WebProNews

Database Driven Websites Explained

When I was beginning web design and web programming years back, I remember all the confusing terms, technologies and concepts that were floating around that just made it that much more difficult to wrap my head around the whole web thing. With that in mind, I thought that it might be a good idea to write a few short and hopefully sweet articles that will help people get a clearer understanding of what's out there and what can be done with it.

The Dos and Donts of Web Site Design

Let's discuss an important point about online content/text versus print. People read text off a computer screen at about 1/4th the speed that they do paper. This important fact tells us that we should keep what we want to say on the web short and sweet. If some of my articles have been too long, I apologize for my flapping mouth and keyboard!

Validating Email Addresses - Strategies and Code

First it's a day, then a week, and all of a sudden two weeks has gone by and I realize that I haven't sent out a newsletter! A feeling of shame and self-loathing takes over ... forced to my desk, the writing begins. :)

Flash based web sites and the search engines

As with many of my articles and newsletters, this one is inspired by a question put to me: "Is it true that you should not have a flash web site since search engines do not recognize flash? " The short answer to the question is yes and no. :) Search engines traditionally cannot see flash - but since Flash 4, Macromedia (the guys who make Flash) built into Flash the capability to be 'seen' by the engines. Today search engines like AlltheWeb.com, Lycos and Google among others can index (see into) Flash movies, but only in a limited way. As far as I can tell, the engines can only extract links from the Flash movies and not much else. Compare this to an HTML page where the search engine robots (the automated programs that search engines use to surf and catalogue the web) can read everything about the page and thus your web site will have a much better chance of appearing in the search engines.

The Do's and Don'ts of Web Site Design: Part 2

I've received many emails on the first do's and don'ts article, people wanted more, so I thought a part two was is order.

CSS Template Layout - part 1 of 3

Having been asked by several readers, I have decided to create this easy to understand tutorial on creating web pages with CSS. I will not be able to expose to you everything there is about CSS in this tutorial, but I will be able to give you enough to create a nice looking page. After completing this tutorial you should have enough to explore CSS and web page design even further.