What is your screen resolution?
Statmarket.com recently did a study (February 17, 2001) to try to figure out how much screen area web users were seeing on their screens. They found that most users had their screen resolutions set at 800x600 pixels. In fact, 53% of web users had their screen resolution set at 800x600 pixels.
Why is this important? Well, if you are designing pages for the web, you want to make sure that the viewer can see all of your page without scrolling horizontally, if possible. On the other hand, you don't necessarily want to design for the smallest screen resolution because on a larger screen, your design will be swamped by empty space.
But what if the viewer doesn't have their browser window set to maximum? What if they customized their browser tool bars to make more viewing area available? What if global warming is real?
What I am getting at is that there are a lot of factors beyond our control when it comes to viewable screen real estate. So how do you design for this infinitely flexible canvass?
Two techniques come to mind (but I am sure there are many other creative solutions). One solution is to make the design stretch to fill the browser window, regardless of the screen resolution, or the size of the browser window, or anything else for that matter. The other solution is a hybrid: make the main area of the page float so that it always stays in the center of the screen.
For example, this page is totally "stretchy". Go ahead. Change the size of your browser window. The page should stretch or squish to fill the screen. If you want to see something cool, watch the top navigation bar as you resize the window. See how the geometric thingies slide over the net in the background? This is an example of a stretchy design.
NormanRussell.com is an example of a hybrid design. When you resize your browser window with this design, the central elements stay the same size, but move together to the center of your window. In general, a hybrid design is easier to build than a totally stretchy design.
By now, you may be wondering how all the screen resolutions stack up with regard to popularity. Here's what statmarket.com learned in their study of 50,465,595 user sessions:
- 640x480: 7%
- 800x600: 53%
- 1024x768: 31%
- 1152x864: 2.5%
- 1280x1024: 2.5%
- other: 4%
The bottom line is this: web designers should concentrate less on what the most popular screen resolution is, and focus more on how they can make the pages useable for the viewer at any screen resolution or browser window size.
If you want to learn more about how BIGSEA can help you make your design stretchy, give us a call. We're here to help.
Separating Form From Content
If you work around the web building web sites for any amount of time, you will eventually hear the phrase "separate form from content". What, exactly, does that mean?
In a nutshell, it describes the concept of separating the appearance and layout of your web documents from the text that those documents contain.
Why is this important? Say, for example, you are maintaining a web site with 100 pages. You built those pages using static html files and you painstakingly applied font sizes, colors, and font styles to all 100 pages. Someday, your boss or client will come to you and say: "change all of my type to a light blue, and make my headlines dark gray.". You will say "arghhhh..."
If you had the foresight to use a style sheet to apply the color formatting to the text in your documents, you will make the change in two places, and suddenly all 100 of your pages will take on the new appearance. If you weren't blessed with foresight in this instance, you will get busy editing all 100 of your pages manually.
That's the beauty of separating form from content. In fact, the concept behind Rev9 is all about separating form from content. If you want to learn how BIGSEA can help you separate form from content in your existing web site, give us a call. We're here to help.
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Saturday, February 17, 2001 |
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Why you need a content management system
Here's a link to a pretty good article that explains why you need a content management system.
This page summarizes some of the existing content management systems available in the marketplace today.
Of course, we can convert your site to a Rev9 site and give you the benefits of a content management system at a fraction of the cost compared to building your own content management server and database.
While we're on the subject of content management, have you been thinking about ways to separate your web content from your web design? You aren't alone-- at BIGSEA we understand the importance of this idea. But content management systems are just one piece of the puzzle. Cascading style sheets, XHTML and XML are a few others. In this article, Zeldman discusses his efforts and the efforts of other developers to convert their sites and web content to support standards-compliant web browsers. Zeldman believes that developers can pull users along to upgrade to newer browser versions by ending the practice of creating backward-compatable web pages. Whether you agree with him or not, this article is a good read if you want to stay up-to-date with the latest web development techniques.
And, as always, if you are interested in learning how BIGSEA can help you build a better web site, give us a call. We're here to help.
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Friday, February 16, 2001 |
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Client-Side Javascript Includes
I saw something this morning that got me thinking. It was a really ugly (and poorly built) web site that had an interesting feature. On the right hand side of the page, there was a nice looking news feed from internetsoccer.com. How did this gem get on this page?
The answer: client-side javascript includes.
First a little about news feeds: if you don't already know, news feeds make it easy for people to share links to interesting articles that are (hopefully) related to the content of their web site. For example, this site includes a news feed to Wired News. See the right-hand column of this page? Those links to articles are coming directly from Wired. They get updated every day, and the best part is, I don't have to do anything to maintain it. New articles appear on the news feed whenever Wired adds them.
But enough about news feeds. Lets get back to the client-side javascript includes. If you know some of the more technical details of the web, you know that some pages are static (they are just text files stored on the server, and the server just serves them up, as is), and some pages are dynamic (the server builds the page from bits and parts every time someone sends a request for the page). The page I was looking at was most definitely a static web page. So how was this dynamic news feed appearing on the page? Client-side javascript includes.
Hmmm. Pretty clever, but simple really. Instead of having the server build the page dynamically, some javascript on this page caused my client software (Internet Explorer) to build the page dynamically.
How did they do this? There are two parts to the solution. The first part is to create a text file consisting of a snippet of html that you want to include on a page. This text file has to have two special characteristics. One, the text must look like this:
document.write (' html snippet goes here ');
And two, all of the text, including the html, must be on one line.
The second part of the solution is to include a bit of code on your page where you want the included html to appear. Here is what that line should look like:
<script language="javascript" src="http://path to file you created in step one"></script>
If you did everything right, and you have javascript enabled in your web browser, viewing your modified (static) web page should include (dynamically) the html snippet you created in step one. Pretty neat.
There are a couple of potential problems that you should be aware of: one, you are totally dependent on the client machine to properly render your dynamic page. If the browser has javascript turned off, the include won't work. Two, if you want the included html snippet to update dynamically like our news feed does, you will have to find someone who is providing the news feed in the proper format (like the example above).
Our Rev9 product handles news feeds a little differently than the example above, but I thought it was an interesting technique that someone could use. And you don't have to use it just for news feeds. You could easily break a web page into simple text files and have the client put it all back together. Why would you want to do this? It could make editing the site easier. Instead of editing the complete static web page, you could edit sections separately. This would allow you to separate form from content.
But if you are going to go to that much effort, you may want to consider a browser based content management system like our Rev9 product. With Rev9, you get all of the benefits of separating form from content, dynamic pages that can be rendered out to a static server (for speed, reliability), and you don't have to worry about all of the messy details that are going on in the background. Rev9 makes it easy for you to use your brain power to manage the content on your web site so you don't have to waste brain cycles managing your web site.
If you want to learn more about how BIGSEA can help you ease the pain of maintaining your web site and help you keep your content fresh, give us a call. We're here to help.
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Sunday, February 11, 2001 |
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Maybe you don't want to be a webmaster.
So maybe you don't want to be a webmaster. You have read about Rev9, but you don't want to worry about the details of keeping your site up-to-date on a regular basis. Maybe you would just like to be able to tell your webmaster: "change the word 'cat' to 'dog' everywhere in my site", and have the changes made almost instantaneously.
No problem. If that's what you want, let BIGSEA be at your service. Rev9 makes it easy for our hosting customers to keep their sites updated on a regular basis, but for those clients who don't want webmaster responsibility, we can use our Rev9 product to keep your site updated for you.
Maybe you have had a bad experience with your current web developer. You needed to have some changes completed on your site by tomorrow afternoon, but your developer told you it would take a week or two before they could get to it. You thought to yourself: "there has got to be a better way."
There is. If you like the idea of having a webmaster on call to make chages to your site, but don't like the idea of experiencing long delays to get the changes made, give us a call. We can discuss converting your existing site to a Rev9 site. After that, we should be able to make most changes (text, some graphics) to your site in less than 24 hours. If you want a complete re-design of your site or you want to add additional functionality that requires custom coding, it will definitely take longer than 24 hours, but we will let you know in advance. But for most simple changes to text or graphics, we will have your work done by the next day, and often, sooner.
Sound interesting? Give us a call. We're here to help.
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Wednesday, February 7, 2001 |
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Another thing that makes Rev9 great...
You're updating the content on your website. It's late, you're tired. You are working with your favorite WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) web page editor. You find the page you want to change on your local machine, make your changes, save them, and FTP the updated page to the webserver. Just to make sure all is well, you browse to the page you just changed to see your changed page live.
Oops. Something went wrong. Your page isn't rendering correctly in the browser. Next you realize you overwrote the original copy on your local machine when you saved your changes, and you overwrote the original on your webserver when you FTP'd the page to the web server.
You were hoping to hop into your warm bed, but now you know you have another hour of work ahead of you to correct the damaged page.
If you had a Rev9 site, this extra work could have been averted. In Rev9, you edit your pages directly in your web browser, in WYSIWYG mode (works with Internet Explorer for Windows). You make your changes, click the "Post Changes" button, and then you see your changes in the web browser. You know right away if the changes you made were the changes you intended.
What if you made a mistake? Don't worry, you can always go back and edit the page again to fix it. But what if you really, really made a mistake? You are still O.K. Rev9 keeps two copies of your pages in circulation. One copy resides on the Rev9 server (this is where you make your changes) and the other copy resides on the public web server. The page your customers see doesn't get changed until you choose to "render" the final version to the public web server. So, if you get stuck, we can always help you revert your Rev9 page to the original page that is stored on the public web server. If you accidentally rendered your page to the public server and overwrote your remaining "good" page, most likely we can help you restore yesterday's page from backup. That may take some time and effort on our part, and we may charge you a restoration fee, but rest assured that in most cases your pages can be restored (Just don't wait too long to let us know you want a page restored. Our backup tapes don't go back forever.).
What if you don't know HTML? Don't worry. If you have used a word processor, you can use Rev9. Some HTML knowledge can help you, and you can use a WYSIWYG editor as a crutch, but most people can maintain a Rev9 site without using any HTML at all. In fact, I am typing this story into my browser window, without any HTML. Just plain text, no special formatting. On a Macintosh.
Are you interested in learning more about Rev9 and how it can help your business? Give us a call. We're here to help.
About Our Web Site
A potential client once said to me: "I don't get it: what is your site all about?". Good question. At first glance, our site may not make much sense to a new visitor. We have articles about web development and hosting, links to tech support and services, dynamic news feeds from national publications like the New York Times, a calendar, and a search box, among other things.
I'll agree that we've broken just about every marketing rule in the book. But that's the point. This site is part marketing, part customer service, part technical support, and mostly a showcase of interesting technologies that we can implement for our customers on their web sites.
Take the calendar, for instance. To a casual visitor, it just looks like a normal calendar with the current day highlighted. But it is really a daily index to all of the articles that we have archived on our site.
And the search engine? How many times have you visited a site looking for a specific piece of information only to be frustrated because they didn't offer a way to search their content? An integrated search engine is another example of the kind of functionality that we can offer our clients for their own websites.
You will also see references to Rev9 throughout our site. What is Rev9, you ask? Rev9 is a tool that our customers can use to keep their sites up-to-date, every day. Although the casual visitor may not realize it, this site is driven by Rev9. If it were not for Rev9, keeping a site like this up-to-date would be a major pain. If you don't believe me, try it the old fashioned way, then give us a call. We can convert your existing site to a Rev9 site. We'll teach you how to use your web browser to edit your site (that's right, I said "web browser"). And then you will understand the beauty of Rev9. Remember, give us a call. We're here to help.
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Thursday, February 1, 2001 |
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News Feeds
We now have the capability to add news feeds to a Rev9 web site.
Do you see the New York Times Tech News box at the right? That is an example of a news feed that gets updated on the dynamic version of this site every day. To see the dynamic version of this site and the latest news, click here.
If you would like to add dynamic news feeds to your web site, give us a call. We're here to help.
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Thursday, January 18, 2001 |
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Free Upgrade!
We have just increased the Data Transfer limits for all of our hosting plans.
Here are the details:
Personal Plan: was 2 GB per month, now: 3 GB per month
Professional Plan: was 4 GB per month, now 5 GB per month
Corporate Plan: was 5 GB per month, now 7.5 GB per month
Commercial Plan: was 7 GB per month, now 10 GB per month
Enterprise Plan: was 8 GB per month, now 15 GB per month
High Volume Plan: 20 GB per month, now 35 GB per month
How much extra is this gonna cost you?
NOTHING!
This is a free upgrade for all of our hosting customers. Enjoy your new bandwith. Use it. We'll buy more.
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Wednesday, January 10, 2001 |
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Search Engine Submission Tips
You have probably seen the ad on TV: 3 or 4 men and women sitting around a computer monitor, watching the results of their online store on opening day. At first, the orders trickle in. The participants look nervous. Then the orders come faster. And faster. Elation turns to glee. Then the floodgates open and the orders rush in. Glee turns to dispair as the group begins to ponder how they will support and fullfill that many orders. (Of course, the ad is for a shipping company who wants to help the fledgling company deliver the shipments to its waiting customers.)
For the past 3 or 4 years, the hype has been that anyone with a website and a good search engine listing will become an instant Internet success. A lot of my customers ask me, "How can I get my site listed in the top 10 search engines? And by the way, I don't just mean listed anywhere, I want to be listed in the top 20 for my keywords".
I usually answer their question with "Well, thats not as easy as you might think.". I always expect my customer to say something like "if you can't get me listed in the top 20, I will find someone who can." and hang up on me at this point. Strangely enough, no one has said that to me or hung up on me... yet. I think most people realize the enormity of what they are asking. At this point, the number of websites on the internet runs in the millions. Each of those websites would like to be listed in the top 20 listings of the top 10 search engines. Do the math: 200 postions (20 x 10) all being pursued by millions of website operators. As you can imagine, it takes a pretty good effort and a lot of luck to get listed in the top 20 of any one of the major search engines.
So how can you increase your odds of being ranked in the top 20 or of even being listed at all? Start by taking the time to make your site ready. Most search engines index websites using software programs called 'spiders' that are always crawling the Internet following hyperlinks and indexing the content they find. Since these spiders are computer programs, they are best at indexing text content. So make sure you put content on your site that the search engines can index. Articles and stories with lots of useful text is a good idea. So is using META tags that describe your site and its contents and image references that include descriptive 'alt' tags. If you are not sure what those things are, consult with your web developer or a good web development book.
People have tried a lot of tricks - like repeating several words over and over on a page that is the same color as the text - but the search engines have gotten a lot smarter over the years and those tricks don't work as well as they used to. But if you think about it, those tricks don't serve you or your customer very well. You may get listed, but if a customer visits your site after finding you in a search engine only to see nothing there that they can use, they will leave in a nanosecond. They probably won't even wait around to see your page completely load.
Do yourself and your visitors a favor. Build your site with good useful content, keep it updated on a regular basis, and pay attention to the details. After you have added value, submit your site to the search engines. Give them some meat to chew on. You might be surprised by the results. And if you need to deliver products to all of your new customers, there will be a shipping company ready to serve you waiting in the wings.
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