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Artspan and Utrecht art suppliers are happy to announce that they are partnering to bring Artspan members a 15% discount off Utrecht pricing at Utrecht.com. We have posted their banner and link on Artspan member Control Panel pages.

We are also posting a banner on the Artspan Forum pages for Forum participants who will get a 10% discount. For both links, the discount will automatically be added at checkout. Utrecht has always had great prices. Now, for you, they are even better.

Also take a look at the clearance and sale items - while they are not included in the discount, there is always something interesting. I can add my personal endorsement: I have been buying from Utrecht for over 20 years. Quality and delivery are first-rate.

As we add features, site management can be a little more complex. Therefore, we have added some tutorial videoss for the main features. You can click on them in the Control Panel. If you don’t have the latest version of Flash, that can be easily downloaded by clicking on the link.

Upload video, pdf and more. (Monday May 5)
We have changed the location and simplified the icon that allows you to place an image on your pages (non-gallery pages in the Website Pages section). We have also added an icon allowing you to upload video, pdf and other files on to our server so that you can link to them from your pages. That is, click on the link and the file opens, whether it’s a video, pdf or other. Here are three icons to look at:

1. Insert Link icon (top row of icons at the bottom of the textbox, fourth from right).
   Type or paste the desired web page URL in the “Link URL’ field. Always start with http://. Then click on Insert.
   


2. Upload File. (this is the folder icon in second row of icons, second in from the right). This is for video, pdf and other files. Using this feature, you will place the file on the server and create a link to it so that the visitor can pull up that file for viewing.
   Click on the folder icon, then click on Upload. A new window appears: Browse your hard drive for the file and click on Upload. You see a message that the file has been uploaded. In the main File Manager page click on checkbox next to the file name and click Insert. You have created a link to the file and a visitor can now access this video, pdf or image file.
   


3. Insert image (second row of icons, all the way to the right). This icon is used to place image(s) on the page itself (not simply to have it accessible via a link on the page as in Upload File).
   Click on the icon. The click on the Browse icon to the right of the top field and locate the image on your hard drive. Click on that image to upload it. The Image Description field is for the Alt text that appears when the mouse is held over the image. You can leave it blank. The Alignment controls where the text appears in relation to the image. You can also set the dimensions but will probably find it easier to upload it at around 300-400 pixels as the maximum dimension and then to resize by dragging from one of the corners.

This may be a bit confusing at first as regards images.
Again, with the Upload File icon you can place an image on our server and when a visitor clicks on the image on your page, it will show. This could be used in the event you wanted to allow visitor access to especially large images.
With the Insert Image icon, you are placing the image on the page itself.

If you upload a video or some large images, you may well need more disk space. Please let Denise know via the Help Desk.

You will also see that the background color in the text fields in the Website Pages section is now the same color as your website and the type is the same color as your font.

Slideshow fix and other projects
Other projects: we spent this month fixing some minor slideshow issues and other problem areas. We continue work on the automated billing system which is necessary to introduce the prints offering. That is, your images can be selected by a buyer and matted and framed and shipped. Artspan will bill and pay you by check.

Artspan email
We will also introduce a new version of Artspan email next week. It’s in test..

Thanks to the efforts of our Portals Editor, Nina Alvarez, we were able to add this month the following Portals: Art in NY, Pastels, Watercolor and Drawing. Nina has also added and revised resources and features for Botanical, Portraiture and has updated almost other portals.

Coming this month: Mosaic, Black & White Photography, Metal Arts, Wood Arts, and Landscape Photography. We will have about 30 portals up by July, all done in the last year. The Portals are of critical importance in growing traffic to Artspan and through to your sites.

Comments and suggestions: portals@artspan.com.

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Make sure you renew your domain on time.
You will lose your domain if you don’t renew by the day before it expires. When you receive a warning email that your domain is about to expire, don’t delay. If you have Yahoo, AOL or Hotmail emails, please check your bulk/spam folder regularly for important emails that have been misdirected by their spam filters.

What happens when you don’t renew?
There are companies who automatically snap up domains when they expire. Worst case for a member was a porn company who bought her domain after it expired.

We urge everyone to put your domain on automatic renewal or to renew for multiple years – that way you insure that you will not lose the domain and all the work that has gone into promoting it.

There is a measure before the U.S. Congress which would weaken the copyright law. The legislation is intended to address a problem surrounding orphan works – these are works which have no clear owner. The legislation will relax user restrictions and penalties for any violations. What this means is that all artists and photographers will need to take an active role in protecting their work. Read more here.

We would suggest you write or email your congressman (if you are in the U.S.). If you don’t know who that is, here is where to find out. You would then need to go here to get the official email for them

I have read that Canada will follow the U.S. in this, and expect that other countries may also use this as a template. So this is something of concern to all members.

Copyright 2008. Artspan LLC. All rights reserved.

All images are the property of their respective owners. The opinions expressed in this newsletter do not necessarily reflect those of artspan.com members.

Thoughts or ideas for future newsletters? ask@artspan.com

Technical questions or problems? www.artspan.com/help

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