Author: rhaggart
Could not be more proud of what our photographers have done with our software that resulted in 12 awards from PDN (Photo District News) for Best Website Design. In the last 5 years we’ve won 31 times.
We just made an update to our Design X iPad App which adds a couple great improvements.
- Custom Thumbs – All the custom thumbs you are using on your site for photos, videos, text pages and contact forms are now uploaded to the app.
- Multimedia Swipe – You can now swipe between images, videos, text pages and contact forms. True multimedia support.
Additionally there are bug fixes and an iOS7 update to keep up with the latest improvements from Apple.
Download the app for FREE here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hellowork-portfolio/id689700469
Announcing A Major Update To Our Design X Admin
The admin, which previously used flash to accommodate older browsers, has been completely rewritten from the ground up in HTML5. This update eliminates flash completely from our system.
You will not find a more advanced easier to use admin for building your site anywhere in the world. We have a Patent Pending on the unique and intuitive software we invented for building websites.
Sell And License Your Images Through Fotomoto
FotoMoto is a print-on-demad e-commerce widget that now integrates seamlessly with your Design x website. Signing up for an account with FotoMoto will allow you to sell prints and licenses (and other things if you are interested) to all the images on your site. This integration adds a cart to your navbar that launches a clean and simple sales window. This is the best solution we’ve found and we know you’ll love all the controls they offer.
Major SEO Update
We’ve been seeing and hearing about how well our sites are performing in google searches since we made a major structural change to the sites that allows search engines to crawl them better. Additionally we hired an outside SEO consultant to audit the sites and have made changes based on his recommendations. I know you will be pleased with how your site performs (given time for the search engines to do their thing) after this major SEO update
More… There’s Always More
Along with hundreds of under-the-hood improvements to Design X and a more intuitive user iinterface, we’ve also incorporated some new features:
- iOS 7 changes/fixes for iPhone and iPad version of the site to open the menu easier (you can optionally display the desktop version instead).
- Drag and Drop images, videos and text to upload to your media library.
- Unlimited potential for html embedding and css on the text pages.
- Access your admin from phones and tablets now (since it’s all HTML5).
- You can now have more than one contact form for your site all with different email addresses.
- Upload spots for iPad and iPhone logos plus adjustments.
- Fix for masonry thumbs to make the bottom straighter.
- Randomize landing page media button.
- Percentage can now be used in logo and menu settings.
Now that our entire system is running in HTML5 you should see faster feature updates from us. We’ve got a few already nearing the testing stage.
The best part for existing customers is all they have to do is hit the update button to gain access to all these new features. Updates come standard.
Domains will be disabled, if you don’t verify them
ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) has new rules implemented where domain registrars are sending verification links out to the contact email listed for your domain name. If you don’t press the link the domain will be disabled after 15 days. We’ve seen a few customers who suddenly have their domain disappear and email shut off because of this. Don’t be one of them, make sure your contact information with your domain registrar (godaddy.com, namesecure.com, etc…) is current.
One of the most important parts of your website are the servers that deliver the pages to the internet. Since the very beginning we’ve worked exclusively with Rackspace to lease servers for our sites. Working with Rackspace allows us to continually upgrade the servers so they’re always the fastest most reliable we can get. Today we’re announcing two big upgrades to our hardware:
1. All demos and new signups are now on our new Everest server with the latest-greatest hardware. We’re in the process of moving all our existing sites there as well.
2. We’re attaching an Edge Cast CDN (the world’s fastest and most reliable content delivery network) to the front of the server to deliver files at 10x the current speed from locations all over the world.
Here’s a map of the different locations where your site files will be located giving you ultra fast service no matter where your clients reside.
We know how important speed and reliability is to our customers and this puts us in the very elite of website providers.
If you have any questions email them here: rob@aphotoeditor.com
Or visit YouTube: http://youtu.be/WrS77wlfzYw
…the U.S. branch of the trade association that represents Champagne makers in France, created a billboard ad campaign that read, “Maine lobster from Kansas? Of course not,” with a giant question mark made out of what appears to be Champagne. The billboards debuted shortly before New Year’s Eve, the biggest time of the year for Champagne purchases. To shoot the ads, the Champagne Bureau’s agency, Creature in Seattle, hired Bill Cahill, a still-life photographer with extensive experience shooting splashes and liquids.
After the agency sent his rep a comp showing how they envisioned the question mark, Cahill set about writing a brief explaining his idea for making their vision a reality. “Clients come to me with these ideas like, ‘a question mark made out of liquid’ and they really have no idea how it’ll happen,” he says. Once he figures out a solution, “I have to educate them and show them: This is how it works, this is how long it’ll take, this is what we have to do to make it happen.”
See more at: PDN Online
New iPad App For Design X
I’m elated to announce the availability of our new iPad app for Design X.
It’s called HelloWORK* Portfolio (By A Photo Folio). You can search for it in iTunes, on your iPad, or use this link:
https://itunes.apple.com/app/hellowork-portfolio/id689700469
Some highlights for those of you updated to Design X:
☞ Syncs your images, videos and now text pages onto an iPad
☞ Vimeo videos will playback if there’s a wifi or cellular connection
☞ Hidden content is synced so you can create a custom experience on the iPad
☞ New masonry thumbnails
☞ New sidebar/menu for easy navigation
A quick note for those of you interested in how we look at things: I had no plans to build another iPad app after our first one, because I figured by now there were plenty of options in the app store for portfolio apps. So, just to be sure I went and bought all the portfolio apps I could find. And to my surprise, I discovered that while there are plenty of options, none looked and worked the way I thought they should. So I built one that did.
New Australian Server
We have a new server in Australia. If you live on or around that lovely continent, lucky you… and you will see a significant speed increase moving to that server. You must be using Design X to move servers. Simply contact support to have your site moved over: support.aphotofolio.com
New Inquiry Button
We have a new button on the navbar called inquiry. It looks like a shopping cart and is intended to give your visitors the option to contact you or someone you designate (you decide where the inquiry goes) about purchasing or licensing an image or video. Think of it as bespoke sales.
Learn more here:
http://dxmanual.com/inquiry-button/
Existing customers only have to hit the UPDATE button in their admin to start using these exciting new features.
* HelloWORK is a new identity aPhotoFolio will be using soon.
Love how Kristianne Koch designed her site with different thumbnails depending on the gallery content, information up top on the menu and text pages inside the galleries. Just how we envisioned: that the sites adapt to the person and work, yet remain clean and functional.
See her site live here ☞ kristiannekoch.com
Here’s what that means:
The website template industry is very crowded. The CEO of Livebooks attributed their recent struggles and near demise before being bought by Wedding Wire to this very fact: “Patrick acknowledged that liveBooks has struggled financially in recent months. ‘We got to the point where we needed both financial support and people to continue to do what we’ve been doing.’ Patrick attributed the problems to increased competition–there are now 25 or 30 firms providing websites for photographers” (PDN Pulse story here). And, all of these companies want to attract a huge number of users so they aim their offerings at amateurs.
We cater to professionals. We created the first scaling template over 5 years ago because it didn’t exist and professionals wanted one. We were first with video, iphone sites, ipad sites, redundant navigation, social media icons, custom typography, ftp access, wordpress blogs, clean url’s, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited images, upload your own logo, change your own colors… because professionals wanted this
Now we lead the industry with professional features we invented:
– Patent-pending front facing site editor that is push-button and drag-and-drop.
– PDF portfolio creator
– iPad App (hand out ipads with your site app locked on the screen)
– Combine images, video and text in any gallery
– Place images, video, links and social icons anywhere on the menu
– Custom thumbnails for each gallery with 3 sizes, 4 positions and 4 styles
– EditDrop.com client area
We will continue to lead: we put an update button inside our admin so you can enjoy our latest features for life.
So, the industry is huge and you may not need what we offer (we get that) but if you need professional features and industry leading innovation: Welcome.
Rob Haggart, Founder
aPhotoFolio.com
