Original Article: Today Opera has released a product (as promised), which it claims reinvents the web. That may seem like an exaggerated statement, but it’s an interesting concept nonetheless.

The product is called Opera Unite, and it is available at labs.opera.com. What Opera Unite does, is basically turn your computer into both a client and a server. It eliminates the need for third-party servers.

"Today, we are opening the full potential of the Web for everyone," says Opera CEO Jon von Tetzchner. "Technology moves in distinct cycles. PCs decentralized computing away from large mainframes. Opera Unite now decentralizes and democratizes the cloud. With server capability in the browser, Web developers can create Web applications with profound ease. Consumers have the flexibility to choose private and efficient ways of sharing information. We believe Opera Unite is one of our most significant innovations yet, because it changes forever the fundamental fabric of the Web."

Current Opera Unite services include file sharing, web server, media player, photo sharing, chat, and "the fridge," which allows users to post notes on their friends’ "virtual refrigerators." I’m thinking this is basically like Facebook’s "wall."

Here are some screenshots of what these services look like:

File Sharing

Web Server

Media Player

Photo Sharing

Chat

The Fridge

"What interests me about Opera Unite is how current technology and the social world are now interconnected," says Molly E. Holzschlag, Web evangelist for Opera. "Using open standards including HTML, CSS and JavaScript, developers and even enthusiasts with a little standards savvy can make their own Opera Unite service. Opera Unite allows people the ability to be imaginative with their skills and create a wide range of technical and social applications using the same open standards used today."

It seems that it is a little early for there to be any concrete opinions from users formed at this point. The Twitterverse appears to interested in the product, but a little unsure of what to expect (even those who have already downloaded it). Some have compared it to Google Wave, only with one being on the desktop, and the other on the web.

What are your initial thoughts on Opera Unite? Does this really "reinvent the web?" Tell us what you think.

If you are working to fix problems with a specific browser and would like to bypass this check, just add &browserok=true to the end of the Google Docs & Spreadsheets url.

Please note that it is a violation of intergalactic law to use this parameter under false pretenses, so don’t let us catch you at it.

And, it won’t work very well – really.

[Thanks John!]

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Philipp Lenssen from Germany, author of 55 Ways to Have Fun With Google, shares his views & news on the search industry in the daily Google Blogoscoped.

Sometime in the middle of last week IE7 lost it’s beta status and was pronounced ready for the masses. On the heels of the IE release Firefox 2.0 is due any day. I’m not planning on reviewing either since chances are we’ll all be upgrading at some point, but I do want to talk about what the new versions of each browser will likely mean for web developers and SEOs.

What Firefox 2.0 Means For Developers And SEOs

As you probably know Firefox is my primary browser and it’s my choice for both a development platform as well as for general browsing. I wouldn’t imagine many changes with the new 2.0 version that will affect the way we develop sites. Even though the new Firefox will sport a major release version number the truth is 1.5 was the last major upgrade and while 2.0 will include new features it should remain largely unchanged on the surface.

The biggest changes I’ve heard about will be a spell checker in the browser which is welcome news. My spelling is fine, but my typing is about as bad as can be. There will be other features such as improved tabbed browsing and a session restore if the browser crashes, but these are likely to be integration of some popular extensions. The issue with memory leaks is supposed be improved as well.

My best guess though, is it will be business as usual as far as Firefox is concerned. Sites you developed that work in Firefox 1.5 will likely work and look exactly the same with Firefox 2.0. You might find some of your extensions won’t work for a few days and some that may never work again if their developers have abandoned maintaining them.

What IE7 Means For Devlopers And SEOs

The changes with Internet Explorer will be quite a bit more. As far as browsing is concerned there should be a lot that is different when compared with IE6. Features like tabbed browsing will be making their first appearance in IE7. I just downloaded and installed IE7 to take a look and my first impressions were it looked good. First impressions can be deceiving though.

After about 10 minutes Of use I can’t seem to get IE to avoid crashing. That’s going to get annoying very fast. In fact it already has. But again this isn’t meant to be a review.

For awhile as developers we could almost safely develop for version 6 of Internet Explorer and the latest Firefox release and with a few minor tweaks for Safari and Opera we could call it a day. While Microsoft will be installing IE7 as part of the next automatic upgrade we all have to accept that for the next few years it’s likely we’ll need to develop and check our sites in both version 6 and 7. Unfortunately things we may need to do to get a site working in one version might possibly break the site in the other version. Some of the hacks we’ve come to love for IE6 may not work in IE7. I have a feeling conditional comments will become more in vogue since it will allow us to direct different css towards different IE versions.

I’ve been checking a few sites I’ve developed that use a few minor hacks for IE6 and they seem to be working so far, which is a good sign I think. I’d check more, but IE seems to be crashing quite often. As soon as I open a dialog at least. But again this isn’t meant to be a review.

For the SEOs among us there are two features sure to affect our lives. One is the new integrated search box. The default is supposed to be set to Live Search. And if you remember over the summer Google complained some about this fact. Their claim being that it was too difficult for the average user to switch to another default. I’m not sure what Google was complaining about in all honestly. For me Google was the only search engine installed by default, probably because it was somewhere set as my default search engine in either Firefox of in my previous version of Internet Explorer. It’s also trivial to add new engines and change to another default.

Assuming that for most people Live Search is set as the default it’s likely that Live Search will gain market share as most people won’t change the default search regardless of how easy it is to make the change. As SEOs we might want to pay more attention to the third search engine, which fortunately enough is the easiest to manipulate. Spammers unite I guess. If you were thinking at all of becoming a black hat, now might be the perfect time. Get in there before people figure out how to change the default search engine to Google and before Microsoft upgrades their algorithm.

The other major feature is the addition of an RSS button on the what is now called the command bar. I think it’s called the command bar, but I’ll need to restart after the latest IE crash to check again on the name. Whatever it’s called the RSS button is a nice feature. Its grayed out until you’re on a page with a feed and then it turns the usual orange color. It’s going to bring RSS into the mainstream in ways it isn’t now. With more people realizing they can subscribe to your blog it will become an even more important marketing tool.

While I’ve mentioned IE crashes a few times here in all fairness I did try to run multiple versions of IE at the same time earlier. I found a hack for Windows a few months back to allow multiple versions of IE running at the same time and it’s probably due to the concurrent versions running that I’m seeing the crashes. I’m hopeful that a restart of my laptop will fix the issue. The problem for me as a developer is that as I mentioned we’ll be needing to check sites in versions 6 and 7 of IE for a few years likely. And as I prefer to work on one machine the ability to run both is something I would really like. If I can’t I can’t though, and I’ll find a way to live with it.

Once again this post hasn’t been meant to be a review. IE7 will most likely prove to be a pretty good browser, my own problems with it tonight notwithstanding. Firefox will continue to be the quality browser it’s been. Most of us won’t be changing from one to the other, but we all will be upgrading. What I think most important in regards to the Internet Explorer upgrade is that as developers we might need to learn a few things. We’ll need to unlearn a few hacks while perhaps still keeping them in out bag of tricks. Conditional comments may find their way into use more and they are actually a very good way to deal with bugs in IE.

For those of us who are search engine optimizers we may want to learn a little more about how MSN Live Search works since it’s likely to see an increase in market share. Given the ease of manipulation this could mean a step back for the seo community as emphasis is again placed on formula seo. My guess is even with Live Search as the default search engine, the majority will still be typing google.com in their address bar or going to it in their favorites as they always have. But I do also expect Microsoft to gain quite a few users with the latest edition of Internet Explorer. RSS, especially in the form of blogs are going to become even more important marketing tools.

Get ready for both upgrades and hopefully after a restart I’ll have IE7 working again. Wish me luck.

Resources

Internet Explorer 7
CSS Standards Cimpliance In IE7
CSS Hacks and IE7
Multiple IEs in Windows

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Steven Bradley is a web designer and search engine optimization
specialist. Known to many in the webmaster/seo community by the username
vangogh, he is the author of TheVanBlog, which focuses on how to build
and optimize websites and market them online.

Web designers must wrestle with these differences to make a web site work. This article discusses the effect those different implementations has on design.

What is Cross Browser Compatibility?

If a web page is completely cross-browser compatible, it will look more or less the same in all of the existing web browsers. The most commonly used browsers are Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, Firefox and Opera.

Each one of these browser implements HTML, JavaScript and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) a little differently. Some difference only create cosmetic difference others can break the webpage. The situation gets worse because each browser is free to implement “enhancements” to the W3C standard version of each of these formats.

Then to compound matters even more the underlying operating systems also creates difference in how the computer displays graphical elements and text differently. When you add the fact that people are also using multiple versions of each of the browsers, no wonder web designers get headaches.

So what is a web designer to do?

Obviously, 100% compatibility with all potential browsers is impossible. But it is possible to design your web page so it will work in the most popularly used browsers.

To accomplish that, a web designer must write squeaky-clean code that conforms to the W3C standards to get consistent results across all browser platforms. The whole idea behind the standards is that if each browser adheres to the same set of rules, you will get more or less consistent results in all of the existing browsers.

Conforming can be a real challenge. It will limit some of the neater effects available in specific browsers. There are online code validators available. You can validate HTML code at http://validator.w3.org , the validator can also validate your CSS and links. The service is free.

The validator checks your code based on the DOCTYPE you specify on the webpage. The DOCTYPE tells the browser which version of HTML or CSS the web page is using.

HTML Editors

There are some compatibility issues associated with anything other than hand coding for HTML (and for that matter, even with hand coding.)

Best Choice – The best choice for compatibility is Dreamweaver but you cannot use layers. Layers must be converted to tables to be used.

Worst Choice – The worst choice is FrontPage. FrontPage is loaded with problems because it uses Microsoft and therefore internet explored specific code. Items that will not work in other browsers include:

* Marquees – you can use a JavaScript scroller to create a similar effect that will work in the most common browsers.

* bgsound tag – this is IE specific.

* Page Transitions – this is IE specific.

* Front Page generated Style sheets – this is IE specific and can have unexpected results or crash other browsers.

* Front Page generated DHTML – it is better to use JavaScript to create the effects you want since it is more likely to be cross browser compatible.

* Hover Buttons – this is IE specific and has been know to crash browsers including older versions of IE. You can use JavaScript, flash or CSS to get similar effects.

Other HTML Editors – the rest of the HTML editors will fall somewhere between Dreamweaver and FrontPage in cross browser compatibility. You just have to test the code your HTML editor generates.

CSS Style Sheets

Not all of your style sheets will work correctly in all of the browsers. However, style sheets rarely crash a web browser, but sometimes the pages will be downright ugly if not completely unreadable. One of the major CSS problems is absolute positioning since most browsers do not support it and it will cause different block to overlap others and create a jumbled mess.

Flash

Flash is great for adding style to a webpage and Macromedia provides flash plug-ins for all of the major web browsers. But don’t build the entire site with flash. Browser for the blind, most handheld devices do not support flash.

A small but significant number of users don’t like it and don’t install the plug-in so they won’t be able to access a flash site. Also, search engines spyders can’t follow the links on a flash site and won’t index it.

Graphic Links

While these are attractive, they have the same problems as flash with browsers for the blind and hand-held devices. Always use the alt tag with graphics.

Bottom Line – even code that is validated may not work correctly in all the major browsers. The best way a web designer can create cross browser compatibility is to test all of their web pages in the most popular browsers to see what happens. Personally, I find that a combination of style sheets and tables works best to ensure my pages look good in all of the browsers.

Warren Baker is an Internet business consultant for WebDesigners123. WebDesigners123 connects the Freelance Web Designer with Webmasters who need their services.

Part One can be viewed here. For Part Two I will discuss:

A. What to validate your web pages for

B. The validation process

C. Validation Tools

D. Common validation errors

A. What to validate your web pages for:

1. Doctype

2. HTML or XHTML document ( or other coding languages you have used)

3. CSS style sheet

4. Links

5. Browsers

6. Screen Resolution

7. Connectivity

B.The validation process

1. Use the correct DOCTYPE ( Document Type Definition, or DTD)

This defines which version of HTML or XHTML your document is actually using. It’s needed by browsers or other tools to process the document correctly.

Using an incomplete, outdated or no DOCTYPE at all, throws some browsers into “Quirks” mode, where the browser assumes you’ve written old-fashioned, invalid markup.

This means that your web pages may not render well in all the major browsers.

The DOCTYPE tag should be placed at the top of each web page.

Here are the correct DTDs to use:

HTML 4.01 Strict, Transitional, Frameset
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">

Here’s an example of a web site I recently designed which has correctly validated XHTML and CSS: http://www.discount-real-estate-listings-md.com/

2. Validate your HTML or XHTML document ( and other coding languages you have used).

If you validate your code it will make it easier for:

- search engines to index your web pages

- pages to load faster

- make your pages accessible for other devices that surf the Web.

- checking coding errors by running your pages through a validator.

3. Validate your Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).

If there are errors in your CSS, the layout of your web pages will be affected and your site will not appear correctly when viewed in any of the main browsers.

4. Validate your links

Broken links in your web pages will:

- frustrate your visitors when searching for relevant information from your site.

- affect search engine rankings. When spiders can’t index the links on your site they won’t find your keyword rich web pages.

5. Check browser compatibility

The main browsers you should design your web site for include: Internet Explorer (IE6, IE5), Firefox, Opera, and Netscape (Mozilla).

This is according to the current statistics taken from: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

6. Test for different screen resolutions

The current trend is that more and more computers are using a screen size of 1024×768 pixels:

Here are the stats for June 2005:

1024×768…………………………56%
800×600………………………….28%
Higher than 1024×768…………11%

7. Check connectivity speeds

Web pages that contain a large number of graphics or tables, use flash or video, will load slowly or sometimes not at all with a dial up connection but will be fine with a cable or dsl connection. Although the trend is towards people converting to high speed connections many still use dial-up to surf the Net for information. Therefore design your site for both.

C.Validation Tools

HTML/XHTML validation

http://www.validator.w3.org/

CSS validation

http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

Link checker

http://validator.w3.org/checklink

Browser Compatibility

http://www.anybrowser.com

Connectivity Test

http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/

http://www.netmechanic.com/maintain.htm

D.Common HTML/XHTML validation errors

Improper Nesting of Tags

This is a very common error. You should close tags your in the reverse of the order you opened them:

<xx><yy>content</yy></xx>.

An easy error to make, but it’s easy to fix, too.

Missing alt tags

You should include alt tags for all your images with a text description so that visitors will still know what the image is about even if they turn off viewing images in their browser.

Improper closing of tags

ie <p>This is a paragraph<p>. The end tag should be </p>

It will validate in html, but not xhtml.

For XHTML 1.0 validation it’s easy to omit these closing tags:

<br /> or <hr /> or <img src="xx.gif" />

Margin height and width

marginheight="0"
^Error: there is no attribute “MARGINHEIGHT” for this element. Use CSS to fix this error.

marginwidth="0"
^Error: there is no attribute “MARGINWIDTH” for this element. The only fix for this is to utilize CSS and absolute positioning.

Horizontal Line Color

<hr size="1" color="#C0C0C0">
^Error: there is no attribute “COLOR” for this element.

This can only be fixed with CSS.

ie <div
style="color:#000;background-color:#C0C0C0;height:1px;font-size:1px;">
</div>

Border Color

bordercolor="#ffffff"
^Error: there is no attribute “BORDERCOLOR” for this
element. This can only be fixed with CSS.

Unescaped Ampersand (XHTML)

Always use & in place of &.

Conclusion:

If you get into the habit of always validating your web pages, your web site will be faster loading, more search engine friendly, accessible to a greater number of devices and therefore appeal to a larger number of visitors.

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of http://www.iSiteBuild.com. Affordable
Web Site Design and Web Hosting. Subscribe to his
“Marketing Tips” newsletter for more original articles.
mailto:subscribe@isitebuild.com. Read more of his
in-depth articles at: http://www.isitebuild.com/articles

It is safe to say that most designers spend most of their time building their sites on a given platform. Those with the highest standards should, upon completion, take a look at their creation in different browsers and different platforms.

Sure, you could see how it looks in Window 98 with Internet Explorer and let that be good enough, but do you really want to risk a bad web experience for millions and millions of potential visitors? Consider this….

A recent statistic I saw reported that 12% of internet users were Macintosh users. Ignoring this fact is like creating a catalog that can only be optimally viewed by one in eight of your customers.Furthermore, not all of the Windows users are using Windows 98. Windows 95 continues to be widely used, and Windows 2000 and NT represent a significant percentage of visitors.

It would be remiss to ignore the small, but growing contingency of Linux users. Though small in number at this time, the popularity of the OS grows daily.

Platform issues aside, Internet Explorer, despite Microsoft’s inclusion of it with all Windows Installations, does not represent the only browser option. Netscape continues to enjoy a strong following of users numbering in the millions, and Lotus Notes is being used by numerous corporations as the “standard” browser and e-mail application.

Then, of course, there is AOL. Although basically an IE engine “under the hood” AOL continues to include certain differences. Considering the vast numbers of AOL users, this browser must not be overlooked. If your site does not look good in AOL, then you are risking turning away a huge percentage of potential visitors.

It should be clear that cross platform and multiple browser compatibility is a must. Therefore, understanding a few very basic and simple techniques to help keep your pages looking their best in the most places is also a must. Following, you will find a few tips and ideas to help you do just that.

#1 Paint the canvas your visitors will see

As a web site designer wanting to be as efficient in my work as possible, I have configured my Mac to use two monitors. As my mouse leaves the screen of one, it appears on the other. Thus, I have a canvas that, on most days, is 1856 pixels wide over 32 horizontal inches. If I want to, I can easily boost that to over 2000 pixels wide. But, my clients and the average visitor on the web do not have two monitors. In fact, most of them have the screen resolution set to 800 X 600 or 1024 X 768. What’s more, every single time I have gone to a client who uses AOL, their browser window opens to what looks to be a 640 pixel wide default no mater how large the monitor or screen resolution.

On one of my first projects, I had designed a site to a modest 700 pixel wide format with a nice top navigation area. I went to my clients office to get some “point and discuss” feedback to find her new 21 inch monitor — set at 640X480 resolution. My designs looked terrible!

If you intend your web site to appeal to the broadest range of visitors, you need to design in a way that will look good even at low resolutions. Check with some of your typical visitors and see what kind of resolutions they normally use.

#2 Use Tables to Control Width

Tables are great things when trying to control the way text and images go together. In order to achieve a nice looking design, using tables is the first technique to consider.

Tables can be assigned a fixed width in pixels or a fixed percentage of the window width. There are advantages to both approaches. If you are not concerned about the relative vertical arrangement of objects in a table cell, using the fixed percentage allows for more fluid layouts.

If, however, you want to keep text wrapped around an image with more consistency, using the percent approach could lead to major differences. Text will wrap quite differently in a cells of different pixel widths.

To have better control, consider using fixed pixel width. However, you must now start making some compromises. If you want to offer a site that looks good at 640X480, you will need to set your table width to 600 — 620 MAX! You will want to center the table in the window to provide a nice look when wider windows are used. However, if your visitor has monitor resolutions set to 1600X800 and has the browser “maximized” your page will have 500 pixels of blank space on either side of your 600 pixel table.

Fortunately, few people will be browsing at this configuration. My experience visiting clients, friends, and family suggests that, even if monitor resolution is set at over 1000 pixels, the actual width of the browser window will be reduced to something less.

You must decide if you will risk an odd looking page for those few who have HUGE monitor resolution or risk the annoying scroll bar for those with the basic 640X480

#3 Compromise your Font Use.

Supposing you select a fixed width table and have a cell that is 300 pixels wide. You write a headline in this cell, pick a font, and size it to look just right. Good for you. Too bad that headline will come up different on different systems.

Even on the same computer, there are very slight differences between how Netscape and IE render fonts. Remember the 1 in 8 visitor using a Mac? For technical reason it is beyond the scope of this article to describe, fonts are significantly smaller on a Mac than on Windows. Don’t forget that your visitors can also set the default size for font display in their browser, too. If they do that, you are really starting to lose control of how fonts are displayed!

One solution is to use cascading style sheets, but that technique goes beyond the casual designer’s typical experiences. The other solution is to compromise. Make sure that it looks good on the predominant platform — currently Windows — but don’t use the smallest font possible either or your Mac visitors won’t be able to read it!

#4 Check Your Final on Multiple Platforms

I commit to my web design clients that their site will be look good to ALL visitors. To make sure this is the case, I have an Intel computer as well as my Macintosh. I have the Intel computer configured to boot into Windows 98, Windows 2000, and Linux. I test all the pages I design in these environments. I test in both Netscape and Internet Explorer on the Windows systems and the Mac. I enlist a partner to test with Lotus Notes and AOL.

This may seem excessive, but frequently there will be some little thing that shows up in one of the platform/browser configurations that requires some minor correction. Would it be good enough if I did not make the correction? Probably. However, it is always best to make a good first impression and on the web, where you have about 5 to 7 seconds to get visitors to commit to take an actual look, every little thing counts.

If you do not have access to multiple platforms, enlist your friends. Stop by a library or a Kinkos and use their computers (often these places may have Macintosh computers as well as Windows computers).

These four simple suggestions are the beginning of a journey toward the much larger goal of making the content of your web site universally available to your visitors. Ultimately, reaching this goal depends upon many factors. However, progress toward this goal must commence with awareness.

Understanding that your site will appear differently on different browsers and based on different user preference settings is an important first step toward awareness. Using tables and being conscientious with your use of fonts takes you one step further. Checking your work on various systems will begin to hint at how much further you have to go.

But, every journey must begin somewhere….

*Previously published at Articlecity.com

David Bell is Manager, Online Marketing, at http://www.wspromotion.com/, a leading Search Engine Optimization services firm and Advertising Agency.

What is usability testing?

This indicates the ease with which folks can use your web site. Let’s look at a few usability factors.

Who is winning the browser war?

Here are the browser statistics:
39% Internet Explorer 6.0
51% Internet Explorer 5.0
2% Internet Explorer 4.0
3% Netscape 4.0

A few years ago Netscape was the dominant browser, however Internet Explorer now has 80% of the market. With the introduction of Netscape 6.0 and 7.0 (their latest release), this may eat a little into IE’s market.

The latest browsers support the latest designing technologies, such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS1, CSS2) and XML.

Installing different browsers

Test your web site in different browsers, so your web site can be seen by as many people as possible.

Internet Explorer
Download Internet Explorer 5 and 6.
The way to do this is to either have each one installed on a different computer, or to have 2 operating systems on your computer. You can do this with partition magic.

Trying to install IE 5 & 6 on the same operating system doesn’t work. One overrides the other.

Netscape
Download NN 4.79 and 6.2.
You can install them on the same operating system as Internet Explorer.

Other browsers

The Opera browser
This is often known as the “third browser” after Internet Explorer and Netscape. It has received international recognition for being faster, smaller and more standards compliant than other browsers.

Kmeleon
This is a simple, efficient, fast browser that loads very quickly. This is because it is an unbloated browser. If your web site looks good in this browser, it will look fine in Netscape.

Test for different resolutions.

Just because your site looks great with your computer set to a resolution of 800×600, it doesn’t mean it will look good at a 1024×768 resolution. Often your web site may be hard to read or aligned to the left or right of the screen.

Here are the statistics:
1024 x 768 resolution 44%
800 x 600 resolution 50%
640 x 480 resolution 3%

To test your web site in different resolutions, go to start – settings – control panel – display – settings – slide the pointer to the resolution you want.

Test for connectivity speeds.

You may be proud of your fast DSL, satellite or cable connection to the Internet, however still most Internet Users still connect via the modem. Connectivity speed, determines how fast your site will load. If it contains many graphics, which have not been optimized for the Web, you may rapidly lose the patience of your visitors. They will click elsewhere.

Sources

Web Browser Statistics, resolutions, and operating systems.
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp
http://webdesign.about.com/cs/statistics
http://www.upsdell.com/BrowserNews/stat.htm
http://www.webreference.com/stats/browser.html – daily summary of browser statistics.
http://www.anybrowser.com – tests your site in different browsers (not always reliable).

Browser Downloads

Internet Explorer:http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie
Netscape:http://home.netscape.com
Opera: http://www.opera.com
Kmeleon:http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net

Checking your web site’s usability can generate more traffic to your site. It may take you a little extra time and patience, but you can be assured you are reaching and pleasing a wider audience.

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of http://www.iSiteBuild.com. Affordable
Web Site Design and Web Hosting. Subscribe to his
“Marketing Tips” newsletter for more original articles.
mailto:subscribe@isitebuild.com. Read more of his
in-depth articles at: http://www.isitebuild.com/articles

The best way to learn is by doing. Take the first step and begin researching. Once you understand the basics of web design, you can begin experimenting with some more advanced coding techniques.

A great place to start is HTML Goodies:
http://www.htmlgoodies.com/primers/primer_1.html

Over the years, I have received many questions in regard to web design. Below, are some of the most frequently asked questions I receive on a regular basis:

Question: I am in the process of designing my first web page and am confused about making it compatible with all the different web browsers. Can you help?

Answer: Although there really isn’t a “set in stone” solution to developing a web page that will display properly in all browsers, there are some basic guidelines that will assist you.

The best advice I can offer is to develop your site to be compatible with Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator, as these are the two most widely used browsers.

Although the latest versions of the two browsers are fairly comparable, you must take into consideration that many of your visitors won’t have the latest versions.

Some of the main differences between earlier versions of the two browsers are as follows:

(1) In order to center a “table” within earlier versions of Netscape, you must enclose your “table” code with the CENTER and /CENTER tags instead of using P ALIGN=CENTER. The CENTER tag is compatible with both browsers.

(2) When creating form fields, if you use the maxlength code within your code, Netscape will display the input box the length of the maxlength code value.

(3) If you would like to display your web page full-screen or adjust the margins, you’ll need to use the following codes within your BODY tag:

<BODY topmargin=0 bottommargin=0 leftmargin=0 rightmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0>

This margin code is compatible with both browsers.

Internet Explorer supports:

topmargin=0
bottommargin=0
leftmargin=0
rightmargin=0

Netscape Navigator supports:

marginheight=0
marginwidth=0

(4) Avoid using special design techniques that require a special browser extension or plug-in, as many of your visitors will need to download and install the plug-in before they can use your site — most won’t.

If you follow these few guidelines, you shouldn’t have any problems with browser compatibility.

A great way to ensure your site displays properly is to download and install both Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator. This will enable you to view your site through both browsers.

Internet Explorer
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/default.asp

Netscape Navigator
http://channels.netscape.com/ns/browsers/download.jsp

You can find a nice “Browser Compatibility” chart at the following web address:
http://www.webreview.com/browsers/browsers.shtml

You can test your site’s compatibility at the following web addresses:
http://www.anybrowser.com
http://www.netmechanic.com

Question: I can’t get my image to display on my web page. I placed the image code in my page, but all I see is a “red X” where the image should display. Can you tell me what the problem may be?

Answer: In order for an image to display on a web page, it must first be uploaded to your server in “binary” mode. If you’ve verified that your image has been uploaded properly, your next step will be to double check your image HTML code. Make sure that the image address leads to your image and is spelled exactly the same. Keep in mind, the name of your image is CaSE SeNsiTIve. In other words, if your image name is “Image.gif” on your server, it must look exactly the same within your code.

Question: I would like to display my text, side by side, like a newspaper, but I can’t figure out the code.

Answer: In order to display your text like a newspaper, you must place it within a table.

<TABLE>
<TR>
<TD>text</TD>
<TD>text</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>

Answer: Yes, you can place your text within a table. You can specify the width of your table to determine the distance between your text and the left and right border of your web page.

<CENTER>
<TABLE WIDTH=”80%”>
<TR>
<TD>text</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
</CENTER>

If you’d rather not use a table, you can also set your page borders within your BODY tag:

<BODY topmargin=0 bottommargin=0 leftmargin=0 rightmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0>

Question: I have specified a font face at the beginning of my web page, but the font face isn’t displaying within my tables. Can you tell me what the problem may be?

Answer: In order to display a specific font face within your tables, you must use a separate font tag within each table cell.

<TABLE>
<TR>
<TD font face=”Arial”>text</font></TD>
<TD font face=”Arial”>text</font></TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>

<STYLE TYPE=”text/css”>
<!–
TD{font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;}
–>
</STYLE>

Answer: In order for a form to function, in addition to placing the form HTML within your web page, you must also use a CGI form processing script. This script will reside on your server within your CGI-bin and will be called from your form code within your HTML. Your code might look something like this:

<form method=post action=”/cgi-bin/example.cgi”>

The “cgi-bin/example.cgi” text should be changed to the address of your form processing script.

You can find free form processing scripts at the CGI Resource Index. http://cgi.resourceindex.com/Programs_and_Scripts/Perl/

Learning how to design a great web site isn’t easy. However, if you take the time to educate yourself and start with the basics, you’ll be well on your way to designing a great site.

Shelley Lowery is the author of the acclaimed web design
course, Web Design Mastery. http://www.webdesignmastery.com
An in-depth guide to professional web site design. Visit
Web-Source.net to sign up for a complimentary subscription
to Etips and receive a copy of the acclaimed ebook, “Killer
Internet Marketing Strategies.” http://www.web-source.net