Launching our new print sales site

05/02/2006 05:00:11 PM · #1

Hi Folks...
Just wanted to share with you that Pete (Ganders) and I finally launched our new print sales site. It's not finished and there are minor changes in the pipeworks but it's up and running.
At the moment there's an introductory discount offer, details on home page.
Comments welcome, hope you like it!

fsquared images

05/03/2006 05:50:54 PM · #2

:o(
No comments at all?
:o(

Nusbaum

Fujifilm X-T1

Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM

05/03/2006 05:55:44 PM · #3

I really like the look of the site. I did experience a couple of errors while browsing through the london gallery. I'm sure this is minor, but I thought I would let you know.

Canon EF 17-40mm f/4.0L USM

05/03/2006 05:58:28 PM · #4

Oh crap... the site was down for a while today because our hosting site had an outage. Our other site hosted with them is now running fine but this one is ASP.net and it looks like their statement some hours back that all sites were up and fine was made without bothering to check! Definitely some problems I can spot...

:(

Sorry!

Please try again in a day or two and excuse us while we have another "word" with the hosting company.

Sigh!

Message edited by author 2006-05-03 17:58:52.

Ecce_Signum

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

05/03/2006 05:59:01 PM · #5

Not sure if its my browser (FF 1.5.0.3) but the link isn't loading :(

edited to say....

refreshed the page and I got in but got errors on the first visit to each gallery link, again a page refresh cleared the problem (something about bios limits and config files?)

edited again after reading your reply above ;)

Message edited by author 2006-05-03 18:04:30.

robs

Canon EOS R6 Mk II

05/03/2006 06:14:04 PM · #6

I get this every now and then when hitting gallery from the main or a detail picture in a gallery... :-))

Server Error in '/' Application.
Configuration Error
Description: An error occurred during the processing of a configuration file required to service this request. Please review the specific error details below and modify your configuration file appropriately.

Parser Error Message: An error occurred loading a configuration file: Failed to start monitoring changes to '\\nas1.hosting.netcetera.co.uk\inetc689$\virtualservers\000441\fsi\galleries' because the network BIOS command limit has been reached. For more information on this error, please refer to Microsoft knowledge base article 810886. Hosting on a UNC share is not supported for the Windows XP Platform.

Source Error:

[No relevant source lines]

Source File: \\nas1.hosting.netcetera.co.uk\inetc689$\virtualservers\000441\fsi\galleries\web.config Line: 0

Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework Version:2.0.50727.42; ASP.NET Version:2.0.50727.42

Message edited by author 2006-05-03 18:14:59.

tonyv

Canon EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM

05/03/2006 06:25:21 PM · #7

Kavey ... the same problems as robs.

I like the simple layout, subdued colours and easy navigation.

Cheers
Tony

TrynityRose

Nikon D100

Nikon AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8

05/03/2006 06:50:20 PM · #8

You may want to be careful with the shipping costs it auto adds to the checkout without finding out where the person resides. Unless you're overcharging people in the UK I'm sure if a buyer from the US (or other) decides to purchase prints then it'll be more expensive than shipping in the UK.

benhur

Canon EOS-40D

Canon EF 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 USM

05/03/2006 06:52:41 PM · #9

Hi Kavita,
Nice site, pity about the occasional error screenbut I am sure you will get this sorted.
I have had a quick read of the help section and there are a few gramatical errors.
In both 'unmounted' and the first 'mounted' bullet points it woud read better if it said ...
the photographer "will" sign ...
If your capitalise a 'G' on Galleries then you need to do the same with all 'Galleries' and 'Gallery'
in the 'How do I place an order' section the "1." needs to be removed from point 2
also replace the "," with a ";" after tax invoice.
as said nice site and great pictures.

BTW I proof read a catalogue of over 350 pages (and growing) every 6 months.

ganders

Canon EOS-40D

Tamron SP AF 28-75mm f/2.8 XR Di for Canon

05/04/2006 05:05:40 AM · #10

Apologies all; the errors were all the aftermath of some problems the hosting company had yesterday and they didn't exactly fix things as well as they thought.

Wasn't helped by the fact they took over 9 hours to respond to an 'urgent' support call either :-(

It appears to all be back to normal now, and the hosting company appears to have closed my support call (although they haven't bothered communicating with me in any way...)

It would be less annoying if I hadn't spent ages carefully selecting them!

Ben

Canon EOS-30D

Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM

05/04/2006 05:26:10 AM · #11

Really pleasing site with some great photos.
I had no errors, using Firefox.
Just out of curiosity who do you use for your printing services? If you don't mind telling that is.

lentil

Canon EOS-5D

Canon EF 135mm f/2.0L USM

05/04/2006 05:35:47 AM · #12

yay kv and ganders!! Looks great.. I am sure you will have a ton of success with it.. Hugs from oz

gentle lentil :)

alexgarcia

Canon EOS-350D Rebel XT

Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro

05/04/2006 05:40:11 AM · #13

Wonderful site, but most important, beautiful photos. Congrats for your site and have a lot of success

suemack

Canon EOS-20D

05/04/2006 05:57:31 AM · #14

Hi Kavey and Pete. Site looks fantastic!!

User friendly from dialup perspective.....loads quickly, easy to browse through your wonderful galleries.

05/04/2006 02:09:44 PM · #15

Originally posted by TrynityRose:

Actually we invested a lot of time and thought into shipping costs... we worked out costs of and packing materials (after trialling various options), we looked into weights and shipping costs worldwide for surface mail, airmail and so on.

We decided to simplify and charge one single cost for postage anywhere worldwide. In the UK that pays for recorded delivery whereas for the rest of the world it's standard airmail... delivery times will be different depending on destination.

We've said this in the Help pages, though not in as much detail. I may review that if we get any other comments on this issue.

We also decided we'd only charge postage on the first (heaviest/ largest) item, regardless of the fact that there would be some additional costs for us since we felt that this gave an additional saving to people buying more than one item - we eat the extra costs from the profits on those extra items.

05/04/2006 02:11:10 PM · #16

Originally posted by benhur:

FANTASTIC! Thank you! That first bit you mentioned is my fault - due to a last minute change in wording!

Will look into rest next week. Very grateful!

05/04/2006 02:13:46 PM · #17

What's gutting about the outage and subsequent tech. problems with this hosting company is a) that the site has actually been up and functioning fully for a few weeks but the day I "launch" it by posting about it on a few forums is the day the hosting company f*** up and b) we recently transferred to them because of their 24 hour support - but we had no response to the support call we logged late last night (not the first on this saga but the first one after they insisted everything was fixed without actually checking) and infact had no response until this morning... which suggests they do NOT have someone on call 24 hours at all...

GRRRRRRRRRR!

:o)

THANKS everyone on the nice comments on site design etc.

05/04/2006 02:16:02 PM · #18

Originally posted by Kerm:

Really pleasing site with some great photos.
I had no errors, using Firefox.
Just out of curiosity who do you use for your printing services? If you don't mind telling that is.

Kerm, having tried several I use photobox; the reason being that where a print is not done to my satisfaction they will rectify it - their support is GOOD. Now I'm calibrating my monitors I'm reasonably happy with colour accuracy... they don't have device profiles on smaller print sizes but do for the much larger sizes which are printed on a different machine.

05/05/2006 05:59:22 AM · #19

Thought I'd top once more now it actually seems to be working properly.
Any further proofing/ checking would be very helpful!
THANK YOU!

bfox2

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

05/05/2006 06:37:47 AM · #20

The only thing I don't like (my oppinion) is the "Welcome to fsquared images â�� a gallery of original photographic prints by Pete & Kavita Favelle."

I feel like it looks a little bit unprofessional with the hyphon in there. I don't know if you tried other ways of doing it but I might suggest:

Welcome to fsquared images
A gallery of original photographc prints by
Pete & Kavita Favelle

Print the 'welcome' one a little bit bigger and the second two a little smaller. You could even link the names to a bio or something.

Another thing I noticed is that your links look pretty much the same as a) the headlines and b)the bolded text in the body. I think its pretty obvious that your links are the links but I'm kindof left wanting to click the 15% and the LAUNCH in the body, as well as the headlines. Some differentiation might be nice, but thats all up to you...as is everything else since its your site :) so I'll shutup now!

Nope, sorry, one more thing I noticed! If you're going to have more News at a later date, you might print the News a little bigger and then the individual headline a little smaller underneath. Ok, I'm done now I swear!!

-Ben

bfox2

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM

05/05/2006 06:41:46 AM · #21

Ok sorry I'm back but I'd for sure suggest putting a copyright in smaller print at the very bottom right or left. Ok I'm going to get dinner now so no more no more I promise for real!

notonline

Canon EOS-350D Rebel XT

05/05/2006 07:31:45 AM · #22

It looks good but the biggest you print is 11X14???

edit to add: this is one reason I don't not offer anything on dpcpirnts. Anything I have ever been asked to print has always been bigger.

Message edited by author 2006-05-05 07:32:52.

Tamron SP AF 24-135mm f/3.5-5.6 AD Aspherical IF for Canon

05/05/2006 01:49:23 PM · #23

Ben, please don't apologise - all your suggestions and feedback are very helpful and I really appreciate it ALL! I'll review next week and decide what to change... THANK YOU!

Kevin, thanks for your question - the answer is somewhat complicated: Some of the original files for the prints on offer were taken on a camera with less resolution and simply don't scale up well enough to print at larger sizes - these will never be offered at larger sizes. Some of the images are currently being printed from mid-resolution scans made of the negatives at the time of processing - these scans aren't sufficiently high resolution to print at larger sizes BUT we have recently purchased a negative scanner and will slowly be re-scanning all of those negatives which will allow us to offer those images at larger print sizes. Lastly, a few of the images that were taken on the 20D and upsized well using Genuine Fractals are already available in larger print sizes - check out the Antarctica gallery which currently goes up to about 20x30 inches.

I don't want to offer larger than that until I have had prints made at these sizes and been able to verify that I'm happy with quality... I also want to get some giclee prints done and once I've assessed thoughs and found a good supplier, that will be added as an option too!

:o)

nards656

Canon EOS-300D Rebel

05/05/2006 03:14:25 PM · #24

Just a personal taste thing, here, not a complaint...

I'm slightly "put off" (does that sound rude? I don't mean to) by sites that begin with "Welcome to..." It's an extra line of text that accomplishes nothing, and I usually wonder if the site writer was struggling for copy. Just open with "A Gallery of Original Photography Prints by Pete and Kavita Favelle."

Just my two cents. I too like the layout.