Tag Archives: HTML

Business Talk, Software, Support, Web Hosting

Where to start when you want to begin websites?

Has it really been that long since I first hacked together some HTML and made my first website? The sheer availability of options for content management systems [CMS] now has to be daunting to any newcomer.

As a result many newcomers often consult experienced professionals regarding content management systems. Of course, newcomers can ask for help. However, this started to make me think about how I would make a start now, compared to years gone by.

Webhosts promise newbies that anyone can build a website, especially with tools at our disposal like web builders and one click installation of CMS platforms.

If you’ve stayed with me this far, then you’re interested in learning where to start. You probably have a few questions lined up like:

You may have a lot of doubts like should I build a one-page website or Do I Need A Website? Or which CMS should I use? How will my customers interact with me?

Hopefully I can point you in the direction of some cool websites to help you make your early decisions. Bookmark this page! You’ll need to come back for reference reassure yourself out of the hundreds of options out there – I’ve picked the easiest way through to seeing what works for most websites.

But first, as I am sure you are already aware, when running an online business it is vital that you monitor interactions with your customers. You need to know what about your products and services bring value to the lives of your customers and what can be improved.

(learn about the importance of monitoring customer experiences, you can find some helpful resources on the Qualtrics website) This is where using tools and platforms such as Qualtrics can come in handy. Qualtrics enables businesses to gather information from their customers via easy-to-use surveys. Any data gathered can be closely monitored and used to improve customer service.

Another factor that determines your company’s success or failure is how you handle your funds. It can assist you in determining how much tax you must pay and how much profit you may be making. One of the best ways to do that is by hiring an expert who can provide accounting services to your company. The accountant can assist you in maintaining track of your assets, obligations, revenue, and cash flow. It is highly important since it allows you to maintain track of the business’s financial performance, allowing you to make much more informed judgments.

Creating a website for a small business is going in the right direction. However, as you choose the right direction, sometimes you come to a fork, and you need to decide which way you will turn.

Are you building a one page website or landing page, in which case like the remaining third on the internet are you going to build your site on a web-builder or drag and drop platform? I found a statistical site that lists the popularity of various Content Management Systems, and shows about 1/3rd of websites do not use a CMS:

Which Content Management Systems are the most popular?

W3Techs shows usage statistics and market share of Content Management Systems for Websites, April 2013

Despite the ugly mechanics of this site, the data provides an empirical way of making your decision. Altogether 2/3rds of the internet is based on a content management system. Which CMS is the most popular? Without question we see WordPress mentioned a lot but based on the popularity ranking of each content management system, can you prioritize which type of CMS will best suit your business?

Anthony Myers from CMS Wire Magazine looks at some alternatives to the top runner “WordPress” in the popular CMS platforms:

Considering WordPress as a Web content management system is something hundreds, and maybe thousands of website owners likely do on a daily basis, and we’ve got a ready-made short list of alternatives that we think are viable alternatives..

Here are 5 highly customizable CMS platforms for business that compare the WordPress system. I currently use WordPress and Blogger, and have not heard of any of these systems like Plone. Apparently these comparative CMS platforms were chosen because of their strength in the community support forums, however for the beginner, or someone who is new to code, I expect you would be left feeling like there’s something you missed or didn’t quite understand. Even WordPress can do this to me often, I have to go in and tweak the underlying PHP or code just to overcome a few browser discrepancies or plugin issues. I would feel daunted doing something similar on a less well supported platform.

by – Juliana

Software, Web Development, Web Hosting

Editing in HTML

Texts are primarily made for reading. Yet, at least sometimes, we want them to be apparent, eye-catching. A set of jQuery plugins provide possibilities to animate texts in various ways. We have come up with five of the best of them.

Dennis Potschien rounds up 5 plugins to make your text website content come to life with various forms of animation. Saving you the manual coding yourself! Obviously you have to know some javascript coding in order to implement the jQuery plugins. That means getting into an HTML editor. One popular editor is called “Sublime” Matt Boldt goes on to explain his favorite plugins for this text editor to speed up his workflow when applying bulk coding changes.

 

My favorite Sublime Text plugins, and why they’re awesome.

Juliana Payson‘s insight:

…And if you’re not a coder, but want to learn more about using this text editor for writing your own HTML, I found a pretty comprehensive guide on Tutsplus by Jeffrey Way.

I’m pleased to announce that my newest course on Tuts+ Premium is out…and free to everyone! I have a confession: I’m a code editor addict…

I personally have never used a text editor as comprehensive looking as Sublime. My experiences go only so far as Notepad++ it does the job, but I can see from Jeffrey’s tutorial Sublime goes a lot further and has multiple cursor features as well as generally increasing productivity.

 

Before you can start coding you need a program to write your code, the program into which you normally do this is called a text editor. Text editors are used for creating and changing text files and for our purpose compose or creating Web pages. What are your favorite text editors for coding? – Juliana

 

Business Talk, Web Development, Web Hosting

We are looking for a programmer with 10yrs experience with the iPad

But the iPad hasn’t been around for ten years!

Not just C++ programmers – John Cook | Google+

John Cook - Google+ - Not just C++ programmers. | How to Grow Your Business Online | Scoop.it

From plus.google.com – Today, 1:08 AM

John’s advice: Never talk to an HR department. Talk directly to the people you’d work for. Send them your resume etc. Only talk to HR when it’s time to fill out your paperwork after you have a job offer.

John goes on to say (And the discussion is pretty hilarious):
As far as 10 years iPad experience, There are many analogous job descriptions. For example, an ad looking for 5 years HTML experience before HTML was 5 years old. Also seen the opposite; asking for experience with obsolete or irrelevant technology. Don’t take job descriptions too seriously. If a job sounds like a good fit, don’t worry if you don’t have one of the requirements.

 

Tips To Hire Veteran Php Programmers with Off-the-Shelf solutions to meet Atypical Business Needs

Tips To Hire Veteran Php Programmers with Off-the-Shelf solutions to meet Atypical Business Needs | How to Grow Your Business Online | Scoop.it

From hirephpcom.wordpress.com –Today, 3:31 AM

Essence of php can be felt in almost each and every corner of the web. It has vigorously stormed the market of web development and has highly streamlined the methods by which bespoke websites are developed.

Juliana Payson‘s insight:
Being open source in nature, PHP not only reduces your overall development cost but also offers your business a crucial thrust necessary in today’s competitive world. I have personally met the challenge of looking for assistance to develop small business websites. It’s not easy! One search for experienced web developers and you are faced with hundreds of coders. Even on a platform like Elance, you may not be the best project manager who understands the details of your own project. My advice, is to find a project manager or consultant to oversee the individual tasks for you. This allows developers to work efficiently on the job without having to educate you on their process at the same time.

The Importance of Non-Programming Programmers

English: A wireframe document for a person pro...

From infolific.com – Today, 3:42 AM

What’s the solution for the lack of expertise across each phase of programming? The non-coding programmer. Non-coding programmers are people such as requirements analysts, GUI designers or graphic designers, testers, etc. They’re good at the things programmers are told they should pay attention to, but don’t really want to deal with and aren’t very good at.

Juliana Payson‘s insight:

Programmers enjoy coding mainly, not learning how to create a drop-shadow or bevel for good looking icons. Programmers also enjoy learning development platforms, not how to make things ‘pop’. I have a vague understanding of code and know how it kind-of goes together. I would be considered as a non-programming programmer who is the common ground between client and programmer, like a project manager. This doesn’t mean I have to be a techie, far from it, it simply means I probably suck at coding, but can interpret what a client needs and diagrammatically relay that as task lists for the resource of Coders. On a small business scale, a non-programming programmer can be your Graphic Designer, Project Manager, or Virtual Assistant.

Are you in need of a Non-Programming Programmer? Or indeed real project development on your website? Give this article a shout out if it helped you understand what type of person you need to hire. – Juliana

 

 

 

Web Hosting

JavaScript Simulation Party

Why are simulations useful? They certainly can be interesting to look at. Today I have selected a series of fun JavaScript simulations to look at. These are programs written for your web browser to interpret onto the screen for you. Often they are combined with a level of interactivity upon things like mouse-over, mouse-drag, or on-click, perhaps even input fields from a query form.

When we look at our web-browsers, they are essentially reading code and serving image files, characters, and pixel points for us to view. Programmers who work specifically on the browser-side of code: JavaScript, HTML, CSS, etc, are the ones who understand the real potential of what we can see on the web.

What can be produced, in an appealing and functional sense, are not necessarily a useful measure, except to see where the limits are bound in terms of  the aforementioned ideas. This is where browser side programmers are testing the limits and helping redefine standards in browser code.

Take a look at this website:

Lonely Pixel

From lonely-pixel.com – March 28, 5:50 PM

A showcase of my Javascript, CSS and HTML experiments.

I don’t know his name, except to see that there is an exceptional amount of mathematical reconstruction to simulate drapery, fluid, bouncing balls etc.

To those unfamiliar with the amount of work involved in producing these simulations, what Lonely Pixel has achieved is to describe real motion in math using the principles of physics. This scratches the surface of the blocks of thinking that go into creating animated elements that we see in filmmaking.

 

Js1k.com – Demos – A jumpy js competition

The object of this competition is to create a cool JavaScript “application” no larger than 1k. Starting out as a joke, the first version ended with a serious amount of submissions, prizes and quality.

I thought I’d pick out a couple of cool visuals from this Spring’s entries Head on over to the website to see the whole selection of entries. It’s pretty amazing what can be done in 1 kilobyte of web browser code.
 

 
Springy
By James Allardice
( Website, @james_allardice )
Springy is a simple Doodle Jump clone. Move your mouse to the left or right to control your spring and see how high you can jump! Now featuring mobile accelerometer support!

 
Spring is in the box.
By Anders Corlin
( @esotericFX ) 
Boxes and scrolling text. Second effect showing after 10s. Source is minimized but not compressed. No evals and stuff.

Keeping code lean is an optimization challenge. Minimizing the amount of code a web-browser has to interpret not only means you put less demand on your browsing device memory, but also minimizes the demand on the server side that’s hosting the bandwidth for all the file downloads called upon.

Find any cool Browser apps? let me know on Google Plus – Juliana