Speeding PHP Using APC PHP Cache

If you look at a PHP source file you will notice one thing. It's a source file. Not particularly surprising, but think about when you deploy a PHP application, what do you deploy? PHP source files. Now for many other languages; Java, C, etc when you deploy an application you deploy the compiled file. So, the question that you want to ask yourself is this, how much time does a PHP application spend compiling source files vs running the code? I'll answer that for you, a lot.

There are advantages to being able to deploy source files though. It makes it easy to do on the fly modifications or bug fixes to a program, much like we used to do in the early BASIC languages. Just change the file and the next time it's accessed your change is reflected. So, how do we keep the dynamic nature of PHP, but not recompile our files every time they are accessed?

A PHP cache. It's surprising to me that this concept isn't built into the base PHP engine, but perhaps that's because some company's can sell this add on to speed up PHP. Luckily for us, some companies/open source projects provide this plug in to PHP at no charge. These plug ins are generally known as PHP accelerators, some of them do some optimization and then caching and some only do caching. I'm not going to pass judgement on which one is the best, any of them are better than nothing, but I decided to use APC, the Alternative PHP Cache. I chose this one because it is still in active development and is open source and free.

Alternative php cache can be found at php.net, just look down the left column for APC. It comes in source form, so you will need to compile it before installing it, don't worry about that part. If you're using Red Hat 4 or CentOS4 I'll tell you exactly how to do it. If you're using something else, you'll need the same tools, but getting the tools might be a bit different.

1. The Tools
Do you know how many web sites, forums and blogs I went to with my error messages before I found the answers as to what I was missing when I was trying to install APC - Alternative PHP Cache? Two days worth, but I finally found the correct combination and it's really quite obvious as is everything once you know the answer. There are three sets of dev tools that you will need.

1a. You'll need a package called "Development Tools" this will include all the important dev tools like the GCC compiler, etc.
1b. You'll need a package called php-devel which as you might guess are development tools for PHP
1c. You'll need a package called httpd-devel which of course are dev tools for Apache web server.

On Red Hat or CentOS getting these should be as easy as the following 3 commands:

yum groupinstall "Development Tools"
yum install php-devel
yum install httpd-devel

You'll do these three one at a time and follow any instructions (usually just saying yes).

Now it's time to follow the instructions contained in the APC package. Since these may change over time I'm not going to go through them. They are very complete. If you follow the instructions and get an apc.so file out of it, then you're all set, just modify your php.ini file and you're good to go.

There are two problems that I encountered that you may encounter too. The first is an error when running phpize. I ignored this error and everything succeeded okay, but not before I spent hours looking for the solution to this error. Here is the error.
configure.in:9: warning: underquoted definition of PHP_WITH_PHP_CONFIG

run info '(automake)Extending aclocal'

or see http://sources.redhat.com/automake/automake.html#Extending-aclocal
configure.in:32: warning: underquoted definition of PHP_EXT_BUILDDIR
configure.in:33: warning: underquoted definition of PHP_EXT_DIR
configure.in:34: warning: underquoted definition of PHP_EXT_SRCDIR
configure.in:35: warning: underquoted definition of PHP_ALWAYS_SHARED
acinclude.m4:19: warning: underquoted definition of PHP_PROG_RE2C

People would have had me updating my PHP version from 4.3.9 and everything else under the sun to get rid of this error, but in the end it didn't matter. My APC compiled and installed nicely and I am good to go.

The other slight problem that I ran into was the location of php-config. The install instructions wanted me to do the following:

./configure --enable-apc-mmap --with-apxs
--with-php-config=/usr/local/php/bin/php-config

However my php-config is in /usr/bin/php-config. Making that change allowed this part to work.

So, have at it, once it's done you can expect to see huge improvements in your web site response times and reductions on your CPU load. One more quick note, My server hosts about 20 web sites, but only 3 or 4 are really busy. To reduce the memory footprint of caching everything for all 20 sites I used the apc.filters property. Although this property is slightly flawed for non qualified includes, it worked nicely for my Serendipity blogs. Your mileage with this property will vary according to the software you are using and how it does it's includes.

By Jon Murray

PHP Redirect - How to Send Someone to Another URL With PHP

When designing a web site, it is occasionally necessary to redirect a user to another URL to the one they have tried to access. This can normally be accomplished using HTTP redirect, however sometimes they just are not applicable or you would prefer to do it with PHP, for example:

1. If a page is undergoing some maintenance and you wish to redirect users to an error page.

2. As part of a PHP conditional IF statement you want to redirect to another page, perhaps you want to check if a user is logged in yet and if not redirect to the login prompt.

I am sure the are many other reasons that escape me at the time of writing for why you may wish to do this.

Fortunately PHP does provide a means to allow web designers to take this control. This task is accomplished by manipulating the header of a web page before it has been served. In order to redirect a page to an alternative URL replace the contents of the file with:

Note that if any output has been written to the browser (including HTML tags) this approach will not work, it must be either the only or the first output in the file. Therefore if you want to use it as part of a conditional logic test put that at the start of the file, for example:

OPEN PHP

IF(loggedIn == TRUE){

CLOSE PHP

…HTML output can go here

OPEN PHP

}ELSE{

header( 'Location: http://www.yourURL.com' ) ;

}

CLOSE PHP

In order to view the code correctly in this article the OPEN PHP and CLOSE PHP tags are used instead of the actual start and end tags for PHP code - to run the code you need to substitute them for the correct open and close tags.

This technique is an easy way to control the flow of control in a browser based PHP application. Generally if you wish to always redirect one URL to another you should use a HTTP redirect, but a PHP redirect is also an option.
Dave Hodgson is a technical consultant by career and a website designer for fun. He has spent time working for large systems integrators, small consultancy firms and on individual freelance projects. The articles written by Dave are in the nature of tricks and tips he has learned through his career and interactions with clients.

By Dave Hodgson

Using PHP and MySQL to Develop a Simple CMS - Version 1

In this article I'll try to describe how to develop a very simple Content Management System (CMS). I've chosen PHP as the server-side scripting language and MySQL as the database management system purely because I think they are fairly easy to use and they do the job very well.

I won't spend any time describing CMSs, what they are, or why you should or should not use them as there are plenty of excellent articles on this site that describe them perfectly well. I'll just explain one way of developing one.

This CMS consists of a single web page (index.php) that can have its contents updated by use of a standard form (updatePage.htm). The contents entered via the form are stored in a database, and are accessed and displayed by the web page. Although this CMS is too simple to be of any real use, it could be used as the starting point for a real life CMS solution. In subsequent articles I'll look at various ways to extend the CMS to make it more useful.

There are four files in this project:

cms.sql
updatePage.htm
updatePage.php
index.php

cms.sql
This file creates a database called cms, and creates a table in that database called page. It also loads some intial data into the table. You only need to use this file once.

updatePage.htm
This web page contains a simple form that can be used to enter the contents displayed by index.php.

updatePage.php
This is the form handler - the script that processes the data (entered in updatePage.htm) and inserts it into the database table (page).

index.php
This is the web page that displays the data held in the database table.

You can download a zip file containing these four files from http://www.computernostalgia.net/downloads/cms_v1.zip

cms.sql

1. CREATE DATABASE cms;
2. USE cms;
3. CREATE table page (
4. pageID integer auto_increment,
5. contents text,
6. primary key (pageID)
7. );
8. insert into page (pageID, contents) values ('1', 'dummy text');

Line 1 creates a database called cms in the MySQL database management system.

Line 2 tells MySQL to use the database for the subsequent commands.

Line 3 creates a table in the database.

Line 4 creates a column called pageID, which will contain integers, and which will be automatically incremented as new records are added to the table. As we only have one web page (index.php) in our imaginary website, we will only have one record and therefore one integer: 1. If we added additional pages to the table, they would be automatically numbered (2, 3, 4, etc).

Line 5 creates a second column called contents, which will contain text. This is where the editable contents displayed by index.php will be stored.

Line 6 sets pageID as the primary key, which you can think of as a reference for the table. As we only have one table, which will contain only one record, we won't make any use of the key. I've included it though because it's good practice to do so.

Line 7 simply closes the bit of code that was started in line 3.

Line 8 inserts some intial data into the table: 1 as the first (and only) pageID, and 'dummy text' as the contents of the first record.

updatePage.htm

(Note that for display considerations, I've inserted spaces into the HTML tag names, otherwise they would be processed as HTML code.)

1. <>
2. <>
3. <>Really Simple CMS< /title >
4. < /head >
5. <>
6. <>Really Simple CMS< /h1 >
7. < name="form1" method="post" action="updatePage.php">
8. Enter page content:<>< rows="10" cols="60" name="contents">< /textarea >


9. < type="submit" name="Submit" value="Update Page">
10. < /form >
11. < /body >
12. < /html >

This is just standard HTML, which probably doesn't really need explaining. All it does is present a form, the contents of which are sent to updatePage.php when the 'Update Page' button is clicked.

updatePage.php

1. < ?php 2. $contents=$_REQUEST['contents']; 3. mysql_connect("localhost", "root", "password"); 4. $result = @mysql_query("UPDATE cms.page SET contents='$contents'"); 5. mysql_close(); 6. ? >

This is the form handler, that's to say, the script that processes the data entered into the form (in updatePage.htm).

Line 1 signifies the start of a PHP script.

Line 2 requests the contents that were posted from the form. We could have written
$contents=$_POST['contents']; instead if we had wanted to.

Line 3 connects to the MySQL database server, setting up the host name, which I've assumed to be localhost, the database user, which I've assumed to be root, and the password needed to connect to the database. I have no idea what this would be for your system so I've just written the word password.

Line 4 updates the page table in the cms database with the new contents.

Line 5 closes the database connection.

Line 6 closes the PHP script.

index.php

1. <>
2. <>
3. <>Home Page< /title >
4. <>
5. <>Home Page< /h1 >
6. < ?php 7. mysql_connect("localhost", "root", "password"); 8. $result = mysql_query("select contents from cms.page"); 9. while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)){ 10. $contents = $row['contents']; 11. } 12. echo $contents; 13. ? >
14. < /body >
15. < /html >

This is the web page that displays the contents from the database. It's called index.php rather than index.htm because the web page contains PHP code. If the page was called index.htm, the PHP preprocessor, which is part of the web server, would not know that the page contained PHP code, and would therefore not try to process the script part of the page (lines 6 to 13). This would cause the script itself to be displayed in the browser rather than the HTML generated by the script.

Most of the lines in this web page are pretty straight forward and don't need explaining. Lines 6 to 13 contain the PHP script that extracts the contents from the database and displays (echos) it in the browser.

Installing/Running the CMS

To use the CMS you need to copy the files onto your web server into the area allocated for web pages. Your web server needs to support PHP and MySQL; if it doesn't, the CMS won't work.

You also need to use the correct database connection names and passwords (those used in the mysql_connect lines in the PHP scripts).

Exactly how you run the cms.sql file to set up the database and database table will vary from web server to web server so it's difficult to give precise instructions here. If you have a phpMyAdmin icon or something similar in your web servers control/administration panel you should be able to use that.

Once you've set up the database and table, you can simply browse to the updatePage.htm web page and update the database contents. You can then browse to the index.php page to view the updates.

If you have any problems or comments regarding the CMS, please email me at johndixon@computernostalgia.net and I'll be pleased to assist you if possible.


By John Dixon

PHP : A Functional Tool To Create Dynamic Web Pages

You can use PHP on almost every operating system and platform including: PHP can be used on all major operating systems, including Linux, many Unix variants (including HP-UX, Solaris and OpenBSD), Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, RISC OS.

PHP has also support for most of the web servers today. This includes Apache, Microsoft Internet Information Server, Personal Web Server, Netscape and iPlanet servers, Oreilly Website Pro server, Caudium, Xitami, OmniHTTPd.

PHP uses procedural programming or object oriented programming, or a mixture of them. PHP is used mainly in server-side scripting; command line interface and writing desktop application.

Server-side scripting is the most traditional use for PHP. To use PHP for server-side scripting you need a PHP parser, a web server and a web browser. You enter PHP codes with the parser on a web server and it is translated into a PHP page that you can view on your web browser. However, it is also possible to make PHP script run without a server or browser. All you need is a PHP parser. This type of usage is ideal for scripts regularly executed using cron (on *nix or Linux) or Task Scheduler (on Windows). These scripts can also be used for simple text processing tasks.

While PHP is not the best language to use when writing a desktop application, it is possible. With PHP you can create a desktop application with a graphical user interface. If one is familiar with PHP and would like to use its features, there is PHP-GTK. With PHP-GTK you also have the ability to write cross-platform applications this way. However, PHP-GTK is an extension to regular PHP and not available in the main distribution.

While PHP websites are treated by web browsers as ordinary HTML pages, they are superior from regular websites in the sense that they have more features.

With PHP you are not limited to output HTML. PHP allows for the outputting of images, PDF files and even Flash movies. You can also output text in almost any form such as XHTML and any other XML file. PHP auto generates these files, and saves them in the file system, instead of printing it out. This forms a server-side cache for your dynamic content.

PHP supports a wide range of databases including Adabas D, InterBase, Postgre SQL, dBase, FrontBase,SQLite, Empress, mSQL, Solid, FilePro, Direct MS-SQL, Sybase, Hyperwave, MySQL, Velocis, IBM DB@, ODBC, Unix dbm, Informix, Oracle, Ingress and Ovrimos.

PHP also supports ODBC, the Open Database Connection standard which allows you to connect to any other database supporting this world standard.

PHP also has support for talking to other services using protocols such as LDAP, IMAP, SNMP, NNTP, POP3, HTTP, COM (on Windows) and countless others. You can also open raw network sockets and interact using any other protocol.

PHP has support for the WDDX complex data exchange between virtually all Web programming languages. PHP also has support for instantiation of Java objects and using them transparently as PHP objects.

PHP has text processing features. For parsing and accessing XML documents, PHP 4 supports the SAX and DOM standards, and you can also use the XSLT extension to transform XML documents. PHP 5 standardizes all the XML extensions on the solid base of libxml2 and extends the feature set adding SimpleXML and XMLReader support.

Between its functionality and its ease of use PHP is one of the best ways for anyone- be they a beginner or a veteran - to create a dynamic and interactive website to share with users of the World Wide Web.

By Mikhail Tuknov

Practical Uses of PHP

It almost goes without saying that you will want your business website to be compelling, interactive, and secure. All of these characteristics will make your website more effective at bringing in and keeping customers. But how to go about it in a way that is stable, cost-effective, and easy to manage? One popular solution is to use the server-side scripting language PHP to help you solve those problems.

What is PHP?

Created in 1995, PHP originally stood for "Personal Home Page", however it is now generally understood to mean "PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor". It was originally designed to create dynamic or more interactive web pages. It is a widely-used, open-source, general-purpose scripting language. PHP is a "high-level" language, meaning that it's generally more human-friendly (and easier to learn) than other programming languages such as C, ASP or ASP.net.

PHP was originally designed for use in Web site development, but rapidly grew to become a much more robust language. PHP's primary use is as an "embedded" scripting language, which means that the actual PHP code is embedded in HTML code. When used in this way, PHP enables your web server to process web pages before they're displayed in the user's web browser.
Benefits of PHP

PHP is popular because it can be embedded directly into HTML coding.

PHP can be used on all major operating systems and is supported on most web servers.

PHP's main focus is development for the web, so it has a quick development time and can solve scenarios much quicker than some of the other web design languages.

The latest version of PHP is a very stable and mature language used for web programming much like Java and Microsoft C#.

It is open source so it is free!

Database: It is very easy to write simple scripts which allow your Web site to interact with a database.

Cross-Platform: Both the PHP engine and the PHP code can be used on almost any platform, making it extremely versatile.

Development Tools: You only need a text editor to work on PHP; you do not need any development environment or compilers.

What can you do with PHP?

PHP generally runs on a web server, taking PHP code as its input and creating Web pages as output, however you can also use it for command-line scripting and client-side GUI applications. PHP is an extremely versatile language which enables you to create high-end, stable Web sites with plenty of bells and whistles. Here are just a few of the things you can do with PHP:

Make HTML Web Forms

Store Information in Databases

Remember Web site visitors (cookies and sessions)

Work with Arrays

Work with Files (File Management and downloads)

Parsing and Generating XML (also useful for large quantities of products on e-commerce)

Check which browser your visitor is using

How does PHP Work?

As its name ("PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor") suggests, PHP derives its power by "preprocessing" hypertext on the server side. This generally means that when the PHP script (saved as a .php file) runs on your web server, it performs the programmed actions, and returns HTML code that will then be sent back to your customer's web browser. The PHP script itself is not included in the HTML that is sent to the browser, so the PHP code is invisible and secure to the user.

For example, let's consider the following simple PHP statement. (This example is merely to show the basic syntax of PHP in action. Any detailed discussion of PHP code is beyond the scope of this article.)



In this statement, is the closing tag, and echo is a PHP instruction that tells PHP to output the text that follows it as plain HTML code. The PHP software processes the PHP statement and outputs the following:

<p>Hello World

This is a regular HTML statement that is delivered to the users browser. The PHP statement itself is not delivered to the browser, so the user never sees any PHP statements.

Using PHP to Improve Your Website.

PHP has many capabilities features designed specifically for use in Web sites, including the following:

1. Securing Your Website.

PHP can be used to secure your website (or certain areas of your website) so that your customer must enter a valid username and password. This can be used to reward preferred customers and to build an exclusive "membership" component of your business.

2. Working with Web Forms.

PHP can display an HTML form and process the information that the user types in. This can be an excellent way to learn more about your customers by asking them to provide profile information, and to collect information about their specific interests.

3. Communicate with Your Databases.

PHP is particularly adept at interacting with your databases, and storing information from the user or retrieving information that is displayed to the user. PHP handles connecting to the database and communicating with it, so it's not necessary to know all of the technical details for connecting to or exchanging messages with the database. You tell PHP the name of the database and where it is, and PHP handles the details. All major databases are currently supported by PHP.

4. Customer Loyalty Functions.

You can also use PHP to create a number of different functionalities on your website that will further help you to build customer loyalty, including interactive polls, a guestbook, and a message board.

The popularity of PHP continues to grow rapidly because it has many advantages over other technical solutions. PHP is fast (because it's embedded in the HTML code, the time to process and load a Web page is relatively short), PHP is free (it is open-source software), and PHP is versatile (is runs on a wide variety of operating systems, including Windows, Mac OS, Linux, and most Unix variants).

Perhaps most importantly, PHP is a very well-established language. There are many user-run Internet communities that make very large amounts of information (and scripts) available. With so much experience behind it, using PHP for certain dynamic features can be a cost-effective and low-hassle way of increasing the stability of your website.

by Jeremy Gislason

Basics Of Php

Practical Uses of PHP

It almost goes without saying that you will want your business website to be compelling, interactive, and secure. All of these characteristics will make your website more effective at bringing in and keeping customers. But how to go about it in a way that is stable, cost-effective, and easy to manage? One popular solution is to use the server-side scripting language PHP to help you solve those problems.

What is PHP?

Created in 1995, PHP originally stood for "Personal Home Page", however it is now generally understood to mean "PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor". It was originally designed to create dynamic or more interactive web pages. It is a widely-used, open-source, general-purpose scripting language. PHP is a "high-level" language, meaning that it's generally more human-friendly (and easier to learn) than other programming languages such as C, ASP or ASP.net.

PHP was originally designed for use in Web site development, but rapidly grew to become a much more robust language. PHP's primary use is as an "embedded" scripting language, which means that the actual PHP code is embedded in HTML code. When used in this way, PHP enables your web server to process web pages before they're displayed in the user's web browser.
Benefits of PHP

PHP is popular because it can be embedded directly into HTML coding.

PHP can be used on all major operating systems and is supported on most web servers.

PHP's main focus is development for the web, so it has a quick development time and can solve scenarios much quicker than some of the other web design languages.

The latest version of PHP is a very stable and mature language used for web programming much like Java and Microsoft C#.

It is open source so it is free!

Database: It is very easy to write simple scripts which allow your Web site to interact with a database.

Cross-Platform: Both the PHP engine and the PHP code can be used on almost any platform, making it extremely versatile.

Development Tools: You only need a text editor to work on PHP; you do not need any development environment or compilers.

What can you do with PHP?

PHP generally runs on a web server, taking PHP code as its input and creating Web pages as output, however you can also use it for command-line scripting and client-side GUI applications. PHP is an extremely versatile language which enables you to create high-end, stable Web sites with plenty of bells and whistles. Here are just a few of the things you can do with PHP:

Make HTML Web Forms

Store Information in Databases

Remember Web site visitors (cookies and sessions)

Work with Arrays

Work with Files (File Management and downloads)

Parsing and Generating XML (also useful for large quantities of products on e-commerce)

Check which browser your visitor is using

How does PHP Work?

As its name ("PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor") suggests, PHP derives its power by "preprocessing" hypertext on the server side. This generally means that when the PHP script (saved as a .php file) runs on your web server, it performs the programmed actions, and returns HTML code that will then be sent back to your customer's web browser. The PHP script itself is not included in the HTML that is sent to the browser, so the PHP code is invisible and secure to the user.

For example, let's consider the following simple PHP statement. (This example is merely to show the basic syntax of PHP in action. Any detailed discussion of PHP code is beyond the scope of this article.)



In this statement, is the closing tag, and echo is a PHP instruction that tells PHP to output the text that follows it as plain HTML code. The PHP software processes the PHP statement and outputs the following:

<p>Hello World

This is a regular HTML statement that is delivered to the users browser. The PHP statement itself is not delivered to the browser, so the user never sees any PHP statements.

Using PHP to Improve Your Website.

PHP has many capabilities features designed specifically for use in Web sites, including the following:

1. Securing Your Website.

PHP can be used to secure your website (or certain areas of your website) so that your customer must enter a valid username and password. This can be used to reward preferred customers and to build an exclusive "membership" component of your business.

2. Working with Web Forms.

PHP can display an HTML form and process the information that the user types in. This can be an excellent way to learn more about your customers by asking them to provide profile information, and to collect information about their specific interests.

3. Communicate with Your Databases.

PHP is particularly adept at interacting with your databases, and storing information from the user or retrieving information that is displayed to the user. PHP handles connecting to the database and communicating with it, so it's not necessary to know all of the technical details for connecting to or exchanging messages with the database. You tell PHP the name of the database and where it is, and PHP handles the details. All major databases are currently supported by PHP.

4. Customer Loyalty Functions.

You can also use PHP to create a number of different functionalities on your website that will further help you to build customer loyalty, including interactive polls, a guestbook, and a message board.

The popularity of PHP continues to grow rapidly because it has many advantages over other technical solutions. PHP is fast (because it's embedded in the HTML code, the time to process and load a Web page is relatively short), PHP is free (it is open-source software), and PHP is versatile (is runs on a wide variety of operating systems, including Windows, Mac OS, Linux, and most Unix variants).

Perhaps most importantly, PHP is a very well-established language. There are many user-run Internet communities that make very large amounts of information (and scripts) available. With so much experience behind it, using PHP for certain dynamic features can be a cost-effective and low-hassle way of increasing the stability of your website.

by Jeremy Gislason

How to Learn PHP and MySQL as Quickly as Possible

Learning Programming is a tough subject, no matter which language you choose.

It took me months to figure out php and MySQL enough to build real, quality, Websites that were "good enough".

Eventually I figured out the easiest way to learn. It took me MONTHS to figure it out... but I did.

So what does it take to learn a Programming Language such as PHP?

"Doing" is what it takes. 90% of the people who try to take on such a task end up feeling "dumb" or "slow". This usually is NOT the case. I've found that, like myself, most people try to learn PHP from reading and going through code to "understand" what it means.

I was the same way until I was told "just do it". My mentor must have been the most patient man on the face of this earth - because I was constantly telling him I could not do it. But he kept on me telling me the same line I'm telling you: "just do it".

What does this mean? It means trying to create your very own scripts, whether small or of decent size. Start out with printing out the date to the browser. Continue with Loops. Create scripts that create mathematical equations. Print out your name, last name, etc.

Once you figure out the basics, make sure you continue to learn by doing! You will never be able to take your skills to the next level just by reading.

I also stress to other newbies that they need to learn by watching as well. Writing code can become quite a task and it's better to see someone else do that, if possible (which it is by watching videos).

It's quite easy to get caught up in bad practices while writing code if you do not follow good programming standards. Sloppy (spaghetti) code seems to be the evil of the programming world that occurs from newbies who read online tutorials by so called "programmers". Most of these "programmers" are NOT what they claim to be. So be careful of whom you choose to learn from.

PHP and MySQL (database) go together like peanut butter and jelly. I cannot tell you how important it is to learn these two languages together. MySQL may not be the "best" Database in the world but it is very easy to learn and very capable of building large scale applications.

So remember: if you're not "doing", you're not learning. Start learning PHP basics and make sure you're following along and trying to code your own small scripts when starting out. I know, I know... it LOOKS like it's too hard. It's not. This is not something you're going to learn overnight, but it's quite possible that you can learn enough to do what you need to do in just a matter of weeks!

Keep learning and continue doing.

If you're looking to become a PHP programmer - you need to see these videos!

By Clint Lenard

How to Copy and Paste Adsense Code Correctly

After getting approval from Google, here's come to your first step to earn money from it. What should one do in order to display Adsense ads on his/her sites? It is quite simple and straightforward. Adsense Ads are solely HTML code, just link those that make up a website. So, with the use of a simple HTML editor, you can easily paste such HTML code into any place you want in your website.

First, you need to get the HMTL code for a specific product. There are various products from adsense. And I will not put too much emphasis here on that. After selecting the desired product, just pick up and copy the HTML code in the box at the bottom of the page.

Afterwards, you can use any simple HTML editors (e.g. Frontpage, Dreamweaver etc.) and paste the code to your desire position. According to Google, Once you've generated your ad code by visiting the AdSense Setup tab and following the steps to choose an ad type, format, and colors, you'll need to add the code to your web pages. In the final step of the setup, you'll see your code in the Your AdSense Code box. This is the code that you will cut-and-paste directly into your web pages.

Because every HTML editor is different, and because only you know how you like to build your web pages, we can't give exact instructions on copying the ad code into your pages. We can, however, give you a few tips:

- Make sure to paste the ad code into your source without making any changes to the code. This is important, as changing the code in any way can cause errors on your page (and is against the AdSense program policies) - Copy the ad code between the body tags of your HTML - If you're using a WYSIWYG editor (such as FrontPage or Dreamweaver) it's a good idea to paste the code into the Code or Source view. Pasting it into the layout view will often result in HTML tags being added to your code, and will result in errors - If your page uses Frames, make sure that the code is pasted into the frame that contains your page's main content. We use this content to target ads

When you're all done, save your web pages and upload them to your server. If you have questions about uploading files to your server, we suggest contacting your web hosting company directly. After pasting the code in your site, the ads will be shown immediately, no matter it is relevant ads, irrelevant one or the PSA (public service advertisement). Initially, the ads that you see may be Public Service Ads and won't be targeted to your page. We have to crawl your page's content before we know what kinds of ads to send your way - this can take up to a few hours, but usually occurs within minutes. Once our crawler has visited your page, you should see ads that are highly targeted to your content.

By C.K. Li

How To Design a Website

Every day, more and more people are learning how to design their own websites. In this article, I'll show you how to design a website the right way to ensure that you get something as close to your vision as possible.

Before you decide how to design a website, you have to know what options are available. This means you need to be familiar with the different ways people build websites. The only way to do that is to do some background research. Do you know the difference between HTML, CSS and PHP? It's important to understand how these different codes relate to building a website. By being aware of the different options that exist, you will have a better idea on what you will need to learn.

After you have an idea of the various different ways websites are built, it's time to decide what the purpose of your website is. Do you want to do business or does your website of a more personal nature? Is it something you plan on updating regularly, or will it have more static elements? You need to sit down and really ask yourself what the ultimate purpose of your website is and what you want it to do for you. Once you do this, you will be able to understand the scope of what you need to know, as far as how to design a website goes to get your finished product.

Finally, after you know what you want, then it is just a matter of going about achieving it. If you want something simple, like a blog, then you might start looking for website templates you can download for free, and simply modify. Or, if you need a site with only a few pages, you shouldn't have to study more than the basic HTML to achieve that. By having your vision, and coupling it with the different tools that are available to you, is probably the smartest way to go about designing a website.

There are also various tools that can help you on how to design a website. Typically these are web design software programs, most commonly known as WYSIWYG editors. WYSIWYG stands for -- "what you see is what you get". These are great tools that help you with your coding, so you can edit your website visually, as well as through coding language.

By Steven P. Ross http://www.best-web-design-software.com

Come and Explore How to Create A Website

A Website is the basic need for all the business and for personal use in this innovative world where each and every thing is globalized on Internet. It is the easiest way to communicate, do business, find business, find a friend, play games, chat, make payments and for each and every basic need. Today we are just got addicted of Internet, so, the basic need of website is generally getting higher for each and every aspect of business and life.

To develop a website there are various facts to be utilized and I have tried to give the basic instances "How TO Build Website"

Your Basic Needs for Building a Website

Domain Name

This is a name for identifying a computer or computers on the Internet. It is a component of Web site's URL (Uniform Resource Locator). So, creativ-eras.com is an example of domain name.

It is the name given by the Domain name registrar after the process of registration is done by the client. It is also called as registered domain name and web addresses.

These Domains are also attached with its extensions. Domain name extensions are of different types:

The Top 3: These are the basic domains widely used by the customers worldwide and are one of the top domains till date

.com

.net

.org

Country-Level Top Domain: Every country has their own matching top level domain names, some examples are

.in (India)

.co.in (India)

.fr (France)

.co.uk (United Kingdom)

And there are many more domain also like

.edu

.gov

.tv

Free Websites

There are various sources on internet which provide with an option to host your website for free. But these types of resources should not be considered healthy, reason for it is that they are unstable in nature and you never own your website and you never receive true domain name. The main domain will be of third party and it will look like http://site.yourdomain.com/ In some cases, it can even be longer than the example shown above.

Web Host

Web hosting is a service which allows the individuals and organizations to provide there own websites accessible over www (World Wide Web). Web hosts are the companies which provide the space on servers which they own for the use by their clients and provide internet connectivity. Web hosting is a paid service, usually monthly or yearly.

Website requires space on server to be used by the individuals. No website can exist without web hosts.

Building Website

In this part we are going to explore various tools and editors present for building a website. There are many software and tools available for building a website in easy and efficient way. It's important for you to find out about them before you use them.

Macromedia Dreamweaver, CoffeeCup HTML Editor, Front Page, Aedix, UPOhtml, Alleycode HTML Editor, Aptana, Arachnophilia, BBEdit, Bluefish, CSE HTML Validator, EditPlus, Evrsoft 1st Page, HTML-Kit, Adobe HomeSite, NoteTab, PSPad, Quanta Plus, SAPIEN PrimalScript, SCREEM, Siteaid, skEdit, Taco HTML Edit, TextMate, TopStyle, Notepad++, Weaverslave are some of the web editing software present and used by the people for creating and maintaining sites.

I used Macromedia Dreamweaver for creating my website http://www.creativ-eras.com/

If you are not using any of the software then you have begin from the scratch and have to learn how to code HTML (Hypertext Markup Language). All you have to do is open Text editor (Notepad) for example and then write the HTML code which will create your page. It is pretty easy to learn and use.

Then you have to save the file you are working on with the file name.html and then upload it to the server (Web Host).

If you are finding it difficult to code in HTML, then I would strongly recommend you to get it done by any website design company or any software program which I've talked about above to edit and create your website. These companies are working day and night for its customers. There are so many web designing companies and you have to find one of the best from them to serve.

There are many websites will provide free website templates (awesome premade sites) ready to use.

Products

In your site you are showing information about company, its products, its expertise, its services, its vision & goals, patrons and feedback etc.

The main part is of products of the company. The importance of products is due to the out result of company. Every company wants to sell its product, uses various forms and methods. Website is also one form of on line presence of the company for selling products online.

For selling its product online you have to take orders online from your website? The best way is to sign up with paypal.com. They are the merchants; they accept credit cards for you and take a small percentage for the order. It is very convenient and easy to setup.

All you have to do is specify the price for each and every item or product you are selling and paypal will provide you some HTML code which you have to paste it in your website and it will automatically create the payment button and its interface for you.

Paypal uses secure methods and handles all the transactions which are done through credit cards. It's very easy to transfer the funds from your paypal account to any other account electronically.

Other Features

There are various other features which you can implement in your website like gaming, gambling, chat and guest book where visitors can play game, chat and leave message for you on your site.

It is very hard for you to think of these features, but as internet have matured, it's getting easier and easier for you to use and implement these features on your site.

For getting any kind of interactive feature on a website requires some kind of script. Script contains a bunch of code that tells the browser how to behave.

You can get these scripts depending what you want on your website. Script can be found on internet for that you have to go to your favorite search site (Google) and search for the appropriate script. Some scripts are free and some are paid as well.

It is important for you to check that your web host supports the kind of script and functionality you want to implement.

So, this was the full explanation on how to create your website.

By Amit Sood http://www.creativ-eras.com

Basic HTML How To

You can use basic HTML in many ways and in various places. You can change simple things by making your font bolder, bigger, or smaller by using the simplest of codes. You can create page breaks and separate your paragraphs or thoughts. Change the color of your font, create a text link, or place a picture or graphic image on your web site.

If you have not yet copied and pasted a graphic or background lay-out onto a web page or a social network site such as My Space, give that a try. It will show you a great example of what an HTML code actually looks like. Study it for a few minutes to get a good look at the tweaks that could be made to any code to change just a bit of the end result.

We use HTML at social networks, on web pages, and in solo advertisements for business marketers.

Basic HTML will make your page or advertisements stand out from the crowd. Get noticed and learn a bit of HTML.

To change your font and make it show a bit of your personality or to make it jump out of the page, you will need these basic HTML codes. I will be putting spaces between the characters here to be able to post this on an area that uses HTML. When you type this, leave no spaces between the characters. Making your font bolder only requires you to type <>. Typing in multiple sets will create an even bolder font. At the end of the word or phrase you wish to be bold, type. This code will close the bold print.

You can make your font bigger or smaller as well by using the code <> or <> and then closing it off with or . That is the extent of it. It is really this easy to do.

If you need a separation between ideas, thoughts, or paragraphs then use the code <>. If you would like a double space between the text, type two or more in a row, all touching with no spaces. This is best used with graphic images and photos, or banners and music players. It prevents the images from running together and creates a much cleaner page view.

Another neat little trick is changing your font color. Red jumps right off the page, blue is a very mellow and calming color, and yellow when used with a combination of red and black makes a very bold statement. This code is very simple and looks like this, <>. Now, with this code, you can either just type the color name into "the color" area or do a quick search for HTML font color codes and replace "the color" with the actual color code number given on the site you find. Close the color with.

How about adding a text link to your web site or social page? Again, simple once you see it a few times. This is what it looks like. You will need to replace the yoursitehere with your web page link and TextLink with whatever you want to show as your link text.

< href="http://www.yoursitehere.com/">textlink< /A > Again, I have created spaces where there should be none to ensure readability. If I posted this on an HTML compatible page it would not show anything except the useable link called textlink. The only space needed in this code is the one between the first A and the HREF. That one is an important and essential space.

There is an easy shortcut to image codes. Uploading a stored photo or image from your computer to a site called Tiny Pic will get you your image code straight away. Just copy and paste into your project. The easiest by far. The wealth of information on and about using, viewing, and learning the basic HTML code is a search engine away. My goal is to enlighten you and show you that you can do it too. That it isn't as difficult as we all may have thought it was and doing it correctly is within reach.

Stephanie Haile AKA Wavecritter is a 43 year old wife, mother, and business owner who enjoys spending time with her family at the beach, at a great movie, or with an awesome novel. Google Wavecritter and say hello. Check out the web sites below to find out how to become a part of the team.

By Stephanie Haile Copyright © Stephanie Haile, http://www.wavecritter.com, http://www.berrycritter.com

Web page buiding for beginners

Making a web page is a simple job that can be done in minutes by anyone with no previous experience, so I will refrain from going in that direction as much as possible. The first thing an inexperienced webmaster should learn is search engine optimization, before ever making a page. The reason for this is simply because if they learn it after the page is made, it will cause them too much extra work that could have been avoided.

Keywords are the basis of all optimization, and all pages should be named for at least one keyword the webmaster expects people to use when trying to find their page. If your last name is Dupuie and you want relatives to find your family reunion website, then Dupuie will definitely be a part of the page name. If each page is about a different relative then their first name can serve the twofold purpose of helping in the search engine optimization (SEO) and making it easier to find the page on your hard-drive at home, if you are using a page builder such as Microsoft Front Page. Finding a particular page can be difficult when searching for a particular page to change a picture or just fixing a link.

So let’s stick with a website used as a family reunion announcement and catchall, to keep the examples easy to understand. Depending on the server being used for the website (you do not have to understand that statement yet) you may be able to name a web page dupuie-ted-cousin-1982-picture.html but you may only be able to use the name dupuie-ted.html because some servers do not allow as many long names as others. Mostly this is with free web servers that already have long extensions. I personally like the use of free web hosting, but many of them have pop-ups or banners that deter from a decent business site. I still use them because SEO is dependent on links that come back to your site from other sites.

The title of your pages should reflect whatever you want the keywords to find in another person’s search for your site. If your pages are each named dupuie-family-reunion-michigan and each was also numbered, then I would expect you to be hoping for people to be searching for a family reunion that is in Michigan and is for the Dupuie family. Note that there is a hyphen between each word so the robots can read each word individually instead of them seeing dupuieted or dupuie_ted and thinking it is one word that does not exist. Also note that everything is written in small caps. This is essential, as much as the home page must be named index.html even though any other page can be called whatever you like.

Links back to your site are counted by search engine robots and they are very important to where your pages end up in the database that they use. Some sites will never be put in the database, so can never be found by a searcher. I own www.saquoyah.com as well as www.homewriters.com and www.free-diet.biz and writing this article is not only good for the reader, but also for the writer as it gives one more link back to the sites.

Some family sites have thousands of pages with each page linking back to the index page, and they will be your competitor if their last name is also Dupuie. This could leave your site back to 685 on Google or Yahoo or even out of the first 1000 or so that they put up on a search. It is also important to note that when you link out to other sites, you lose favor with the robots. What you want is many incoming links, and very little outgoing links.

This article can be copied and reprinted anywhere as long as it is intact and includes the author’s bio.

by: Ted Dupuie

Tips for a Successful Website for Any Organization, NGO or GO

Most NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) don’t understand these important aspects of a successful website. Even many governmental organizations (GOs) could improve their sites by following these tips.

1. Everything should be viewed and evaluated with the eyes of the visitor: "What’s in for me" as the main benchmark for a successful website. That is pertaining to the copy and to the content what ever directed to members or non-members: "You will here find ...." is a better and more inviting statement at the home page, than: "We are the main organisation of ......"

2. Most visitors on the Internet are searching for information, so please provide them with that.

3. Concentrate content on themes, because that will give you an easier way to the attractive top search positions at the main search engines and to be included in some directories, (Google, MSN, Ask Jeeves, Yahoo, Open Directory, AltaVista etc.). Site-Build-It is probably the best approach to fulfil that requirement.

4. Make navigation easy and transparent on all pages.

5. Have a search facility, best on all pages. www.FreeFind.com offers a free and useful service. I use it on a number of websites, for example about photos: www.azfotos.com. In addition to the search facility for the visitor it gives you a record of what people have actually been searching for. In that way you can prioritise the stuff available for people on your website when you revise your pages. Google is also offering a search box, but only with the pages they have indexed, and you cannot get any record of the searches.

6. Try to organise the content of your website quite "flat", meaning the visitor does not have to dig too deep into your website to find what he/she is searching after. Most visitors will at best not go further deep than to the 3rd level. This is the same with "spidering" bots of search engines.

7. Have your contact information visible on your home page (first page), including address, phone, fax, email, may be even postal giro, bank account etc. - All to make it more easy for people to find the kind of information they need about your organisation. Avoid to write the email address, use a script to hide it from email harvesters and spammers.

8. Make it easy for visitors to find information on people, their phone numbers and email address and keep them updated. Do the same for departments of the organisation.

9. Keep each resource in only one place and make many links to them around on other pages.

10. Make it visible when you have provided new material at the website.

11. Make your website SIMPLE and quick loading. Avoid heavy graphics, flash movies etc. They will not help your visitors, but only help them click away. If you use graphics, you have to optimise them for the smallest amount of file size. GifBot, http://www.netmechanic.com/GIFBot/optimize-graphic.htm, can do it free and online. Else use one of the picture editing programmes available with the function like ‘publish picture on the web’.

12. Keep your web copy short e.g. use a new paragraph for every 4th line. Make bullet points. files.

13. Manage to have at least your entrance page with a simple domain name, like www.iucn.org or www.ensi.org or www.nature.org.

14. It is not enough to have a good virtual address by having an intuitive domain name on the internet. You also have to be registered properly in search engines and directories. The best way is to have other important sites to link to your site. In some months your site will be picked up by the spiders of search engines. For the directories it is best to do it manually, start with dmoz.org and yahoo.com

15. Make it easy for people to link to you. Provide them with a variety of text links, banners and logos and with simple instructions concerning the html code.

16. Encourage visitors to bookmark your site.

17. Exchange links with other relevant organisations. Include your important key words in your link text you ask them to use.

Implement these 17 tips and in half a year you will have many more visitors and they will be much more happy to come back to your organization’s website.

by: Soren Breiting

Making your Website look Like a Butterfly

A well designed web-site is like a butterfly , it is beautiful and you have an irresistible urge to watch it, check it out see if you can fathom its meaning.. That is your goal in building a website.

You have to come as close as you can to creating that feeling when potential customers look at your first page , you want, you need to have them take a good hard look at your site.

So Sarah , How do I do that ? Well I am going to go over the basic but I also Have free resource you can just pop an email to me with he subject title Web Mastery and will Send you a free E-book that goes into a fair amount of detail on how and what you need to accomplish but the basics are here.

Before you get started you have several tasks and items to procure or obtain, you will need a

· Domain name
· Hosting company
· Either a WYSIWYG editor
· or An all in one package such as bravenet.com
· A course on HTML
· Decide if you are going to build your site your self

Once you have decided on these very basic first issues you then have to decide on how your ste4 will be built as a minin site one or two pages , A content site like this one about ten pages or a full fledged affiliate site with multiple tens of pages.

Then what is your niche? what appeals to your customer base - this is when you need to do lots and lots of research to get it clear in your mind as to what will best suit your market niche.

On Items 1-6 I would recommended that you bite the bullet and really learn how to build a website - that means you buy a product like FrontPage or XsitePro and you use the WYSIWIG editior (what you see is waht you get) If you are going to be in this business then be in it and take the time and invest the energy to learn at the very least how to build a site

IF you select either package you do not need any sort of html editor, it is built in to the e package as far as cost goes XsitePro is approx 249.00 I purchased my copy of front page form surplussoftware.com for 89.00 I have seen it as low as 59.00

I purchased a Book from Barnes and Nobel that came with a great cd tutorial for 24.95 so I could have been building my site for approx 85.00 not bad.

Now you need to buy a domain name and I strongly suggest you buy it from or through your hosting company- if not you will be stuck for 60 days before you can transfer the name to another host company , A really good hosting company is hosting revolution - Their 20..00 per year plan is more than adequate to get you u and to run your first several sites.

The first thing to remember is that your website is a reflection of who you are and your target market. Before you can begin the process of building a website you will need to get a registered domain name and a host company to put your site on the internet. You then have to decide how you will accomplish the sometimes arduous task of constructing the site.

Something you should be aware of because I was not when I started this process. I purchased domain names from one provider who will call Company A, (I shopped for low price) I repeated the process of looking for a low priced alternative for hosting. We will call them company B.

I then tried to transfer my new domain names from company A to company B. Well they tried for several days to accomplish the transfer and they were repeatedly told the domains were locked by myself and I spent several very frustrating days working with Company A to transfer the domains. Then I found out that when you first buy or renew a domain name with a specific registrar the domain has to stay with them for sixty days.

If someone had been able to inform me of that before I shopped for the best price and thinking just how intelligent I was then I would have saved myself over two weeks of working on nothing but the transfer of these names.

That's how I did it the first time My total investment was less than 150.00 and I built my first site with FrontPage and the tutorial.

by: Sarah Anne Thompson

Create a High-Quality Website – Quickly!

If you are a business owner and want to expand your clientele and market-share, and create a place where potential and current customers can go to learn more about your company and easily find contact information, what you need is a website. If you are a small start-up looking to begin an online venture, you need a website. And most likely, you want to achieve your business goals within a reasonable timeframe and for a reasonable price, without skimping on quality. After all, you need more than just visitors to your website. A successful business requires visitors who turn into paying, repeat customers and trust your company. The best way to do this (in addition to offering a quality product or service) is by producing a professional website.

In the past, online businesses were given little choice when it came to creating a high quality website. You could either hire an expensive professional web designer or web design company to make the entire site for you or you could produce the website on your own. The first choice would cost you big bucks – anywhere between $50 and $200 for only one web page! The second option required at least a small knowledge of HTML and design elements as well as a large chunk of your time – something most business owners don’t have.

Luckily the times have changed and web entrepreneurs have a lot more choice when it comes to creating a professional website with or without all the bells and whistles (depending on the type of site you plan on having). In fact, a growing trend in website design is the use of ready-made website templates.

What exactly is a template?

Website templates are basically ready-made web pages that you can download from a template design company. The HTML code is ready to go – all you have to do is choose a template that suits your business and customer base, download it and then edit according to your specifications. Most companies showcase all the available designs on their site for you to preview before downloading, so you’ll know exactly what you are buying beforehand.

A website template is almost like a hybrid creation, perfect for online businesses because it is so flexible. With a template you have the best of both worlds – the professional image and functionality that normally come from a website designed by a hired designer coupled with the affordability and flexibility of a DIY web design project. One such website template company that offers reasonably priced, quality templates is http://templatedogma.com/.

Once you have the basic design in your hands, editing is a cinch. Editing involves adding your own content, logos, pictures, graphics and more to the template to make it unique. Keep in mind that a template will not usually come with ready-made content or other features, as this is something that must be created afterwards. Good website templates can be edited with a variety of popular HTML editors, so make sure you purchase website templates that mention the editing programs with which the templates are compatible. Search for website templates that can be edited using software such as DreamWeaver, FrontPage, GoLive and Photoshop. Most people either already know how to use these simple, user-friendly editors or can learn very quickly.

Another option is to have someone edit the template for you. If you really have no clue when it comes to web design, even with a prepared template, most website template companies also offer a custom design service. This keeps the cost down, which is the main benefit of utilizing a template in the first place, while still letting you enjoy the perk of having someone else do the editing.

The Price is Nice

Arguably, the most popular selling point of website templates is the price. For as low as $20-$40 you can purchase a template that looks just as good or better than a “professionally” designed site costing you much more. Many web designers charge thousands of dollars for website creation that simply isn’t that good. And working with a designer takes a lot more time – hence the hefty price tag. You have to work back and forth over a period of several weeks just to come up with a design that works best for your company. Website templates are much more cost-effective to produce, which is how the prices are kept so low. And of course, you save time as well as money. You can literally have a website up and running – earning you revenue - within a few days or less. Website templates make setting up your online business as easy and efficient as possible.

Flash Websites

What if you require more than a simple, straightforward website? Perhaps you want a flash-based design for your site? No problem – flash website templates can also be purchased for a decent price without sacrificing quality, simplicity and usability. Many template designers offer a wide range of template styles, so don’t fret if you require something a little more complicated than the average website. Website template designers offer the consumer a lot of choice, making it easy to create a website that will work for your business.

In addition, businesses that want to buy a template no other website will use in the future (a unique site) should purchase a copyrighted template. When you opt for a copyrighted template you receive all rights to the site design and can be sure it will not be re-sold to another business. On the other hand, the rights of non-copyrighted templates remain with the template company, and as a result, anyone can buy the same one. If this won’t interfere with your business buy non-copyrighted templates and save some money, but if you want an entirely unique site, spend a little more for a copyrighted site that won’t be found anywhere else on the web.

Whatever you decide to choose, website templates are the future of web design. You can’t go wrong – nothing could be more cost-effective or simple.

by: Andrew Maidla

Preplanning Your Website, The Secret To Success

Before you start to design a website you need to do some checking and planning so that your site will meet both your needs and the needs of your visitors. I've known several people who put together a website, and within a month or two had to do major redesigns and rewriting of the copy. They wound up spending twice as much time as was necessary just because they didn't preplan. I don't know about you, but I don't have that kind of time.

First, you need to decide who your target market is. Will your site be geared toward kids, adults, business executives or some other group? It's essential that you know this so you can design a site that will not only meet the specific needs of that groups, but will look right for them. You wouldn't show secretaries and business meetings on a kid's site any more than you'd show clowns and cartoons on a business site. A site must have the proper look to make your visitors feel welcome. Kids want to have fun, be entertained and have the needs of their high-energy lifestyle met. Business executives will want a site that looks professional, knowledgeable and be a source of information that will help them advance in their company. So knowing the needs and expectations of your clients will let you create a site with the proper layout, graphics, features and services.

by JEFF COLBURN

I'm in the process of redesigning the website design portion of my site for this same reason. I'm going after clients in a very specific market sector, so I'm creating new graphics, website templates and changing the copy on my site to be more focused on this group. The whole process may take a couple of months, but it will be worth it.

You also need to consider how your visitors access the Internet. Are they using high-speed or dial-up connections? This will let you know how graphic intensive your site can be.

I've read a variety of surveys on this topic, and no one puts the number of high-speed users in the United States above 52%. I know people who live in housing tracks of multi-million dollar homes who can get only dial-up because the high-speed companies don't provide service in their area. So don't assume that because your clients have money that they have high-speed connections. If they are located in major cities, they may well have high-speed, but if they're in smaller towns or in the suburbs, they may only be able to get the slower dial-up service.

Try and find out how experienced your clients are with computers and the Internet. The more experienced they are the more complex your site can be. However, I always recommend that a site be designed for the lower end of your user group. So I feel a site should be easy to use and load quickly for people who have dial-up connections and minimal computer experience. By minimal computer experience, I mean don't create a site that requires people to locate and install the latest version of some software program, or make them hunt down a codex.

Next you need to decide what you want the site to do for you. Do you want to sell things on your site, have potential clients call you, sell a subscription to a service you offer? Whatever it is you want the site to do, have a very clear picture in your mind as everything you do will be focused on this. You can take a tip from scriptwriters. Every script must be able to be expressed in a Log Line, a one-sentence description that explains the entire script. If you can't do this with your site, then you don't have a clear enough picture of what you want from your site. When you write out your Log Line don't cheat by making a sentence that's a page long. Just one, short sentence.

Another thing to consider is if you will be offering a service to your visitors that is time consuming for you. If this is the case you should try to find a way to automate it to make things easier for you.

On my site, I have forms that people fill out to send me information about their upcoming events. I have these forms set up so the information is in the sequence I want, and a format that makes it easy for me to add them to my site. For more complex items, you may want to have information go directly to a database. The only problem with using a database is that they must be done just right in order to work properly. If you have this outsourced, it could easily add $10,000 to $20,000 to the cost of your website creation, even for the simplest database.

If you have articles on your site that you want people to use, set up an autoresponder for each article. Then, if someone wants the article they click on a link and the article is automatically sent to them. This saves you the time and hassle of sending out the articles one at a time whenever someone wants one.

Now that you have all of this information, break out the paper and pencil. What you need to do is design the layout of your site. Some website design programs, like Adobe GoLive, let you design the layout on your computer, but I prefer to do at least the first draft on paper. As you decide where each page will go, and what other pages it will be connected to, remember all the information about your users. Be sure everything is easy to find, and don't make them drill too deep into your site to find things. I strongly recommend that you design your site so that any page can be reached with no more than three clicks. Making a user do more work than this will result in a lot of lost clients. Always make everything as easy as possible for the user, even at your own expense.

I know that doing all of this preplanning is tedious, especially when you're itching to start designing your site, but it's worth it. I hate wasting my time by going back and redesigning a site and redoing links because I started putting together a site without having all the pertinent facts. In the long run, this information will let you create a better site that will meet your needs, and the needs of your clients. This makes everyone happy and when everyone's happy your website will be a success.

Help Your Company Soar With Professional and Dynamic Web Site

In today's cyber era, it is mandatory to have a professional website. Gone are the days when companies could choose not to make a website portal of their company. In recent times a customized official website is as important as registering your company. From large multi national giants to small time firms, every company has a registered official website.

Now, there are lots of factors that need to be acknowledged for a classic web site. Some of them are as follows:

The real motive for having a website

Are you a successful business firm? Or are you an independent businessman? Are you one of those college enthusiasts wanting a website to show off all your family photos? Now if you are part of a hardcore company, then the website must be official, informative and client-friendly. And in the case of informal fun websites there is no need not follow rigid rules and dictums.

Company symbol

If you are designing a website for your company, then it may have a company logo or emblem that marks your company. That emblem should be necessarily included in the official web portal. If you are handing the work to some web design company then see to it that all necessary contents and photographs are given to them beforehand. Even the choosing of a domain name can be in relation to the company logo.

The Number of WebPages

All the websites have a main home page, a contact us page and several link pages, it is for you to decide how many pages your company site should have in total. It is vital that your visitors get a fair idea of your firm and the business you conduct. For example if your company involves extensive market research, then a feed back column is essential.

Similar web sites

You may want to design a contemporary and dynamic website for your company, and for this purpose you may need to look at all the other competitive websites. A professional ecommerce solution group may need these types of vital pointers as it helps them understand your needs and demands so that they can work on a pattern that suits your unique taste. The selection of colors and shades that match with your ideas and your company may help the professional web design group to create an attractive and vibrant website, and in turn gives you the virtual advantage of having superior ecommerce packages.

To build a successful ecommerce web site design, you need a creative group that understands your company like the back of their hand, for developing an interactive, practical and professional web solution, it calls for great skill, efficient and attentive designers who are expert in creating classic web pages that boost your company sales and profits. These experts listen to all your ideas and manage to create a website that is highly professional yet interactive with the visitors. A web design company can literally make or break your business and success rates.

by Anne Catherine

Choosing Page Names For Your Web Site

In this article I would like to comment how to choose web site page names to achieve best possible visitor's experience and search engine ranking.

Firstly one needs to understand the difference between static and dynamic URLs.

Dynamic Pages

Dynamic website page names are used to send variables to a script file in order to perform a task that usually generates dynamic results. Dynamic URLs always contain question mark that separates file name from sent variables. Example name "do.php?a=1&b=2" would pass variable a=2 and b=2 to "do.php" script file that generates some response.

Such technology is very useful for web designers but it down performs in search engine listings. Search engines prefer static URLs that are less likely to change over time.

Static Pages

To explain static page naming we are going to use two example URLs: "about.htm" and "about.php".

Classic example of a static page name consists of name and extension. Page name extension indicates technology ("htm" says that page uses HTML technology) or a programming language ("php" extension indicates that page was generated using PHP server side scripting) used.

Many consider that pages with extension other than "htm" or "html" are worth more than those with server side scripting language indicators (like PHP, ASP and others).

If you will try to search for "search engine optimization" in Google and look at domain names of first 20 web sites, you will notice that URLs with many extensions are present. This indicates that search engines don't really care about extension as long as the page represents useful information for the visitor.

Friendly URLs

Friendly URLs are static page names with no extension at all. Friendly page names are very useful to the user as they are easy to remember (E.g. help, shop, contact …). Page name extension that refers to scripting language/technology used in the page. Extension-less construction protects page names from becoming obsolete if different web technology is going to be used to generate / present them in the future. Such names can be achieved only using URL rewriting technology.

URL rewriting

Rewrite engine is a special service on the server that modifies URLs before they are processed by scripting language. It is used to convert dynamic page names to static ones:

Dynamic page:

index.php?page=news&item=34

Can be changed to static page:

news/34.html

Or simply

news/34

Rewrite engine is very helpful to maintain static page names for complex database driven websites, where parameters have to be sent to generate results. Dynamic pages are usually not cached by web browsers so by using rewrite technology to generate static pages one increases overall web site performance.

Apache web servers have built in component called "mod_rewrite" which allows setting up rewrite engine by uploading RegExp (Regular Expression) commands to ".htaccess" file. For those who use Windows IIS web servers - Free IconicIsapiRewrite plug-in can be installed to achieve URL rewriting.

by LINAS BARI

Web Site Design & Development

Do you crave for a rock solid web presence to promote your business aspirations? Have you ever realized what a quality web site can do for you? Well, designing a good website can do wonders for your company and you can reap the profits after that.

There are many web development and web site design companies that will convert your dreams into reality. These specialized companies offer a variety of solutions that are best suited to organizations across the world. In addition, these companies can help you to increase your market share and gain confidence and trust into this fierce growing market. You can also enjoy satisfying your clients to the best and gain monetary benefits in return.

Being a part of a quality web designing & development company, you can promote values of your business and can attract customers than better. Also, you will be able to find numerous competitors over the internet and you can match your pace with them. Therefore, a quality web design & development can be a true bless for a company striving to make its mark in this growing world.

Quality of a good web site design & development company A good web site design company can relish your dreams and you can achieve your dreams conveniently. A good web site design company before making a web site go through a series of activities to ensure your requirements and help you to realize what is needed and how the desired can be given to your ultimate customers. They will make sure that your website reflects a unique visual appeal, are cross-browser compatible, and search engine friendly.

A good web site design company possesses skilled professionals who hold a command on various techniques and software to construct a user friendly website conveniently. Also, you can add your creativity into the making of the website by providing your inputs in it. You can give you suggestions and ideas for the visualization and see what these professionals can do foe your requirements.

A good website design company also makes sure that your websites looks flexible, interoperable, and can retain its attraction for a long period of time. Websites are constructed in such a way that it provides the best benefits of the internet to the fullest and your company gets the maximum exposure to establish itself with its ultimate users. In short, a web design & development services have helped global organizations reap the benefits available on the Internet.

by EDITOR 123

Development of the Design

Marketing tends to be seen as a creative industry, which includes advertising, distribution and selling. It is also concerned with anticipating the customers' future needs and wants, often through market research.

When it comes to advertising, the internet is the most preferred and the most powerful tool in marketing. The internet is considered to be an international market that offers a wide range of audiences locally and abroad.

The key success in marketing on the internet is the company’s website or web page. A website or webpage is where all the information and business transactions of a company are stored. But aside from that, a website must also be capable on attracting the right customers and clients. Website must be able attractive and user friendly, which is why internet marketing firms such as the OPTIMIND Technology Solutions’ Web development Singapore and Web design Singapore are here.

The OPTIMIND Technology Solutions is a company firm that specializes on internet marketing that offers clients Professional and User-friendly Web Design, Search Engine Optimization, Free .com, .org or .net domain name, Free website maintenance and Free web hosting with its Web development Singapore and Web design Singapore teams.

Web design Singapore team handles the website’s designs and concept. Web design Singapore team first analyzes the company’s profile, on what kind of company it is, or what the company handles. The Web design Singapore team then creates or designs an appropriate design of the website that can surely attract its target audience.

Web Web development Singapore team handles the website’s programming and system that can be very a helpful way on minimizing a company’s business transactions. Web development Singapore team first makes a feasibility study of the way a company does its business transactions. Then after much observation and research, the Web development Singapore team will then develop a web system that can surely make the business transactions more easily for the client and for the company.

With the combined talents of Web development Singapore and Web design Singapore teams, a website can become more than an advertisement but it can also become a stand alone company that can handle the day to day business transactions.

For more information about the Web development Singapore and Web design Singapore teams of OPTIMIND Technology Solutions, then visit www.myoptimind.com.

by CHRISTINE LAYUG