Technology Website

Internet revolution has changed the way people do business. Internet marketing and electronic commerce is emerging slowly as the new way of selling products, especially the ones which are targeted at higher classes of the society. Also Internet is the new showcase where people can display their capabilities, capacities and the overall strength of their company. Hence having a website is mandatory for any business. In fact, website design is the first step which new businesses undertake in their new venture.

However, with plethora of technologies and thousands of ideas, it is difficult to select the right one. Hence, one should do careful thinking when constructing a website. Below are some tips that one can keep in mind when designing a website.

• Choose the right technology.

With Internet spreading from computers to mobile phones and with new devices such as Net books, iPods coming in market, one has to ensure that the website can be viewed on all these platforms. Also ensure that you make the website with the technology which will not fade away in couple of years. Technologies such as Java or Microsoft.NET will remain for years and are very safe selections. If you are on a low budget, choose open source technologies to make a website. See that the company which is making the website also has the capability to support your site for years to come. Often small ‘fly by night’ shops make attractive offers to make site at low costs but eventually disappear leaving you to find another website developing shop. Connectivity and bandwidth are practical constraints, especially for wireless Internet. Ensure that your website loads as fast as possible without eating up sizeable bandwidth. Google is one of the best examples in this context. It will be difficult to find a website which appears on the computer or mobile screen faster than the Google.

• Keep your content simple.

People often, in over enthusiasm fill a website with tons of information on web pages which need a lot of scrolling. Instead keep your content to the point. Give option for people who are interested in the site to download some white papers or product brochures instead of making them read it online. Also avoid colors and fonts which make reading online difficult. Choose layouts, colors, graphics which soothes the eye. Also ensure that navigating to the different contents on your website is easy.

• Maintenance is important.

Often small companies make a website and after some initial days forget about it. Websites need regular updating in content to keep attracting the netizens. Make annual contracts with your website designers and ensure that your staff regularly supplies them content for updating. Also ensure that your website remains compatible with the latest used web browsers. Companies like Google have released new browsers, operation systems which are gaining fast acceptance. See that your website is always compatible to these new platforms

By following the steps below, you can find the right technology partner for your website project, save time and money, and having a successful project.

What’s the rush?

In the rush to get a pricing for a website or a custom programming project, and to get the project underway quickly, many clients will provide far too little information about a project and will not take the time to interview potential technology partners, often relying on the lowest price quote.

This is a recipe for disaster. First of all, slow down. Take your time and work on getting your project off to a good start.

Here are five tips to avoid a “false start” and to make sure your project is a total success.

1. Provide project requirements.
2. Answer vendor questions.
3. Set a realistic budget.
4. Read and compare the proposals you receive.
5. Check references.

1 – Provide project requirements

Try to provide as much information about your project as possible. Detailed requirements should include the number of pages your website will have, special capabilities needed such as a customer login and so forth.

If you need an ecommerce website, the number of products going on the website is vital to getting an accurate quote or estimate.

2 – Answer vendor questions

If you avoid answering vendor questions, potential vendors will make assumptions about your project and will “pad” the quote because they are just not sure about some of the requirements.

Professional vendors will want to understand your project in order to both give you a fair price and provide the right solution. It’s also a good idea to speak with potential vendors so you can get an idea of what it will be like to work with the vendor.

3 – Set a realistic budget

Even if you do not have any idea how much your project will cost, determine what you are willing to spend for your project, and be willing to share your budget with a potential technology partner.

If your requirements are for a $25,000 project, and you only have a budget of $5,000 to spend, it’s better to let a potential vendor know what is realistic for your project, so they can provide a proposal to suit your budget, or help you to break your project into different phases.

4 – Read and compare proposals you receive.

Proposals are very revealing about a potential vendor, and will give you insight into whether a prospective vendor is right for you. Great proposals will detail the process of the project, the technology to be used, the time line, and should include references and links to comparable projects.

Proposals that address your requirements and demonstrate the vendor understands your project. Make sure there are no “gotchas” and that you own the project files and that the vendor is not recommending a solution that will force you to remain their customer.

Check references

It’s easy to get caught up in the details of proposal, and to skip checking references. Finding out that a technology vendor cannot or will not be able to deliver what your project needs in the middle of the project will spell disaster.

Classroom technology has come a long way from the old days of slates and inkwells. And along with embracing modern technology, teachers have to start thinking about new ways of “doing school”. One teacher from Alabama, Suzanne Freeman, is leading the way with some concepts she outlined in an interview with Time magazine in 2007.

This concept is sometimes referred to as “School 2.0″. If you don’t get the reference, it’s time to upskill slightly in your knowledge of classroom technology, as it’s a reference to “Web 2.0″, which is the new way of using the internet – using the internet as a place to share information and write things, rather than just a place to look up information that has been created by experts and professionals.

One of the key ideas of the “School 2.0″ concept is the idea of integrating classroom technology properly and the reasons why this should be done.

1. Classroom technology engages students. Most students like using technology and find it fun to interact with, and this applies to everything from videos through to use of the internet for research. Let’s face it: would you rather present your project as a poster with a few photocopied pictures stuck on with glue and accompanied by scratchy handwriting, or would you rather give a Powerpoint presentation where you can add in sounds, animations and writing that changes colour? Would you rather learn times tables by reciting them or by playing a game where you have to zap monsters marked with, say, “4 x 6″ by shooting the answer “24″ at them?

2. Computers are part of everyday life. We are no longer in the 1980s where computers were boring black and white screens with dot-matrix printers. And computers are no longer a novelty. Your students are now of the generation where computers are part of everyday life. Your students are used to playing on playstations (and the like) and seeing computer technology used for everything from parking meters to displaying songs and sermon notes at church.

3. Classroom technology can be used to bridge the gap between school and home. Emails to parents as a back-up to paper notes is an obvious form of communication. But it can go further. If a student has looked at a website at school, he or she can visit it again at home, and show his/her parents so they can talk about the issues and subjects with them. And projects and presentations can be displayed for other relatives to see – a student can send a link to the class website with the great photos of school sports day to Uncle George who’s working in Hong Kong (and as a bonus, Uncle George can post photos and descriptions of life in Hong Kong that can be used for a study on Hong Kong).

Many teachers and parents are a little afraid of the Internet. If you are unfamiliar with its unique terminology and non-intuitive interfaces, like me, which are constantly changing, it’s hard to get a workable knowledge and ways to use it properly. For teachers, it’s important to visit education sites for information and referrals and also to check into your school district’s professional development or IT training opportunities. Many companies that are selling hardware and network technology to our school districts want you to use it and they provide training and customer support.

Internet research needs extra time to learn and to learn how to teach your students to use it. And the Internet is a great way to learn it! Finding teacher forums and blogs that address your issues can help you find answers to questions quickly. Educational resource companies and educational websites also have a lot of free information on how to use content and how to find content. There are also a lot more internet articles and discussions on best practices for new technologies and are worth reading just to get new perspectives on the many and fast changes educators and teachers are having to make

A website administrator is essentially a person in charge of maintaining and updating a particular website. You may be confused between web developers, webmasters and site architects but they are all one and the same and are involved in website administration. Webmasters have to monitor the visits to the site and check to make sure all hardware and software work properly. He may also be involved in responding to questions asked on the site. Thus his role is largely technical and as a result the profession demands much technological acumen alongside great enthusiasm for the use of the internet.

Reality 101

Webmasters have to perform the following tasks:

• They will have to create, maintain and also sometimes improve websites. This is largely based on the demands of the client and the service related to the site. Naturally this demands technical competency as well as artistic ability.

• They will also have to set up web servers and ensure that they work consistently.

• The website has to be easy to navigate and this falls upon the webmaster who must make sure that the site is accessible while still being engaging and innovative.

• Webmasters can also take on the role of contributors by adding articles or information to their sites.

• Crucially, webmasters must repair any problems as soon as they appear so that the visitors are not hampered.

• User support is another requirement of webmasters; they should be able to answer technical queries regarding the working of the site as well as other content-related questions a user might have.

• User-friendliness is the foundation for any good website and thus a webmaster is required to maintain high standards of user-friendliness on websites under his control.

Webmasters play a crucial role in today’s technologically adept world as the internet is fast becoming an essential component of the lives of billions across the world. Webmasters can be employed by specific firms to work solely on that firm’s sites or they can work as freelance webmasters and lend their services to numerous firms.

Website design is definitely a field that requires much creativity and webmasters are heavily involved in the design aspect of the site. If you plan on working for a firm directly, you will have t adhere strictly to the specifications they give you; however, if you choose to work freelance your creativity is more appreciated and you will have the chance to suggest innovative ways of expressing the necessary information.

Besides creating the site, webmasters are also heavily involved in protecting the security of the site. Competent webmasters will be well-versed in how to defend against virus attacks and will also be able to troubleshoot technical problems that may arise. Thus, being a webmaster requires technological skills as well as an artistic eye as the process of maintaining a website is a laborious one.

The Inside Scoop

Being a successful webmaster requires a lot of hard work, the following is a step-by-step guide to the process of creating and maintaining a website that is a good read if you’re interested in seeing what exactly you will have to think of before you get started!

1. Read Like a Crazy Person – Webmasters work with the internet and the internet is ever-changing. This means you definitely can’t sit around and expect to catch up with technology; you have to get out there and read everything you can about being a webmaster and about all the new techniques and software. This will make sure you aren’t lagging behind when you start your career!

1. Organization – Being a webmaster is definitely not a profession for the cluttered and the unorganized! Webmasters have to manipulate tons of information and this can only work well if the webmaster is well-organizedand able to access the information he needs in a timely and sane fashion. Keeping files of ideas and bookmarking favorite sites is a great way to maintain your flow of thought.

1. Think – Web design is extensively based on creativity and there is no chance of survival if you simply regurgitate the same old logo for every client that you get. You need to have a huge backlog of ideas regarding text styles, logos and more so you can come across as a fully competent prospective webmaster.

1. Remember Your Codes – Computer codes are used extensively to create websites so once you find a code you’re comfortable with, guard it with your life and save it! You definitely can’t afford to lose the code you’re most comfortable with.

1. Be Realistic but Simplistic – you will never succeed if your ideas are too complicated or too unimaginable. Remember that the people who will visit your site are regular human beings who may not exactly be on the same wavelength as you, make sure your site appeals to everyone.

1. Backup Everything – The risk of losing all your data is quite plausible in the age of viruses and crackers so be sure to keep several backups of all your information to avoid a sticky situation later on.

1. Quality, Quality, Quality – At the end of the day, a bad quality website will get no visitors and that’s a kind of traffic that will be sorely missed! To avoid this embarrassing situation make you sure you review everything you put on your site. Unsightly grammar mistakes, garish images and complicated site navigation are absolute disasters for new websites so ensure your site is problem-free!

Essentially, being a webmaster is a fun job as you get to spend a great deal of time on the internet and use your creativity broadly. However, you cannot forget that it is a job, like all others, that demands hard work and to be a successful webmaster you will definitely have to work constantly and diligently.

Sweet Sensations

Being a webmaster comes with many perks, including the fact that you can work anywhere in the world. Picture yourself sipping cocktails on the beach while checking in on your site for a couple of hours in a day; it’s definitely something you can get used to!

Plus the authority that comes with being a webmaster is unmatched. You are in charge of the entire framework of the site and having that kind of power is a major ego-booster!

Website administration also allows you to exercise your creativity in new and innovative ways depending on the demands of the firm or, if you work freelance, on the demands of the visitors of your site. Moreover, the internet is always changing and it is good fun to keep reinventing your sites based on the prevailing trends.

Website administration also gives you a lot of freedom as you can choose to work at whatever time you want. If you work freelance you have it better as you can plan your workload based on your own preferences and still earn enough money to put food on the table and maybe take a holiday now and again!

Current webmasters will tell you that the ability to make money of a hobby is a key advantage in this industry and thus one that is greatly taken advantage of. If you’re greatly interested in the mechanics of making and maintaining a website then you will definitely enjoy website management as a career and make some money of that liking!

Challenges and Hurdles

Unfortunately the workload of a webmaster is no walk in the park; rather, it is replete with conflict management and troubleshooting alongside intense creativity and high expectations. This can lead to exhaustion as you will have to spend many hours in front of a computer screen, constantly updating your website.

Moreover, websites are extremely susceptible to virus attacks and spamming and a webmaster has to defend against these attacks constantly. The internet is also fraught with email harvesters that capture email addresses displayed on sites and sell them resulting in the email address being flooded with spam. Unfortunately one cannot avoid displaying a contact email address and so the webmaster must encode the email address so that it is visible only to site visitors and not email harvesters. This requires much technical knowledge.

Webmasters also face the problem of website scrapers who copy the content of your website and may divert traffic. This represents a serious loss to webmasters and firms and is a difficult problem to check.

Crackers can also attack your website and take over it if it is not encoded properly and this is a major risk to the firm or product you are representing as once a cracker gets in, he can do anything with the given information. Cracking represents a serious threat to the livelihood of webmasters and is thus a significant hurdle. Some spammers also post links to sites that are inappropriate and this can ruin your reputation as a webmaster.

Fruits of Labor

Primary

According to research, the average salary paid to a webmaster is around $65,000 per year. However, many webmasters are paid upwards of $70,000 per year and your salary does indeed increase with experience. Webmasters can make up to $100,000 a year depending on the firm, the type of website and other such details.

The surge in 3D technology over the past few years has not only affected consumers but also businesses too.

Obviously the main business sector that has benefited from it is the entertainment industry. Cinemas have experienced a surge in customers since the release of 3D films such as Avatar and Toy Story 3. These films really set a trend and now more and more movies are being shot and screened in 3D. The world of cinema has been largely unchanged for decades and it really needed this injection of fresh 3D magic to start pulling audiences back in.

Once this cinema revolution took off it naturally progressed into the home. People wanted to experience 3D on a daily basis with their favourite films and programs. This has hugely benefited electronics companies who have met this demand with numerous 3D TVs, 3D glasses, 3D Movies, Blu-Ray, 3D computer games, consoles and so much more.

So 3D has positively impacted these businesses but can it impact yours? 3D technology is still in its infant stages really. 3D presentation equipment is one of the most obvious ways in which traditional businesses could utilise this technology. This means that there could be interactive pie charts, graphs and slides that could be used in sales meetings, marketing meetings and staff training. It is a much more engaging way of presenting information than traditional 2D slides.

It is also thought that there will be a move towards 3D websites. This would be very engaging for the visitor and make browsing through your videos, products and company information much more exciting. The use of 3D websites will also revolutionise the way publishers advertise and the higher level of engagement would make these ads far more lucrative. While 3D websites are a few years off yet, the possibilities are huge – 3D Facebook anyone?

The areas of design and engineering will also benefit greatly from 3D technology. They could use 3D Images and holograms as part of the engineering process; it would be a new sort of prototype building.

3D technology is advancing rapidly and there is no doubt that it will sneak in to every corner of our lives sooner or later. 3D TVs will become the norm, Blu-ray will replace DVDs, and Businesses will have 3D websites and offer 3D catalogues! The sooner you can start embracing this technology, as both a homeowner and business owner, the better it will be for you in the long run

Real estate professionals have not only seen changes in the market in the last year but also in the economic landscape of the United States. The emerging buyers market has prompted the industry to make a greater shift towards technology as a means of communication between agents, homebuyers and sellers. Most people already start their property search online, but real estate technology isn’t just about web sites.

Real Estate News: Billboard and Cell Phone Technology

In July of 2009, from July 6 until August 2, 2009 Coldwell Banker hosted an interactive billboard in Times Square. Requested home listings, displayed in real time, are driven by cell phone text requests sent by interested buyers on this billboard. By simply using a mobile phone to text the word “homes” and any U.S. zip code viewers could see the highest, median and lowest priced realty in the designated area. In a July 2009 press release Michael Fischer, senior vice president of marketing for Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC stated, “Consumers want quick access to online listings and this campaign reinforces how easy it is to find listings and information, anytime, anywhere.”

Real Estate Channels on YouTube.com

Youtube.com has become a valuable tool for anyone interested in buying, selling or investing in property. All over the country agents are creating YouTube.com videos to educate clients and provide them with in depth details about small towns and metropolitan cities everywhere. In addition, official YouTube channels are being created to make searching online even easier. Some YouTube channels service regions like the Homefinder 100 channel, a YouTube channel that supports a cable channel dedicated to the market in Toledo, Ohio. Other channels feature specific agents like the Sam Valadez Group channel.

National agencies like Coldwell Banker have also created YouTube.com channels. In May of 2009 Coldwell Banker launched Coldwell Banker on Location, a channel “designed to offer consumers a new way to search for and interact with real estate information and listings”, according to a May 4,, 2009 press release entitled, “New Coldwell Banker ‘On Location’ YouTube channel first in Industry to Fully Tap Power of Video for Real Estate Search and Insights.” According to the release, “To create On Location, Coldwell Banker closely collaborated with both YouTube, a Google subsidiary, and Google to develop a customized framework and user experience…On Location is the first branded YouTube channel to use dynamic IP lookup to search for videos, which automatically serves up local results when visitors first hit the site.”

Horses for Courses
Many advisors argue that website pages need to be compelling to draw in visitors and to make them return again and again. Is there logic in this slogan? There is nothing compelling about the Google home page – it has more blank area than for any home web page most people will ever come across. Yet, it draws people in. It isn’t the page that is compelling, it is its content that can be delivered very quickly to your screen with just a simple word search. It isn’t just any old content either. People have control what they receive.

Conversely, the home pages of design studios, architects, artists and web designers need to be compelling because these players are judged on their visual appearance. Go to the BBC home page and you will find a great deal of text grouped into meaningful blocks, along with pictures, and now, video content. As a news and entertainment business this layout works well.

So we can determine that it really depends upon the type of business or pleasure being presented. But there are some basic rules.

Colour, Fonts and Layout
Most well visited websites choose colour schemes that suit most visitors, including those with colour blindness. They choose fonts that make for easy reading and it is quite normal to see dark coloured fonts on light coloured backgrounds. The layout is ordered and pleasing to the eye. The content is a balanced mix of headings, body text and images. These styles of layout are pleasing because the human brain can better cope with them than for unordered, difficult to read pages with hideous colour schemes. Note also how the more pleasing web pages are laid out, often following the rule of thirds. It is scientifically known that the human eye finds this ordered scheme easier to interact with. Many landscape photographers and painters follow this scheme.

Objectively Interesting
Websites need to be interesting, so they say. Interesting to who? In this world in which we live, we could discuss what most would consider the most boring subject. Yet it might attract thousands of viewers who just happen to be interested in that subject. In short, just about anything is interesting to someone.

Once the theme has been decided, though, we need to stick to it. If our website is about the life and times of King George VI, visitors would not expect a discussion on the lousy summer of 2008. It is important to remain objective to the cause.

For many organisations, the web is one of many mediums to market and advertise their products and services. Go to the Sony website, and you will be pleased to find a world of electronics and gaming solutions that has made Sony so well respected. However, dig a bit deeper and you will find things that you might not have initially considered. For example, there are product support pages, music and movie pages, and even online gaming pages. The one thing that glues them all together is the company itself, Sony.

Therefore, we can think out of the box and provide interesting and varied content, but remain objective and focused on either the brand or the products and services we are selling. For example, a second hand car sales site could provide a feed or even a discussion board on Grand Prix racing. It’s like a hook to get people back to the website, even if they don’t need a second hand car. Why do that? Because they tell their family and friends about the website, which is good PR.

Technology
Retuning to the Sony website, but this time with Active Scripting turned off. This is a feature of web browsers that determines if technology like JavaScript will run automatically or not. What we are now presented with is a page that is quite possibly damaging to Sony’s repertoire. Simply put, the Sony home page needs JavaScript to display as the designers intended. Yet, there are many web browsing devices that do not support JavaScript or users simply turn off JavaScript.

The issue is that many website designers assume that all visitors will have the capability to run the technology they are pushing. Yet, a very simple addition to their code would ensure that visitors would be dished up a professional looking page, albeit a bit static and undramatic, if they don’t have or don’t wish to run JavaScript.

It is also worth considering that many of the newer technologies come at a cost. Not in monetary terms, but in the time it takes to load pages and get past the big impact splash screen. Unless you are Sony or someone of equal eminence, most visitors will leave.

Navigation & Standards
Visitors will get frustrated if they are not presented with an intuitive means of navigating a website. Again, be wary of how technology can kill a visitor’s enjoyment of your site by doing all sorts of non-essential things with menus when the viewer hovers their mouse over a menu button.

Also of high importance is the de-facto standard in web menus to include certain key pages, such as a home page, contact details, FAQs and ‘About Us’. Websites without some of these items in their menus look alien.

A Website Content Management System is simple terms allows you to update your website without the assistance of a web designer / developer. Initially you will require the assistance of a web developer to create the Website Content Management System for you business, but after this process is complete you should have the ability to add new pages, add images, update text information, change your meta tag data and re-structure your website navigation if required. Many other functions (features) can be added to your Content Management Systems but these function (features) will be determined by your development specification (requirements).

A Website Content Management System is useful only if you are going to update your website on a frequent basis or require more control over the information on your website. You will also be saving cost in the long term as you will not be reliant on a web developer / designer to update your website on your behalf. In the sort term Website Content management Systems are more expensive than standard plain html based websites but the advantage to you is the ability to grow your website yourself. Most ecommerce solution use some type of Content management Systems for example giving you the ability to add new categories and products to your ecommerce store. Content Management Systems can be used in website development in many different ways and are not secluded to ecommerce stores.

Website Content management Systems also give you the ability to identify administrators and set content management roles, in simple terms you can give specific privileges to different members of staff within your organisation and restrict members of staff from specific Content Management functions which do not apply to their role.

In some cases your Website Content management Systems can have the ability to archive information. Creating an archive system is an effective way of retaining information for internal or external reference. A good example would be a portfolio of clients which you have worked with, once your client project is complete, you can add informative information to an archive system allowing internal or external users to view this information, enabling a user to see what you have completed within the remits of your business.

A Content Management Systems normally consists of a user website, a database to store information and a secure control panel allowing to you update the information on the database. Content from the database is used to compile the information displayed on your website. The information on the database is accessed or manipulated using a programming language. In simple terms you are updating the database and your website is displaying content from the database to form your website pages. This type of system is also know as a three tier website application:

Data Tier – This is where your website information is stored.

Application Tier – This is where information is processed.

Client Tier – This is where information is displayed.

There are many different technologies available which enable a Website Content management System to be created. The most cost effective solution is a combination of the following technologies:

Mysql Database – An open source database application

Linux Server – An open source operating system

PHP Programming – An open source programming language

You can find hundreds and thousands of websites on the internet using the above technologies. There are many alternatives to the above technologies such as Microsoft based technologies, but these tend to be more expensive to maintain and develop.