Dizyn : Custom Web Design and Development for Entrepreneurs

Yandex Google opponent clinch Open Source Messaging

2008-09-07T00:04:00.000-07:00

Yandex has launched its new feature of instant messaging service. This is included its new version of Ya Online means “I’m Online”, Yandex’s absolutely free desktop based application.

The provided services is supported by Jabber’s compatibility with user account both on Yandex and all jabber based services i.e QIP, GMail etc

Ya Online can be downloaded at http://online.yandex.ru . Once you are done with the installaion of Ya Online 2.0 Version system doesn’t have to check for someone to chat with. Unlike msn and yahoo you don’t need to add users to this system, it will automatically get contacts from your Yandex Mail and ya.ru social networking accounts

Personal Development

OMB Website Exposes Thousands of SSNs

2007-04-20T23:24:00.000-07:00

The New York Times is reporting that an Office of Management and Budget website accidentally exposed at least 30,000 social security numbers publicly online. As many as 100,000 to 150,000 individuals may have been affected. The cost to taxpayers just for notifications and credit monitoring is estimated to run $4 million. 'While there was no evidence to indicate whether anyone had in fact used the information improperly, officials at the Agriculture Department and the Census Bureau removed the Social Security numbers from the Census Web site last week. Officials at the Agriculture Department said Social Security numbers were included in the public database because doing so was the common practice years ago when the database was first created, before online identity theft was as well-known a threat as it is today.

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Offshore Outsourcing

Java's Greatest Missed Opportunity?

2007-02-09T23:34:00.000-08:00

"It looks like Bruce Eckel has hit the nail on the head again. No sooner did he finish stirring debate by writing about the 'departure of the Java hyper-enthusiasts,' previously discussed here on Slashdot, than he now rubs salt in the wound by highlighting in AJAXWorld Magazine how and why Java missed its golden opportunity to become the language undergirding Rich Internet Applications. He comments: 'We must ask why Java applets haven't become ubiquitous on the internet as the client-side standard for RIAs....This is an especially poignant question because Gosling and team justified rushing Java out the door (thus casting in stone many poorly-considered decisions) so that it could enable the internet revolution. That's why the AWT and Applets were thrown in at the last second, reportedly taking a month from conception to completion.'"

http://www.dizyn.com

Open Source Phone on the Way

2007-02-09T23:30:00.000-08:00

"Dr. Dobb's Journal reports on GPE Palmtop Environment's aim to create a full stack of open source software for mobile phones. Mobile operator Orange and France Telecom are contributing to the project. The goal is to have a fully featured mobile handset with applications like instant messaging and email, with only a portion of the price."

Custom Web Development

Google Apps to Become Paid Service

2007-02-08T06:03:00.000-08:00

"Business Week reports Google Apps is becoming a paid service soon for companies who wish to use it for their domain. Disney and Pixar are reportedly thinking about switching to Google Apps instead of using Microsoft Office. Could this be the end of a monopoly? Or the start of a new one?"

Custom Web Development

Microsoft Slugs Mac Users With Vista Tax

2007-02-08T06:01:00.000-08:00

"Mac users wanting to run Vista on their Macintosh will have to buy an expensive version of Vista if they want to legally install it on their systems. The end-user license agreement for the cheaper versions of Vista (Home Basic and Home Premium) explicitly forbids the use of those versions on virtual machines (ie Macs pretending to be PCs)."

Custom Web Development

Sun To Choose GPL For Open-Sourcing Java

2006-11-08T05:33:00.000-08:00

"Sun is about to announce its plans for open-sourcing Java SE and ME, according to CRN — and they're going to use the GPL, not their own CDDL or another less-restrictive license."

Custom Web Development

Marrying Gmail and Mutt

2006-11-07T07:57:00.000-08:00

teumima writes "I found this article very nice and simple on how to configure mutt for g-mail." Indeed; nice piece. I've been experimenting with using Gmail as my default mail drop, but don't really want to be dependent on being online or just POP; I just wish they would let me pay for IMAP service. Linux.com is also owned by OSTG.

Custom Web Development

Microsoft Patches VML Vulnerability

2006-09-28T04:37:00.000-07:00

"Microsoft has quietly released an official patch for the zero-day VML vulnerability. The patch was publicly available yesterday, But Microsoft has just added it to the Security Bulletin Index." Eight days from time of first report to patch is pretty fast for Microsoft, and is almost two weeks ahead of their normal patch schedule. This security flaw was being aggressively exploited out in the wild.

Custom Web Development

The US Navy Says Goodbye to the Tomcat

2006-09-22T05:32:00.000-07:00

"Though it's not being widely reported, this week marks the end of the line for the F-14 Tomcat in US Navy service. First flown in 1970, the Grumman F-14 Tomcat was easily one of the world's most powerful, advanced, and deadly aircraft for many years, capable of flying at Mach 2.3 and firing its half-dozen Mach 5 AIM-54 Phoenix air-to-air missiles at targets as much as 100 miles away. Having been gradually replaced during the last several years by the newer F/A-18E/F, the last of the aircraft in US service will be officially retired on Friday, September 22nd in a ceremony at Virginia's Oceana Naval Air Station. However, at least a few F-14s will continue to fly for a few more years: Iran — which took delivery of 79 aircraft before the overthrow of the Shah — still flies the plane, though only a small number (perhaps ten or twenty) are believed to still be in service due to a lack of spare parts and attrition."

Custom Web Development

Google.org, a For-Profit Charity

2006-09-18T04:21:00.000-07:00

Google has set up a subsidiary, Google.org, a for-profit philanthropy with initial capital of a billion dollars. Not being organized on a tax-free basis carries both advantages and drawbacks. From the article: "Unlike most charities, this one will be for-profit, allowing it to fund start-up companies, form partnerships with venture capitalists and even lobby Congress. It will also pay taxes." One of Google.org's first projects is the development of a plug-in hybrid vehicle that achieves a mileage rating equivalent to 100 MPG.

Custom Web Development

The Engine of US Jobs

2006-09-18T04:18:00.000-07:00

"BusinessWeek has an interesting take on the US job situation, What's Really Propping Up The Economy. I think many of us have felt the US tech job market was stagnant and this article has insights into why this economy is so hot, yet not from our perspective. The spoiler is the business of health care — which will come as no surprise to anybody who has looked through the help wanted section lately. BusinessWeek has some opinions on how IT should play a bigger role in the health care industry."

Custom Web Development

Microsoft Re-Re-Releases IE Patch

2006-09-13T02:40:00.000-07:00

"InfoWorld reports that on Tuesday Microsoft quietly released the second update for MS06-042. This is the cumulative patch for IE that actually introduced a new security hole into systems that applied the update. Microsoft re-released the patch back in August, but it now turns out that the updated patch had yet another vulnerability similar to the first, once again discovered by folks at eEye Digital Security. As with the previous hole, it concerned the handling of long URLs from web sites using HTTP 1.1 with compression."

Custom Web Development

CSS: The Missing Manual

2006-09-07T04:11:00.000-07:00

"Ever since Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) first appeared on the Web scene in the late 1990s, a plethora of books have been written and published that purport to explain how CSS works, and how to make it work for you. So why would any publisher decide that what the technical world needs is yet another CSS book? Perhaps because they have taken a close look at the bulk of those available titles, and found them to be wanting — filled with overly theoretical explanations and sample code that is far too focused on some pet domain of the author. Such books may be adequate for the veteran Web developer, who has the time and inclination to separate the wheat from the chaff. But developers new to CSS need much more approachable material, with clear examples. Perhaps that is the thinking behind CSS: The Missing Manual."

Custom Web Development

Google Releases Tesseract as Open Source

2006-09-05T02:37:00.000-07:00

"Google recently released Tesseract as open source. Originally developed at the HP Labs from 1985-1995, it has been touted as one of the most accurate Optical Character Recognition (OCR) programs available. Having sat on the shelf gathering dust for so many years, Google cleaned up some of the more outdated portions of the code and released it for general consumption. You can download Tesseract over at Sourceforge.

Custom Web Development

Microsoft Research Builds 'BrowserShield'

2006-09-05T02:35:00.000-07:00

"Researchers at Microsoft have completed work on a prototype framework called BrowserShield that promises to intercept and remove, on the fly, malicious code hidden on Web pages, instead showing users safe equivalents of those pages. The BrowserShield project, an outgrowth of the company's 'Shield' initiative, could one day even become Microsoft's answer to zero-day browser exploits such as the WMF (Windows Metafile) attack that spread like wildfire in December 2005."

Custom Software Development

What is WinFS?

2006-08-12T04:39:00.000-07:00

"WinFS" is the code name for the next generation storage platform in Windows "Longhorn." Taking advantage of database technologies, Microsoft is advancing the file system into an integrated store for file data, relational data, and XML data. Windows users will have intuitive new ways to find, relate, and act on their information, regardless of what application creates the data. Also, "WinFS" will have built-in support for multi-master data synchronization across other Longhorn machines and other data sources. The platform supports rich managed Longhorn APIs as well as Win32 APIs.

Custom Web Development

Can Linux Dominate Smartphone OS?

2006-07-31T11:29:00.000-07:00

"Does Motorola's roaring success with its Linux-based 'Ming' phones in China indicate that the open-source platform is now a serious contender against Symbian and Windows Mobile in the handheld device software platform arena? The world No. 2 mobile phone maker, which debuted the Ming smartphone in March this year in China, shipped more than one million Linux-based units in China alone last quarter, according to research firm Canalys. However with Nokia refusing to adopt Linux, Symbian remains by far the top mobile device OS, according to Canalys, with a 67 percent share, well ahead of second-place Windows Mobile, with 15 percent of the market. Eirik Chambe-Eng, the co-founder of one of the most popular mobile Linux platforms, Norway-based TrollTech, has also reportedly predicted a 'revolution' in the use of open-source software on phones and handheld devices. His contention was that Linux gives handset manufacturers and OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) 'complete control,' and in turn keeps Microsoft and Symbian at bay."

Custom Web Development

SEO Tutorial Subjects Covered

2006-05-05T23:07:00.000-07:00

1. Business and Domain Name Choice : You might think what's the name of my business got to do with search engine optimization (SEO)? If you choose the correct business and domain name in the first place it makes the whole optimization process so much easier....

2. WebSite Optimization : In this section of our SEO Tutorial we'll broadly introduce on site optimization, how to optimize your web site for better search engine rankings with good Google rankings our primary goal....

3. Title Optimization : The TITLE element of your web page (found within the HEAD) is very important, probably the most important part of a page (especially for placement in Google and Yahoo) and should ideally be optimized for a small number of keywords or phrases....

4. Meta Tags Optimization : There used to be a time when the contents of a pages Meta Tags was very important, it was around about the same time the Berlin Wall was still standing!! Today meta tags hold little value to Search Engine Optimization (SEO)....

5. Anchor Text Optimization : Google (and to a lesser degree other search engines) heavily weight it's Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) towards the anchor text of links to a page. This can be demonstrated by looking at extreme examples where a pages high ranking can only be attributed to anchor text and no other SEO factors....

6. SERPs Competition : Your websites Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) are determined by various SEO factors, on page content (your body text, the title element etc...), anchor text of links to your web sites pages, the search engines algorithms tweak of the day and of course the number of websites/pages competing for that search phrase. In this section of the SEO Tutorial we'll deal with estimating the number of competitors for a SERP....

7. PageRank PR : PageRank or PR for short seems to be misunderstood by so many that this part of our SEO Tutorial we will try to explain the ins and outs of PageRank without getting too technical....

8. Google Sandbox Effect : A lot has been written about the so called Google Sandbox Effect in SEO forums over the last year or so, but not much of it is backed up by reality or facts. Find out what the sandbox really is....

Custom Web Development

Outsourcing

Ethical and Unethical SEO Techniques

2006-05-05T23:05:00.000-07:00

There has been a lot of discussion in the SEO community/forums about ethical and unethical SEO techniques (or whitehat and blackhat SEO). We do not consider ourselves ethical nor unethical SEO consultants. We research ALL aspects of search engine optimization using our own domains (it would be unethical to use our clients sites for SEO tests) and have in the pursuit of SEO knowledge had more than our fair share of domains penalized/banned (most by Google). Through this free tutorial we will deal with both the recommended SEO techniques (no to low risk) and the not so recommended SEO techniques (possibly unethical to some SEO firms and high risk) detailing potential risks and rewards. It will be up to you which search engine optimization techniques you employ to your website.

Custom Web Development

Search Engine Optimization Tutorial Introduction

2006-05-05T23:02:00.000-07:00

In this Tutorial will find answers to common and not so common search engine optimization questions. Unlike a lot of SEO companies we do the SEO research ourselves, avoiding the guesswork and speculation so many SEO consultants rely upon! You will not find contradictory SEO information here like you tend to find in so many SEO forums filled with clue less amateur SEOs.

To obtain maximum search engine rankings, it is essential to understand how your target audience is searching for information via search engines. When your potential visitors and customers use search engines like Google and Yahoo to find products and online services, they type a set of words or phrases, commonly called keywords or keyword phrases into the search box.

For the target audience to find your website on the search engines, your pages should contain keyword phrases that match what your target audience is actually typing into search queries (we like to state the obvious at SEO Gold). For example if a page on your site is about an "SEO Tutorial" the phrase (SEO Tutorial) and its derivatives (i.e. Ethical SEO Tutorial, Search Engine Optimization Tutorial etc...) should be used throughout the text, anchor text of links and other important areas of the web pages code. Also individual keywords of a multiple word phrase should be used, so in the above example the words SEO and Tutorial should be used as much as possible throughout the text.

Custom Web Development

Millennium Problems

2006-04-16T02:15:00.000-07:00

.In order to celebrate mathematics in the new millennium, The Clay Mathematics Institute of Cambridge, Massachusetts (CMI) has named seven Prize Problems. The Scientific Advisory Board of CMI selected these problems, focusing on important classic questions that have resisted solution over the years. The Board of Directors of CMI designated a $7 million prize fund for the solution to these problems, with $1 million allocated to each. During the Millennium Meeting held on May 24, 2000 at the Collège de France, Timothy Gowers presented a lecture entitled The Importance of Mathematics, aimed for the general public, while John Tate and Michael Atiyah spoke on the problems. The CMI invited specialists to formulate each problem.

One hundred years earlier, on August 8, 1900, David Hilbert delivered his famous lecture about open mathematical problems at the second International Congress of Mathematicians in Paris. This influenced our decision to announce the millennium problems as the central theme of a Paris meeting.

The rules for the award of the prize have the endorsement of the CMI Scientific Advisory Board and the approval of the Directors. The members of these boards have the responsibility to preserve the nature, the integrity, and the spirit of this prize

Customized Web Development

Lessons from the Browser Wars

2006-04-16T02:14:00.000-07:00

by Sara Grant, Publications Coordinator, HBS Working Knowledge

In a famous example of how first movers can lose their advantage, second-mover Microsoft won the Web browser wars from Netscape and continues to dominate the market today. But that competition was the subject of another "war," this one among researchers who study how technology is diffused into the market.

The debate was this: Did Microsoft win because its Internet Explorer was the technologically superior product to Netscape Navigator, or was Microsoft just more successful at the distribution end by convincing most PC companies, some argue by anticompetitive tactics, to include IE on every PC shipped in the late 1990s? Researchers line up on both sides of the argument.

A recent working paper by Harvard Business School professor Pai-Ling Yin and Stanford professor Timothy F. Bresnahan offers an answer. Looking at both the pace of adoption of new versions of the browsers and the brand choice made by users, "distribution played a larger role than did technical progress in determining the market outcomes," the scholars conclude in the paper "Economic and Technical Drivers of Technology Choice: Browsers."

The implications are significant. Browsers simplified access to the online world, transforming the Internet from a communications vehicle for academics into a mass consumer phenomenon. At the same time, the growing usefulness of the Internet drove sales of personal computers off the chart—the installed base of PCs doubled to 213 million computers between 1995 and 1999. Understanding the complex interaction between the two technologies and how a second mover was able to unseat the incumbent market champion will help innovators of all stripes learn how new technology gets diffused into mass markets.

In this interview, Yin discusses the results and implications for new browser upstarts such as Firefox and Camino. Do they stand a chance against Internet Explorer? Yin says Microsoft's entrenchment in corporate IT, the maturation of the PC market, and the technical difficulty many consumers have in switching to a new browser make it hard soil for new challengers to take root.

Customized Web Development

2006 ACM Programming Contest Complete

2006-04-12T22:40:00.000-07:00

"World finals for 2006 ACM programming contest took place in San Antonio, TX this year, and the results are in. Russia's Saratov State University solved 5 contest problems in record time, followed closely by Altai State Technical University (Russia) with 5 problems solved as well. University of Twente (Netherlands), Shanghai Jiao Tong University (China), Warsaw University (Poland), St. Petersburg State University (Russia), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA), Moscow State University (Russia), University of Waterloo (Canada) and Jagiellonian University - Krakow (Poland) all completed 4 problems."

IRS Compels PayPal to Release Info

2006-04-12T22:39:00.001-07:00

"Just in time for the tax season, the IRS won a federal court ruling, allowing them to force PayPal to turn over records of American taxpayers who have certain foreign accounts. It's all part of an ongoing effort to track down money held in offshore accounts by would-be taxpayers. A spokesperson for PayPal acknowledged receiving the summons (PDF) and said 'We're still evaluating our options [...] The privacy of our customers' information is something we take really seriously.'"

Sun Opens Modeling Tools

2006-04-12T22:39:00.000-07:00

"According to the Register, Sun is set to open source a few modeling tools, including their UML modeler, XML infrastructure and visual editing tools, and BPEL tools. The software, part of the planned Java Studio Enterprise 9.0, will made available for download as part of Sun's NetBeans Enterprise Pack." From the article: "By open sourcing its UML tools Sun is continuing its push against the rival Eclipse open source tools framework. The Eclipse Foundation has pushed UML and model-driven architectures for some time via the Eclipse Tools Project. The project encompasses an open source implementation of UML, called UML2, and a modeling framework and code-generation facility to build tools and applications that use a structured data model - called the Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF)."

Software Engineers Ranked Best Job in America

2006-04-12T22:36:00.000-07:00

"CNNMoney and Salary.com have ranked the title of Software Engineer the best job in America. Computer IT Analyst also ranks 7th on the list, placing both technology positions in the top 10. From the article: "Designing, developing and testing computer programs requires some pretty advanced math skills and creative problem-solving ability. If you've got them, though, you can work and live where you want: Telecommuting is quickly becoming widespread.""

In-Depth ajaxWrite Review

2006-04-09T04:59:00.000-07:00

"ajaxWrite is the first offspring of ajax13, Michael Robertson's (of Lindows and SIPphone fame) latest startup that aims to deliver a brave new line of web-delivered, AJAX-based apps. ExtremeTech today has an in-depth review of just how apt a replacement ajaxWrite is for the big installed word processors. It's a neat idea, but let's just say the web-based word processor has some catching up to do."

NASA Launches Educational Website

2006-04-09T04:53:00.000-07:00

Computer Business Review magazine is reporting that NASA has launched a new educational site targeting children in kindergarten through fourth grade. From the article: "The website aims to appeal to both parents and educators wishing to help develop children's knowledge in subjects such as science, technology and mathematics. [...] 'Our goal with the Kids' Club is to provide a medium that encourages children's interest in exploring the subjects important to developing early skills in science, technology, engineering and mathematics,' said Angela Phillips Diaz, NASA's acting assistant administrator for education."

2006-03-17T22:50:00.000-08:00

HTML and CSS Validation: Should You Validate Your Web Page?

If you don't hang around webmaster circles, you may not realise that HTML validation and CSS validation are controversial issues with some people. This article discusses some of the positions taken in these discussions to provide some perspectives on issues that have come increasingly to the fore in web development. Hopefully, the article will also provide a practical method that overworked webmasters can use to improve their website.

Some Background Information: What does Validating HTML or CSS Mean?

For those who are unfamiliar with what validating a web page (ie validating your HTML or CSS code) means, it basically refers to using a program or an online service to check that the web page that you created is free of errors.

In particular, an HTML validator checks to make sure the HTML code on your web page complies with the standards set by the W3 Consortium (the organisation that issues the HTML standards). There are various types of validators - some check only for errors, others also make suggestions about your code, telling you when a certain way of writing things might lead to (say) unexpected results.

The W3 Consortium has its own online validator which you can use for free. It may be found at: http://validator.w3.org/

A CSS validator checks your Cascading Style Sheets in the same manner; basically, most will check them to make sure that they comply with the CSS standards set by the W3 Consortium. There are a few which will also tell you which CSS features are supported by which browsers (since not all browsers are equal in their CSS implementation).

Again, you can get free validation for your style sheets from the W3 Consortium: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

There are numerous other validators around, both free and commercial, focusing on various aspects of ensuring that your code will run trouble-free across browsers and platforms. You can find a list of free ones (including specialised validators like those that check your code for accessibility) from Free HTML Validators, CSS Validators, Accessibility Validators at http://www.thefreecountry.com/webmaster/htmlvalidators.shtml

Note that validating your web page does not ensure that it will appear as you want in various browsers. It merely ensures that your code is without HTML or CSS syntax errors. Ensuring that your code appears correctly in different browsers require cross browser testing. You can read more information about how to do this even if you only have one computer from the article How to Check Your Website with Multiple Browsers on a Single Computer at http://www.thesitewizard.com/webdesign/multiplebrowsers.shtml

Why Validate Your HTML Code?

The proponents of HTML validation (and CSS validation, of course) say that there are a number of reasons why you should validate your code:

It Helps Cross-Browser, Cross-Platform and Future Compatibility

Although you may be able to create a web page that appears to work on your favourite browser (whatever that may be), your page may contain HTML errors (or CSS errors) that do not show up with that browser due to an existing quirk or bug. Another person using a different browser that does not share that particular bug will wind up viewing a page that does not show up correctly. It is also possible that later versions of your browser will fix that bug, and your page will be broken when people use the latest incarnation of the browser.

Coding your pages so that it is correct without errors will result in pages that are more likely to work across browsers and platforms (ie, different systems). It is also a form of insurance against future versions of browsers, since all browsers aim towards compliance with the existing HTML and CSS standards.
Search Engine Visibility

When there are errors in a web page, browsers typically try to compensate in different ways. Hence some browsers may ignore the broken elements while others make assumptions about what the web designer was trying to achieve. The problem is that when search engines obtain your page and try to parse them for keywords, they will also have to make certain decisions about what to do with the errors. Like browsers, different search engines will probably make different decisions about those errors in the page, resulting in certain parts of your web page (or perhaps even the entire page if your error is early in the page) not being indexed.

The safest way, it is held, is to make sure that your web page validates error-free. That way, there is no dispute about which part of your page should be scanned for keywords and the like.
Professionalism

Even if you test your web site with all the various browsers in existence on all the platforms in use (Mac, Linux, Windows, FreeBSD, etc) and find that it works perfectly in all, errors in your site reflect poorly on your skill as a web developer.

The issue is two-fold: firstly, a poorly coded web page reveals that either the web designer does not know his stuff or is a sloppy worker; secondly, it affects his marketability.

Why Not Validate?

Those who are against a blanket rule about validation often cite the following reasons:

Validation is No Guarantee that Page Works

Even if you validate your code, you still have to test it in the various browsers. Having code with no syntax errors does not mean that the HTML or CSS code does what you want. Hence some of the proponents of this view argue that the main goal when designing a web page is to make sure it is viewable and usable by your visitors, not some esoteric goal of standards compliance.
Time Constraint for Conversion

In an ideal world, you want all your pages to be usable and error free. In the real world however, many web designers with thousands of existing pages will be hard-pressed to find time to convert all those pages so that they validate correctly. Since these pages are already doing well on the web, both with existing browsers and search engines, time is better spent doing work that is actually productive.
The Average Visitor Does Not Check Your Source Code

Against the argument about professionalism is the counter-argument that the average visitor to your site is not likely to go around your site viewing the source code to your pages in an effort to locate HTML or CSS errors. To the visitor, how the page appears in his/her browser is the true test of the web designer's skill.

One Possible Solution

Like some web designers, I started designing web sites long before I realized that there were tools that could validate my pages for correctness. By the time I started validating and correcting my pages, I already had hundreds of existing pages that I needed to correct, including pages on thesitewizard.com and thefreecountry.com.

My concerns were primarily cross-browser and cross-platform compatibility as well as search engine indexability. I didn't want an error on my pages that I might miss seeing with my browser but that creeps up in other browsers, systems or the search engines. However, the problem was that converting hundreds of pages is not exactly my idea of a pleasant day's work.

I decided to take the approach I saw on a website. If I remember correctly, I think it was the W3 Consortium's own website that mentioned this method. At that time, they had a notice stating that they knew that not all their pages complied with the standards. However, all new pages they created will validate correctly, as will any old pages that they updated.

I realise that this is not the "ideal" that some webmasters argue for; but it is a practical solution for a web designer with many existing pages. If you are in the same boat, with too many existing pages to contemplate revamping everything, you might want to consider taking this route. It may not salve your pride (ie, the craftsman's pride at producing a perfect work), but at least it will help you cope with the workload.

How Often Should I Validate?

Some people validate every time they make a modification to their pages on the grounds that careless mistakes can occur any time. Others validate only when they make a major design change.

I always validate the template for my pages when I make a major design change. I try to validate my pages each time I make modifications, although I must admit that I sometimes forget to do so (with the occasional disastrous consequence; Murphy's Law doesn't spare webmasters).

I find that having an offline validator helps to make sure that I remember to validate: having to go online just to validate my pages tends to make me put off validation till later, with the result that it'll occasionally get overlooked. For those not familiar with the terminology I use, when I say "offline validator" I simply mean a validator that I can download and install in my own computer so that I can run it on my pages without having to go to the W3 Consortium's website. You can find offline validators on the free validators page I mentioned earlier, that is, http://www.thefreecountry.com/webmaster/htmlvalidators.shtml

The HTML Tidy validator (listed on that page) is available for numerous platforms (including Linux, Mac, Windows, etc) and has proven helpful to many webmasters the world over.

Conclusion

Validating your HTML and CSS code for standards compliance has certain benefits: it protects your pages from problems arising from syntax errors in your code due to different ways of interpreting errors by the search engines and other browsers. If, however, you have a large number of existing pages that have not been validated and corrected, but nonetheless work well in search engines and other browsers, you might need to consider some sort of strategy (such as the one I used) to prevent webmaster-overload.

This article can be found at http://www.thesitewizard.com/webdesign/htmlvalidation.shtml

2006-03-17T22:43:00.000-08:00

Appearance, Usability and Search Engine Visibility in Web Design

I was recently asked by a visitor to thesitewizard.com to take a look at her company's website, designed by a university student. I will not give the URL for that site, partly to protect the innocent, and partly because by the time you read this, it'll probably have been modified.

The site was heavy in its use of graphics with images adorning most parts of the page layout, to provide curved borders (to replace the sharp corners in enclosing boxes), different background images for different parts of the page, etc. It had a top navigation bar, driven entirely using JavaScript. The navigation bar mimicked the sort of menu bar you find in computer programs - there is a horizontal menu bar with different items listed. When you move your mouse over one of those items, the menu will automatically expand vertically. As you move the mouse cursor down the pop-up menu, the item beneath the pointer is highlighted. Click it, and you will be delivered to another page on the site.

In general, that site is typical of the kind of sites produced by newcomers to web design. It scores well in terms of prettiness and gadgetry (although only under one browser, it doesn't work well under other browsers), but fares dismally in terms of usability and search engine readiness. In fact, the reason my visitor wrote to me was because the website suffered a significant drop in the number of visitors after it was redesigned in its current form.

This article uses that site as a starting point for discussing some of the issues that a web designer needs to consider when creating a website that must exist and compete in the real world (as opposed to a site that is created merely to fulfill the course requirements of a school or university).

1. Appearance is Not the Most Important Issue

Over the years that I have dealt with newcomers to web design, it is my observation that they tend to focus excessively (and sometimes almost exclusively) on the appearance of a website. The site I mentioned earlier is a case in point: the designer tried hard to make the site look beautiful (and, if I may add, succeeded too - the site does indeed look pretty). However, as hard as it may be to believe (if you are a newcomer), appearance isn't the most important thing to look at when you are planning and creating your site.

Don't get me wrong here. I'm not saying that appearance is of no importance. Far from it. However, in this article, my intention is to address the excessive importance newcomers place on beauty. In fact, if you belong to the other extreme, discounting the value of the appearance of a website altogether, you might want to read my discussion of Two Common Web Design Myths at http://www.thesitewizard.com/archive/myths.shtml

Having said that, your site can still survive (or even thrive) if it is a plain-looking site like Google. This is not necessarily the case if you overlook the other important issues in web design.

2. Usability is Important for You to Achieve Your Purpose

All sites are created for a particular purpose. Some were created so that their owners can sell something. Others are information resources (like thesitewizard.com). Still others are designed to showcase their owner's talents (such as sites displaying the owner's resumes and portfolios).

The usability of your site is important to help you achieve that purpose. The basic question that you need to address when dealing with usability is: can your visitors easily access the information they need so that they can do the stuff that you want them to do? There are quite a number of things involved in this question.

Information Availability

Is the information that your visitors need to make informed decisions available on your site? For example, before they can buy a product, they will want to know more about that product. A brief one-line summary about your product's features may work for your main page, but you will probably find that you get more buyers if you can provide a link to a page that gives a detailed list of features of each of your products.
Information Accessibility

Not only must your information be available to your visitors, it must be easily accessible. A page that gives a detailed description of your products is not going to help your visitors if they have to work hard at finding it. In fact, my experience is that if visitors have to work at finding something on your site, they are not going to find it. Either put the information right under their noses, or put a link to it in that place.
Navigation

A good navigational system for your website is crucial. A navigational system is one by which visitors can move from one page to another. For example, on thesitewizard.com, one way in you can access the main pages on the site is to use the navigation buttons on the left column of the page.

There are a few features to a good navigational system:
1. If you are using a navigation bar or panel, standardize its location on all the pages of your website. Don't make your visitors feel as though they are embarking on a treasure hunt every time they reach a new page.
2. In addition to your navigation bar or panel, provide short-cuts to places where visitors are likely to want to go. Don't force your visitors to have to go through your main page (or your site map) every time they need to visit another page on your site. In fact, put direct links in logical places - for example, on your "Products" page, you should have a links to your "Buy / Order" page as well as links to the pages with detailed information about individual products. Think like a visitor and ask yourself what are the things a visitor might want to know or do when he/she is at a particular page.
3. A good navigation system must be usable by all your visitors. As a result, try to avoid things that are dependent on certain facilities or features being available. For example, don't make your menu dependent on a specific browser. If your menu is JavaScript-driven, make sure that you have an alternative facility available for people who do not have JavaScript enabled.
4. If your site has a large number of pages, a site search engine will improve your site's usability. Not everyone mentally organises information the way you do. Hence a logical arrangement to you may not be logical to another person. Giving your visitors a way to search your web site will help them locate what they want. I discuss the use of a search engine for your site in my article How to Put a Search Engine On Your Site at http://www.thesitewizard.com/archive/searchengine.shtml
5. It's always good to have a Site Map, unless your site has only a few pages. This allows people to have another route to the other pages on your site. It also helps search engines locate all the pages on your site, particularly if you use dynamically-generated links to your pages (like JavaScript-created links).

3. Search Engine Visibility is Your Site's Lifeline

As I mentioned earlier, the problem that my visitor faced when her site was redesigned was that it no longer appeared in search engine results even when relevant terms were used for searches.

The problem in her case was that her site relied exclusively on a JavaScript navigation menu. Apart from the links generated by the JavaScript menu, there were absolutely no other links on her site pointing to other pages within the site. Since search engines bots can't interpret JavaScript (at least not at this time, to my knowledge), they could not follow any links and could thus only index her main page. As a result, her pages were not listed in searches for her keywords (since only the main page was indexed), leading to a drastic drop in visitors.

This is a problem fairly easily fixed (for example, one way is to create a site map and add a normal link to it from the main page), but it illustrates one of the most important issues a real-world website faces: search engine visibility. If your site is not listed in the search engines, you're not going to be able to get many visitors, if at all. Without visitors, you're obviously not going to be able to achieve your purpose for the site.

Designing a site that is search engine ready is a lengthy topic, so I am not even going to try to address it here. If you are interested to know more, you can find some general principles for making your site search engine ready by perusing the articles listed on: http://www.thesitewizard.com/sitepromotion/index.shtml

Conclusion

This article is about the importance of factoring usability and search engine readiness into your web design. Usability is important because it improves the chances that your site will help you accomplish your purpose. Search engine visibility is crucial because without it, you will get few visitors. Plan with these two aspects in mind, even as you look into the appearance of your site, and your design will go far in helping you achieve the goals for your site.

This article can be found at http://www.thesitewizard.com/webdesign/usabilitysearchengine.shtml

2006-03-09T23:34:00.000-08:00

Security Flaw Discovered in GPG
"A serious problem in the use of GPG to verify digital signatures has been discovered, which also affects the use of gpg in email. It is possible for an attacker to take any signed message and inject extra arbitrary data without affecting the signed status of the message. Depending on how gpg is invoked, it may be possible to output just faked data as several variants of this attack have been discovered. All versions of gnupg prior to 1.4.2.2 are affected, and it is thus recommended to update GnuPG as soon as possible to version 1.4.2.2."

The New Face of Script Kiddiez

2006-03-09T23:30:00.000-08:00

"Washingtonpost.com's Security Fix blog has an interesting post profiling the activities of a kid named Witlog who controls a botnet of roughly 30,000 hacked Windows PCs. Even after the authorities manage to shut down the network Witlog uses to control his bots, he pops up somewhere else. From the article: 'Witlog may in fact be the product of a new generation of script kiddiez; the chief distinguishing feature of this generation being that instead of using Web site flaws to deface as many Web sites as possible, these guys are breaking into thousands of home and work PCs and taking them for a virtual joyride, often times all the way to the bank.'"

Customi Web Development and Design
http://www.outsourcingi.com

2006-03-06T21:52:00.000-08:00

Can Open Source Outdo the IPod?

"Wired is running an article entitled, "Can Open Source Outdo the IPod?" Asking the open source community to help them compete with the iPod. From the article: 'Consumer electronics manufacturer Neuros Audio is tapping the open-source community to convert its upcoming portable media player from iPod road kill into a contender [...] To get the ball rolling, Neuros recently opened up the firmware code for its Neuros 442 portable media player, which is set to launch in January [...] Neuros' hardware design is complete, comprising a Texas Instruments dual-core digital signal processor, a 3.6-inch, 65,000-color TFT display and a 40-GB hard drive for recording video from a TV or home entertainment system. But the company has left a little something -- mostly user interface tweaks -- for the volunteers.' Is this a good idea or a mere publicity stunt?"

http://www.dizyn.com
http://www.outsourcingi.com

2006-03-05T22:23:00.000-08:00

5% of All Web Traffic Unsafe

"The MIT-backed startup behind SiteAdvisor has slapped a red "X" warning label on approximately 5 percent of all Web traffic and warned that there are roughly one billion monthly visits to Web pages that aren't safe for surfing. About 2 percent of all Web traffic was given the "yellow" caution rating." A more general SiteAdvisor blog entry overview was covered earlier on Slashdot.

Dizyn : Custom Web Design and Development for Entrepreneurs

Yandex Google opponent clinch Open Source Messaging

OMB Website Exposes Thousands of SSNs

Java's Greatest Missed Opportunity?

Open Source Phone on the Way

Google Apps to Become Paid Service

Microsoft Slugs Mac Users With Vista Tax

Sun To Choose GPL For Open-Sourcing Java

Marrying Gmail and Mutt

Microsoft Patches VML Vulnerability

The US Navy Says Goodbye to the Tomcat

Google.org, a For-Profit Charity

The Engine of US Jobs

Microsoft Re-Re-Releases IE Patch

CSS: The Missing Manual

Google Releases Tesseract as Open Source

Microsoft Research Builds 'BrowserShield'

What is WinFS?

Can Linux Dominate Smartphone OS?

SEO Tutorial Subjects Covered

Ethical and Unethical SEO Techniques

Search Engine Optimization Tutorial Introduction

Millennium Problems

Lessons from the Browser Wars

2006 ACM Programming Contest Complete

IRS Compels PayPal to Release Info

Sun Opens Modeling Tools

Software Engineers Ranked Best Job in America

In-Depth ajaxWrite Review

NASA Launches Educational Website

HTML and CSS Validation: Should You Validate Your Web Page?

Some Background Information: What does Validating HTML or CSS Mean?

Why Validate Your HTML Code?

It Helps Cross-Browser, Cross-Platform and Future Compatibility

Search Engine Visibility

Professionalism

Why Not Validate?

Validation is No Guarantee that Page Works

Time Constraint for Conversion

The Average Visitor Does Not Check Your Source Code

One Possible Solution

How Often Should I Validate?

Conclusion

Appearance, Usability and Search Engine Visibility in Web Design

1. Appearance is Not the Most Important Issue

2. Usability is Important for You to Achieve Your Purpose

Information Availability

Information Accessibility

Navigation

3. Search Engine Visibility is Your Site's Lifeline

Conclusion

The New Face of Script Kiddiez

Can Open Source Outdo the IPod?

5% of All Web Traffic Unsafe