Database Driven Website - by David Lahiri

The solution lies in creating a ‘Database driven website’, through which web pages are created dynamically which further gives a web site visitor an up-to-dated view of information stored in the database. When the information in the database is updated, site visitors will immediately see the changes that have been made.

There are many sites, which are bounded up by a dry, outdated design because, rewriting the hundreds of existing HTML files and implementing it into the new design would be a very time consuming job that no enterprise can invest. The only solution to this is a database-driven site design, which portrays the collection of information organized and presented to serve a specific purpose.

If you want to showcase hundreds or thousands of items/ products it can become a very tedious job to maintain a static web page for each item and in such situations a database is very essential. On a database-driven site, a web page is put together drawing on different fields in a database. Since the pages are generated again each time the user clicks on the link to go to them, a database-driven site is dynamic as opposed to static.

When we create a Database driven website, we see to it that our clients can do their own maintenance via a set of web-based data entry forms or by working directly with the database which is customized according to the clients needs. We design the web page in such a way so that it is connected to the database, which in case of any transformation, changes accordingly and automatically without interference from the programmers end.

Professional database driven website design is a cost effective method of developing a website which stores a large amount of information. Instead of designing all the static pages in advance, it is better to produce dynamic pages, which generate the relevant information requested by the viewer.

The most popular database management system is MySQL, because it is free, and flexible, and most web hosting Companies have it installed. This can be used in combination with a language such as PHP or Cold Fusion to create a website which interacts with the database. An E-commerce site is a bright example of the use of a database to store the client’s online orders and billing information.

PHP is possibly the most popular of languages for interacting with MySQL databases. It can be easily used to create web pages for your site dynamically. This means that, rather than a site consisting of many static or unchanging web pages, each page is generated based on information in your database, at the time the page is accessed by a user.

The primary scripting languages that we use include JavaScript, ASP/VBScript, Cold Fusion, Perl and PHP. Our primary databases are Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Access, MySQL, and Oracle.

The Database driven websites that we at CWD Web Design Company develop are very efficiently developed because we see to it that the site is dynamically generated or customized to display the information that is relevant to each visitor. We develop the website in an interactive way and store information the user enters, for use in the rest of their visit to the website, or for use in other activities

David Lahiri
Web Architect and SEO for last 6 yrs

Creating Flash Website Design - by WALSAQ

<p>
<b>IF/THEN Logic</b>
Flash website design is built in frames (imagine the individual frames of a movie) and is a setup of IF/THEN logic. For example, the design can include a rollover mouse effect, where a button or word lights up when the mouse runs over it. The way a rollover effect is created is by using frames - two pictures of the same button. The first frame is the way you want the button to look originally, the second frame is the way you want the button to look when the mouse is on it.<p>
This is where IF/THEN logic comes into play. IF/THEN logic says, "IF the mouse rolls over this button (or frame a), THEN go to frame b (i.e. the second picture created).<p>
<b>Flash Website Design Programs</b>
Adobe Flash is the most widely used program for flash website design, and quite probably the most powerful to date. While there are other programs available (and some are better than others), most are wizzy-wig programs - what you see is what you get. Though they’ll provide you with a flash page, they won’t provide you with a <i>good</i> page.<p>
<b>Time</b>
Flash website design is all about the pretties - the effects. How much time you spend on your design depends on how much you want to put into it (i.e. animation, effects, etc.). You could spend anywhere from a few hours to several weeks getting the effects you want, especially if you’re just learning.<p>
<b>Skills</b>
Here comes the intricate and somewhat difficult part, otherwise known as "the buggers". Flash website design isn’t just putting pictures together. To build a website correctly, you’ll need to learn some HTML and Action Script coding. If you don’t know what either of those are, you’ve got some work to do. HTML is the basis of most, if not all, web pages - the coding that tells the Internet program what the page should look like.<p>
<b>Pros and Cons</b>
There are some cons to having a fully flash website design:<p>
⢠Flash content is heavier, bulkier, which means it takes longer to load than other types of pages. <p>
⢠A 100% flash page isn’t SEO compatible, which means search engines can’t read the page, the content isn’t searchable and you can’t change your ranking. Generally, these designs are created by embedding pieces of flash into the html coding.<p>
The pro is that the design makes a pretty, smooth, animated website that your customers will wow over. It’s not cost effective to use it on an entire website, but if you decide you want a fully functional flash website design, your best bet is to hire a guru to do the coding for you.<p>

Written by WALSAQ.com. Copyright 2008. All rights reserved. WALSAQ is a unique live auction global website, offering buyers and sellers the ability to compare projects and pricing in real time. Browse through our high-paying projects or find more information on WALSAQ by reading our blog.

Build your home on the web today - by Abdillahi Abdillahi

Everyday hundreds of web sites are launched by people all over the world .There are millions of reasons which make us launch new websites.Let me mention three of them in here by supposing .

1 : If you have any kind of business then sooner or later you will need a web presence in order to boost your business and to offer your services to people from all over the world .

2: Lets suppose you work for a company and that company asked you to make a website for them or make one for boosting business and communicating well with your co-workers.

3: Maybe you go to school and your school asked you to make one for them or for their journal or maybe you want to make one for your favorite movies etc .

So like I said there are millions of reasons but those three are some of the main ones. Today in this article I will try to explain all you need to build your home on the web today . Believe it or not within 24-hours you could have a website up and running .Lets get started then .

What are url , website, servers, intranet, internet, http,www and domain names, WYSIWYG?

You might already know the basics and the answers of the above questions but I will still write up a short introduction and answers to them so if you don’t know it can then get you started.

Url : stands for Uniform Resource Locator and it tells the web browser what to do and where to go when you type it into the address bar of your web browser.

Website: is a location on the world wide web(www) and has a start page or home page which is the first thing you see when you visit it.It contains many files and owned by an individual or organization. And today you are going to make one

Servers : are like the normal computers but they have a lot of disk space and are connected to the internet 24-hours a day , 7 days a week, 365 days, a year . Servers serve data such as web pages , pictures , applications and run many different types of programs in order to handle many different types of files.

Intranet : is more like the internet but restricted to a certain organization .Organizations exchange information easily using intranets. They can do anything that can be done on the internet like participating in discussion groups, viewing documents and revising them etc.

Internet :is a global network which is connected to millions of computers and it is not owned or run by a special company and it has vast collection of resources, information.

HTTP: stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol and is a set of standards and tell the servers how to handle web pages , for example when you type a url into the address bar it then tells the domain name which you typed to serve(display) a web page .

www: stands for World Wide Web and is a system of internet servers that support documents formatted in special way. Documents are formatted in HTML (HyperText Markup Language) which can link to other documents,audio and multimedia and graphics.

Domain Name : is the name of the server hosting the website . There are many different types of domain names such us .com for commercial , .net for networks and ISPs(Internet Service Providers) ,.gov for government sites , .edu for educational institutes and .org for non-profit organizations . The most widely used one is the .com one.

WYSIWYG: stands for what you see is what you get and applications which have WYSIWYG enable you to see what is displayed on the screen exactly when you print the document or publish it. There are many WYSIWYG editors which enable you to easily create a website and the best and most popular ones include Microsoft® FrontPage® and Macromedia® Dreamweaver® MX . If you know how to use Microsoft® Word® then you can use those two because they are more alike .

That was a short explanation of some of the things you will need to know when you want to build your website . But you can search the internet and get more information and definitions about what is covered in here and what is not .

Prepare your site files.

Most of the time when I make a website for a client or a friend they don’t bring everything that is needed to get the website up and running. It is better it prepare all the files which you will use for your site in a specific folder in your personal computer. Prepare all the files you need before you start making your website.

Plan the Concept of your Site

That is right. You need to plan the concept of your site before you go into designing it. You can make a sketch of how it will look and then try to implement that .When making the concept your site it is better to use real text that will appear on the site so that will help you a lot .

Start Designing Your Site using WYSIWYG editor.

Now that you have prepared and planed the concept of your site then it is time to start designing it .You can use any WYSIWYG editor to design it.If you don’t want to start designing it but you want something ready that you can change the text then you can buy a professional template which will cost you like $10-$30 .

Also there are many free templates which you can use . Just make a search in Google™ and you will get millions of sites for downloading free site templates .

Shop for hosting and domain name

Now that you have built your site and it is on your personal computer then you will need to rent a remote server and get a domain name so it can be accessible to all people from the world. Before you start shopping for hosting you have to make a list of what you want like special features, bandwidth , storage space etc. If you are building a small personal website then I guess 50 mb space and 1-5 Gigabyte of data transfer . Of course you can later upgrade to a bigger plan.

Also hosting companies many other features along with space and bandwidth such as control panel where you can manage your website easily .If you don’t want to get a professional hosting or you can afford it then you can get free hosting which some companies offer and is ad supported and has a lot of restrictions.

Also you will need to register a domain name for your site . Domain names cost from $6.00 to $35 yearly . There are many great domain registrars which you can use to register your domain name. If you don’t to register a domain name then you get a sub domain but you will have to make sure that your hosting company can offer you a sub domain which will be like the following your-site-name.hosting-company-site.com When you register your domain name you will have to wait 24-48 hours before it can be fully working . But before that you can still upload your site files because your hosting company will give you an IP which you can use for uploading your site files.

Conclusion

There you have it. Just follow them well and You could be running your own website within 24 hours. Of course this was a short article but at least it provides you some of the basic information you need to know. Also you can visit many sites online which can provide you a more detailed tutorials and website enhancements. Until next time, try to build your home on the web today and good luck .

Abdillahi Abdillahi is a web designer, founder and president of http://kooshin.com , a company providing affordable web hosting and web design solutions to small to medium sized businesses and individuals. For more information , please visit http://kooshin.com