The language used to format your data on your website and publish it on the internet is called HTML. For the most part, MyArtClub.Com looks after the formatting of data on your site so you don't have to. However when you enter your Artist Information or Art Information, your data is subject to the same HTML formatting rules as the rest of your website. Using HTML, the web will delete all carriage returns, line feeds and extra spaces that you have entered. Therefore when you enter the following data into the MyArtClub.Com Artist data entry form: Gallery ABC 123 Main Street Vancouver You will see the information on your site as follows: Gallery ABC 123 Main Street Vancouver You overcome this, you must use a few basic commands to format the text so it appears as you want it to. What are some common format HTML tags you can use on your text? Give me a break You can format the data by adding wherever you'd like to have the Internet start a new line. To get the data to appear as you want, you must enter the data as such: Gallery ABC 123 Main Street Vancouver Tag - Your It When you are adding information to your site, you can format the text with some simple commands (called tags). The tags appear between the < and > characters Provides a line break Provides a space between two lines (paragraph mark) bold text Bolds the text that appears between the tags. underline text Underlines the text that appears between the tags. Lists, Lists, Lists If you wish to create a list of items and either number the list or use bullets to denote the list, you can use the following tags. Use the tag to specify an O rdered (numbered) L ist. Use the tag to specify an U nordered (bulleted) L ist.   For each item in the list, use the tag to specify a List Item. Close the list item with To finish the list, you must close the list with either or depending on the type of list you used. For example if you where to create a list of the medium you paint in, you could format your list as follows Entering your information like this:   Acrylic   Pen and Ink   Watercolour   Your information appears like this Acrylic Pen and Ink Watercolour Entering your information like this   Acrylic   Pen and Ink   Watercolour   Your information appears like this Acrylic Pen and Ink Watercolour Email me a copy To create a link to your email address, use the following html format: myemail[email protected] where you substitute your email address for "[email protected]" Link me up, Scottie To create a link to another site, use the following html format Note Use the exact symbols and (from experience!) test every time you add a new link to make sure it works: Click Here For My Other Site where you substitute your particular web address for "http://members.yahoo.com/myothersite" and where you substitute what you want to be clicked on for Click Here for My Other Site For more information on formatting your text There are many sites which offer information on formatting your text using HTML. Some sites which have introductory information can be found at: The Bare Bones Guide to HTML W3Schools: www.w3schools.com/html/default.asp HTML Goodies: www.htmlgoodies.com/primers/html HTML Code Tutorial: www.html.com You can also buy books which cover these topics at your favourite book store.   read more ...

You can review and manage all the email listings registered to your site. The email management feature is found under your "Member Site". Log in, click on the link "Build or Maintain information to Market your site" and look for "Add or update your mailing list information". Pay very close attention to the email address lettering. An email address is a tricky thing. Each address is a unique set of characters. If however, there is just one letter out of place, the email will not be delivered. What is even worse, it might go to someone you do not even know! So carefully write it down, and carefully enter it on your site. What does an email address look like? All email addresses have a @ sign in the middle. They do not have www. Usually they are written as: [email protected] For example, the webmaster of the MyArtClub.Com site has an email address of [email protected] To enter an email address on to your site First you must log in, then click on the link "Build or Maintain information to Market your site" and look for "Add or update your mailing list information". In the next screen, you will see a box showing who is already on your list. To the right of the box you see a space to put the email address just below the words "Enter Email address". Optionally, you can enter the person's name. If you have a lot of email addresses to enter, you can enter them in bulk. Click on the "Load Bulk email addresses" link. You can Bulk Load email addresses by entering them in the box displayed separated by ; (semi-colons) and clicking on the Bulk Add email addresses button. To enter the name, add it first with the email address between angle brackets < > For example: John Smith; J Smith; [email protected] Note the ; (semi-colon) at the end of each line except for the last one. When you click on the Bulk Add email addresses button, the list will be processed and your current mailing list will be displayed. You can click on the maintain your mailing list link to return to the first screen. You can delete one or more of the addresses on your list by clicking on the address (or holding down the Ctrl key while clicking on multiple addresses) and then clicking on the "delete email address(es)" button under the box. MyArtClub.Com attempts to keep the email list free from junk emails with a sign up screening however, your list may end up with junk emails that have gotten by our screening. We attempt to validate the email addresses whenever you send out a notice to your email list and will delete any addresses which fail the validation. You will notice an OK at the beginning of the email list. This indicates that the email at least passed the validation list. It may still be a junk email address. When you have added a few names to your mailing list, you can send them a notice about your art or upcoming shows. Just reload one of your pictures on your site. Perhaps one you are showing. (Or replace one picture with a new one - it is your choice). Then use the "Notify Your Fans" and add your message about your show; the resulting email will have a web link to the address of your picture attached to your note, to bring visitors to your site. This article first appeared in the My Art News Letter #2 and #4 read more ...

Size Matters The size of the art image you want to display on your website is of some importance to artists. As digital cameras become more prevalent and produce images of larger size, it is necessary to resize your images so that: The images are easily loaded. The images can't be used to reproduce your art illegally. In spite of the fact the speed of the internet is increasing, visitors will not stick around on your site if it takes minutes to show your works of art. As well, if you are loading a large image, it increases the opportunity for your image to be copied and used to produce it illegally. The computer screen typically requires only 72 dots per inch to view your image correctly and loading images of greater density doesn't increase the capability to view the image, only to be able to print it. Our recommended size MyArtClub.Com recommends a size of picture between 50 KB and 140 KB for best viewing results. If you load a picture between 50 KB and 140 KB, then it protects your art picture from being copied since the work looks fine on the screen but will be grainy if someone should try to print it out. If you try to load an image file that is greater the 2MB (2,000KB), MyArtClub.Com will reject the file being loaded. What do Pixels do? Your art image is measured in pixels. Your camera may download images that are 2000 pixels by 1500 pixels. However when MyArtClub.Com displays your image, it is displayed as an image that is 550 pixels wide (if the image is a landscape format image i.e. wider than it is tall) or as an image that is 450 pixels tall (if the image is a portrait format image i.e. taller than it is wide). Therefore when you load your art images, MyArtClub.Com will automatically resize your image file to fit these dimensions. If your image is taller than it is wide, it will resize your image pixel dimensions to 450 high (and less than 550 wide); or if your image is wider than it is tall, it will resize your image to 550 wide (and less than 450 high). It will then save your resized image in order to obtain an image file size between our recommended size of 50 KB to 140 KB. Don't touch that pixel To prevent MyArtClub.Com from resizing your art images or adjusting the quality (compression), save your portrait format images with 450 pixels EXACTLY high (and less than 550 wide) OR your landscape format images with 550 pixels EXACTLY wide (and less than 450 high). Replacing your picture with a better image In order to replace one of your pictures with a better image, simply go into the maintenance for the current picture and upload the new image (it will be loaded over top of the old one). If your picture looks grainy MyArtClub.Com recommends a size of picture between 50 KB and 140 KB for best viewing results for visitors who come to view your art. If your art is smaller (under 25 KB) it will look fine in the thumbnails but grainy when you look at it on the art page. If it is bigger than that (over 200 KB), it will take a long time to load (especially for people who are looking at it on lower speed lines). If you load a picture between 50 KB and 140 KB, then it protects your art picture from being copied since the work looks fine on the screen but will be grainy if someone should try to print it out. Replacing a picture with a new picture To replace the current picture with a new image, simply upload the new picture over the old one and then go into the art basic information and replace the existing descriptions with the description of the new art. Delete a picture from your site To delete a picture from your site, simply upload a new image over the old one and then go into the art basic information and replace the existing descriptions with the description of the new art. However, if you don't have a new work of art to replace the old one, you can use the delete function to remove the art work from your site. Later, when you are ready, load a new work of art in place of the deleted old work, and it will automatically show the new art image. Don't forget to update the description of the art image. read more ...

Thanks to artist Graham Eagle www.grahameagle.com for this suggestion which is available to all MyArtClub.Com artists. Deions and keywords are used by search engines to help catalogue internet pages. The words describe the page without necessarily appearing on the page, acting as 'behind- the-scenes' indexing. MyArtClub.Com has always had computer generated deions and keywords, based on entries made when an artist loads up their art. Search engines use these to varying degrees, to help surfers find your website. What Graham suggested was that MyArtClub.Com provide access for artists to modify and enter their own deion and keywords, to enhance the specific keywords linked to their pages. You may build additional selection into your search engine presence. For example, to the basic deion you might add "Now teaching art classes in certain community centres, including the Dogwood Pavilion, Coquitlam" and to the keywords you might add "art teacher, art classes, Dogwood Pavilion, Coquitlam. To access this feature, login in to your member site, select "Market your Artist Site", then click on "Maintain your Internet Keywords and Deion." This article was first published in the My Art News Letter #10 read more ...

If you take orders and sell your art online, you may be already aware that MyArtClub.Com provides the convenience of using Paypal or other payment providers to take orders. You can place your payment options with each work of art showing or you can create your own catalogue to show all your works on one page. MyArtClub provides each artist with their own catalogue space designed to let you arrange conveniently all the various ways you may sell your work. All you need to do is specify the product and the price, and the catalogue takes care of the rest. We also offer an email order form for your customer to send you an order by email. When the artist sets up their catalogue, a link appears from their artist page to their catalogue. The catalogue displays their art thumbnails included in the catalogue along with the information previously shown under each art page. Each work of art can have up to 8 different offerings. Therefore you can sell your original art, giclees as well as prints of your art in different sizes and perhaps cards, then you can list all of these formats in the catalogue with different prices attached to each. You can set up your catalogue so that you can use PayPal for payment service by email or bank transfer, have the customer contact you directly for payment or sell through your merchant services account. The catalogue is linked to the individual art page so that the payment options are also available on the art page. Here is how you do it To turn on your artist catalog, login in to your member site, click on the link to your "Maintain artist page" and select option 8, "Add your Artist Payment Options". Select option 2 to start your catalog. Then click on the "Art" tab or from the main menu, click on your "Maintain Art Menu" and a new column is shown that allows you to select which art images to include in your catalogue. Update the database with your selected art images by clicking on the button at the bottom of the page. Then click on the "Edit Catalog" link beside the button to take you into the catalogue setup page. Click on the "edit" link to add your payment options for each of the items you want to sell. This article was first published in the My Art News Letter #14 read more ...

Imagine being able to resize an entire folder of images, even a whole CD ROM of images, all at once! The "Photo Resizer", will do just that, creating a new folder with the correct format and size all ready in one place for you to upload to your MyArtClub website. The AMAZING "Photo Resizer" utility The "Photo Resizer" was made available for free on the web from EMCO Software, a software vendor of remote administration and management solutions, headquartered in Reykjavik, Iceland. The software has since been withdrawn and is no longer supported. However, the software is still available to MyArtClub artists and is available for download from your artist member page. How to use "Photo Resizer" Login to your member site. Click on the link "Download our help manual" and then click on the link at the bottom of the page to download the software. Install the software on your computer. The following paragraphs show you how to use this utility to resize your art images, your artist picture, your signature file and your object images. Easy as 1 -2 -3! Crop and orient your images. Use your photo editing program to review and adjust your images in your directory. In this step, crop the image close to show only the art image, and rotate if required to the correct orientation. Save your files into the directory you will use in step 2 as the "source" directory. Set up the Photo Resizer Software Open up the "Photo Resizer" and setup the software. Set the source directory of your art images under the "Path Settings: Read images from:" text input box. The program sets up a destination directory automatically. When you select your directory of images to read from, the Photo Resizer updates the "Save Images to:" text input box to the same directory but adds a new directory Resized underneath your directory. Details: Normally this is fine, but you can change this directory to another location if you wish as long as it is not the same as your input directory. You will need to choose a C drive directory if you are using a CD ROM as source of images. Set the "New JPEG compression" factor (try between 80 and 90 % compression) by sliding the bar to the left or right. This control modifies the physical size of the images that you create. Make sure the "Aspect ratio" is selected as 1:1. For your art images, set the "Max. image width" to 550. Set the "Max. image height" to 450. To resize your art images, click on the Resize button. Process your art images with the Photo Resizer Open up your source directory using Windows Explorer e.g. the directory c:art If Windows Explorer doesn't show you the size of your file, then adjust your settings. In order to see the size of the image, you may have to click on the menu bar "View" option and then click on the "Details" item. Or you can click on the symbol on the right and then click on details. When you click on the Resize button in step 7 above, the photo resizer processes all the images in your source directory and creates the output images in the destination directory. When the photo resizer is complete, look in the destination directory, again using Windows Explorer. All you photos should now be listed with the size showing in KB beside the name. You may need to run the Photo Resizer with different compression values (step 3 above) in order to determine the appropriate setting to get the physical file size you want. Remember you want between 50 and 140 KB - ideally around 80 - 100 KB. If your resulting output images are too small or too large, move the "New JPEG compression" button to the right for slightly higher or to the left for slightly lower sizes respectively. Once you have an image of the right size, move it to another directory so it doesn't get overwritten. MyArtClub.Com settings summary for Photo Resizer: For resizing your Art images set "Max. image width" to 550 (step 5 above). Set the "Max. image height" to 450 (step 6 above). For resizing your Artist picture image or object images set the "Max. image height" to 250 (step 6 above). For resizing your Artist signature image, set the "Max. image height" to 200 (step 6 above). To process only a few files or one file at a time using Photo Resizer, first create a new directory and put only the files you want to process in that directory. When you have processed a file, move the output file from the /Resized/ directory to a new directory so it won't be overwritten. This article was first published in the My Art News Letter #14 read more ...

This article describes the steps you can use to select the "web safe" colour range and set the specific colours on any of the Site Colour Options pages, for setting the colours of Frames, Backgrounds, Page Text, Links and Mass Settings for your studio or art pages. A bit of background Some years ago, when computers supported a maximum of 256 different colours, a list of 216 "Web Safe Colours" was suggested as a Web standard, reserving 40 fixed system colours. The 216 cross-browser colour palette was created to ensure that all computers would display the colours correctly when running a 256 colour palette. This is not important today, since most computers can display millions of different colours. On the MyArtClub site you will see reference to "web safe", "web-smart" and "unsafe" colour ranges. What is meant by these terms is relatively how many computers will see, or not see, the colours you have chosen correctly: Name of colour range Colours Available to pick from Percentage of computers that can not read a colour Web Safe 2160.0% (none) Web Smart4,096Less than 0.4% Unsafe16,777 2167.0% and falling (Source http://www.upsdell.com/BrowserNews/stat_trends.htm) If you are not sure what colours you should use, "Web Smart" has a reasonable amount of choice, and low risk. Using the Web Safe Colour Range When you are using the colour selections limited only to 216 web safe colours, all the names were entered as "named" colours, e.g. 'Azure Blue' or "Dark Red". How to set your website colour range On the "Artist Colour Options" page: Pick the "Web Safe" Option from the list of Web Safe, Web Smart, or Unsafe Confirm selection by clicking on the button below "Update Artist Colour Options" How to access the colour palette for choosing colours Look at the line just below where you selected the colour range Click on the words "colour palette" in the phrase: "Click here to bring up the colour palette in a separate window." If you have chosen the "Web Safe" option, you will see the following page" If you hover over the colour that you wish to pick, you will see a pop up with the "number" of the colour as it is represented on the web, but more importantly, the name of the colour that has been assigned to this colour. Using that name, you can then pick from the drop down list the name of the colour that you want to use for whichever option you are picking from. In the next article, we will discuss how to pick from the "web smart" colour range using the colour wheel. read more ...

This article describes the steps you can use to select the "web smart" colour range and set the specific colours on any of the Site Colour Options pages, for setting the colours of Frames, Backgrounds, Page Text, Links and Mass Settings for your studio or art pages. In the first part of this article, we dealt with setting your colours using the "web safe" colour range. A bit of background Some years ago, when computers supported a maximum of 256 different colours, a list of 216 "Web Safe Colours" was suggested as a Web standard, reserving 40 fixed system colours. The 216 cross-browser colour palette was created to ensure that all computers would display the colours correctly when running a 256 colour palette. This is not important today, since most computers can display millions of different colours. On the MyArtClub site you will see reference to "web safe", "web-smart" and "unsafe" colour ranges. What is meant by these terms is relatively how many computers will see, or not see, the colours you have chosen correctly: Name of colour range Colours Available to pick from Percentage of computers that can not read a colour Web Safe 2160.0% (none) Web Smart4,096Less than 0.4% Unsafe16,777 2167.0% and falling (Source http://www.upsdell.com/BrowserNews/stat_trends.htm) If you are not sure what colours you should use, "Web Smart" has a reasonable amount of choice, and low risk. Some Important Tips If you have been using colour selections limited only to 216 web safe colours, all the names were entered as "named" colours, e.g. 'Azure Blue'. With the larger selections, only codes are used, so it is no longer intuitive what colour to pick. Use the colour palette instructions below to pick a colour code. Once a new colour range is specified, any change to update a colour to a new code will erase the older colour range settings. Should you want to remember what colours you used before you changed the colour range, write down or copy the current settings now. All colours must be from the same range, i.e. you can only pick codes available in the colour range you have selected. You can not be set up on "Web Smart", and then try to include an "Unsafe" colour. How to set your website colour range On the "Artist Colour Options" page: Pick "Web Smart" from the list of options: Web Safe, Web Smart, or Unsafe Confirm selection by clicking on the button below "Update Artist Colour Options" How to access the colour palette for choosing colours Look at the line just below where you selected the colour range Click on the words "colour palette" in the phrase: "Click here to bring up the colour palette in a separate window." Using the Web Smart colour range If you have chosen the "Web Smart" option, you will see the following page" If you hover over the colour wheel in the middle of the panel, you will see a sample of the colours as represented in each of the three modes Web Safe, Web Smart, and Unsafe below. How to pick a colour On the colour circle in the middle of the panel click on a colour to pick one. The square to the right of the circle now shows, for the last picked colour, a variety of choices for saturation and hue. Each colour that you select is tracked in the list on the left column. You can reset this left side list by clicking on the "reset pick list" button above the list. If you see a colour you want to use, you must write down the colour code number. These numbers are represented by the "#" sign followed by 6 digits ( between 0 � 9 and a-f). To see the colour code numbers for all of your colour picks click on the "show full list" link just below the colour square on the left. Copy the colour code for the colour you selected, e.g. #ff2266 from the column "web smart". How to apply the selected colour to your site Switch back to your Update Site Colour Options Page. To update a colour selection paste or enter in the code, e.g. #ff2266 in the entry box for each of your desired colour selections i.e. Frame, Background, Page Text, Links, etc. Remember to note your current colour settings; once you have made one colour change for the new colour range, you lose all the prior colour settings from the old colour range, as those are incompatible with the new colour range selected. Colours not reset will move to white as a default within the new colour range. After you complete your colour choices, click the button below "Update Artist Colour Options" and your new selections are in effect. The page text, background and other colour choices will change to reflect the selections you have made. read more ...

One of the most often asked questions of the webmaster is how to crop or resize your art pictures. This is one of a series of articles on preparing your images for uploading to your website. There are dozens for image editing programs available for preparing your images to be published on the internet. Typically all of the programs accomplish the same task but they all work a bit differently in terms of what commands they use and their approach to carrying out the task. As a result, MyArtClub has found a Windows based program which can be down loaded for free from the web. We have prepared a set of instructions for this program. If you don't already have the program, you can download it for free at: http://www.irfanview.ca/main_download_engl.htm This link shows a number of different sites where the program may be downloaded. If the link is out of date, try looking up "Irfanview download" in Google or another search engine. Crop your images One of the best ways to show your art on the web is to be able to crop your image so that the viewer is not distracted by the frame or other background that takes away from the art. Open your image First start the program IrFanView and open up a file. Click on "file", then "open" and then search for an image you want to crop. When you have located the image, click on the "open" button. The folliwing picture shows the menu when the "file" link is clicked to expose the "open" function and the image that loaded. The short cut key is also shown. You can get to the "open" function by clicking on the letter "o". Crop your image To crop, first put your mouse on one corner of the image (e.g. the top left corner) and hold the left mouse button down. Then while holding the left mouse button down, drag the mouse down to the opposite right bottom corner. You will see a rectangle has formed around the image. It may look like this when you let go of the mouse button: You can work with the edges, by clicking on an edge of the rectangle; you can move each edge in or out of the image. In this way you can optimize each edge to get the most of the picture included. MyArtClub recommends that you don't leave any of the background, as clean lines look best. As well don't try to show the frame. It is best to just focus on the image. Once you have got about the most of the image defined, now you are ready to complete the crop operation. Click on the link "Edit" and then the "Crop Selection" as shown in the following picture. Or you can use the short cut keys by pressing the "Ctrl" key and the "Y" key at the same time. Now your image is cropped by eliminating everything outside of the box. It now looks like this: Save your image Now you need to save the file. MyArtClub recommends that you don't save it with the same file name � as that would overwrite the original. So perhaps append the word "� cropped" to the end of the file name. Or even better, save the images in a separate folder of art, e.g. called "MyWebArt" making it easier to find the images when you are ready to load them up to your website. In the next article we will show you how to overcome the next biggest challenge for loading your art on your website - resizing your art image so that the images are easy to load and view by your website visitors. read more ...

One of the most often asked questions of the webmaster is how to crop or resize your art pictures. This is one of a series of articles on preparing your images for uploading to your website. There are dozens for image editing programs available for preparing your images to be published on the internet. Typically all of the programs accomplish the same task but they all work a bit differently in terms of what commands they use and their approach to carrying out the task. As a result, MyArtClub has found a Windows based program which can be down loaded for free from the web. We have prepared a set of instructions for this program. If you don't already have the program, you can download it for free at: http://www.irfanview.ca/main_download_engl.htm This link shows a number of different sites where the program may be downloaded. If the link is out of date, try looking up "Irfanview download" in Google or another search engine. In the last article we showed you how to crop your art. In this article, we'll deal with how to resize your art. Why resize your images There are two reasons why you need to resize your art images. The images are easily loaded. The images can't be used to reproduce your art illegally. If you load large images of your art to your site, it can take many seconds, even minutes, for visitors to see these images when they come to your page. And research shows that visitors will not stick around on your site if it takes minutes to show your works of art. As well, if you are loading a large image, it increases the opportunity for your image to be copied and used to produce it illegally. The computer screen typically requires only 72 dots per inch to view your image correctly and loading images of greater density doesn't increase the capability to view the image, only to be able to copy and reproduce it. Our recommended size MyArtClub recommends a size of picture between 50 KB and 140 KB for best viewing results. If you load a picture between 50 KB and 140 KB, then it protects your art picture from being copied since the work looks fine on the screen but will be grainy if someone should try to print it out. If you try to load an image file that is greater the 2MB (2,000KB), MyArtClub.Com will reject the file being loaded. Resizing an image If you are not carrying on from the last article, open up IrFanView, and then open your image file. Click on "file", then "open" and then search for an image you want to resize. When you have located the image, click on the "open" button. Now click on "image", then "resize/resample" as shown below: A menu box pops up to allow you to resize as follows: For MyArtClub use, make sure the Units say "Pixels" as shown above, and then experiment with the Width and Height. You want either the Width to be 550 and height less than 450, or the height to be 450 and the width to be less than 550. By setting the pixels this way, you will reduce the size and as well be assured the size of the file is smaller, MyArtClub automatically resizes all our images to be either 550 wide or 450 high. If you submit your image in these dimensions then we will not adjust it. In this case, we adjusted the height to be 450, and the width is less than 550. MyArtClub uses these precise sizes to make it difficult for search engines or other automatic bots to capture your image. As mentioned above � to keep the file size down, and make it harder to print an unauthorized copy � we recommend setting the DPI (dots per inch - see in bottom left in the box above) to 72. Hit Ok. Save the image file Click on "file" and then "save as". Pick the directory to "Save in:" at the top left of the pop up menu. Put the new name of the image file in the "File Name;" space at the bottom of the menu. In order to see the size of the file we are saving, click on the the small box in the middle that the arrow is pointing to and select the "details" mode. IrFanView also has a pop up box to adjust your quality settings as well on the right side. This is not the same as dimension resizing, but is a way to resize the file size, i.e. how many Kilobytes KB or megabytes MB it is. Less quality is less kilobytes. To adjust the quality you can move the slider bar at the top to increase or reduce the quality, and hence the file size. Now you are done, but what is the new file size? Click on "file" and then "save as" and look at the file size in the "details" mode. You can see the file is 161 KB. Now if you continue the "save as" but this time set the "Save Quality:" toolbar at 90%, you will further reduce the size of the file. Our target is ideally between 80kb and 120 kb. You can do another "file", "save as" (or use the short cut key S) and show "details" to see what the new size is. Alternatively, you can have your file manager (windows explorer) open and monitor the file size that way. Once your file size is between our recommended settings, you are ready to upload your art. read more ...

MyArtClub recommends for you to use word processing software for all of your text based entries. While you may be tempted to just write all your text on-line, and you certainly free to do so, using a word program has several advantages: Spell check. Nothing looks worse that a typo, and word programs can save you that embarrassment. Saved content. It can take a lot of time to create and edit your web-pages, or blogs. Over time you can create a lot of different content. By saving all the content on your personal computer, you'll have a copy of all your history of changes. It may come in handy, and at least it provides a full record. A bigger page to see what you are editing. In many cases, only a small portion of the text is visible in the entry box. By using a word program, you can see the entire entry. Keep a back up. When making complex changes using HTML codes, especially when tables and various fonts are involved, it is good to have your original copy in case your new version is not quite ready for primetime. That way, you can try the new copy out online, and if it does not appear to work, paste back the old copy while you adjust the new copy. Here is a quick way to copy the text from the current box. You should be logged into your site and looking at where you make changes to a text box. Place your cursor anywhere inside the text box of interest, and using windows, the short cut is to hold down the ctrl key, and press the 'a' key at the same time. The whole text box is now highlighted � even the parts you cannot see. Now hold the ctrl key again and press 'c' at the same time to copy. Move to your word program and place the cursor on the word program where you want the text, then hold down the ctrl key and press 'v' at the same time to paste the copied data into the word program. Now save the word file � call it 'original copy'. Save the word file again � this time call it 'edited copy'. Edit this second copy, with all your changes, and save the file again. Use the ctrl key and 'a' key at the same time to highlight all the edited text to put back in the internet text box. Hold the ctrl key again and press 'c' at the same time to copy this text. Move to your internet program and place the cursor on the text box where you want the text, then hold down the ctrl key and press 'a' to highlight all the text and press the delete key, then hold down the ctrl key and press 'v' at the same time to paste your edited copy back into the text box. Voila, your text is re-written, and you have a saved copy of both the original and the new text. This article was first published in the My Art News Letter #25 read more ...

In an earlier blog, we discussed HTML Tags as a way to control your text on your web pages. The tags we are discussing today are the tags which you can attach to your blog pages. When you have finished writing your blog, you can attach both tags and categories to your blog. So what is the difference between tags and categories? There are a number of blog sites that deal with this topic which can be found at tags-vs-categories, at tags-vs-categories (watch the video), or at using-categories-and-tags-effectively-on-your-blog. One of the best discussions that I have found is categories-versus-tags-whats-the-difference-and-which-one from which I have cribbed this summary information. Categories and Tags are for your visitors, not just search engines. Categories and Tags are about navigation and sorting, grouping your content to help visitors find related information. Categories are your site's table of contents. Categories help identify what your blog is about. Categories represent your body of work on the subject. Tags are your site's index words. Tags are micro-data or meta-data, more specifically micro-categorization for your site's content. Search engines do not recognize or reward the rel="tag" which identifies a tag. If you can't write five blog post titles/ideas on a topic, then you don't have a category. If enough posts have the same tag, and it represents your blog purpose and goals, it's a category. Think of your visitors' needs first. read more ...

Each time you encounter a question or a computer error, just remember Let Me Google That! (LMGT) Here are a couple uses for Google that can save artists a lot of leg work, and even from losing money: Art Scam Research and Computer How To's Art Scam Research: Over the last couple weeks, MyArtClub.Com has received more than one artist request regarding a proposal to advertise. In one case Google provided fairly quickly a direct link to a blog where many artists had already asked and answered the same question. This one seemed legitimate, and at a cost of only $15 per entry, not a large risk: International Contemporary Masters Yet another, was more directly identified as a scam. But they wanted $1,900 and that is a huge risk!: NY Arts Magazine It is relatively easy to find these. Just enter into the Google search bar the name of the company making the offer. Then peruse the results. Maybe add qualifying words if that does not seem to find what you want, like add the word scam or problem Computer How To's Occasionally related to your computer or your website, you may wonder, "how do I .....??" (you fill in the blank, like say, resize an image file) Just ask the question and often up will come a variety of answers, sometimes even demonstration videos etc. For example, Googling "How do I resize an image" comes up with resizing tools. If you were to add MyArtClub to the request, as in "How do I resize an image MyArtClub", you come to our blog on the subject, at Resize your images Sometimes we get a totally unintelligible error from our computers. Those friendly grey pop ups that write a bunch of gibberish across our screen, and basically tell us in no uncertain terms that we are not going to get what we wanted. Here is what to do. Write down the exact words of the error message, and enter the whole thing into the Google search bar. Almost certainly you will find a discussion about the very same error, and more than likely instructions on exactly what to do that would assist you. So all you need to do is ask Google in as specific a way as you can, as a normal question, and you will find many have asked before you. Of course MyArtClub.Com will support you on these or any other aspects, anytime. Just write to us, at [email protected] What have you used Google to do for you lately? read more ...

The image you show on MyArtClub.Com as your FIND ARTIST image is something you have control over. The image is selected automatically as the first image you load up. However, this image can be easily changed once you have loaded other images to be something you prefer to highlight your artwork. Every once in a while it is worthwhile to change this image up, just to create interest. You can then see how this affects your traffic. A step by step review of the process is available. Please click here on the FIND ART change image instructions to download the adobe file. Then follow the brief steps to give this a try. Now you have control! read more ...

If you wish to take advantage of the MyArtClub.Com feature that allows you to post a message to Facebook when you upload your art or blog to your site, you must first enter the information into your site and authorize MyArtClub.Com to post the message on your behalf. Setting up your account to post to Facebook is very straight forward. Login to your member site. From the main menu of your member site, click on the link -> Build or Maintain information to Market your site. Then click on the menu item -> Add or update your Facebook account id. From this screen you can either enter your UserName or the Facebook id number that identifies your site. An easy way to find your Facebook id is to click on your name (beside your picture on your Facebook page or the name which appears on the top line of your page. This is your profile page. In the address line of the browser you will see a line that looks like this: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=10000999999999. The number after the id= is your Facebook identifier number. Whichever identifier you use, either your Facebook UserName or the id, enter this information into the field "Facebook profile identifier" and click on the button "Upload Facebook id". We will search Facebook for this identifier and if it is found, your name, your username and the Facebook id will be returned to the screen. You have now identified yourself to Facebook. Only one step left. You need to authorize MyArtClub.Com to post on your behalf. This will result in MyArtClub being listed as an App on your Facebook page. Like any other App, you can revoke access to it at any time. However, when you do so, you will no longer be able to post your messages to your Facebook page until you authorize the App again. To authorize MyArtClub.Com as a Facebook app, just click on the link. A Facebook page will come up asking you to authorize the MyArtClub App. If you are logged in to your Facebook page in another browser window, Facebook will pick up your identification from that window. Otherwise you will have to enter your Facebook user and password information. MyArtClub.Com does not have access to your Facebook password and only uses the authorization to post on your behalf. You are now ready to Post a message to Facebook whenever you upload a work of art to your artist website. When you load a work of art and post it to the site, you get a link to Notify Your Fans which allows you to send out an email to the email addresses you have added to your site. A new link has been provided that allows you to post a message to Facebook or tweet to your Twitter account. If you wish to send an email to your email list, do this function first. When you have sent you message, the link to Post a message to Facebook will still be available. Or if you don't wish to send out an email, click on the link now. You will be presented with a screen that asks you whether you want to post a message to Facebook or send a tweet from Twitter (assuming that you have both accounts established on your site). Click on the "Yes" radio button beside the entry "Post a message to Facebook: ". Click on the "Post Message to Facebook" Button at the bottom of the screen. A new screen will either ask you to authorize MyArtClub to post a message to Facebook on your behalf, or provide you with a text box that allows you to enter your message to your Facebook page. The message also includes a thumbnail of the art work that you have just posted, and a link back to your artist website. Let us know how you like the feature, whether there are any other options that are required, or if you have any difficulties. read more ...

A MyArtClub.Com feature allows you to tweet a message to Twitter when you upload your art or blog to your site. To start using it, you must first enter the information into your site and authorize MyArtClub.Com to tweet a message to Twitter on your behalf. Setting up your account to tweet to Twitter is simple. Login to your member site. From the main menu of your member site, click on the link -> Build or Maintain information to Market your site. Then click on the menu item -> Add or update your Twitter screen name. From this screen you can enter your Twitter Screen Name into the field and click on the button "Upload Twitter Screen Name". We will search Twitter for your screen name and if it is found, your name, your screen name and the Twitter id will be returned to the screen. You have now identified yourself to Twitter. Only one step left. You need to authorize MyArtClub.Com to tweet on your behalf. This will result in MyArtClub being listed as an Application on your Twitter Settings page under the Application tab. Like any other Application, you can revoke access to it at any time. However, when you do so, you will no longer be able to tweet your messages to Twitter until you authorize the Application again. To authorize MyArtClub.Com as a Twitter application, just click on the link. A new window will pop up (this is a Twitter requirement) with a link to click on asking you to authorize the MyArtClub Applicaiton. If you are logged in to your Twitter page in another browser window, Twitter will pick up your identification from that window. Otherwise you will have to enter your Twitter user and password information. MyArtClub.Com does not have access to your Twitter password and only uses the authorization to post on your behalf. You are now ready to tweet a message to Twitter whenever you upload a work of art to your artist website. When you load a work of art and post it to the site, you get a link to Notify Your Fans which allows you to send out an email to the email addresses you have added to your site. A new link has been provided that allows you to tweet to your Twitter account or post a message to Facebook. If you wish to send an email to your email list, do this function first. When you have sent you message, the link to tweet a message to Twitter will still be available. Or if you don't wish to send out an email, click on the link now. You will be presented with a screen that asks you whether you want to send a tweet from Twitter or post a message to Facebook (assuming that you have both accounts established on your site). Click on the "Yes" radio button beside the entry "Tweet as message to Twitter: ". You have two other choices when tweeting a message to Twitter. You can add a link back to your website. Click on the "Yes" radio button beside the entry "Include link in Tweet: ". This will add a link to your art page and reduces the number of characters that you can tweet by 25. You can also upload a thumbnail of the art work that you have just posted. The upload is included as a link on your tweet and again reduces the number of characters that you can tweet by 25. When you have made your selections, click on the "Post Message to Twitter" Button at the bottom of the screen. A new screen will either ask you to authorize MyArtClub to tweet a message to Twitter on your behalf, if you have not previously authorized it, or provide you with a text box that allows you to enter your tweet to your Twitter page. A counter keeps track of the number of characters you have left in your tweet. Click on the button to post your tweet. A confirmation message will indicate that your tweet is successful. Let us know how you like the feature, whether there are any other options that are required, or if you have any difficulties. read more ...

The great thing about having a website is you can build in links to anything. MyArtClub.com websites design enables artists and art groups to place links anywhere there is a text box. This is done using HTML code. Please refer to our earlier blog on the many uses of HTML codes, My text all runs together. Whats with that? This blog focuses on helping you make your links active. The way many artists provide a referring web address on their sites is to write out the website or email address. While this is literally showing the link, say like www.MyArtClub.Com, it does not make it easy for the reader to activate the page by clicking on the words, like this version does: www.MyArtClub.Com . To bring the words to life, here is what you do: Link to other sites , use the following html format: Click Here For My Other Site where you substitute your particular web address for "http://members.yahoo.com/myothersite"and where you substitute what you want to be clicked on for Click Here for My Other Site Works for emails too! To create an active link that opens an email addressed to your email address, use the following html format: [email protected] where you substitute your email address twice in the above, for [email protected] Note You MUST use the exact symbols and (from experience!) test every time you add a new link to make sure it works! read more ...

First, be sure you want to do this, it is a commitment, which we believe is worth the rewards. You build audience, and create a legacy of text based thoughts, focused on your audience. Not sure about having a blog, read our post about why. Best practices are to be regular, so try to commit to what you can do. Content should be authentic, helpful, and targeted. Imagine who you are talking to as you write. Use words that your audience would use to search for help or information about your topic. Activate your artist blog by visiting the artist options. Click on the top bar ARTIST,(as illustrated below) and then select menu item 5, "Artist Site Options". You will then see this page below. Put a 1 in the "Artist blog" square, scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the gray button "Update Artist Options" and you now have a blog! Your artist blog is automatically connected to your website. Posting an artist blog entry: Now that you have activated your artist blog, click on BLOG (see the upper red arrow illustrated below) and come to your main Blog menu. Here you can work with individual entries. On this page you can launch a new posting, see the lower red arrow. After launching a new post, you see this blank page below. Enter your text here. IMPORTANT: create your blog first in a separate word document on your computer. When you have it mostly done, copy the article, and paste it here. This avoids time out issues, and losing the blog post. As well in word programs you have the advantage of spell check. Be sure to hit the gray button "Add Blog Entry" or "Update Blog Entry"every time you change your text, or add an image. Once a blog is posted, the date is registered. Now add some HTML - the basics are simple � for example, the most common code is to use to create paragraph breaks. Much more on this here Just as with all the text boxes on your artist website, this lets you create links to other references, and images! Spice up your MyArtClub blog with images! Images can be placed in your MyArtClub blog using the utility we have built in to your blogs. Add as many of your art works can be loaded in, here is how: Enter text above where you want the picture. Click "Update Blog Entry" to save. Click on "to add image" Select image to load Under the image to load, choose "Display on Left" or "Display on Centre" or "Display on right" as you wish You will see you then return to the blog page. You will see some text has been added to your blog text, this is the image data. Click Update Blog Entry to save revised text including the new image. Note you can now add more text, after the image too. Just add text below the image data, and remember to click "Update Blog Entry" gray button at the bottom to save. If you need to add space between image, or to spread out text, use the html paragraph spacer noted above. You can even add more than one image, and text following the above steps, as many times as you like. The effect is like a picture book. Imagine using it to show step by step of your image being developed! Use the Preview button to edit your blog. This is critical. You want to see how it looks, and check all your links and spacing. TIP: When you are done all your edits, copy the entire blog entry box, and save a copy on your word program - then you have all the html you figured out last time for your next time! Manage your blog posts:Click on the top BLOG menu to see your blogs. Here you can see postings by date. One very good promotional idea is to email your blog. This is an effective way to reach out to your community when you have a new blog. Do this using our built in tool available at the above page. Click on Send email. Here you can also manage comments received, and after you have a few blogs, you may want to visit this page one more time, and add tags. Have more questions about artist blogging? Let us know your ideas and issues, please comment below, or write to us at [email protected] Send us a request if you would like a copy of our word file with all the html that created this blog entry, it can serve as an example for you on using html, and multiple images. read more ...

You have created your new artist blog post, and emailed it out to your audience. So you are done, right? Not so fast! One useful and important last step remains, to tag and categorize your blog. What are tags and categories? Categories are like big buckets for classifying what your blog posts are about, whereas tags are ways of labeling and identifying characteristics about the each art marketing post. Why? Using tags and categories your artist blog makes it easier for visitors to sift through your posts, to find relevant content. The more you write, the more content to sift through, the more you need categories and tagsAs an art marketer, you want your content to be more easily found by visitors. Search engines like categories and tags as they help search engines to rank the blog against the search terms. What words should you use for your category or tag? Generally try to think how a reader or search engine might best find the core idea of your blog, the category, and apply specific tags, the sub-category, that would assist to find related posts. Please don't go crazy; too many tags can confuse your readers. Try using a tag name that people might be searching for. Be consistent with the tags you use, don't create too many different tags, especially if they are close in meaning to each other. How do you add a category or tag? An artist blog on MyArtClub provides bloggers the use of tags and categories. The exact tags and categories you may want to use are fully customizable on MyArtClub.Com. First, as shown below, in your blog menu, showing your log entries, click on the word tag on the left of the blog to be addressed. Then, either chose an existing tag to add to your blog, or create a new one to identify what the blog is about. Now your blogs can be categorized by readers, and by search engines in a way you want them to be thought of. If you later want to delete a category or tag, perhaps to re-organize, you can do that too, just click on the word delete where the entered categories or tags are displayed. What is the category of most interest to your readers? Do you find our categories work for you, or would you be looking for a category or tag we are not providing? read more ...

MyArtClub uses HTML so you have opportunity to put links everywhere you have text, and that includes links to videos etc. But sometimes there are drawbacks when you have the advantages HTML provides, and curly marks is one. It turns out that if your computer or word program inserts a curled apostrophe, or curled quote mark, the HTML code can't read it. HTML code gives the � response, meaning HTML can't interpret this character. So what to do? If you can please use a straight version not curled version of apostrophe. Basically change all the double quotes to " and the single quotes to ' marks. A better way, is to use the HTML special character codes: ' for apostrophes, " for quotes, ‐ for dash and © for copyright symbol. Other special character symbols are shown in full here. By the way, the HTML names sometimes work, but I find the HTML number codes always seem to work, so may be the safer choice. I suspect not every browser supports the names in the same way as the numbers, which no doubt came first in HTML development. Let's show how this works. For example, Ian's "painting". would be: Ian 's " painting ". You could try just typing in the straight (not curly) versions of the characters, such as Ian's "painting".Sometimes writing in the text in Word pad (as opposed to MS Word, which adds formatting and curls the characters) will give you the straight, not curled, versions. That may be worth a try too. But in my experience, the results have been mixed. So somewhat resignedly, I find it easiest to write in the code for one apostrophe, copy the code I mean type in the ' once, copy it, and then paste it where ever there turns out to be a � character that is an apostrophe. Then do the same for quote marks, type in " and copy it and paste it around all the quote marks Bit of a big pain I admit, but it always works. And if you want you can use the MS word program Find and Replace feature to speed this up. Using that you can type as normal, and then review and replace all the codes. Big tip: Important! If you update the blog live, and then go back and do it again, some of the corrections will re-occur as problems. Best advice is if you save a copy of your blog in word, you can do all your substitutions there, of quote marks and other characters, and then you can copy paste the entire corrected copy again and again. Do you have any questions on this? Email us at [email protected] read more ...

Art studio layouts can be controlled individually. Here is how you would change the columns of art showing on a studio. First, choose the studio you want to work on: Now, select Studio Colour options Now, select from 1 to 4 columns for the studio Click the Update button at the bottom of the page Check your studio. You can try different columns settings to see what you prefer best, 1 to 4 columns. Enjoy your new look! read more ...