PixBlog

[Rolygate]

We’re working hard on a website upgrade right now. The ecommerce application we use, MivaMerchant, isn’t easy to upgrade so it will be a little tricky at first, and no doubt with a few glitches.

Part of the problem is that the new version is a completely new series, which always creates havoc when it finally happens. There are many website applications also currently in the throes of big version upgrades: Joomla of course (the biggest CMS project in the world), plus Drupal and recently Plone; and phpBB in the world of forums. Others of course if I could remember them.

The reason so many are making such big changes is related to the relentless progress of the Internet, and especially technical improvements that affect all website software, in particular dynamic applications. So much has changed in the last Internet change cycle of 18 - 24 months that it is almost as if many application developers are starting from scratch. The impact of vastly-increased user demands in the areas of functionality, accessibility and search success has forced a new look at how applications work. Web application software is morphing strongly at the moment in order to keep up.

Usability

We expect to upgrade in around a month or so but the groundwork has to be done now. We might go for a new look - or we might decide to stay with what has been so successful for us, and keep the same basic design.

The single most important thing to us right now is to maintain the very high level of easy usability we are known for. Customer after customer tells us “Your site is so easy to use compared to the others”. And don’t we know it! Of course, in order to maintain maximum usability it is necessary to sacrifice some Web 2.0 design - but we don’t care. Simple is best, as has been proved time and time again. Why make it hard? Lots of our competitors do - and we just love it! Of course, no one can fully compete with the magnificent Lordprice; they would have to start out by having a vast and unmeasurable supply of classic images, together with the highest standards of usability. A tough challenge indeed…

Toulouse-Lautrec

The boss just managed to get some of the Toulouse-Lautrec collection up on the website, between trips to the rugby and the races, so visit the Art Nouveau pictures section to see them. Being a simple techie, I had no idea this was Art Nouveau of course; I’m more familiar with his frilly dancers. I suppose I thought he was an impressionist or something. Quel sauvage! Un anglais bien sur.

Wall Street Crash

Turmoil in the world of finance at the moment means that many visitors are looking at our Finance pictures now. There seems to be a particular interest in the Wall Street Crash for some reason.

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 [SteveP]

The festive season is coming round again. Any time now the shops will resound to the happy wails of Noddy Holder screaming ‘It’s Chriiistmaaas’, a sadly temporary spirit of goodwill to others will be diluted by shopping rage and the stress of the season, and we face the prospect of all those presents we neither want nor need that will be consigned to gather dust in the attic.

It doesn’t have to be that way! A framed picture makes a lasting gift through which you can demonstrate your thoughtfulness and taste, and in a portfolio as vast as The Lordprice Collection’s there’s bound to be an image to suit your loved ones’ interests - or your own. What’s more, you can do it from the comfort of your own home and have your choice delivered to your door or business address. How much more civilised than fighting through the crowds.

I’m anxious to avoid gender stereotyping and most of the images here are of such merit and quality - they are classics, after all - that they make presents equally suitable for girls and guys, but here are a few thoughts to give you some ideas for a special gift that will grace any wall to remind the recipient what a special person he or she - and you - are.

Gifts for her

Traditional (and unconventional) ladies’ interests form a large part of the range. Fashion pictures are often striking images evocative of the best of style and class (no J-P Gaultier here). In fact, some of the more risqué images (some are unintentionally so) will appeal to the man in your life. It’s a curious fact (well it surprises me, anyway) that Shoe pictures constitute one of our most popular subjects.

Elsewhere Style and period images come from the Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian periods. This category is probably one of my own favourites because it includes the Art Deco and Art Nouveau sections.

Other sections to consider:

• Music, Stage and Entertainment
• Movies
• Animals

Gifts for him

Being a bloke I’m probably on firmer territory here. For the men in your life take a look at Sport and Planes, Trains, Automobiles (and ships and bikes). For the more martial of men try the Military section.

Perhaps a little glamour will hit the spot (but be warned, it’s all in the best possible taste). You could also try:

• Movies
• People

Gifts for the home

How about a picture from a location around the world, or somewhere in the UK, to remind someone of their origins or association, or perhaps a particularly memorable holiday or trip?

• Around the World
• United States
• England
• Scotland
• Ireland
• Wales

Drink and Food pictures go down a treat in the kitchen or dining room. But perhaps the most impressive and striking presents would come from the Art Deco and Art Nouveau categories. They really do make wonderful talking points and create an unrivaled ambience.

These are just a few ideas. Browse the site to satisfy your own inspiration! And remember, Lord Price can create pictures in any size, frame and mount, so your choice is bound to be exactly what you want.

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[rolygate]

Well, the England team got to the final. Who’d have thought it.

The Lordprice team (or some of them) took part in an expedition or two across the ditch. Maybe they’ll tell us what happened. Blow by blow, or drink by drink more likely.

Here’s a link to the picture of a previous occasion:

England v South Africa rugby teams 1906

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[rolygate]

Nice picture of a Parisian metro entrance on the website of one of our pals - have a look. Shame about the fat Brit in the pink shirt though - really lowers the tone of the place.

How come we didn’t bomb that flat in the war, then?

As you say, Nick, what a superb example of Guimard that Abbesses entrance is. And no, this recent edit was in no way designed to influence the search results for ‘Guimard Abbesses‘ - how could you think such a thing?

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[rolygate]

Steve, some fine stuff there in the Champagne pictures category. Am in awe of your powers of consumption and analysis. (Scroll down to the bottom of the page, below the pictures, and you’ll see the information I’m referring to.)

Oysters: tend to agree with you on the slime score. However, have you ever tried smoked oysters? To die for, dear fellow. Of course you must have, an epicure of your class - but I expect you had enjoyed a little too much Bolly at the time and couldn’t remember much the following day. No matter. Personally (mainly because decent smoked oysters are never to found when you fancy some), I tend to go for grilled oysters.

With this cunning method, you don’t even have the bother of opening them, since they usually open themselves under the grill. And, if time is short, there’s always the microwave!

Must try Cava some time; Rioja is my favourite tipple - after rum naturally - so I’ve nothing against the Spanish. As you say, shame about the lack of Bolly pix on the site; Stolly as well, of course. I don’t think LordPrice has any Russian sources, though. Did I ever tell you about my trip to Moscow? Been?

One point though: in the penultimate paragraph, you mention “…charming ladies who clearly know how to enjoy themselves and their escorts.”

I wonder if you actually meant to say that? A Freudian slip induced by too much Cava, no doubt.

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 [LordPrice]

The 6th Rugby World Cup starts on Friday in Paris. Lord Price is attending some of the duller games (ie those few involving England before they are knocked out) but you might like to get a flavour of the real game with the Lordprice Collection. See Rugby Pictures for a glimpse of days of yore when real men pkayed the Great Game for pure enjoyment and beer.

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[SteveP]

The Lordprice Collection is a British operation (the name and dot-co-dot-uk are a bit of a giveaway) and proud of it, but what’s perhaps not widely enough appreciated is that Lordprice uses modern technology to supply pictures and images from its unique collection around the world. It’s not very British to blow one’s own trumpet, but we can at least let the world know we have a trumpet to blow.

What prompted this thought was an order for a framed picture we got earlier this week from Canada.

We have two main examples of overseas transactions. We have licensed pictures for publications in the United States, New Zealand and Japan. That means sending a high-resolution image suitable for publication by email or, less often, on CD. Straightforward.

For physical distribution of framed pictures the coverage and quality of modern courier networks mean that Lordprice can ship almost anywhere in the world and the picture will arrive promptly and completely undamaged. Lordprice has specialist framing agents in the United States and South Africa to provide even higher service levels, but lead time from the UK is pretty good anyway. We’ve shipped to the US, Canada (as I say), Australia, the Netherlands, Germany, France and Ireland inter alia. Lordprice is somewhat disappointed that he hasn’t been inundated with orders from Slovenia yet - he made so many new friends on rugby tour there earlier this year and they all seemed impressed with his slivovic trick.

The best example of the international dimensions of Lordprice has been our work with Japan. Our client, Tokio Ohkawa, has accepted the challenge of introducing the works of that Great Briton, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, to young Japanese and has published a book on the subject. Lordprice has an outstanding portfolio of Brunel material and provided images for the book and framed pictures to accompany Ohkawa’s stand at the recent Tokyo book fair.

Most impressively, Lordprice manages to ship his framed pictures abroad for the same price as he does the UK. He says it’s something about generosity and market penetration. I suspect it’s more to do with having lots of different rates for different geographies being too complicated for his small and challenged mind.

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[rolygate]

…that chap Nick S is - a very solid fellow indeed. He’s given me a link to my new website, which is all about SEO and Usability, from his magnificent railway posters site.

Perhaps I could quote him on this subject: “…and in an unusual mood of thoughtfulness and generosity I bunged one to Chris’s site from my links (not NetResources) page.”

Well now - that’s most welcome. But what’s this? His ‘links’, not ‘NetResources’ page. Hmm. That bears a little comment, I think. Let’s take a closer look at his ‘links’ page:

www.southernposters.co.uk/links-southernpo.html

I don’t know if perhaps my eyes have completely failed at last, but to me that reads ‘links-southernpo.html’ - not ‘links.html’, which one would assume he was referring to as a better arrangement. What strange chappies these business fellows are! Technology is not really their strong point, is it? One of their number was recently heard to say “Technicals are all complete *rubbish*”, though I had to replace the precise word reputed to have been used. A person, in fact, quite similar to Nick himself in description.

Perhaps I could explain the links thing a little better? And believe me, dear reader, it has to be in very short words and small doses to stand a chance of assimilation by these chappies! Not that they have a problem with assimilation, of course, as long as you make it Bollinger or Super Bock.

OK - the best link would be from within content (just like this in fact), to your desired internal page (not the index page). The next best would be from a resource page not called ‘Links’, but something a little more adventurous. The lowest value link of all comes from a links page, because quite rightly, that is deprecated.

Now, was that easy enough? And another thing - if you’re going to give me a link, is there any chance you could do it from a page with a higher Page Rank? That would really help a lot, actually. Or perhaps you could do something to raise the PR of that page a little? Would really appreciate it…

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[rolygate]

I found a solution to the security certificate problem. It involved endless research, countless emails, hours online and huge expense (well, about £12 a year). The answer: a new IP. The original problem: everybody on the server is on the same IP, which is the standard arrangement in web hosting.

But, if you get yourself a unique IP, then you can have your own SSL certificate - problem solved. Actually, you then have to pay $XX per year for a certificate if you want one, but I haven’t mentioned that to Lord Price yet (or the honorary accountant, which is probably of more import). So: front up a very small amount of dosh for a new IP, and maybe a bit more for a certificate, and it’s problem solved.

The shared/unique IP question is quite interesting, so I might do a bit more on that next time round.

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[rolygate]

Struck a problem with the site certicate logos - the ‘Secured by…’ etc logos that show who audits the security at the shopping cart end of the site. The problem is this: if you are an independent operator who sets up your own store, on any old server, you can get a certificate to show that the route out to your merchant partner’s credit card processing facility is secure (assuming it is, since it will be audited first - at least by those whose certificates are actually worth having).

However, if you are located within an entire secure ecommerce facility, with grade one security starting at the door so to speak, you can’t have a certificate. Even though the building, the servers, the entire set-up are all 1000% more secure than where a site owner just has a secure connection to his card agent.

This is because the certificates are issued to the site hosts, not the individual site owners (all 500 or 1,000 of them), so they cannot display the appropriate logos.

It doesn’t matter that the entire operation is much more secure than a go-it-aloner’s. The only way around this, as far as I can see at the moment, is for individual site owners to purchase their own (additional and completely unnecessary) certificates. You can be in a postnuke bunker facility with more security than Fort Knox, have multiple top-grade certificates from Verisign etc (as we do) and still have no right to display the logo on the front page.

This is something of a dichotomy, or a dilemma, or another one of those di- thingies. If you know of answer, please tell me, because I have to find a solution. And of course Lord Price is occupied elsewhere, feeding the pheasants or something, and in any case cares not a jot for anything remotely connected to technical affairs.

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