1. Use .gifs rather than .jpgs. GIFs are smaller in size when compared to JPGs.
2. Use 'Height' and 'Width' tags for your images. So while page loading certain place is left for the images and visitor can go through the content while images are loading.
3. If you are using large images, slice them up and make them load as part after part. For this you can use img tags like HSPACE=0 and VSPACE=0.
4. Use image compression software that reduce image size. Remember, the more you reduce your image size more will be the loss of quality.
Spinwave
Macromedia Fireworks
5. If you have lot of images to display, then put them on different pages by linking the pages like 'Next Image >' or something like that instead of a long page with 10 images.
6. Use same image over and over again if you need a similar image. Like if you are keeping a big header graphic on every page of your web site. Then use same graphic to link to all pages on your web site.
7. Flash presentations, mouse overs, animations etc increase page download time. So if you can use html instead of these, go with it.
http://www.theukwebdesigncompany.com/articles/article.php?article=466
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Thursday, October 11, 2007
7 Reasons to Switch to FireFox
The Firefox browser has exploded on the scene. At the time of this writing there have been 23 million downloads of this innovative competitor to Internet Explorer. Minor drawbacks aside, most who use it love it, myself included.
One stand out feature is the customizable search bar that's built into the Firefox menu bar. As a long time AOL user I had 10 hot keys set up for sites I visited all the time. With Firefox all I did was set the search bar up with those very same links. Suddenly what seemed like a reason to mourn the loss of AOL vanished.
Then there's tabbed browsing. This is a new way to use a browser as you can access more than one page in a single browser window. Which makes it easy to switch back and forth among multiple web pages. Makes for a great time saver.
But a big benefit is the ability to install little applications that perform specific tasks. In the FireFox world these are called "extensions". If you're like me you'll find extension are sorta like potato chips, you just can't have just one.
So let me share my 7 favorites. I believe they will save you time or effort while enhancing your FireFox experience.
Favorite Extension #1: Auto copy
Auto copy is a killer keystroke saver. You'll never Ctrl-C again. Simply highlight the desired text on the web page with your mouse and it's instantly copied to the clipboard. Jump over to whatever application you want to paste that text into, paste it and you're done.
Favorite Extension #2: ScrapBook
How many times have you book marked a site only to return and find it changed? Or worse it's vanished? That makes the ScrapBook extension the web researcher's indispensable friend. It lets you take a snapshot of any page. Or you can grab just a chunk it. ScrapeBook keeps such snapshots organized and even lets you add comments if you like.
Favorite Extension #3: TinyURL Creator
How often do you want to sent a friend a URL only to discover it's a mile long? Like this one for instance?
http://www.google.com/search?as_q=&num=50& hl=en&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=%22john+gergye%22&as_oq=& as_eq=&lr=&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_occt=any& as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=&safe=images
Wouldn't it be easier to send something like this:
href="http://tinyurl.com/427gg">http://tinyurl.com/427gg
?
Good news. There's a handy extension that will cut any unwieldy URL it down to size using TinyURL. Even better it will also inventory those you've created in case you want to use any of them again.
Favorite Extension #4: Popup Blocking
Okay so this technically isn't an extension. It's more of a killer built in feature that will stop pop ups dead in their tracks. I mean there's nothing like seeing this message "Firefox prevented this site from opening a pop up window" to give you a warm glow inside
Favorite Extension #5: Google Pagerank
Want to know the Google PageRank of a page? Sadly the Google Toolbar only runs in Internet Explorer. But never fear. If you like to eyeball PR, say to check out potential link partners, the Google Pagerank Status extension displays pagerank. Even better it's also in numeric form so you don't have to mouse over to see the PR. .
Favorite Extension #6 LoremIpsum Content Generator
Whenever you need some quick content to check a web page layout this is your tool. You can tell it to create so many characters, words or paragraphs. Giving you a variety of "Latin-like" content like this in the blink of an eye:
Favorite Extension #7: Copy URL
Instead of copying a snippet from a page and then going back and grabbing the URL you can do it all with one tool. Copy URL. Another addictive research tool.
All of these tiny apps can be downloaded from here.
Or if these 7 have whet you appetite for more, you can nose around there for other extensions to enhance your FireFox experience.
One other tip
To check your extensions go to Tools>Extensions
There you'll see all extensions you've installed. Newly downloaded ones will typically display this message:
"This item will be installed after you RESTART Firefox "
Do so and you're set.
Anyway, these extensions alone are seven reasons to love FireFox. At the risk of sounding like a shill, I can't urge you strongly enough to try it. I'm sure you'll like it.
http://www.theukwebdesigncompany.com/articles/article.php?article=1320
One stand out feature is the customizable search bar that's built into the Firefox menu bar. As a long time AOL user I had 10 hot keys set up for sites I visited all the time. With Firefox all I did was set the search bar up with those very same links. Suddenly what seemed like a reason to mourn the loss of AOL vanished.
Then there's tabbed browsing. This is a new way to use a browser as you can access more than one page in a single browser window. Which makes it easy to switch back and forth among multiple web pages. Makes for a great time saver.
But a big benefit is the ability to install little applications that perform specific tasks. In the FireFox world these are called "extensions". If you're like me you'll find extension are sorta like potato chips, you just can't have just one.
So let me share my 7 favorites. I believe they will save you time or effort while enhancing your FireFox experience.
Favorite Extension #1: Auto copy
Auto copy is a killer keystroke saver. You'll never Ctrl-C again. Simply highlight the desired text on the web page with your mouse and it's instantly copied to the clipboard. Jump over to whatever application you want to paste that text into, paste it and you're done.
Favorite Extension #2: ScrapBook
How many times have you book marked a site only to return and find it changed? Or worse it's vanished? That makes the ScrapBook extension the web researcher's indispensable friend. It lets you take a snapshot of any page. Or you can grab just a chunk it. ScrapeBook keeps such snapshots organized and even lets you add comments if you like.
Favorite Extension #3: TinyURL Creator
How often do you want to sent a friend a URL only to discover it's a mile long? Like this one for instance?
http://www.google.com/search?as_q=&num=50& hl=en&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=%22john+gergye%22&as_oq=& as_eq=&lr=&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_occt=any& as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=&safe=images
Wouldn't it be easier to send something like this:
href="http://tinyurl.com/427gg">http://tinyurl.com/427gg
?
Good news. There's a handy extension that will cut any unwieldy URL it down to size using TinyURL. Even better it will also inventory those you've created in case you want to use any of them again.
Favorite Extension #4: Popup Blocking
Okay so this technically isn't an extension. It's more of a killer built in feature that will stop pop ups dead in their tracks. I mean there's nothing like seeing this message "Firefox prevented this site from opening a pop up window" to give you a warm glow inside
Favorite Extension #5: Google Pagerank
Want to know the Google PageRank of a page? Sadly the Google Toolbar only runs in Internet Explorer. But never fear. If you like to eyeball PR, say to check out potential link partners, the Google Pagerank Status extension displays pagerank. Even better it's also in numeric form so you don't have to mouse over to see the PR. .
Favorite Extension #6 LoremIpsum Content Generator
Whenever you need some quick content to check a web page layout this is your tool. You can tell it to create so many characters, words or paragraphs. Giving you a variety of "Latin-like" content like this in the blink of an eye:
Favorite Extension #7: Copy URL
Instead of copying a snippet from a page and then going back and grabbing the URL you can do it all with one tool. Copy URL. Another addictive research tool.
All of these tiny apps can be downloaded from here.
Or if these 7 have whet you appetite for more, you can nose around there for other extensions to enhance your FireFox experience.
One other tip
To check your extensions go to Tools>Extensions
There you'll see all extensions you've installed. Newly downloaded ones will typically display this message:
"This item will be installed after you RESTART Firefox "
Do so and you're set.
Anyway, these extensions alone are seven reasons to love FireFox. At the risk of sounding like a shill, I can't urge you strongly enough to try it. I'm sure you'll like it.
http://www.theukwebdesigncompany.com/articles/article.php?article=1320
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Criteria for Choosing an Ideal Web Hosting Company
What is a Web Host?
A web host is a service provider that places your web site on a computer which is connected to the internet. The term for this ?computer? is called a server.
A web hosting provider will typically have a fast connection to the Internet and they may host thousands of web sites on many servers. The web host essentially rents out space to you so that you can get your website up on the world wide web.
With a well-managed web host, you can free yourself from worrying the up-keep of complicated server technology and proper technical maintenance. That?s the whole purpose of the web hosting companies. You should leave the technical work to web hosting professional while you focus on your own internet business.
Feature Offered
The features that web hosting companies are offering are getting quite standard nowadays.
The followings are some of the common features you'll see in most web hosting plans:
~ Control Panel
Control Panel is an interface where you can access your site on the web server, allowing you to set-up and subsequently update and customize your web site. Though cPanel is by far the most popular control panel, some hosting providers customize their own so that they can up-grade and expand it at will.
~ Diskspace
A vast majority of sites that don't have tons of graphics, sound and video clips or downloadable files easily fit in 50 MB of disk space. You should always leave yourself some room for growth or check if the host has a bigger plan in case you need to upgrade.
~ Bandwidth
Bandwidth is the amount of data transmitted or received through a unit of time. In web hosting, bandwidth is consumed when visitors make requests for files on your web site and download them to their personal computers.
~ Email Account
With POP3 email accounts you can check email from Outlook, Netscape Mail, Eudora or any other Email software.
~ Scripting language
As all our top 10 listings are using Unix and Linux platform, php, perl and CGI are the languages we are talking about here. It is best to choose a host that supports the latest version to maximize the latest web technologies for the fee that you pay.
~ Database
If your web site is going to store a lot of data that should be dynamically accessible (like user accounts, stock prices, maps, Interactive news, message boards and forum etc.), you'll need to look for an account that offers a database. MySQL is a powerful and most popular database program that runs on the Linux operation system. It is able to handle million of entries all at once. Its flexibility and speed allow you to also store logs and pictures. MySQL is designed to scale well under heavy traffic conditions and is ideal for database-intensive or e-commerce-enabled Web sites.
Customer Service/Support
No matter if you are an expert or a novice in web hosting, you need a web host with good customer support system. What is the criteria of an excellent customer support? Let us explain.
~ How big is the knowledge base?
This is particularly important for those who want to search for quick answer without seeking direct assistance from customer support staff. Due to the huge database, normally it?s searchable. Some web hosting providers will even make your life easier by making a video tutorial guiding you step by step in setting up your new account. Very useful for beginner.
~ Responsive customer service staff.
If you are too lazy to find the answer out of a big pool of database, get the direct answer from someone who knows it. Direct customer support comes in a few forms.
a. Email support
b. Phone support: Normally, sales and technical support uses separate phone line. A good phone support staff knows what your problem is and answers with relevance.
c.Web Host like Lunarpages and Globat even have live chat support. However, it?s not how many support channels that are available but how responsive it is of the staff. You can find out the website hosting reviews and ratings of each of our Top 10 Cheap Web Host.
Price to Disk Space / Price to Bandwidth Ratio
Are you paying too much for your Web Hosting Plan?
Having done the research on hundreds of web hosting companies, in general, we?ve come to this conclusion: the more disk space and bandwidth you are getting, the more expensive is the monthly price.
To help you understand which price is competitive enough for you to take up the offer, we have categorized 5 different price range. For each price range, a score of maximum of 10 is assigned. To understand the concept behind this, please refer to the details at the cheap web hosting criteria section.
Popularity
A web host might have the best feature offered, unbeatable customer support and reliability in place but without an effective marketing plan, it will go bust too. Let?s face it. If a web hosting provider does not have sufficient members and steady growth of new members, it?s very difficult to survive in this highly competitive industry.
We judge the popularity of a particular web hosting provider by looking at the number of awards won, the reviews of other websites and the Alexa traffic ranking.
Reliability, Speed and Uptime Guarantee
Nothing can hurt you more than this: your visitors come to your web site only to find that it?s not accessible. You lose credibility and possibly even a sale. If your web host does not guarantee at least a 99% uptime, leave the web host now!
To ensure maximum uptime, installation of redundant back-up systems is essential. Each web host has their own management systems to minimize downtime. "Redundant" means that if any of the Internet connections get interrupted, the alternate Internet connection will take over.
We use Alertra software to monitor the uptime of each of our top 10 web hosts.
As for speed, even though routing, web server set up and local area networks play a part in determining the speed of a site, the main concern of how fast your site is depends very much on the types of network connections.
Many hosting providers still connect to the Internet through T1, or T3 connections. This is not the case for our top 10 hosts- they are using OC (Optical Carrier) lines.
A T1 line will offer data transfer rate of 1.5 Mbps (megabits per second), while a T3 line can supply data transfer rates of 43Mbps. OC-1 refers to a circuit that transmits 51.85Mbps. Higher levels are multiples of that speed. Ultra-High Speed OC3 and OC12 lines offers 155Mbps and 622Mbps respectively. Some hosting providers have connections to major internet backbones at the speed of OC48 (2488Mbps) and OC96 (4976Mbps).
http://www.theukwebdesigncompany.com/articles/article.php?article=1017
A web host is a service provider that places your web site on a computer which is connected to the internet. The term for this ?computer? is called a server.
A web hosting provider will typically have a fast connection to the Internet and they may host thousands of web sites on many servers. The web host essentially rents out space to you so that you can get your website up on the world wide web.
With a well-managed web host, you can free yourself from worrying the up-keep of complicated server technology and proper technical maintenance. That?s the whole purpose of the web hosting companies. You should leave the technical work to web hosting professional while you focus on your own internet business.
Feature Offered
The features that web hosting companies are offering are getting quite standard nowadays.
The followings are some of the common features you'll see in most web hosting plans:
~ Control Panel
Control Panel is an interface where you can access your site on the web server, allowing you to set-up and subsequently update and customize your web site. Though cPanel is by far the most popular control panel, some hosting providers customize their own so that they can up-grade and expand it at will.
~ Diskspace
A vast majority of sites that don't have tons of graphics, sound and video clips or downloadable files easily fit in 50 MB of disk space. You should always leave yourself some room for growth or check if the host has a bigger plan in case you need to upgrade.
~ Bandwidth
Bandwidth is the amount of data transmitted or received through a unit of time. In web hosting, bandwidth is consumed when visitors make requests for files on your web site and download them to their personal computers.
~ Email Account
With POP3 email accounts you can check email from Outlook, Netscape Mail, Eudora or any other Email software.
~ Scripting language
As all our top 10 listings are using Unix and Linux platform, php, perl and CGI are the languages we are talking about here. It is best to choose a host that supports the latest version to maximize the latest web technologies for the fee that you pay.
~ Database
If your web site is going to store a lot of data that should be dynamically accessible (like user accounts, stock prices, maps, Interactive news, message boards and forum etc.), you'll need to look for an account that offers a database. MySQL is a powerful and most popular database program that runs on the Linux operation system. It is able to handle million of entries all at once. Its flexibility and speed allow you to also store logs and pictures. MySQL is designed to scale well under heavy traffic conditions and is ideal for database-intensive or e-commerce-enabled Web sites.
Customer Service/Support
No matter if you are an expert or a novice in web hosting, you need a web host with good customer support system. What is the criteria of an excellent customer support? Let us explain.
~ How big is the knowledge base?
This is particularly important for those who want to search for quick answer without seeking direct assistance from customer support staff. Due to the huge database, normally it?s searchable. Some web hosting providers will even make your life easier by making a video tutorial guiding you step by step in setting up your new account. Very useful for beginner.
~ Responsive customer service staff.
If you are too lazy to find the answer out of a big pool of database, get the direct answer from someone who knows it. Direct customer support comes in a few forms.
a. Email support
b. Phone support: Normally, sales and technical support uses separate phone line. A good phone support staff knows what your problem is and answers with relevance.
c.Web Host like Lunarpages and Globat even have live chat support. However, it?s not how many support channels that are available but how responsive it is of the staff. You can find out the website hosting reviews and ratings of each of our Top 10 Cheap Web Host.
Price to Disk Space / Price to Bandwidth Ratio
Are you paying too much for your Web Hosting Plan?
Having done the research on hundreds of web hosting companies, in general, we?ve come to this conclusion: the more disk space and bandwidth you are getting, the more expensive is the monthly price.
To help you understand which price is competitive enough for you to take up the offer, we have categorized 5 different price range. For each price range, a score of maximum of 10 is assigned. To understand the concept behind this, please refer to the details at the cheap web hosting criteria section.
Popularity
A web host might have the best feature offered, unbeatable customer support and reliability in place but without an effective marketing plan, it will go bust too. Let?s face it. If a web hosting provider does not have sufficient members and steady growth of new members, it?s very difficult to survive in this highly competitive industry.
We judge the popularity of a particular web hosting provider by looking at the number of awards won, the reviews of other websites and the Alexa traffic ranking.
Reliability, Speed and Uptime Guarantee
Nothing can hurt you more than this: your visitors come to your web site only to find that it?s not accessible. You lose credibility and possibly even a sale. If your web host does not guarantee at least a 99% uptime, leave the web host now!
To ensure maximum uptime, installation of redundant back-up systems is essential. Each web host has their own management systems to minimize downtime. "Redundant" means that if any of the Internet connections get interrupted, the alternate Internet connection will take over.
We use Alertra software to monitor the uptime of each of our top 10 web hosts.
As for speed, even though routing, web server set up and local area networks play a part in determining the speed of a site, the main concern of how fast your site is depends very much on the types of network connections.
Many hosting providers still connect to the Internet through T1, or T3 connections. This is not the case for our top 10 hosts- they are using OC (Optical Carrier) lines.
A T1 line will offer data transfer rate of 1.5 Mbps (megabits per second), while a T3 line can supply data transfer rates of 43Mbps. OC-1 refers to a circuit that transmits 51.85Mbps. Higher levels are multiples of that speed. Ultra-High Speed OC3 and OC12 lines offers 155Mbps and 622Mbps respectively. Some hosting providers have connections to major internet backbones at the speed of OC48 (2488Mbps) and OC96 (4976Mbps).
http://www.theukwebdesigncompany.com/articles/article.php?article=1017
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