been building up to this launch with anticipation.

There is still so much more that we want to eventually do with this program, but it’s time for the public to start using it and gaining from it.  And our commitment is to continue to develop, expand, improve, and enhance this application based on your feedback.  One of the foundational principles of MyHST is that it should be customizable and flexible enough for any homeschool, and powerful enough to meet the needs of any family that uses it.  While the ultimate emphasis has been on generating official transcripts, our plans for expansion include much more.

During this initial launch phase, we are offering some significant deals, as well as some fun opportunities for even greater savings.  To begin with, the regular purchase price of $79 is knocked down to $59. This will last for the first week of the launch.  The early birds get the cheapest worms

Additionally, we are offering some random opportunities to save even more money.  For example, to start off with, the 20th person to purchase a license will receive a complete refund of their purchase price!  That’s right–if you are the 20th customer to purchase a license, you will end up receiving the program for free. (We’ll refund your money completely just as soon as we are aware that we have reached 20 purchases and can identify who the 20th purchaser was.)

We’ll throw in a few other interesting opportunities as the launch celebration continues. So stick around, or check back often.  And above all, take advantage of these opportunities to buy a life-time license at significant savings!  These savings won’t be around forever, but this is your opportunity to jump in and be one of the early adopters of this new program.

Thank you for your interest and for considering My Homeschool Transcripts™!

When we first entered the beta testing phase, we were shooting for a launch date of June 1, 2011. That seemed very realistic at the time, and we figured that a lot would happen during the beta phase that would necessitate that length of time.

However, the beta testers have already been over the program several times, made quite a few wonderful suggestions which we quickly incorporated (most of the suggestions given were able to be incorporated within just a few hours of the suggestion being submitted), and the application seems incredibly stable and ready for “prime time".

With that in mind, and recognizing that some may think this is a joke (which it is not!), we have officially set April 1, 2011 as the launch date for My Homeschool Transcripts™! There are just a few more things that we would like to get ready before then, but everything else is set to go, and we’re just focused now on getting the word out.

If you are on Facebook, you can “like" our fan page, which you can reach by clicking the Facebook logo in the sidebar.  If you are on Twitter, follow our new Twitter account by clicking the Twitter logo in the sidebar.

We have some heavy marketing lined up for the summer, but you won’t have to wait that long to purchase this software! So, check the countdown in the sidebar, check back here for updates, and make sure you come back April 1 to purchase!  You never know…there may be some special launch deals available

The user manual has been completed for what we’re calling version 0.8 of the application.  As the beta testing phase has progressed, numerous changes have been made to the application, and this version of the manual now represents the latest/greatest version of the application.

It is unlikely that the application will change very significantly prior to the public launch, but it is possible that some of the screen shots will be slightly different from what one sees in the application, depending on when they access the application and/or read this manual!

If your browser is configured to open PDF files directly, you can simply click the link below to view the manual. If, however, you wish to save the manual to your local computer, or are unable to open the link in your browser, right-click the link and choose “Save As…" or some similar command (varies from browser to browser) that allows you to download the file and save it to your computer.

Here is the link to the manual. It is roughly 2MB in size.