The Official LexiConn Blog

Website Tip – Why Are My Images Broken?

Rich A. — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 12:37:58 +0000

It’s happened to every web designer at least once, and it’s a question we receive quite often:

Why are my images broken?

We’re going to cover the most common causes below, as well as some tips specific for ShopSite.

Where does your browser think the image is?

The first step to track down the cause is to find out where you’re trying to load the missing image from. If you edited your HTML code manually you may already know the path and the filename it’s trying to use, but if you’re not sure where it should be then it’s not too hard to track down.

An image missing in Internet Explorer

One method is to view the source code of your page and search for the filename, but a faster method may be available by right-clicking on the broken image and selecting an option off the pop-up window. For example, in Firefox you can select “View Image Info” or in Internet Explorer you can right-click on the image and select “Properties”.

Both options will show you the Address or URL to the image, which will look something like this:

http://www.lexiconn.com/media/noimage.jpg

It’s Missing | Wrong Folder | CapITaliZatiOn

The most common reason for the broken image, is that it’s not where your browser is trying to load it from. Now that you know the path, use FTP (or SSH, a web-based file manager, or any method you prefer to access your files) and check to see if the file is there.

Make sure you access the exact folder, which in our case is the “media” folder, to look for the image.

TIP: With many web hosts you must go into a “www” folder (or similar) when you connect with FTP before you will get to your website files. This is normal and is not part of the URL.

If it’s nowhere to be found you can re-upload it to your website, or if it’s in the wrong folder you can either move it where you want it to be, or adjust your code to load it from the correct location.

Capitalization is key. Your computer may not care if an image is named RedWagon.jpg or redwagon.jpg, but your web server most likely will. Ensure that the capitalization that your code is using for your file name and the folder name match exactly what shows on the server.

TIP: Watch out for an extra space character at the beginning or end of a filename. If everything looks fine but the image still doesn’t load, edit the filename and check for spaces. Or just rename the file which will clear any hidden spaces that are not obvious.

Once your code is loading the file with the exact path and filename shown on the server, you should be all set. However, if you are using ShopSite to resize your images there may be a couple more settings for you to check:

ShopSite Setting & Tips

File Permissions
When ShopSite resizes your images it must have access to create its resized folders and place the new images into them. If you created a folder and uploaded images into it with FTP you will need to set the permissions on that folder to 777. That will allow both your FTP user and ShopSite to access the files.

File Types
Be careful when you save your images – you always want to make sure that the file extension you use is correct for the image type. For example, if you are saving a file as a JPG, be sure the filename ends in “.jpg”. If you accidentally give it a name ending in “.gif” (another popular file type) then ShopSite will not be able to resize it.

Reset Attributes
On the ShopSite Images tool (available on the main ShopSite menu) select the image that’s not displaying and click the Reset Attributes button. This will reset some internal settings for the image that ShopSite uses. If the file had been previously renamed or moved this will allow ShopSite to publish it correctly.

Create Resized Images
After running the Reset Attributes option on your image, select it again and click the Create Resized Images button. If you are using one of the resized versions of your image this will cause ShopSite to recreate them on the server.

Publish Your Site
The last step will be to publish your site to make sure the corrected paths and files are used on your pages. This can be done on the Utilities > Publish screen by clicking Regenerate.

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These may seem like a lot of steps to review when images are missing from your website, but over time items like checking paths and filenames will become second nature as you’re building pages and it will only take a few minutes to run the attributes/resize/publish steps in ShopSite to see if that resolves broken images.

US Postal Service, A New Year, An Old Failure

Rob Mangiafico — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 23:50:39 +0000

Last year around this time, I wrote a blog post about the 2011 USPS failure. They made a major unannounced change to their rate service that thousands of ecommerce applications depend on for returning shipping rates to customers. It caused major issues and rate problems for many online merchants.

Fast forward to 2012, and the USPS has once again caused upheaval for the ecommerce industry. Although less of an impact from last year’s debacle, it still is a major issue for merchants offering First Class shipping options.

What did they do this time?

This year, they chose to change the name of First Class rates from “package” to “parcel“. Sounds like a simple harmless change. It would be if the USPS didn’t make the shipping option name the unique identifier for the service.

That’s right, the key that every ecommerce application uses for knowing it’s the right shipping option is the very name USPS chose to change!

Basic programming dictates that you assign a unique key/field to each option, so a change to the name of the option would not change the application. Ah, the government at work, gotta love it.

“But we let you know!”

Last year, the USPS chose to tell NO ONE about the name changes they put in place. Seems someone was listening over there, as this year they sent an email to *some* people informing them of the name change. The key word in the last sentence is “some”.

Seems most developers (including us, ShopSite, and other ecommerce vendors) didn’t get the message. In fact, doing a Google search for the phrases in the email show it was not posted on the USPS website, nor was it posted on their Postal Explorer information site. Just forums and blogs talking about the issue after it impacted them. (If I’m wrong about this, please let me know.)

Patches being issued, workarounds available

ShopSite is working on a patch to fix this First Class issue. We’ll be applying it to all Version 11 SP1 stores as soon as it’s available.

UPDATE 1/24/2012, 10:00 PM ET – All ShopSite stores running version 11 SP1 that are hosted with us have been patched to fix this issue.

In the interim, if you need to return first class rates, you could choose to return “First Class Letter” (up to 3.5 ounces) or “First Class Flat”, both of which were unaffected by the USPS change. For these to work, you would have to change each product’s package type though. So, it may be easier to wait for us to patch your store if you are affected.

…

I won’t beat a dead horse, or re-post all my lessons that the USPS still has to learn (if they’re still in business in the future). Read last year’s post for my admonishments.

In the meantime, we’ll work on patching stores and getting First Class rates back in business for our clients.

4 Key Topics When Planning Your Online Store

Rich A. — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 12:52:10 +0000

When you’re starting an online store one of the largest decisions to make is which store software you are going to use. Before making that decision it’s best to plan ahead to make sure the software you’re selecting will be able to cover all the features you’re looking for.

In this post we’re going to highlight 4 key areas that we recommend you review before selecting the software and building your store.

Shipping

How do want to ship your packages?
Determine which shipping carriers you want to use, such as USPS or FedEx. Take into account international customers as well. You may find that you want to ship your domestic orders by FedEx but USPS is more economical for international orders.

How do you want to calculate the shipping charges?
Many carriers offer real-time shipping APIs which allow an online store to calculate the shipping costs by passing your zip code, the customer’s zip code, and the package weight to their servers. This is a popular way to calculate shipping charges since it will return the exact rates from the carrier.

Other options such as flat rate charges, or calculations based off the price or weight can be performed. You may also want to offer free shipping or an option for the customer to pick up their order.

What will the business process be?
Before the orders start coming in it’s best to have a plan in place for how they will be handled. For example:

Will you be printing packing slips?
Will you be printing address labels?
Will you be dropping off packages with a carrier, or will they be picking them up?

Payment Options

Credit cards, COD, Check, PayPal, Amazon Payments, Google Checkout – there are countless payment options available these days. Think about what options you want to provide to your customers, but don’t overwhelm them with too many. Then check to make sure the store software you want to use will support the payment options you selected.

With credit cards you also have to make sure the store will support the Payment Gateway you currently use, or will be using. If you’re new to taking credit cards online we would recommend reading this post which will delve into more details for you:

The Basics – Online Credit Card Processing

Product Display & Marketing

There are many ways to display your products and just as many options when it comes to marketing them. Think about what you like to see when you shop online and which features you may want to have for your store. Examples include:

A product detail page with multiple photos [tip 1, tip 2]
Product Options (select a size, color, or other attribute from a drop-down box)
Coupons (enter a code to take a percentage or amount off the sale)
Quantity Discounts (buying a larger quantity of a product lowers the price)

Extra Features

Once the basics of the online store are determined you may want to think about any extra features you would like to provide to your customers. This could be things like product reviews, a wishlist feature, or the ability to share a page from your site on Facebook.

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It may seem like a daunting task since the options and features that you can provide with an online store appear to be endless, but by taking a few hours to write down your thoughts on the topics above you may be able to save a lot of time and save some stress as well when you’re bringing your store online.

How We Helped a Client Receive Over 1,000 Orders in Less Than 2 Hours

Rob Mangiafico — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 12:19:32 +0000

One of our ecommerce hosting clients contacted us a few weeks ago, excited about an upcoming opportunity. Their company was going to be featured on Good Morning America in the popular segment “Deals and Steals“. We have worked with clients who have appeared on The Today Show and Oprah, so we had a good idea of what to expect.

Two Things Were Needed

In order to survive (and thrive) under very heavy traffic, we needed to help them with two things:

1. A Dedicated Managed Server to handle the onslaught

2. Utilize a Content Delivery Network (CDN) to off-load images, JavaScript, and css files.

The client was using ShopSite for their ecommerce application. This was a key component, as ShopSite is very lightweight under heavy traffic, creates static html pages, and the cart can handle large traffic and multiple orders per second without any issues.

Tweaks That Make a World of Difference

Without spending a small fortune, or re-working the way a site is designed, a few small tweaks can go a long way to handling heavy concentrated traffic:

Converting popular pages with dynamic (PHP) code to static html pages.

Converting image/js/css calls to use the CDN

Adjusting server settings to maximize traffic while minimizing bottlenecks and “crash” scenarios.

The client converted their most popular pages that had a lot of PHP code in them to static html pages for the event. This made a huge difference. They also made sure they called as many images and js/css files from the CDN to reduce overall traffic to the server.

We here at LexiConn gave them a powerful enough server (Quad-Core CPU, 12 GB of RAM) and we adjusted many webserver settings and server parameters to scale well.

Wheeling and Dealing

Just before 9 AM, the client’s product was featured. I had the TV on in the background, as I love watching the traffic ramp up shortly after a product appears. Within seconds, thousands of people started hitting the site. The webserver (Apache) spiked up to 900 processes, but everything was stable and still quite snappy. No crash, no long delays or timeouts. Things were off to a good start.

We started to notice that memory was being eaten up at a faster than expected pace, even when traffic dipped a little after the surge. A quick look at the web access logs highlighted the culprit. A WordPress blog page that explained their popular product was being hit a lot. This page wasn’t optimized for static viewing, so it was using more resources than expected.

To combat this memory situation, we issued a few quick graceful restarts of Apache to reclaim memory. This was only needed a few times during the first 10 minutes to keep things stable.

Holy Orders Batman!

Within a few minutes, orders started rolling in. At its peak, we were seeing 3-5 orders PER second. The ShopSite ecommerce software handled this in stride, easily processing the orders with little overhead in terms of CPU or memory consumption.

In just over an hour, more than 1,000 orders had been placed successfully! The show re-aired in the Central, Mountain, and Pacific time zones. Traffic spiked each time, but it was half the level of the original East Coast airing.

…

The event was a success in terms of handling the influx of traffic and shoppers without major downtime. We managed to keep things running smoothly, allowing shoppers to place orders without delay or problems.

We collected more data about how a dynamic WordPress page can affect memory consumption, and we have developed more procedures and planning to better adjust webserver parameters to optimize the serving of web pages.

I’ll be writing a post in the near future with a checklist of things to do when expecting large traffic to your website.

Our 2012 Business Goal: Be Like Scotty

Rob Mangiafico — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 12:45:40 +0000

Which Scotty? I’m referring to the Engineer from the original Star Trek – He always managed to fix things much faster and better than his initial assessment would seem to indicate. (I’m sure he was padding the time/estimate to look better.)

Playing off of this (minus the padding), our 2012 goal is:

Accurate support that consistently exceeds expectations.

I know, not a quantitative goal (we have those internally), but I firmly believe that what sets us apart from other hosts is that we always strive to not only meet our obligations and website statements 100% of the time, but take a little extra time to go above and beyond.

Sometimes there isn’t time to do this, but whenever possible, everyone here understands the importance of exceeding expectations. It’s part of our “culture” as a company.

Try and find a large hosting company that takes this to heart. Making sure each email, each phone call, each interaction with a client is handled properly, timely, and dealt with in a personal and caring manner. That’s how we excel and stay ahead of the big dogs in this industry – By never losing site of the little things.

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So that’s it. A simple statement that packs a punch when carried out day in and day out. It’s not flashy or lofty, but I feel it’s the “secret sauce” in our success.

I’ll let you know how I think we did in December.

Did We Meet Our Goal For 2011?

Rob Mangiafico — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 13:48:33 +0000

In January, I set our 2011 goal:

Be Awesome!

It’s not easy to measure quantitatively, but you can have a gut feel for how you did. We always tried to exceed expectations, go the extra mile, and do the little things that so many hosts just blow off.

Do I think we accomplished our goal? Yes, but I’m biased – I’m on the inside looking out.
One of our clients sent us this certificate (along with a box of goodies). I may forget the goodies, but the certificate will stick with me for a long time. And I think it validates us reaching our goal:

Click image to enlarge

As George Costanza from Seinfeld said after hitting the high note:

Alright that’s it for me. Good night everybody.

See you in 2012!

5 Online Ways to Drive Customers Away From Your Site

Rob Mangiafico — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 16:33:25 +0000

The AmEx OPEN Forum ran an article, 5 Red Flags Your Business Might Be Waving. It looked at ways a traditional brick and mortar store can send customers to the competition.

As I was reading it, I was automatically converting this list into an online version. Here’s my “web-based” version…

1. Too good to be true

Online, the “air of desperation” can be seen as offering too much for too little. Everyone wants a deal, but you don’t want people to find your site and prices shady or too good to be true.

Going along with this, it’s a great idea to thank people for their business. Just don’t go over the top and make them feel uncomfortable. It’s a fine line.

2. The site is too busy and confusing

If you try to pack your homepage with 50+ items you think everyone will love, it will have the opposite effect. People will feel confused, and the site will look cluttered.

Whitespace is your friend. Targeted offers work best.

Make it easy for potential customers to see your value, easily find what they are looking for, and check out without any trouble.

In other words, K.I.S.S.

3. Customer service that is lacking

This one is both easy and the most difficult to master online.

It starts with being responsive, and letting customers know all the avenues to contact your company. If you announce a way to contact you, make sure you staff that method and be there 100% of the time you are supposed to.

Be cheerful, be helpful, and get to a resolution as quickly as possible. The customer may not always be right, but they always think they are. You have to work within that framework.

4. Emails and chat that get too personal

There is one simple rule to avoid this pitfall:

Always keep the focus on the customer

It’s ok to stray a little with personal stories and experience, but make sure 90% of the conversation is focused on the customer. If the customer feels they are the most important item in the convo, it shows them you care about them and their issues.

5. An outdated website

Your homepage is the front window of your store. Your website is your brick and mortar store. (I know, not much of a leap.)

If your design looks like it came from when the internet was just starting out, it’s time to overhaul it. Design concepts change, even online. Web 2.0, allowing comments, social sharing icons, flash not being the standard, html 5, JavaScript/ajax to make pages update on the fly, zoom features on images, etc…

Make sure you keep your site alive and fresh. It may not require a complete re-design, but adding features customers expect and appreciate is always a good idea.

But don’t overdo it and violate rule #2 above.

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Anything else you’d add to the list?

photo credit

Is Your Ecommerce Software a Ticking Time Bomb?

Rob Mangiafico — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 19:06:42 +0000

One of our ecommerce clients recently had the opportunity to have national exposure on NBC’s Jill’s Steals and Deals. This segment on the Today Show on NBC often results in a very high volume of buyers in a very short period of time.

We’ve had a number of clients over the past few years appear on national shows like Oprah, Food Network, NBC, etc… We’ve got some experience with this sort of thing, so we know what to expect and how to plan for it.

Or so we thought…

The “Plan”

The plan was to leverage our CDN (Content Delivery Network) for the deal page to reside on. We worked with the client to create a simple landing page where the tens of thousands of customers would initially click to. We knew the CDN would work well, and there would be no issues with availability on the landing page.

We set up a dedicated managed server for the client, quad core CPU, 4 GB of RAM, etc… This would be used solely for the cart/checkout process. Based on previous results, this would be more than enough to handle the onslaught.

The Curveball

Previously, most of our clients were running ShopSite as their ecommerce solution. ShopSite is great because it creates static html pages, it is compiled C code (meaning it’s fast and very lightweight), and the cart/checkout process uses almost no resources even under heavy load.

We’ve had a few clients use custom cart solutions, and those performed well enough to get through the huge number of buyers.

But this time, the client switched their ecommerce application from a custom one to Magento. Magento is an open-source (aka “free”) ecommerce application that some designers/developers love. We’ve had a few dedicated server clients use Magento, but we did not have any experience with Magento combined with heavy traffic.

It would only be the cart/checkout though… How bad could it be?

The day arrives

In past events, we’ve been able to tweak the webserver to handle 1,000 – 2,000 simultaneous events (translating to 10,000 + visitors at a time) without crashing. We always err on the safe side, so we set the webserver to max out at 500 to start with.

The deal went live, the CDN went to work, and people started ordering. Right away the load on the server skyrocketed, and more shocking was the 4 GB of RAM was almost instantly consumed! The end result, before we could even reign in the server, it crashed.

(scramble, scramble, scramble) – We reboot the server, set the webserver to a max of 100 connections, and see how it does. Even at this low setting, the load was quite high, and memory was being eaten up like a tasty turkey dinner. We were only able to increase the number of connections to 160 without overloading the server.

The post-mortem

After some initial struggles, and even with the low number of connections, the client still managed to have a successful deal, selling thousands of products. So it wasn’t a failure. *phewww*

We did learn that Magento is terrible as an ecommerce platform when it comes to scaling gracefully under heavy traffic. Even with just the cart/checkout being used in Magento, the software was a hog, using up inordinate amounts of RAM and CPU with even moderate traffic.

Compare this to ShopSite, and it’s night and day. We’ve seen ShopSite cruise with thousands of visitors all buying at the same time.

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Both the client and us here at LexiConn did not know how poorly Magento would perform. It was a ticking time bomb just waiting to explode once heavy traffic showed up. Had we known this up-front, we would have suggested a more robust solution with much more RAM and some different server optimizations to try to weather the storm.

Knowing the limitations and strengths of your ecommerce solution is vital to insure success. Not all the new shiny and popular software packages are what they appear to be. Many come with severe consequences and limitations when it comes to your specific needs. Make sure you understand this, and have a plan to work around it.

Just as importantly, make sure your host understands your needs and has the experience / flexibility to act fast when that curveball comes your way.