My Favorite Techie

Archive for the ‘Web Development’ Category

Today there are several web site design choices to consider when thinking about putting together a website. In the beginning, there was only one option and that was to learn HTML, the language of the web, and construct each page in an editor or web design software. Not only did you have to learn the skills to develop pages, but maintenance got to become a problem as the site got larger and larger.

Now there are many more web design choices to consider when considering publishing a website. There is the traditional site which can be built using a web editor such as Adobe Dreamweaver or CoffeeCup. No longer do you have to start from scratch knowing nothing. You rely on the skills of others to get you started. However, there are a number of sites now that offer templates already setup which allow you to just pick out what suites you, change a few parameters here and there and then add some content.

I like to recommend this solution to clients who want a very simple site with a few pages and not too many features. The more features you wish, the more you will have to get into learning special programming languages. Simple sites are still the greatest, but have their limitations. One of the biggest is the need for the web editing software and that is not available on every machine you may use.

The next best thing to consider is the use of a content management system to setup your site. Don’t worry about the fancy name. It actually is more a friend to you than you think. Content management systems make it very easy to create pages. If you know how to operate a word processor, you can create and edit pages. The best part is that the software resides on your web host, not your computer. Therefore, any computer with Internet access can be used to work on your website.

Just like traditional websites, there are numerous templates available for your choice of CMS (content management system). The biggest three solutions out there are WordPress, Joomla and Drupal. Just search the name of the CMS and template in your favorite search engine and you will be inundated with options for templates. If for some reason nothing suites your taste, there is always someone who would be willing to design or customize one for you.

I hope for those of you considering building a new website, this post has helped you get your mind around the options a little better. If there are any questions, feel free to drop me a message.

Author: Simran Chaudhary

There should be no trouble in creating a site from scratch if you’ve gone through this process before. For those of you who do not yet know how to make a website, it may prove to be a tough job at first. But by using some time to make plans, you’ll be able to respond to the question of how to make a website in practically no time.
Take the time to plan your website before you start building and the process will go more smoothly. You don’t really need to know a programming language to build a website because now there are programs designed to build the website to your specifications. more visit to :-www.google-friendly-page.com The most basic ones only take your content and put it into a generic template, but you can improve on those if you have the time.
Think about what you want your internet site to accomplish. This will give you a better notion as to how to start. For a commercial site, you obviously don’t want to use personal site templates. It’s more expensive to do a more elaborate website rather than a generic one, but the former will also provide greater advantages and more choices. Figure out how many pages you require and what sort of written material and images you plan to put in. Well planned and implemented site creation will help both you and your customers.
After you have learned how to make a website, its time to learn how to use it to make money. Affiliate Marketing is the number one way to make money with your website. There are countless affiliate programs to choose from so you can find one that suits you and your website perfectly. These Affiliate programs provide money to you for getting customers and sales for others through on-line ads. Through website creation and affiliate programs, you can make money every month, long after your work on the project is finished.
Space selling – Space selling gets you more money. For the most productive website creation, you must popularize your site and get people advertising on your site too. more visite to :-www.15-ways-to-boost-website-response.com Space selling to other companies for their service and product advertising will gain you a great deal of money.
Link – Build the links to gain more people. Reciprocal link building helps you in a number of ways. It enhances your search engine rating and will thus obtain more visitors for you via that search engine. It also gets clients for your services and products from other sites where you’ve got your links listed. Productive site creation must take this factor under consideration when designing a site.
Traffic building: Website will help you build up more traffic all the time. Productive site creation is decided by how much traffic it receives. Traffic building is made easy with a site. When you’ve got a site, you will get people coming to you.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/web-design-articles/how-to-easy-way-make-more-money-redesign-763827.html

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They are literally around us constantly now. Everything we associate with has a Internet name or domain name. It is hard to believe that just a few years ago, they did not exist in the marketing scheme of a business or any other organization. So, what exactly is a domain name and how does it work?

Domain names are a logical name for a site on the Internet, the same as every person has a name rather than just a number. Can you imagine what it would be like if we all had to refer to each other as numbers rather than given names. The same goes for the Internet. The Internet runs on a name to number system which by now we all take for granted.

Internet Real Estate

Domain names can be considered real estate on the Internet. Everyone pays a fee to get a domain name either on a yearly or multi-year basis. The cost compared to just a decade ago has gone down tremendously. At the onset, domain names cost well over $35 US. Now, a name can be purchased for a low as $1.99.

Certain names have a ring and are worth a great deal of money. Therefore, the cost of obtaining those names range from hundreds to thousands of dollars. People have actually begun to buy and sell domain names like physical real estate holdings.

Getting the name is simple, if it is available. Anyone can go to a website such as GoDaddy.com or Register.com and research if their choice name is available. If it is, then it’s just a matter of making a credit card payment and the name is yours, just like buying a house or office building.

Name to Address Translation

Just as people have last names, we all don’t know where each of us resides. The Internet works on the same concept. Even though we may own the domain name, the Internet does not know where the site actually resides. This is the magic that happens behind the scenes of the Internet.

The way that domain names get related to corresponding servers is through a series of servers on the Internet that take the domain names and do lookup searches to the server or servers that are attached to the name. Each name gets translated to a numerical address, similar to street addresses, block numbers or zip codes. Now this is a very simple explanation, but it is the basis of how the Internet works.

The process

Now that the general name and translation concept has been explained, lets see how it works from point A to point B.

A user goes online and types in the address abcd.com into the web browser. The computer begins the lookup process by going to the name translation server and asking “Does anyone know what this site is?”. The name server will then begin a global lookup of that name and within milliseconds get back a reply of the physical address of the server and then route that request to that particular server.

If you’ve ever gotten one of those weird messages stating, “This address could not be resolved.”, you are actually getting message that the servers on the Internet could not locate a physical server for the address entered. At this point you either check your address or something happened to the site you are trying to reach.

I’ve been asked this question a few times already, so I thought it would be worthwhile discussing. When it comes to web hosting, there are two types , Linux and Windows.  Which one should be chosen?

Most sites will run on both systems as HTML files (the files which actually make up the page) will run on either one. Where the differences come in is in the extensions or extra language that is being coded into the site.

Generally, sites that are programed to be dynamic using Microsoft solutions such as ASP or .NET will require Windows based hosting as Windows hosting has the backend software installed in order to process commands written in those languages.

Sites written in PHP, are best suited for Linux hosting, although most Windows hosting will also have the PHP processing software installed.  But, for the most part, PHP was originally for the Linux hosted web sites.

The last major difference has to do with cost. Windows hosting sometimes can cost more per month than Linux based hosting. It could be compared to the stability and reliability of Mac versus PC. This is generally due to the increased costs of maintaining a Windows based web server compared to a Linux based server.

So, which hosting solution should you choose? For the most part you can choose Linux as it is the most popular and will run basically any simple site simply because of the cost and the greater number of companies out there.

If there are any further questions, feel free to contact me and I will gladly answer your questions.

Content Management Systems are web sites that utilize dynamic page construction rather than traditional web pages. Content Management systems are scripts written in a language such as ASP or PHP and pull requested  content from a database. Aside from the technical differences, content management systems allow anyone to construct a professional looking website without the need for complicated web design software.

There are many types of content management systems available and most of us have seen at least three. The four major systems are web site, blogging, Wiki, and forums/discussion boards. Each have their own unique uses and structures. However, they all share one thing in common, they are all simple and easy to use and are modular.

How It Works

The site is comprised of several parts, the script, a template and a database. The template is designed in the same way a traditional web site is designed, except for the lanuguage used. The template, once completed and tested, is copied to the web server to a certain place where templates are held. Finally, the content for the site, such as pictures, stories, and links are stored as entries in a database.

When a visitor goes to the web site and clicks on a button, the script pulls the necessary content from the database and then displays it in the template. It all happens within seconds and is transparent to the visitor.

It’s Easy!

What makes this type of web site great is that the webmaster can use any computer with Internet access to create or modify content for the site. They don’t have to lug around a laptop or desktop computer with special software to edit the web site. The webmaster also has the ability to schedule when content goes live on the site.

Unlike traditional web sites, content management systems have many features built into them which have to be hand coded into traditional sites. For example, features such as print view, email to a friend, and view as PDF are standard options in the Joomla! content management system. These sites are also natively search engine friendly.

Setting up a web site based on a content mangement system is also simple. Many web hosts can automatically setup the script and database for you. And if you need a template for your site, there are thousands available for free on the Internet or you can have a designer create one for you for a fee. Once you have your template, all that needs to be done is log into the backend (place where administration of the site is done) and setup your site.

They’re Modular!

Lastly, content management systems are modular. There are modules available for download on the Internet which allow you to customize the site to just about anything you would like. For example, there are extensions to create a shopping cart, email newsletters, photo galleries, and so on. Most of these add-ons are free of charge and if there is a charge, it will be mentioned.

If you are looking to create a web site fast and easy, this is the way to go. If you feel you need help setting all this up, SAK Information Systems has experience setting up these web solutions and also offers hosting solutions that are content management system friendly.

Creating a web site can be a daunting task to many. We all think of the early days when you had to know how to program in the strange language of HTML.  That is not the case any more; there are many visual web site editors available on the market both FREE and paid. They all generally do the same job, except that the paid ones have more features in them to build more complicated sites. For the common person, the FREE and inexpensive editors work just fine.

Planning

Once you know that you want to create a web site, some planning needs to be done. Just as you don’t just build a house, you don’t just build a web site. The best approach to web site building is to pencil everything out on paper first so that you can establish the flow visually. It is also best at this time to figure out your categories and sections. Once you start, it is best not to rearrange your structure; so, a good planned structure well worth the invested time.

The other piece of the planning that needs to be done is searching for an Internet name or domain name for your site. The most common and most popular is the .com. However, as the Internet has become larger and larger, it has become more challenging to get a .com name. In order to search for a name, you can visit a whole host of different sites such as register.com, GoDaddy.com, networksolutions.com, and others. There you can enter different names and see what is available. Once you find a name that is available, you may register it or proceed to your web hosting company to do it for you when you sign up later on.

Designing

Designing is the hardest part of web site building. Web site design involves a great deal of graphical layout. To aide this process, there are literally thousands of templates available on market to tackle this part. Again, some templates are available for free and others at a price. Once you’ve gotten a template design ironed out (either from a template you’ve downloaded from somewhere or designed yourself), it is time to start creating content (the actual stuff that people will be coming to your site for).

Creating Content

The most important piece of web site building is creating the content that makes up the site. Each new page should correspond to a category that you established in your layout. Content can be text, pictures, forms, etc. You can either create the content yourself or get content from somewhere else (as long as you’re not violating copyright and trademark laws). The more useful content you have, the better the site will be.

Saving the site

Once you have gotten a decent amount of pages created, it is time to put them somewhere and that somewhere is a web host. There are lots of hosts out there, so do some looking and ask around. It is at this time you should have also decided on an Internet name for your site as it will be needed to open an account with the host. Once you’ve found a host and signed up, you then upload your pages over the Internet to the host.

Now, you can go to “www.yoursite.com” and see your hard work at work.

Maintenance

Once your site has gone “live”, it is critical to make sure that it is maintained. By maintained I mean updated with new content. It is critical that new content be added and existing content be modified to keep the attention of your visitors. Some examples of keeping visitors returning are:

• Offer tips and advice
• Free downloads (ie. Wallpapers, icons, ebooks, etc.)
• New links to other web sites
• New articles on the topic

I know I’ve made this very simplified, but this is the basic flow of how a site is created. There are other pieces of the puzzle that are important as well such as search engine optimization. That will be covered in another post. So, start thinking and building your next web site.

Many people who are not familiar with how a web site works will ask the question, “What is Web Hosting.” Web hosting is service by which a company rents disk space on a computer that is on the Internet to store the files of a web site. There is nothing really fancy about it. Just as one saves a file to their local computer, a web host provides space to save the files that make up a web site on a remote computer that is accessible by the whole world.

Web hosting services generally have three or four options available based on the amount of space one would need to store all the files necessary for a web site. Also included are email addresses which allow one to create a unique email address that has the same domain as their web site. For example, if you have the name “mysite.com”, your email address would be “myaddress@mysite.com”. The entry level options are usually sufficient for a small web site and have more than enough web addresses available for a small operation. The bigger packages are for sites that have lots and lots of pages. Each package has a different price. Hosting packages start at $1.95/month and go up from there depending on company and options offered. Some go as high as $299.99/month. It pays to go shopping for web hosting before committing.