Web based development(Build it yourself or not)

It's been a long time since I put my hand to writing again so here goes something! I wanted to touch on a subject that hits close to home.

Over the last few years a trend has emerged the small and mid-sized business using web based software to build or develop their own website. While it does make sense to try and save money in business today, it's hardly a good idea to do it with the one thing that your customers see first. I is really a representation of who you are and what you service or product provide to the public. Now if this by its self were not bad enough, the addition of designing the website brings this catastrophe to a painful and visually unpleasant halt.

The question you have to ask here is;

Do I have the staff with experience enough to pull this project off? There is a lot to consider such as, coding compliancy, browser compatibility, Graphics flow, and most importantly quality search engine optimization.
Don't take a chance of being worst of all blocked from the major search engines, or taken off for good. This is the last point and the end of my complaining on this subject but I hope that the trend will change. It goes back to what my Father used to say about plumbers and carpenters. Would you hire a plumber to fix your front porch or prescribe a new heart medicine?

http://www.albanygraphics.com

Selecting a Quality Web Host

"The page cannot be displayed." Have you ever encountered this message while surfing the net? Of course you have. We all have. Think it can't happen to you? Think again. If you're hosting your website on one of the free hosting services or even worse your own server, there is a chance of losing more than downtime.

These free hosting services can shut your site down at any time and they don’t need to have a reason. You may sit down in front of your computer one morning, try to access your site and instead, this message will appear, "The page cannot be displayed." That’s the end of it you web site is gone all the hard work and with it all the search engine ranking, lost for ever.

There are a lot of domain name extensions out there such as; net, biz, gov, cc, info, and so on but the most important one is without question .com. The question is do you really have a sincere desire to succeed with your online business? If this is the case then having your own domain name is a must. I can’t stress enough the importance of cross domain extensions. What I’m trying to say is it’s not enough to have a .com extension because a large potion of web site traffic goes to other extensions, and they are you competition after all. As an example I personally own six domain extensions and even a few different domain name variations, such as http://www.albanygraphics.com/ or http://www.albanygraphics.net/also a more descriptive one www.albanygraphicsdesignstudio.com In addition .net, .gov, .biz, .info and I’m always looking for more.

Selecting Your Web Page Host

When selecting a professional web host company your first consideration should be the company. Check out their background. Talk to some of their customers and ask them if they've been satisfied with their service. It’s always good to have a local company this will make it easer to keep open the lines of communication. The one thing I hate more than all else is to talk to an answering service. Below is a list of some of the questions I encourage you to ask before making your decision.

• How large is the customer base they serve?
• What is their uptime percentage?
• Is there a policy for making payments in advance?
• Do they charge set up fees?
• Find out how there customer support is? Call the references and ask they think.
• What is the speed of there connections?
• Do they offer shopping cart software (e-commerce solution)?
• What is there E-mail package like?
• Do they offer a content management tool and ftp app for file transfer?
• Do they have a 24 hr support line or online chat service?

Web hosting prices fluctuate, so keep in mind that a low monthly cost does not always mean a good value. If the service is poor and you suffer a lot of down time then you’re saving nothing.
Criteria for selecting a host
Selecting a professional web host is a very important decision. Make sure you do your homework and ensure the host you select offers exactly what you need.

• Your own domain name (http://www.yourname.com/)
• Your own True POP email account - name@yourdomain.com
• Fast, low overhead, Multi-T3 access
• Your own unrestricted cgi-bin
• Access to SSL Encryption for secure transactions
• Java, C, C++, Tcl support
• Auto responders
• htaccess Password Protection for your files or directories
• At least 1 GIGABYTE (1024 MB) of Daily Transfer
• Design (and upload to) your site using Netscape or other HTML editing software
• Microsoft FrontPage (98) Server Extensions for those utilizing FrontPage
• Unlimited free access to your server via Telnet/FTP
• Online invoices, account tracking, and payment history to enable you to check your account balance, monthly invoices, past payments, etc.
• Complete daily server backup
• Easy access to your log files
• Statistics on visits to your site

It may not be necessary for you to have everything on the list depending on the size of your website or the technology used in development, but be sure to ask.

I know just how hard it can be to get a small business started and watching every penny is a big part of that. Let’s stop and take a look at the outcome of the last cheep investment we got involved with. Let me guess a disaster! Don’t feel bad it happened to me a few times in the beginning. My point, don’t try to save on hosting get a good quality company with professional support. If your having issues or problums just give me a call and I can get you in the right direction. http://www.albanygraphics.com

Better Web Graphics to grab attention and load FAST

Is it possible to create quality web graphics that grabs attention and load fast at the same time? Take a look at the illustration samples at our site and see what I talking aboutUnderstanding the basics of GIF and JPEG compression will not only help you choose the best format for your Web graphics but will also enable you to create graphics that look better and load faster. Many graphics programs and compression utilities allow you to compare an image in different formats with various palette and compression settings before you actually save the file. While this takes much of the guess work out of choosing the best format for an image, it's still a good idea to have a basic understanding of how each type of compression works. With that knowledge, you can make changes to the graphic before compression takes place, creating an image that compresses to a smaller file size and looks better, too.Optimize for Best ImagesQ. I was asked a question by one of my customer's earlier this year. How do I put together a quality web site with great pictures that don't take a long time to load on older equipment or just in general?As a general rule, the following guideline will give you the best quality images with the smallest file sizes: GIF: images with large areas of solid color, such as vector clip art. JPEG: images with many shaded or gradient colors, such as photos. GIF Compression & Optimization GIF compression is lossless. This means that there is no loss of information when the file is compressed. When decompressed the image will be the same as before compression. Use this file format to save line drawings, text, or even small photos. The compression scheme for GIF format works by identifying repetitions or runs of color within the image and identifying these repetitions with an algorithm. The more repetition and the longer the color runs are, the smaller the image will be after compression. To better understand how this works: JPEG Compression & Optimization The JPEG format is most often used for photographs. When decompressed, the image will not be the same as before compression. It will have lost some of the information contained in the original file. Each time you save a JPEG image it will lose more information. For this reason, it is best to save an original of your image in a lossless format (such as TIF, PSD, etc.), and work from that file when making changes. JPEG compression does not work with runs of color, like GIF compression. Instead it breaks the image into zones and throws away subtle color differences. When saving an image in JPEG format, you can select how much compression to use and, therefore, how much information will be lost. Themore the image is compressed, the more the quality is reduced but the smaller the file size becomes. This format has overhead, so it is not necessarily a good format for small photos. Generally images that are smaller than 100 x 100 pixels should be saved in GIF format. Sometimes experimenting is the only way to determine which format will give you the smallest file size with the best quality.