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25 Apr
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Posted by Greg Nicholl
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Use Caching With Your Content Management System
A Content Management System is a Database Driven Website which creates pages in real-time rather than storing them. The database holds the page content and several templates form the structure of these pages. These sites are powerful since they can construct new pages based on user input and show pages based on user preferences. When a user clicks a link the page forms as the database spits out the content into the sections of the page that will display them. This makes for a slower page load time than with a static site. The database must work each time there is a page request and this slows down depending on the number of users who are browsing the same page.
Caching is a tool that helps with this problem. Many CMS systems including Drupal, Joomla and WordPress allow for page caching. The Caching system stores a copy of the web pages recently accessed. For a certain amount of time new page calls will receive these saved copies. Click to continue »
Pursuing All Things Web
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24 Apr
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Posted by Greg Nicholl
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The Internet has bought many changes to our society. The Internet, with all of its advantages and speed has made us much more impatient. We want information and we want it fast. Slow page loads are harmful to our online success since people will leave a slow page. There are several causes for slow page loads. Here are some tips for making your websites load faster.
Pay Attention To Image Weight
Heavy images is a main source of slow page loads. 
Those who take digital photos for printing want images with high resolution. Resolution refers to the amount of detail that an image has. The higher resolution of the image the more detail. To get good prints a photographer opts for high-resolution because it is necessary. High resolution is not needed for good screen images. While 600 Dots Per Inch or higher is the standard for print resolution; screen resolution of 72 DPI works fine. When we get digital images from a camera or from a stock image site we must pay attention to the resolution. Using heavy images will slow the loading of your page. The ideal weight of a web page at this point in time is 100 kb or less. If you are going to use several images on a page you must keep this in mind. Images used as the page background are not as crucial since they will be kept in the browser's cache (not freshly loaded with each page). They should still be kept as small as possible. Many new designers are not aware of these things and end uploading a page with heavy images. Click to continue »
Pursuing All Things Web
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14 Apr
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Posted by Greg Nicholl
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Password protection through Htaccess is a little bit complicated. If you find that this method is too complicated for you there are other ways to do it. There are free services available which will help you provide password security for some of the pages of your website. Bravenet.com is a very popular service which provides this. Puppydog.com offers a similar service. You have limited pages protected with these free accounts. You are given tools to protect more pages when you sign up for paid services. The instructions with these services are very simple but may include some pasting of HTML or JavaScript code into your pages.
Zubrag.com offers a free PHP script for giving password protection to your pages. This will give a greater level of security to your page than the services like PuppyDog. This option calls for a higher level of skill to apply than the others. For the person who knows how to install a PHP script the Zubrag offering has real advantages. You set it and forget and you do not need to sign up for a free service that you night not otherwise want.
These are helpful and rather simple methods for adding password protection to parts of your website. A couple of words of caution are due. Some of these methods will be effective against novice Internet users only. To keep a hacker out would call for solutions with greater sophistication. The Roles features in Drupal should do unless the hacker has some way to steal the passwords from the organization. The point that I am making is to not upload info that is mission critical if you intend to use a simple method of security. Companies whose futures ride on trade secrets should not place them on the Internet. There are other methods for to access data remotely. These password protection methods are helpful for light duty security but don't rely on them for protecting data confidential data.
Pursuing All Things Web
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14 Apr
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Posted by Greg Nicholl
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The world has changed as a result of the tools made available by the Internet. Information is available for immediate access and download. This led us to the era of online news, social networking and the blogosphere. Sometimes we find the need to cooperate with others on a private project. If you have a group that wants to access information and not make it available to the rest of the world you need methods to protect an area of you website with a password. Here are some ways to make secure private areas of your site through password protection.
Restricted Areas In Drupal
I am most familiar with using private web pages in the Content Management System called Drupal. A Content Management System creates pages for viewing on the fly. The pages are not sitting on the server waiting for viewing. Drupal has methods called Roles and Privileges which enable the setting up of private web pages. Users of a Drupal site may earn advanced Roles that allow them access to additional information. The Web Developers create certain content types or views that can only be seen by persons with the advanced Roles. In this way, trusted persons can access data that novices cannot. It is possible to exclude the public from data which they do not even know exists. Click to continue »
Pursuing All Things Web
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8 Apr
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Posted by Greg Nicholl
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Some web design mistakes are disastrous but are not obvious to the new or hobbyist web designer. Some of them are hard to correct once you have launched your site. This article wraps up a two part series on avoiding big web design mistakes.
Use Flash For Some But Not All Of Your Site
Avoid using Flash to build your website. Flash is a technology produced by Macromedia Corporation. Flash uses nice looking graphics, sound and animation to make some great looking sites. 
Software is available that allows even the newest amateur to create Flash websites. The trouble with Flash sites is that they don't do so well with the Search Engines. In a Flash site a Shockwave file contains all of your data. The articles and content that you add are visible to people browsing the site but not to the search engine. The search engine sees the Flash as an object. Thus there is nothing for the search engine to use to rank your site with. It is acceptable to use Flash to make great animation in small areas of your site. A small Flash object in the sidebar will not hurt anything. An entire site made from Flash will not work so well for you if it is necessary to have good ranking on Google or Bing. Click to continue »
Pursuing All Things Web
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7 Apr
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Posted by Greg Nicholl
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The planning phase of web design gives your site a good foundation. It is easy to avoid serious web design mistakes by taking adequate time in the planning phase. Your site will be much more powerful if you avoid making these design mistakes. It is difficult to know the usual pitfalls without having adequate experience. I am listing a number of the most common web design mistakes to help you avoid these pitfalls.
The Domain Name Is The First Important Step
One big mistake in web design is in choosing the wrong domain name. Do not choose a domain name until you have done some initial planning. Avoid choosing a domain name that appeals to you because it is cute or because it contains your name. The domain name should match the
keywords of your site. What is the main thing you want to do with your site? Are you selling something or offering a service? If so, then choose keywords based on your product or service. If you are selling shoes choose keywords based on the type of shoes you are selling. Then pick a domain name that matches the keywords of your site. If your keywords are about basketball and baseball shoes then your domain should relate directly to basketball and baseball shoes. If you are fortunate enough to obtain the domain name that is exactly the name of your product you will do really well. For instance "http://www.nike.com" would be the best domain name that anyone could have in selling Nike shoes. Don't settle for the name "http://www.sams-shoe-shack.com". Get a domain name that is more specific. Buy a domain name that contains something about basketball shoes. Avoid hyphenated domain names if possible. It is possible to fix a website with the wrong domain name but if you spend too much time with the wrong one it will become difficult to change. Click to continue »
Pursuing All Things Web
