Grid Checker

Grid Checker
Where I can buy a checkered flag?

I'm going out in fancy dress as a girl of the net and wondered where I could buy a checkered flag for an accessory?

Wal-Mart, sporting goods stores and the like do not carry flags checkerd. You may be able to find some plastic in a party goods store (where they do plates, napkins, wrapping paper, party favors and that sort of thing) that will complete your team.

Web Design Articles – developing effective websites and Design

What is web publishing?

What are the goals of your site?

Are you aiming to entertain, to provide information or graphics, or to offer a service unique? Or, perhaps, is more than this!

If it's for a business, are you trying to capture the attention of new customers, provide information about products and services, do market research or customer service? Do you also intend to enhance its service post-sale?

How does the design and implementation of your web site support your goals?

For commercial sites

If your site is a commercial site, the majority of Internet users go to your site with the intention of obtaining information. They will not be there for "a total web experience ", or entertainment, or for the thrill of visiting a place" Fabulous site. "

Want to know things like:

"What options are available and how much?"

"What are the characteristics of their products and services? "

"How I can get in touch now?"

"Where and how I can buy your products?"

"Do you have a range of products or services?"

A commercial website is an important link of your company and, in some cases, will be the main option in which customers and others to interact with you in the future.

During the infancy of many Web companies want to "so only has a web presence "to be returned to the charts, advertising agencies, and the new generation of web design companies. Although these firms had a good grounding in graphic arts, most of them were quite new to the game ball to the creation of websites. Be overemphasized in the graphical and tried to entertain the same way as print ads or television commercials.

However, an effective web site requires much more than that. Call start with a requirements definition to evaluate the real needs of the company and how they can best be served through the web. This should be followed by careful design and planning phase. The next phase is to build and test the site.

But the catch is that a website needs constant updating and maintenance to hold and be in tune with the times. A lot of sites are designed in ways that do not adhere to these aspects. We must also consider aspects site operations, as guaranteed response time and availability.

If you build a website that really makes sense, you should consider hiring the services of a systems architect before you contact the rental companies of graphics or Java programmers. An architect will plan your site as a system designed to meet their institutional objectives, rather than just a bunch of interconnected HTML pages.

Make your site easy to navigate

Give serious thought to the road map of your site and how its elements are linked. How is information navigation user?

Could someone, after visiting your site, draw a diagram showing how different elements are connected and how get from one place to another?

If someone comes to your site for a specific piece of information, it is easy to locate?

How a number of visitors from all the things you can see and do on your site?

How does a visitor find a way to navigate your site in particular?

How can know if visitors who have seen it all?

How can you tell a visitor what they have and have not seen?

Make it easy for a user to determine what is new and when things have changed.

A site that is difficult to navigate will also be difficult to maintain.

Complexity limit the size of your site.

The complexity makes it difficult to test your site.

Some tips to generate repeat visitors to your site:

Make it large enough to require more than one visit to see the entire site. But it is easy to remember what the visitor has already seen avoiding complex design.

Change your site often. However, make it easy for visitors to understand what was changed, and when.

Make your site a source of reference material – a list, an index, a database. Perhaps allowing the user to locate a particular topic or item.

Make your site a true and reliable source on a particular topic.

In the world of target = "_blank" title = "Colombia web design"> web, every visitor is different

Remember that there are wide variations in the platform configuration screen, processor and disk speed, connection speed and browser software used by special visitors each individual website. And visitors it will be different in every way imaginable.

Do not assume that every visitor to your site has the latest hardware and software, a super-speed Internet connection, and the eyesight and reflexes of a young energetic teenager!

There will be a great variation in the way your site looks to the different users if you rely on fancy HTML tricks.
There will be a great variation in the way your site looks to different users, even if you do not use tricks HTML fantasy!

You have to decide whether the objective of your site is to impress the few with its special technical drunkenness, or to be a site for the enjoyment of the masses.
Do not create a site that caters to the elite of all visitors that go.

As a result of heavy Internet traffic, Web pages with graphics swollen free higher hardware or software, a good number of people who surf the web with graphics turned off in their browsers. What aspect of your site without their graphics?

You're gonna lose a lot of points if you mention Netscape (or Microsoft), anyway, on the first page your visitors see. This includes a description of your site as "Netscape enhanced" tell your visitors that your site is presentable only if they last Netscape, or pointing to a site where you can download the latest version of Netscape. Think about the message it sends about you and your site. It also thinks first impression your website leaves among first time visitors.

How to search your site with Lynx? Try it and see how your site looks with a text-only display. This may be the viewer that only a Unix user will, especially in foreign countries. If your site is primarily informational, not deny access to these potential visitors.

And you'd better prepare for the invasion of the surfers who come to your site through supplements to your TV, cable box or plug-in to play his game machine. These new gadgets that have limited capacity, much like previous versions of the browsers most popular.

The major online services have more than 10 million paying customers. Soon, most of them have web browsers, but not the very very latest version of Netscape. Your pages may look very foreign to them.

People with money to spend do not have time to fool to get a SLIP or PPP connection running. And they do not have time to get and tune into the latest version of Netscape (when they hear the word "update" most likely thinking of moving to the First Class section.)

They most likely used Internet services that are integrated into a service in line with all the features that provides a unique news, portfolio tracking and a seamless interface with the Internet and the Web.

The real point is that if you have a commercial website, you can keep around for testing Netscape, but make sure it also works with any browser that is provided AOL, CompuServe and Prodigy.

The user interface

When the Macintosh came out to light, Apple released a set of user interface guidelines for software developers. Some developers felt that having to adhere to a standardized interface hamper their creativity. But others realized they were actually free to spend more time applying their creativity to step to the next level of design application.

Consider the signal to noise ratio of the interface. How much is useful and interesting, and how much is just noise? Avoid using large graphics or unnecessary that do not add to the page content.

Remember that browsers have a lot of features User configurable – colors, fonts, etc. can really spoil your elegant interface.

Do not confuse the user in a click.

Do not substitute bullets and horizontal rules with images. It eats bandwidth and confuses the user. If you use images as bullets, visitors can try clicking on them and wonder why nothing happens.

Be very careful in the use of graphics and controls (buttons, links, etc). The user has to guess what to do.

Try not to have two or more places to click to perform the same action.

Do not use the "underline" attribute of text. He appears as a link.

Find out what your visitors do more often to your site and make it the easiest thing to do. If you are in the gemstone jewelry or intricate inlaid jewelry and most visitors are there to take a closer look and sharper in their samples, have a big button that says "Get a closer look." This is a good rule of thumb for determining the size and placement of interface elements.

For some reason, most browsers to change to a gray background by default. The easiest way to solve this problem is to replace default browser. Use a white background.
Do not forget that the links are displayed in different colors of normal text, and can change color after a link is seen. Note consider how these links are displayed on a colored background. (And remember that these colors will be different in different browsers and can also be changed by the user.)

You can use a shade of gray background if the text does not show against him. A lighter shade is advisable.
Keep uniform interface. It has the same controls that perform the same action everywhere.

Avoid placing too many interface elements on the same page. Some sites present the visitor with a bewildering variety of image maps, buttons, text links and click on the images. Do not use colored backgrounds, texture, or picture unless absolutely necessary. You can look good in your browser, but could end up looking very different in some other browser, or on a computer video hardware, color depth, etc. They are distracting, and they actually do sometimes illegible text.
Another problem is that funds are handled differently by different browsers. In some, your page shown for the first time, and then with some delay, the fund appears suddenly, like a layer of smog descending on the page. For other browsers, to sit and view a page blank until the fund has been downloaded.

Viewing images against anything but a plain background can be rendered incorrectly by browser. And it may make it difficult for a visitor to see. You must have noticed that the art galleries in the paintings are placed with a light background so that image goes well in the eyes of the spectators. Do not blink unless nothing to indicate an emergency as a threat to life. It's annoying, and it is very irritating to the surfer. Try to read something here, something beyond even blinks. It disrupts the viewer's attention.

Do not use difficult (or illegal) HTML to do dissolves or fades and other special effects. They look different on each machine. And after a while, can get downright annoying. And you can not work (or work strangely) in different browsers or new versions of its browser.

Not something that, when activated, allows the visitor to return to the page that is already en. Misleading. This is common on sites where every page has links to each page.

One way to get a precise block of type, such as name and address appear correctly in any browser is to make the kind in an art program, then save it as an image (GIF). If done properly, a name, and address block, including e-mail and Internet addresses must be 2K bytes. (But do not forget to include an alternative text.)

You can set large (headline) type, usually black, a shade of gray. But not too clear.

Do not change any type of color – whether for text displayed or links. Only the user becomes disoriented.

In general, try to keep the user interface simple and uncluttered. Try to use default values when possible.

The red light

Every browser has one.

It is an indicator of how little that turns red when the browser starts to load a page. After all page elements have been successfully downloaded, the red light goes off.

This is especially useful when Site is slow, or when the page is complex. It lets you know when you actually have it. A very useful element of the browser interface.

Unfortunately, there A number of widgets (such as animated images) that can add to your page that keep the red light does not work properly. Most of the time one is found animated GIF.

With one of these widgets on your page the red light never goes off. And, therefore, it appears that the page is still loading, despite the fact that actually may have done. Now the visitor has lost the use of part of the browser interface, and has to guess if the page is complete. Or maybe wait for the rest of it. Or maybe give up and move on.

Tip: If the red light does not turn off after your page has loaded, is a sign that something is on your page that will annoy people.

Use color wisely

Use color to convey information or call attention to where it is really necessary.

The standard web interface uses this principle by showing the hypertext links to other pages in colors that stand out from the rest of the text. Moreover, different colors are used to show which links have been visited and which not.

So strong are these tracks, which can be viewed on a website and say much about it without reading the text.

It is also a good reason to leave the text and links in the default colors. Your visitors have seen hundreds of pages with text and links in the default colors and take advantage of this conditioning to be able to navigate in a new place without having to relearn the interface everyday.

It is obvious that if you change the color of links on your site, or use an image map, much information may be lost and your site visitors will be more difficult to navigate.

Remember, too, that some of his visitors are blind color. In the worst case, the colors are different shades of gray. Colored text on colored background may appear as a gray spot. Keep this in mind when designing your pages.

Other visitors with a less than perfect, you may have problems viewing images and text with strong contrasting colors (like red text on blue background). Do not make your page so that it can only be viewed by adolescents.

Image maps

Avoid putting image maps in its pages unless you have a good reason for their use. Fancy image maps can be much more confusing than a list of formatted text or a simple set of buttons.

In many cases, it is difficult to know exactly where to click. This is especially true if the map contains images and words. And not because the words are underlined, it is difficult to tell whether they are links.

Image maps take up much bandwidth and, in most cases, they add nothing to the page.

If you use a large image map, users may have to wait for over a minute before they can begin to navigate your site.

Unlike text links that change color after being activated, image maps give no clue as to what has been and what is not. This makes it difficult for the user to navigate by your site.

Image maps are limited to a very simple. It is difficult to include more than a few items on the map, especially if you are including both icons and the text on the map.

The time and effort needed to change both the image and map the use of image maps a maintenance headache real. Be needed much longer to update or change your website if it means modifying image maps as well. This is especially true if you have used image maps in many of its pages.

If you use an image map, make sure to include a list of text items identical to those that are confused by the map or use a browser where images not loaded. Locate this list of alternatives closest possible image of the map to avoid confusion. Ensure that the list contains all items on the map and are in the same order.

If the image map is a figure that represents something real, like a map of India, United States or Germany, do not assume that your visitors able to identify things (What is Hamburg or Scotland?) only by its form or location.

In addition, make sure your image map gives a kind of warning if the user clicks on an area not related to anything or not defined in the table map. (What happens if the user clicks the ocean, next to India?)

Your page title

Do not forget to put a title on each of their websites. The title is that appears in the top of the browser window when a page is displayed. If the page has no title, the browser displays the message "Untitled" or "Untitled", or simply the address of the page, or maybe nothing.

The title is important. If someone on your Favorites page, the title is what appears in your list of favorites. Or, if someone puts a link to your site on your page, you probably use the title of the page that the link text. Or, if the page is indexed by a search engine, the title is what appears in search results. You get the picture.

Even if you has the titles on your pages you may still want to re-evaluate the text. Make sure the title really says something. Instead of "My Web Page" How about: "Bud Spencer – My website?" Imagine seeing the two of them in a bookmark list.

If you have a business site, you can want to go further. For example, you may want to put your company name (or abbreviation) in the title of each page on your site. You never know which of your pages be marked, and will be much easier to select from a list of favorites or any other list that uses the page title.

And do not forget to tell people about you and your activities on the main page of your site. Do not make them guess. For example: "Splendid Tours & Travel is a travel home that provides national and international tours to Europe and Far East package. "

The width of the browser window

Imagine you're an art director and you have to design an advertisement for a number of media such as newspapers, magazines, tabloids etc. Now all these different media require different column sizes for your ad. Sounds crazy? How do you design an ad?

However, this is one of the biggest problems facing designers of web pages. The height of the browser window has little effect on how your page is displayed – you just see more or less the same, as a kind of window curtain. But as the width of changes in the browser window, you can have a dramatic effect on how your page is displayed.

This is because the browser will attempt to reorganize the site to maximize the available browser width.

Two factors determine the width of the browser window – the width of the screen of the visitor, which determines the maximum width for the browser, and the ratio of the screen the browser has been established.

The wide practice of computer screen varies between 640-1280 pixels. This is determined by the hardware, software and display settings that the user has chosen. Your website works correctly with the browser window set> anywhere

A number of different elements on your page, but they fall into two groups: the elements can be adjusted in width, and those who can not.

Items that can be width are adjusted text (which can wrap) and tables and cells (if declared as a percentage of the window width).

Items which are fixed width images text as a "NOWRAP attribute, text within PRE tags, and declared tables or fixed cells (pixels) wide.

Say you design your half page to the search range – about 800 pixels wide. What happens when your page is viewed in different browser widths?

Let to start with a narrower window. If the page is designed with an appropriate mix of fixed and variable, the page should work. It is possible you want to use a table with several columns where the left end is fixed width and variable width of others. If fixed width elements are used, the page may end wider than the browser and a horizontal scroll bar at the bottom of the window. Now the visitors have to scroll left and right to view page.

If the window is wider than you designed for a number of things can happen. If you used a background image for your page, and adjusts exactly to the medium sized window, the browser will be repeated as it adds another copy to the right, in order to complete the increase in thickness. Said variable width tables can be made strange, with elements appearing in unexpected places.

In addition, the way a particular browser juggling to fit your page its width will vary greatly with different browsers. And also with different versions of the browser.

Obviously, a certain amount of trial and experimentation, will be necessary to ensure that their pages display properly in all browser settings across.

A Council

Keep home / main page so that small loads quickly – for example 10 seconds would be the ideal time. (Especially important when the web is slowed down.) This book will be the visitor. Think twice before you put that 90K GIF on your homepage. Remember that yours is just one of millions of sites – the Internet have short care.

Imagery

Failure to submit high quality images such as art or photographs against a background that has texture and darker color. Stick with white, a light shade of gray or, if you must use a colored background, use the lighter shades.
Do not use a compression technique Image is not compatible with all browsers. Currently, GIF and JPEG formats are universally recognized.

A JPEG image can be compressed into a file smaller than a GIF, taking less time to download, but may take longer to decompress and display, making their efforts in vain. This is especially true on older, slower machines.

JPEG compression also imposes a loss of image quality, which may (depending on configuration of image conversion program, and hardware your visitors) will be quite noticeable. However, JPEG compression is likely to give the best results with photographs or other images with many colors and fine details.

With the drawings or line art, GIF can actually reach smaller than the JPEG. With line drawings, a GIF image may appear sharper than a JPEG as there is no loss of quality in GIF format. However, GIF images can only show a limited range of colors, and may not be suitable for images such as color photographs.

The best option is to try the two compression techniques for each of your images and see what gives the smallest file size, better image quality and best performance in downloading and viewing.

And do not forget to design your pages, they are still usable if a visitor has image loading disabled. Use the alt attribute for provide text alternatives for images.

Interlaced GIFs

Do not use interlaced GIF. These are the effect of the image that continuously redrawn with higher resolution and higher. The files of these images are actually larger than the equivalent GIF, and take more time to load.

The effect is annoying and is hard to know when the image is actually ready to be seen. It is especially annoying when it serves to make works of fine art. It is also annoying when the network is slow and the image is half rendered for a period of time. You can also find that the intermediate image resembles something very different from the actual image. Is another effect Special soon to be boring.

Animated images

Avoid using animated images on your page. They make the trickle charging – that use large files, which slows down the loading and displaying the rest of the page. Your page can only sit there for a considerable time, totally blank, while the first load of the moving image.

Because they have much larger file sizes of images from newspapers, animated images much more than eat away precious bandwidth from the Internet. Add in the delay of the web. Animated images make the page load improperly – the small red light does not come out in the browser, so there is no way to know if the page has finished loading. If the visitor clicks the button 'Stop', it can be the page is not fully charged, so it has to be reloaded. It may also help to be able to scroll the page while it is charging.

They are annoying and distracting, making it more difficult for the visitor to focus on other stuff on your page. (It is very disturbing to read some more here, while animated mailbox is flip open and closed there.)

And while it may seem nice the first time he sees one, having been repeatedly sometimes over and over again, you feel like breaking the screen from time to time!
And if you switch to another application, the browser now sits in the background, chewing CPU cycles doing animation.

The animation runs at different speeds, depending on the hardware of the visitor, and what else is being done at the same time – tracking on slower machines, and flickering between images on fast machines.

And finally, a number of people have reported browser crashes when out of a page that had an animated image. When the browser crashes, it may spoil things as browser history list, tables of elements in cache, and File markers.

Independent Pictures

The most common use is independent of the images in a page with a lot of small pictures click on one of them load a larger version. If you put the link to an image file ends up in the corner top left of the browser window itself.

Using an HTML page to keep the image. This allows you to center the image and put in a title Page and other information.

Text

If you are submitting text documents in their pages, thought to make them easy to read.

The browser's viewing area is much smaller than a normal printed page, so you may have to reformat your documents to adapt to this new environment, instead of dropping an existing document in your HTML editor.

Do not run the text the full width of the screen. This creates long lines of text that are difficult to read. Text also needs air around it to breathe. That's why most printed documents have margins.

You can solve these problems by using the quote "Block''etiqueta, which gives a margin both sides of the page. You can block the nest appointment to vary the width as needed.

You can use tables to create more complex designs, such as columns of text.

You can use the dictionary lists ("DL") as a simple way to format the text that requires bleeding.

Do not use long paragraphs of text. It is hard to read it in print and, for some reason, even more difficult to read on a computer screen. Try to keep to four consecutive paragraphs or less.

If you specify a text font than the default, make sure that the source (or equivalent) is one that is standard on the computers of its users. And when you specify one of these sources, do not forget to specify the names of equivalent sources for other operating systems and hardware platforms.

And do not try to put links in the text, especially in the middle of a sentence or paragraph. If you have links that relate to your text, put them in the end, as footnotes. Give your visitors the opportunity to read your text before sending it elsewhere.

Tables

Learn how to use the tables and you can control perfectly the look of their websites. Tables enables you to break your page into segments and must control the placement of graphics and text.

You can use tables to create columns and racks to hold the images and text. You can even use tables within tables to create sub-sections that can be treated as a unity. cells the table may be full of color to add contrast to parts of the page. Whenever you see a page that looks like a magazine or newspaper, you can be sure the structure is based on tables.

Tables can be used as templates or style sheets to impose a uniform appearance on a website. And tables can give some features paintings, but without the headaches.

There are several ways to learn how to use the boards. The easiest way is through the study sites based in tables on the web. Any book covers page design theory and technique, as used in the newspaper or magazine, will give an orientation in the understanding of the aesthetic problems involved. Go to the "Graphic Arts" from your local library, bookstore or art supply store and get a book on Page design theme. Try to find a network that uses the "method".

Some problems in the use of tables:

If the page is based on the tables of May charge more slowly than a page without tables. This is because the browser has to make many calculations to know how to put all elements in the table. Moreover, the browser can not display the table until the whole text and graphics are downloaded.

You can accelerate this process in several ways. If the table is very long (over several screens tall) try to break it into small squares, one above the other. Using tables in this way will also be easier to rearrange the elements on the page. Also, make sure that the height and width is specified for all images in the table. Doing this will allow the browser to the size of the table before I get all the images.

Although the pictures are part of the first standards HTML, there are still differences in how different browsers display. Get the tables to display correctly in all popular browsers can be a challenge. For example, some browsers do not display a color cell unless there is text or an image on it. Others may vary in how they display nested tables or tables stacked top of each other.

Thus, when developing your pages based on tables, to test continuously, with a variety of browsers. It will save you from surprises down the line.

Another challenge is to determine which parts of the table to make fixed-width (defined in pixels) and which parts to variable (defined as a percentage of the current browser width.) With a variable width table, adjust the horizontal dimensions of the table as you change the width of the browser.

The compensation is fixed width guarantees the final look harder, but the variable width can make better if the browser has a larger width. In some cases, the results are excellent with a wide combination of fixed and variable for different parts of the table. Once again, a certain amount of experimentation is necessary to find the optimum balance. Be sure to try the page based on browser width tables.

The tables are an area where most WYSIWYG page editors site has problems. The editor screen can vary greatly from what you see in the browser, especially with complex or nested tables. If you download a trial version of one of these editors, be sure to check the accuracy of showing how the tables.

As mentioned in the section on printing, tables affect how your pages web print.

Tables can also affect your web page within the browser rolls. Depending on the browser, the page may go instead to move without problems.

Marcos

Do not use frames just to prove he knows how to use frames.

Your site is small for starters, and size up with the frames can reduce the usable area to a very small fraction of the screen. Some visitors have browsers that can not see frames, so you have to maintain two versions of its site.

Do not build your site around the frames. It is difficult to navigate and limits it to have a very simple. The cursor keys do not work unless you click on the frame you want to move, and the browser button "back" can produce unexpected results.

And it's a good chance that a visitor try to print your page will end in failure.

And an interesting surprise awaits the visitor to try check one of the pages on your site. (You will only get the address of its home page.)

And you can get unexpected results when a search engine indexes your site. Visitors who come to one of its pages in a search engine does not enter through the main entrance of the site and not see the frame that would normally be the conclusion of the page.

And if your "framed" site has links to other sites, it appears in its framework, obscuring the identity of the other site and visitors confusing, you'll wonder if they really are. And you will not be able to make a linked site.

There may be copyright issues involved if a site is presented as part of your site. In any case, it is certainly unfair to the other site.

And if there is a problem with one of your pages with frames, it will be difficult report, as only the URL of the homepage is displayed.

Marcos also cause problems when the browser is called from another application. Say you're reading an e-mail and someone has sent you a message that includes a link to a website. Double-clicking on the link and the browser becomes the front window and starts reload the page. If the last thing I was seeing in the browser was a site based on frames, guess what happens?

You can get some of the functions pictures, without the complexity, by using tables to design your pages.

One possible use for frames is if you have a report in which you want to block the row or column titles that do not move off the screen.

Java and Javascript

Many people are learning to program in Java and JavaScript. Most of his early efforts seem to be a form of non-stop and repetitive animation that is both annoying and disturbing. Some applets maintain page load or displacement correctly.

A popular applet browser overwrites status display in the bottom of the window, from seeing the destinations links to move the cursor over them. It also prevents him from seeing the state of the current page, as it is charging.

Another popular use for Java is open a window smaller secondary above the browser. This can be disorienting if your visitors are not ready.

If you are developing Java applets, we recommend that you wait until you have something worthwhile before submission early efforts to unsuspecting visitors.

If you do your site so that only you can do with Java or JavaScript enabled browsers, you're making a big mistake. An even bigger mistake is to make two versions of its site – one for Java, and one without it!

What is the visitor whose browser does not support Java to see on your site? Perhaps an interesting message that the site requires Java. What about the visitor with a Java-capable browser, but with Java disabled? Maybe a dialog box with an interesting error message.

Some other considerations. Only a fraction of its visitors have Java capable browser. You can check which browser you are using (and maintaining multiple versions of your site), but some using Java capable browser with Java disabled for security reasons. In this case, you can get an interesting error message browser JavaScript interpreter.

When pages are indexed by search engines, also play an excerpt from the beginning of the page. If the first thing on your page is a piece JavaScript code, then this is what the search engine will be a description of your page. Maybe it's not what I had in mind.

However, whether you are designing a web-based application for use in a private Intranet, you may have a valid reason to use one of these new technologies.

A copy

What do the pages of your site look like when printed out? Try it. You may be in for a surprise.

You may want to print, because it makes it easier to design and edit your pages. To the As an advertising design.

Give co-workers and customers a way to view and comment on their pages. You can print the information instead written.

Visitors can print a copy of the information on your site for future reference.

If you are using tables to control the design of your page, they will also have an effect on printing. You can add some control over how the pages print. When print, the browser may start a new page if a table does not fit the current page (as you would with an image). The judicious use of tables may force jumps page when the document is printed. But be sure to try this with different browsers.

If your browser has a "Page Preview" option, can use this to have a preliminary idea of how the pages are printed.

If your page has a lot of browser specific code, can not print properly if the visitor has a different browser.

If your page has a black background or color, not print correctly.

If your page uses a background image, you may print without the background.

If your page uses frames, probably not print correctly.

But biggest surprise awaits those whose pages are ultra-chic black or dark background with white text or light colored.

Should you use the latest features?

Each browser has a new HTML tags that supports it. Some are upgrades to the latest standard HTML. Some are property tags for measures of support only for this particular browser.

For some, the lure of a new technical challenge is too much to resist. Thus, the web instantly begins to bloom with pages that use these new features.

Before you start putting out their pages new, here are some things to consider:

1. Are you absolutely, positively need this new feature to its site, or just use it for show?

2. What browsers are compatible with this feature?

3. What percentage of your visitors are going to use these browsers? Is it worthwhile to implement this feature for only a select group of visitors?
4. What about browsers that do not support these new tags, or the browser on the right, but with the new feature disabled by the user? What going to see these visitors?

5. Will you need special versions of their pages with code to handle different browsers?

6. Will you have to maintain multiple versions of your site in order to support all your visitors?

About HTML

The easiest way to learn HTML is by studying the source of the pages of others. Most browsers get the source code HTML of the page you're viewing. It is also a good way to learn what makes bad bad message.

Be careful about using new features HTML or specialized. It can not be upwardly compatible with new browsers or new versions of HTML. It will be a very long time until the visitors have been upgraded to a browser that supports these features.

Avoid using browser-specific "enhancements" that only work with a particular brand or version of browser.

Use the smallest set of HTML that will absolutely work. Make this something you can boast, rather than how to master the commands fantasy.

Do not use illegal HTML effects for things like dissolves or fades. This may stop working on the next version of browser in particular you're designing for it, and may cause some other browsers to work properly.

Never forget that HTML is not a description language page or page formatting language. Is to display information and graphics, and interact with the user.

Use as many defaults as possible over them only when necessary and to set the background color to white, or center of an image.

But the best way to use HTML not for use. The newer WYSIWYG editors allow you to build web page web pages without coding directly in HTML. It's like using a word processor. The Most of them also have a way to view and edit the underlying HTML code so experienced users can still have control over the fine points.

It's like the progress of assembly language to a high-level language like BASIC. WYSIWYG editors take care of annoying details and without you work at a higher level. In addition, these automatically publishers will pay a lot of housekeeping for you, as specified by the height and width of all images to your page loads faster.

Most WYSIWYG web page editors are still in the WYSINQWYG (What you see is not exactly what you get) stage, and some produce more than one HTML optimized hand-coded page. But the additional text that produce adds little to the download time of a page, and you can be sure that the page does not have any HTML error in it. (If you're really interested in how fast your page loads, what dumping one of the animated GIFs?)

Advertising

Advertising has come to the web. No doubt some client rope that pays you for advertising your site?

There is a double benefit by advertising on your site get paid. This shows that your site has more visibility and reach among Internet users and also gets more revenue in return.

But while other forms of advertising are designed to influence their next purchase, web ads have a completely objective different – to get a visitor to leave your website and visit the advertiser's site. (You only get paid if someone leaves your site and go to the page of the advertiser.) You can be sure that the creators of the ads will try every effort to get people out of your page (and probably will not return).

But that is not everything. You may not have anything to say about what the advertising says on the subject. Or worse, what makes the announcement. Imagine, someone from another animated image on your page. Hmm … I wonder why the page did not load correctly more.

A large ad on the top of the page can create a certain degree of confusion real ownership of the site. And since this is probably the first thing that loads is probably the first thing a visitor will see.

If you have a commercial site, going to look silly with an announcement of another company in its pages, especially when the purpose of this announcement is to get visitors to leave your site. Some may wonder why your company can not pay for your own website.

And do not forget the free ads that lead to many sites. Something like paying extra for clothes showing the name of the designer in big letters. Most of these are free advertisements for the latest browsers and plug-in components that you absolutely must have to view the site properly. Others have created "prizes" that you can use to decorate your page. Remember that site also links to someone else.

Does anyone get rich from letting others put an ad on your page? Only a few of the most affected. For the rest of us, is more another "get rich online" trick.

Testing and debugging

In the real world of systems development computer, some consider that the evidence to be the most important phase. In the world of the web, does not appear to be equally important. Search web pages with many errors package such as missing images and links do not work.

If your web editor has a spell checker, use it. If not, look another way to check the spelling.

Test your pages with several different browsers. You will be amazed at the variations in the interpretation of simple HTML tags.

Be sure to test your pages with the browsers provided by major online services like AOL and Prodigy. You can also tested with earlier versions of popular browsers. Test all your pages after you make even trivial changes to your site, just to make sure not break anything. (The programmers know that you are much more likely that a margin of error when making changes when the original work was done.)

During development of what has been tested for your site with all the files on the PC. Be sure to test the site after it has been moved to the server.

Sure to test your pages in a way that forces the browser to get everything – both text and images. This means turning off the caching, clear the cache from within the browser, or delete all files in the browser's cache directory. This will force the browser to get everything from scratch. You'll see how long it really takes your pages to load.

And while you're doing this, you can measure your browser to "hang time." This is the time that the browser hangs there with a blank screen before something appears.

Now go to the Options dialog box of your browser and make it so that the page always has a white background and links are the default color (blue and red). Many people will have to configure their browsers in this way to avoid looking odd or strange background color links. How your look with this configuration page?

If it can be done with one, test your site with a new widget that turns your TV into an Internet surfboard. Most of these capabilities still have only very early browsers. They have a lower resolution than most browsers and format page so that you can read on a television screen.

Turn on "Why does not load images" box menu item or check the configuration of choice of browsers. What does your page without the images? Is it possible to still find their way around?

If your site uses a text font that is not one of the defaults, make sure that the page looks good with all the variants mentioned.

If the page has been blessed with a Java or JavaScript widget, what happens when he looks in a browser that does not support Java? What about a Java enabled browser Java disabled?

If your page needs a special plug-in or a special helper application, or uses a special file type, try to see what happens if one or more is missing or is not compatible. It might be enough to toss its cookies Netscape.

As mentioned above, there are a number of things you can put on your page that keep the red "Download" flag out after the page has finished loading. If your page has one, see what happens with different browsers. You should consider replacing these widgets with something that does not prevent the browser to work properly.

Make people other evidence of your website. Especially if your computer configuration is different from yours.

Have other people proofread your text.

Test in different platforms. In one case, a page that looked good on a PC not so well on a Macintosh. And then there was the same version of the browser. One source of problems is to specify a text font that is only available on a PC and forget to add the equivalent Mac

If you have a site that has different versions, depending on the browser, 've really upped the ante, testing-wise.

Last but not least, do not forget to check your server error log. It is the main error information and debugging tool for your site. Look for things like missing images, bad links, and errors in CGI scripts. You should check this log on a regular basis, and especially after making changes or additions to your site.

Pay attention when someone tells you they had trouble seeing place. For every person who takes the time and trouble to write to you, there are many more who give up in frustration.

Maintenance

It's a dirty job but someone has to do it because change is inevitable. In nature also changes everything, seasons, sky color, odor around us and do not have! The world changes, website changes, and one day your site has to be changed by simply changing. That's what people want. They want the design, colors, animations, sound etc on its website. In fact, some of the best sites like Yahoo, Hotmail and Rediffmail has changed considerably since the start if you've noticed.
Does your site is easy to modify? Is it easy to make additions and changes? Some of the things that make a site difficult to change the format of HTML code is sloppy, image maps, and a site that links to each page of the odd pages.

Can your site be maintained or modified by someone other than yourself? In the world of commercial Web sites, it is more than likely that your site will eventually be inherited by another person. Do you have left a clear path to follow?

If you use the browser-dependent functions in place, you must have two or more versions of your pages – a maintenance headache.

Format documents HTML so they are easy to read. Use blank lines and spaces to separate elements.

Create a set of uniform formats and styles for your pages so you can create a new page by copying and modifying an existing page.

If you have links to other sites ("My Cool Links Movies list") you owe it to your visitors to keep these links up to date and accurate. You should check regularly to change or modify links to sites that have moved, and remove links that now lead to dead ends. Fortunately, there are a number of shareware tools that can help in this process.

If you move your site to another URL, make sure you leave a forwarding address to old address.

And make sure your pages are updated. If you has a sale, or contest, or an offer ending May 25, make sure that the page is updated or removed within a few days of expiration. Consider the use of maintenance automated build and maintain your HTML pages.

Dead pages

Web sites can be complex and may undergo to continuous change and evolution.

In the pages become obsolete, update links from other pages so that pages are no longer obsolete said. Since nothing in sections of your site to these old pages, and should not be a problem, right?

Unfortunately, you can still have links to these pages obsolete – web sites of others. Three possibilities: search engines have indexed the page, visitors who have added this page to your list of bookmarks personal and pointing visitors to your page with a list of favorite links on your site.

This can be a problem if the pages contain information is no longer current, authentic and accurate.

One way to determine if this is happening is to check your stats to see if orphaned pages are still getting hits. If you have really good statistics, they can tell you that you have links pointing to you.

One thing you can do when a page is dead is to delete the server or rename it. Either way, it will return a "not found" error when trying to accessed. Once done, you can re-submit the original URL of the search engines. This will require searching for the page and not find one, remove its database. Even if you do not explicitly present these pages to search engines, which will eventually find them and find them missing.

Another thing you can do is replace these pages with orphans a page that has spread a link that points to the main page of your site.

It is good if you read the above information and use it for their benefit. Of course, this exercise could be useful, but much time too! The other option is to contact us in our AIT – Spain Center and discuss your needs with us and trust us to offer a fabulous web site that works on the network. The second option is more sensible than it sounds!

About the Author

Head SEO, Marketing at AIT India