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Top 5 ways of Speeding up Your Website and Lowering the Load Time

Editor — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 16:29:19 +0000

The most visited websites takes minimum time to load. The loading time of a website does affect the usability. Most users would just skip a website if its pages take a lot of time in opening. There are some simple and effective ways using which you can speed up your website in no time. Following are the steps which you can follow to enhance the speed of your website:

The first and foremost thing is to optimise the images on the web. You should always use the save for the web feature that is included on an image editing software. Images actually represent a heavier load on a website hence optimising them is the best option. On the other hand, there are various online image optimisers that you can use.

Picking up the right format for the images is very important as it affects the speed of a website. The JPEG formats are suitable for photographs or various other true colour images. On the other hand, the GIF format should actually be used for flat colour images such as logos and buttons. Whereas PNG works almost like GIF but it actually supports more colours.

Another very important step is to optimise your CSS. You should always aggregate and clean the CSS. CleanCSS is actually an online tool which will actually merge some similar selectors. You can remove some useless properties and also remove the white space from the code.

Using a slash on your links because it will help in reducing the load time of the site. But you should add the slash at the end of the link.

Another very important step is to use the height and width tags. This option is generally forgotten. These tags will tell the browser about the size of the image. Hence the browser will actually reserve a spot for these images while it is loading the rest of the page which will eventually speed up the whole process.

Follow the above mentioned steps to speed up your website instantly. These steps are pretty easy and wont consume much time.

Can XML Replace HTML? And Will It?

Editor — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:56:22 +0000

Extensible mark up language or XML was not developed as a replacement for HTML. When the XML 1.0 was not developed as yet it was referred to as SGML for web. It is true that XML is very adaptable towards web but the number of XML based mark up languages cannot be rendered or it is not known that how to render all the documents. But this is just one side of the story as XML has already replacing HTML in certain terms. The World Wide Web Consortium or W3C is already very famous. It is actually responsible for HTML standards and currently version 4.01 is being used all over the world.

W3C is not planning to release no further enhancements after 4.01 HTML. On the other hand, it has actually approved some sought of recommendation of the version 1.0 or the dubbed extensible HTML or the XHTML. This shows that any future modification to the Web’s Lingua Franca will actually be done in the XHTML standard and not HTML. Hence XHTML is basically a XML form of HTML in which the start tags are actually balanced with the end tags. In the XHTML all the elements should always nest correctly within one another. In future there will be no overlapping which would reduce confusion and certain errors.

There are a number of other things as well such as the XHTML 1.0 comes with 3 different flavours. It is believed that XHTML is a good choice for current HTML documents as you can convert them easily into the XHTML format. The XML actually enforces some sought of a strict separation between the content and the structure. Furthermore, it also enforces the manner in which it is actually displayed. Some of the most important tags such as don’t have any place in a XML document. The truly XML based form of HTML would actually require some sought of presentation characteristics so that it can be represented in a style sheet. The style sheet is apart from the document itself.

The XHTML Transitional does actually relax the requirement which makes it even more likely that some legacy browsers that may or may not support style sheets can continue to work as it was expected. In XHTML all sorts of presentation related mar ups are banned it means that if you want some particular element to be displayed then you should actually then you must use a style sheet. Another very important thing is the XHTML frame set. In XHTML if you want to use any sought of frames in order to construct the web pages of your website then you can actually use the XHTML 1.0 version for a frameset itself.

The contents of individual frames will actually be marked up in one of the other two remaining flavours. It is not yet clear that it XML can replace HTML but one thing is for sure that the demand for XML is increasing day by day and who knows if someday HTML becomes history.

Add TIDY Advantage to HTML: Very Helpful for Cleaning up Messy HTML Code

Editor — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:47:55 +0000

When you are editing HTML, it is very easy to make certain mistakes. Now there is a programme which works automatically and turns the sloppy editing into a very nicely layed out mark up. The programme is known as HTML TIDY and was developed by Dave Raggett. The HTML TIDY is a free of cost utility and it performs the very important task of cleaning the untidy editing. This programme works perfectly with a hard to read mark up which is generated by specialised HTML editors and various other conversion tools. This actually tells you which place you need to pay more attention.

TIDY can fix a variety of problems and will also provide certain things which you need to work upon. Every time an item is found it is actually listed with a specific line number and a column which makes the problem visible to you. The best thing about the programme is that it won’t change the format into a cleaned up version untill it recognises the problem. The mistakes which TIDY cannot understand it logs it as “errors”. It is a very important programme and everyone learning HTML should understand HTML TIDY as well. The programme is totally free of cost and understanding it is pretty easy.

Another benefit of using TIDY is that you can choose a specific style that you want. TIDY cannot preserve the original layout because the implementation comes in the way. It starts working by building the clean parse tree from a source file. Then this programme prints the parse tree and we can use the current layout options only. If it tries to preserve an original layout then it interacts very badly with the repair operations that were needed in order to build a clean parse tree. This is a very useful option of TIDY and is very easy to understand as well.

TIDY also offers a choice of various character encodings as the full set of HTML 4.0 entities are properly defined. Various other encodings such as US ASCII and UTF ISO Latin-1 are also supported by it. The characters which are not supported by TIDY are selected as numeric character entities. The main drawback is that TIDY does not recognise the use of HTML meta elements in order to specify the character coding. The clean option in TIDY will be replaced by style properties and some rules which use CSS that actually makes the mark up easier than normal.

This programming is still evolving and is about to get smarter as time progresses. There are certain pages which actually rely on some sought of presentation effects. You should use the empty paragraph elements for adding a vertical white space. You should actually use style sheets in such matters. TIDY will not discard any sort of paragraph which contains a non breaking space. It also offers advice on certain accessibility problems for those people who are using non graphical browsers. It is a very important programme and understanding it is very easy as well. You can find all the information about TIDY online.

Understanding HTTP Messages for HTML Part II

Editor — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 07:21:23 +0000

As discussed in the earlier article understanding the HTTP messages is very important for anyone who wants to learn or is learning HTML. There are various other messages which frequently creep up every now and then. These messages may not occur each and every time but most of us are clueless whenever we get an error like this. There are a number of client error messages which are very important to understand. Understanding them is pretty easy as well. When a message “400 Bad Request” occurs then you should understand that the server was not able to understand your request.

Another very common message is the “401 Unauthorized” which states that the page which you are trying to open actually requires a specific username and a password. The error message “403 Forbidden” describes that the access to the requested page is forbidden. The most common client error message includes “404 Not Found” which describes that the server was not able to find the page that you requested. The “405 Method Not Allowed” is very common as well and it describes that the method that you specified in your request is not allowed by the server. These are some of the most important client error messages that creep up very frequently.

There are various other client error messages which include “406 Not Acceptable” which denotes that the server can generate a response which is actually not accepted by the client. The “407 Proxy Authentication Required” is very frequent and describes that the user must authenticate using a proxy server so that the request can be properly served. The error message “408 Request Timeout” describes that you request actually took more time than the server anticipated. If you know the meaning of all these error messages then understanding the HTML becomes very easy.

There are some other client error messages as well. The message “409 Conflict” describes that the request of the client was not completed because of some type of conflict. Another common message is the “411 Length Required” which denotes that the length of the content is not defined in a proper manner and the server will not accept it unless and untill the content length is defined. The client error message “412 Precondition Failed” shows that the precondition which is given in the request has been evaluated to false by the server itself. The message “413 Request Entity Too Large” means that the server cannot accept you request as the request entity is very large.

Another very frequent client error message includes “414 Request-url Too Long” which states that the server cannot accept your request as the url that you provided is too long. It generally occurs when you try and convert a post request to get some request from a long query. The “415 Unsupported Media Type” is very important as well because it describes that the server will not recognize your request as the media type is not supported at all. All the above mentioned messages and there descriptions will help you to properly understand HTML.

Understanding HTTP Messages for HTML will be a Great Help

Editor — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:35:09 +0000

Understanding the HTTP messages is very important for a person who is working or trying to learn HTML. There are a number of error messages that creep up every now and then and most of us are confused as to what it means. Each and every error message is denoted by a number and each number has a different meaning. These are also called HTTP status messages and understanding them is not at all difficult. The message only occurs when a particular browser requests some sought of service from the web browser.

The error message “100 continue” actually means that some part of the request is received by a server but the client should continue the request untill the server rejects it. The message “101 Switching Protocols” actually means that the server has switched the protocol. The above mentioned were the information messages and you can easily understand them. Following are the successful messages that appear on your page. The message which says “200 OK” actually means that the request is OK and been granted. The message “201 Created” describes that your request is complete and a new resource is being created. The error message “202 Accepted” describes that the request is accepted and sent for processing but the processing is not complete.

Another error message such as “203” is described as non-authoritative information. Error message “204” refers to no content. Furthermore, “205” and “206” refers to reset content and partial content. Understanding all the above mentioned messages is pretty easy. The most frequent and common messages are the server errors. Some of the server error includes “500 Internal Server Error” which means that the request is not completed because the server has met an unexpected condition. Another error message is “501 Not Implemented” means that the request is not completed because the server did not supported the functionality which was required.

The very common “502 Bad Gateway” error describes that the server received some invalid response from the upstream server. Another server error is “503 Service Unavailable” which actually means that the request did not complete because the server is down or overloading. The most common server error is the “504 Gateway Timeout” which means that the gateway has timed out and the request cannot be completed. Another server error includes “505 HTTP Version Not Supported” which means that the server did not support your “http protocol” version. Above mentioned are all the server errors which frequently occur.

Error message “300 Multiple Choices” indicates that there are a number of options for a specific resource. The message “301 Moved Permanently” describes that all the future requests should be permanently moved to a given URL. The error code “303 See Other” is very common and shows that the response to a specific request can only be found under some other URL. This URL is found using the GET method. All the above mentioned error messages are very important to understand if you are using HTML or are planning to learn it in the near future.

Turn Your PC into an Efficient Web Server

Editor — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 09:47:54 +0000

A web server is basically a medium for other people to view the pages you have. For enabling other people view the pages you must publish them and for publishing you need a web server. You can easily convert your PC into a web server by installing IIS or PWS. The IIS and PWS are basically free web server components and can be downloaded as well. The internet information server is basically internet based services that are used for servers created by MS. These are basically used for Microsoft Windows. IIS generally comes with Windows Vista, XP, 2000 and NT as well.

The IIS can be easily found and installed in your computer it is regarded as the best for testing web applications. The best part of IIS is that it includes ASP that is Active Server Pages. These can be used to create interactive and dynamic web applications. To further know about ASP you should study the ASP school available online. PWS or personal web server is generally used for earlier versions of Windows such as Windows NT, 98 and 95. It is very easy to install as well and is basically used for testing and developing a wide number of web applications.

The PWS is outdated and is recommended for those who are training because it has security issues related to it. Each and every version of Windows comes with a different IIS such as Windows Vista Business Enterprise and Ultimate generally comes with IIS 7. On the other hand, Windows NT Workstation works on PWS or IIS 3. Installing IIS on Windows Vista is pretty easy and you can do it by following certain easy steps which include:

* Click on the start menu and open control panel
* Programs and functions will be an option and you will have double click on it
* Then click on “Turn Windows features on or off” which is there on the left side
* Finally select the box for IIS and then click OK

After installing IIS, run a Windows update so that your computer is totally safe.

You can simply install IIS on Windows XP as and Windows 2000 as well. All you have to do is follow various steps that include:

* Click on the start button and then open the control panel
* Open the Add or Remove Programs
* You will see Add/Remove Windows Components click on it
* Then click on IIS
* Click on details
* Then select the check box for WWW services and click on OK
* Finally click on Next to install IIS on your computer

After installing IIS or PWS you can easily test it as well. For testing you will have to follow a number of steps which includes:

* Search for a folder which is called Inetpub and is located on the hard drive
* Open this folder and find another folder which is named as wwwroot
* Then create a new folder under wwwroot
* Write an ASP code and save these files named as “test1.asp”
* You should always make sure that web server is functioning
* Finally open the browser and write “http://localhost/MyWeb/test1.asp” and you can view the webpage

Top Ten Web Designer Job Skills to Master and Improve

Editor — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 09:47:46 +0000

If you would like to be a web developer or web designer, there are certain skills that you should be aware in order to be successful in this profession. The skills mentioned below are some of the important skills that you need to be a successful web designer.

1. HTML

For any web developer or web designer, the most important thing is HTML. If you know HTML thoroughly, you will understand how the web works and it will be important throughout for your career. For both web developers and web designers, HTML is imperative.

2. CSS

CSS is an important language for a web designer and it is an important language after HTML. CSS is the one that powers the web design and will determine page appearance. Without this, a web designer will not be able to produce innovative websites.

3. Design Sense

For any web designer, it is important to have good sense of design. Than just looking out for the colours, there is lot more things attached to it. You should be aware of design elements and the principles of basic design.

4. Ajax and JavaScript

The first interactive element of the websites is JavaScript and before learning any other language, the web developers should be always comfortable with JavaScript. You will be able to create Ajax Websites once you understand the how the JavaScript connects with the websites.

5. C++, PHP, Perl, Java or ASP

WebPages can be programmed using the language that you use. Other than the languages that are mentioned above, there are some other languages that can be used to program the WebPages. The programs include C++, PHP, Perl, Java or ASP

6. MySQL Database

For most of the Web applications, building and maintaining a database is very much essential. On the web, MySQL is one of the most popular database and even learning SQL or Access will be helpful.

7. Flash

If you would like to add vector graphics and animation, you can get it through flash. Using this, more interesting websites can be created by both web developers and web designers.

8. SEO

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is one of the most useful and important tool in building websites. The SEO will be affected by the way HTML is written, the content, image quality and much more.

9. Web Server Administration

If you know some things about the server that your website is running on, you will be able to solve the problems and can make your site to run better. Most of the web designers feel that they can ignore the server and you will be able to build a better site once you are aware of the server .

10. Project Management

In any profession, one of the critical jobs is project management. If you come to know how to manage a project, you will be able to keep it on track so that it will help you to endear you to all the managers with whom you work presently and in future.

Uptime in Web Hosting is a Great Way to Measure the Reliability of a Hosting Provider

Editor — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:35:22 +0000

Uptime is nothing but the time that a particular server has stayed up and running. Usually, this is listed as percentage. It is a great measure where the clients will come to know the efficiency of the systems of a web-hosting provider. For any web-hosting provider, the uptime is very important.

There are some problems with grading on uptime

With grading a host, the biggest problem is on their uptime and you will not have independence to verify it. You have to really take the time to verify the host if they tell you that they are providing 100% uptime.

The Uptime guarantees cab be misleading as well

Usually, the uptime guarantees are not the ones that you think. From every other agreement in hosting, unless the hosting agreement is very difficult, the guarantee on uptime works something like this:

The hosting will tell you that, they will guarantee that if the site goes down for more than three hours per month in some unscheduled outages, we will definitely refund the amount of hosting for the amount of time that you have reported that the site was very slow. They tell that the amount will be refunded once the verification is done.

Some of the other Uptime issues

Hardware vs. Software

Uptime is the one that will reflect on how long the machines that are running t he websites will stay up and running. However, the machine can be running and will be working but the website will be down. If the web server software is not maintained properly (software such as databases and PHP) for your website, you have to ensure that the hosting agreement that you sign with the web-hosting provider includes the guarantee for the software running time and hardware time as well.

Who Caused the Problem?

If at all you do something that will lead to the breakdown of the website, you have to look carefully in this matter because not all the agreements will have this term.

Getting Reimbursed

If you have determined that, the website went down with no fault on your side and if it is the fault of hardware crashing other than the software (or the software that was covered in the agreement), getting reimbursement will be very much difficult. Most of the web-hosting providers have hoops that they want you to jump through in order to claim reimbursement. They will probably hoping that you can decide the amount of effort that is put in not worth the reimbursement that you receive from the hosting provider.

Uptime is very Important

Do not be mistaken, having the web hosting service providers that will guarantee the uptime that is much better than others are. However, do not assume that if the hosting provider guarantees you 99.99% uptime so that your website will never go down. What is more likely in this is that, if your site goes down for certain period of time and then you will be reimbursed with the amount for the time that was down.

E-commerce Annoyances that you should Avoid

Editor — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 05:28:54 +0000

When building an online store, for you it will be tempting in order to focus on all the efforts on conversions. However, if you annoy the reader before becoming customers, you might lose the conversions that you did not know about. The e-commerce annoyances can be easily fixed and it can be fixed only when you take your time to address all of them on your website. Some annoyances make people leave the site even without having a look at once and some others are minor issues. People will leave your website if there are more annoyances in your website. The experience on the site will make them less satisfied and if they make any purchase this time, in future they might lag behind. The conversion rate will not ripple the conversion rates if the annoyances are fixed.

Annoyances before they have chosen what to buy

This type of annoyances will happen when customers browsing the site. They might even leave the site without buying if they are annoyed.

Pages load slowly

Mainly in the e-commerce sites, WebPages should load slowly. The pages should contain large images with the information of the product. Check the database and server so that it has to load the pages quickly. Speed is very important, if the pages are slow, the customers get irritated and they leave the website without purchasing anything.

Providing no additional information about the product

The more information you provide the more sales you get. You have to provide the information such as materials, colours, weights, size and technical specs. Your site appears better with more information. If you do not provide information for the customers, then you cannot meet the targeted sales. Remember that always content is the king.

Outdated content

If the content is outdated, customers will not trust you. Ensure that your content is updated regularly with current content that is reliable.

Not welcoming customer reviews and feedback on the products

When buying a product, most of the people read the customer reviews. If you do not provide the space for it, then you will not be able to reach the sales.

Until checkout, not displaying the price

Most of the online stores do not put up the price on the product thinking that the customers will obligated. Do not force the customers to discover the price in checkout, as it would be annoying.

Annoyances during the checkout

Login is required to checkout

This would really be annoying. Forcing the people to become members would be annoying

Providing no value for the required login

You have to give some offer if they become member and if you do not offer something, then it will be annoying.

Picking countries and states from the drop-down

Picking up the countries and states on the website should be easy and it should be done with professional validation service.

Only a web form with no contact information, telephone or other online method.

Customers would always want to contact you after buying the products for information and if you do not provide the contact information, then it will be annoying.

Cheap Hosting: Make sure you find the best Web Hosting Plan

Editor — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 03:15:58 +0000

When you are looking out for the Web Hosting plans, it could be tempting to look at the prices. However, there are many hosting providers and once you have decided to go, you have many options to choose from. If you have decided to go with cheap hosting, you have to look at certain things.

Free setup

In the market, there are many hosting providers and if they if you pay the set-up fee, then the hosting is silly. If you want to create hosting service, this process has little effort especially in the case of shared hosting.

Unlimited Space and Bandwidth

It was practice followed by people that cheap web hosting is not available along with bandwidth and unlimited space.

30 days should be used to analyze the service.

Not all the cheap web hosting provide cheap provide money-back guarantee and most of the people might have locked themselves with one year contract with the service providers. However, unless you come to know what the things you need are, go with a 30-day offer so that it will be helpful for you to analyze the service.

Tech support

If you want to clarify all the doubts regarding the service over the phone, then do not go with the service providers who provide the 24-hour chat support. Most of the cheap service providers offer FAQs and knowledge bases online but very few provide person-to-person support. Ensure that you learn the how to make use of the support offered. If the domain is down, an E-mail support will not be good.

The features required

If the database is required with PHP, you should not go with the hosting providers that will include the features for a monthly price. Later, it might be difficult for you to convert the plan.

Most of the plans are cheap along with packages

Package deal is one of the common ways in which the cheap hosting service is available. This deal might be offered for months or years together. When these packages are compared with other services, cheaper services are available for you. If you are not capable of paying the entire cash at a time, then go with the monthly rentals and make sure that before signing in, check out all the details about the service.

Before signing up with a service, read all the terms and condition first

The most common complaint that is been seen around the hosting providers are the cancellation fees and non-refundable terms. Most of the times, all these terms and conditions would be specified in the contract that you would sign before you get the service. Make sure that all the terms and conditions are read so that you will not want to find out that they claim copyrights over the content that you post on the servers. (It is very much important for you to check out the conditions so that you can come to know all the things about the company. When you want to go with cheap hosting service, gather some information about the hosting services so that you will not be in a fix.