dankarran.com > latest news > May 2003

May 2003 news

Postcards and prints of my photos posted 31 May 2003 by Dan Karran [permalink] Since last weekend I've been investigating the possibility of me being able to sell prints and or postcards of my photos from my photography section. I've been looking at some suppliers, both in the UK and in the US, to provide items directly to my site visitors but both have their drawbacks and neither are really suitable for what I want to do at the moment. The companies I've been looking at are CafePress which operate in the US and offer all sorts of products they can print the photos onto, and PhotoBox which operate in the UK and sell mainly prints. I've been experimenting with a number of prints from PhotoBox and they certainly come up to scratch when it comes to quality, but when it comes to buying things through my site they're not really able to do what I want. With CafePress, they're centred around an American market and so they run into problems when customers want to deal with them in British Pounds. My Chinese Lanterns picture came out really well at 8x10" and I am currently waiting for another picture (from the top of the London Eye) to come back from being printed at 10x12" to see if the quality will be good enough. Out of curiosity, if I did begin to offer the sale of prints, which ones would be most of interest to you, my site visitors, and what sort of price would you expect to pay for different sizes of print? Please let me know what you think. I would also like to make a 2004 Isle of Man Calendar if I can find enough suitable pictures to use. Well, as it's such a hot day down here in London (BBC: Hot with long sunny spells. Very slight chance of a thundery shower by evening), I'm going to get something ice-cold and find a nice quiet place to lie down in the park for a while and enjoy it. At some point, I should venture into town to find some more summerly clothes to wear. Right now, it's actually quite uncomfortably stuffy in this internet cafe at the moment so I need to escape!

On the train to Manchester posted 24 May 2003 by Dan Karran [permalink] This weekends travels - after last weekends visit to Switzerland - take me on a fleeting visit back up to Manchester to visit friends and sort out my accommodation for next year, my final year at university. The train has taken a completely different route than normal, and the scenery is beautiful. Note to self: Fix the thing that lets me post messages from my phone as it doesn't let me type more than just what's above. I had typed in a whole lot more but my phone wouldn't let me post it. Oh, and make it say something other than midnight. Damn WAP!

The Matrix Reloaded premiere posted 22 May 2003 by Dan Karran [permalink] The Matrix Reloaded premiered in the UK last night in the Leicester Square Odeon, London. I was lucky enough to be one of the people to see the movie on its opening night, but as we turned up for our 12am showing at the Warner Village Cinema (also on Leicester Square) they were already beginning to clear up after the official UK premiere across the square. I thought, whilst the movie was good, it wasn't as good as the first and took the whole Matrix-style action a little too far. Perhaps though it didn't help also that our screening didn't start until midnight and I was struggling at points to stay awake.

Trip to Switzerland posted 20 May 2003 by Dan Karran [permalink] I'm just back from a trip to the mountainous country of Switzerland. Having spent three days in Zurich (and a day in Bad Ragaz relaxing in a thermal spa) it's not nice coming back to work in the dull, wet weather of London. Despite coming back less relaxed than when I went, I still had a great time... despite certain things very nearly spoiling the trip. By the way, sorry to anybody who has sent me email over the past week or so, who I haven't yet managed to get back to. It's been so hectic and clearing the junk mail from my inbox has been a major hurdle!

Photos of London posted 13 May 2003 by Dan Karran [permalink] I have today added 4 new photos of London to my photo collection. I haven't had much time recently to be able to add many new photos to the site, or do any work on it at all... but it does mean I'm either out having fun with my friends or in working and earning some money to spend going out. Like other recent photos of London, these ones come mostly from the area around my workplace in the City. They are of St Paul's, some steps behind the Cathedral, Poultry and the a construction site towards the on the opposite side of the river to St Paul's.

New site for the portfolio posted 6 May 2003 by Dan Karran [permalink] For the past few weeks I've been working on a site for Janine Pritchard Limited (one of Jejo's clients). The company specialises in recruitment for the CD/DVD industry, and recently took over a company called VantageCD. The client required a simple yet effective site with a modern feel to showcase the company's services to both clients and candidates. The site was designed using PhotoShop and then coded using NotePad. It includes a 'Career Opportunities' page which lists all of the current jobs on offer through the company. The page runs from a database created in MySQL and PHP, with a backend for the client to keep the page up-to-date.