Since that time life has changed dramatically, but there were a few changes before getting to where we are today. Some of the first WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) programs that were better but still difficult to manage and create websites that looked the same on all monitors, operating systems and web browsers.

A major breakthrough took place in the mid 2000’s that would change everything, XSite Pro went on the market. It was introduced as a new generation of web design software programs specifically built for speed and functionality. It was targeted to Internet Marketers and Small and Home based businesses. Being an “early adopter” I purchased my first copy. I was creating multiple websites within minutes. I was so impressed with it that I took one of my early web sites and re-created it in XSP so that i could update it and add new functionality easily. What took me weeks to do I was now doing in a few hours, with, I might add professional results.

The early version of XSite Pro was light years ahead of the competition. It changed the approach to creating websites to something the average person could understand. You no longer needed to be a certidfied HTML programmer to get professional results. Making changes and adding functions could be accomplished with a few clicks and viewed immediately on your desktop before publishing. I have to say I was totally hooked on XSP.

A few years ago the developers at XSite Pro announced a completely new version of their award winning program. Since I had such great results with the first version of XSP I wanted to see what XSP 2 was all about. The features list was impressive. Creating payment acceptance from within the program was a new and attractive feature. Creating and displaying RSS feeds was another function as well as many more that are really too numerous to go into here.

The best part of XSite Pro 2 is that you still don’t need to understand one line of code or script to get a fully functioning website up and running within hours, not weeks or months. This is a distinct advantage when you are trying to promote affiliate products, or your own product. There is also payment functionality built into XSP 2 for accepting payments on your website.

I couldn’t enumerate all of the features of XSP in this article, so I’ve put a direct link below to the features page at XSite Pro. One feature that deserves mention is the cost, XSP 2 won’t cost you a small fortune to buy. In fact it’s far less than most of the web design software available today. You won’t need to add additional plugin functionality, it’s already there. There are also dozens of professionally designed templates to use with one-click implementation.

Do yourself a big favor and just check out the XSP 2 features page link below. You’ll be happy that you did.

Check out he features page for XSite Pro 2 to see a complete listing of all of the XSP 2 features. Already sold? Go directly to the XSP 2 purchase page. I think that you will be impressed.

You Will Look Like A Professional Website designer With XSite Pro is a post from: fountain graphics

You Will Look Like A Professional Website designer With XSite Pro is from fountain graphics

. Net pages are considered the building blocks for application development and are called web forms. All of these web forms will end with.aspx which contains static HTML info as well as user controls and web controls. The programmer can also insert ASP, JSP or PHP within the dynamic code.

A lot of the directories and controls can be completely customized and these areas include BIN, APP_browsers, APP_WebReferences, APP-code, APP_GlobalResources, APP_data and APP_Themes. There are many other different file extensions that can be incorporated into your ASP. NET applications that include asax, edmz, ascx, svc, ashx, skin, asmx, sitemap, axd, resx, browser, master, config, dbml and cs/vb.

The main reason that the performance of your application is improved is because all of the server codes are compiled into a DLL file when the page is requested.

Web developers find ASP. NET much easier to use then other frameworks as it uses a lot of functions that is found in Windows. Much of the controls and user interface is the same. Unlike previous frameworks ASP. NET is positive for even driven GUI and is not as positive for web scripting events.

This type of framework makes it very easy for those that use Windows to create web development as much of the development for Windows and the web are the same. Much of the controls that can be used on the web pages are the same as those for the Windows user interface.

Author is a developer and trainer with Macresource Computer Training, a UK IT training company offering ASP.NET training courses in London and throughout the UK.

ASP.NET Web Development: A Great Improvement On The Older Types Of Framework is a post from: fountain graphics

ASP.NET Web Development: A Great Improvement On The Older Types Of Framework is from fountain graphics

Flawed and hard to use for development, PHPs newer version does not have the language support that come with older versions. As for developing, the server you use and the server it is sent to are probably not compatible.

PHP does have its defects. One such defect is that the newer version, version 6, does not support as many languages as version 3. Designing in PHP is not easy. You are designing on a server that you cannot control and that normally will not support your project depending on the server that is used.

It is not a rule but develop on a Linux. The server on your computer is similar what the server is like that your program will be run on. Most localhosts are Windows based. When you put your program or website on the internet, it runs on a Linux host. That may not sound like a big deal, but it is. Servers that are Windows based are not case sensitive like Linux based servers. When you set up your site on a local host and your link is http://name.com/folderName/ it may look great. You check to make sure it works and it does. So, you deploy it to the webserver and guess what? It does not work. You will get the wonderful page not found message even if it does exist.

Linux systems are more stable.

If you just cannot tear yourself away from Windows, try to get the development environment as close to Linux as possible.

SVN and CVS are basically two sides of the same coin. SVN and CVS save your work on a system allowing you access to prior versions if necessary. You are going to need access to this. Some would say that SVN is only needed when several people are working on the same project. Basically, it gives all of them access to the file simultaneously. The SVN will deal with any conflicts that arise by combining all the work together when it can. There are those that SVN is the way to go even if you are working solo. If you ever need to go back to a prior version of a project and restore the project to a particular point, you can.

Hopefully you can tell just how relevant this information is developing as well as PHP. It is suggested that to do these two things in the order listed when getting started in developing your application that will be in a structured and controlled environment.

Visit the Macresource Computer Training website for PHP and MySQL training courses in London or call 0800 1950 502.

PHP Web Development Is A Far Cry From Its Original Inception is a post from: fountain graphics

PHP Web Development Is A Far Cry From Its Original Inception is from fountain graphics

Microsoft has developed ASP. NET and has provided five different starter kits that include portal starter kit, time tracker starter kit, reports starter kit, community starter kits and commerce starter kits. You can use these kits time and again to create new web pages and applications. All of the code in the kits can be changed and developed for your individual site.

The development of ASP. NET has made creating sites, pages and applications for the web much easier as it can save a lot of time. Using the starter kits helps you get started even faster as you do not have to create your own code. Much of the problems you will encounter have already been solved in the starter kits.

You can easily gain access of these starter kits by downloading them from the Microsoft website. The available kits provide a community website, sample reports, portal site and time tracking applications. The source code is complete and you can chose what type of data storage you want to use as well as which version of the kit you want, the Basic, C# or J#.

Some of the feature sin the commerce starter kit include a BDB component, shopping car, three tier architecture form, forms authentication and caching. This kit will create a fictitious commerce store and you can then change the code to create your own commerce site. It is a great way to learn ASP. NET development.

The reports kit contains eight different types of applications and the time tracker kit will provide you with time and billing applications.

Author is a developer and trainer with Macresource Computer Training, an independent computer training company offering ASP.NET Classes at their central London training centre.

Benefits Of Using Starter Kits For ASP Dot NET Web Development is a post from: fountain graphics

Benefits Of Using Starter Kits For ASP Dot NET Web Development is from fountain graphics

Groups of related elements within the HTML page are placed within the various DIVs. For example, there might be a DIV containing a logo or banner, another containing navigation links, another containing the main content of the page, and so on. Another common practice is to place all DIVs inside an outer or wrapper DIV which acts as the overall container for the page content. Key attributes such as width and alignment can then be applied to this wrapper.

Each of the main DIVs being used for page layout will normally be given a unique ID; for example, div ‘id=”leftCol”‘. IDs can only occur once within an HTML page and can therefore be referred to in the CSS code; for example ‘#leftCol…’. Some subordinate DIVs (i.e. those contained within the main DIVs) will share attributes with several other DIVs on the page. These will be defined as a class in both the HTML page; e.g. ‘div class=imageLeft’ and in the CSS style sheet; e.g. ‘.imageLeft…’.

You will generally set the overall width you want your page content to occupy by setting the width of the outer wrapper DIV which contains the entire page. The width that you choose will depend on the typical monitor resolution used by your anticipated audience. The lowest common denominator is probably 800 x 600 pixels but many designers are now assuming 1024 x 768. Bear in mind that these pixel dimensions represent the entire screen. The actual web content will occupy only some of this. For this reason, designers usually use a width of 760 pixels when targeting the smaller resolution and 950 pixels when targeting the larger.

You can specify the dimensions of your content in two ways in CSS: using a fixed measurement or using percentages. Using pixels to specify the width you want your content to occupy offers you more control over your design but it can be inconvenient for visitors to your website. If their monitors are larger than your specified width, there will be a lot of wasted space. Those whose monitors are not as wide as your content will have to constantly scroll left and right to read your pages and who can blame them if they lose patience and go elsewhere. Percentage-based design is often referred to as liquid in that the content will simply readjust to fill as much of the available space as you specify.

Author is a developer and trainer with Macresource Computer Training, an independent computer training company offering ASP.NET Classes at their central London training centre.

The Importance of the DIV Element In CSS Page Layout is a post from: fountain graphics

The Importance of the DIV Element In CSS Page Layout is from fountain graphics

If you know someone that has just finished a technical school or a computer school, one thing that a lot of these people say is they feel that they were missing out on some training that they should have had. In fact, in the past a lot of institutes didn’t even offer classes for this explicit training.

If the term JavaScript sounds foreign to you, you may not be extremely computer savvy. This term actually refers to a client based language that literally embeds itself into our web browsers. Your web browser are programs such as Internet Explorer and Firefox.

The first time this script was used was in 1995. So, inadvertently it is actually not that old when you come to think about it. When it first hit the computer scene in 1995 it was named LiveScript.

The purpose of this script is to make websites come to life, in front of our eyes. Anyone that has seen an HTML code for something knows that the code itself is boring, JavaScript is what allows the attributes to come out of that code that you end up seeing on the screen.

JavaScript is actually what unlocks all the exciting features that you can view on modern day web pages. This script allows an immense amount of benefits to be able to take place such as performing calculations, allowing users to have an interactive website, and enabling awesome visual effects.

Thinking back about a time when this script was not invented yet is like falling into a deep technological hole. It is astounding how far technology has exceeded everyone’s expectations in such a short time frame.

One great attribute about this script is it works in real time. So, when you load a site to view on your computer all of the effects and things of that nature will work correctly in your time of viewing. Thus, increasing customer satisfaction and eliminating viewing delays.

JavaScript Training is actually a great source of training to obtain. With everyone turning all of their attention to the internet for things that they made be in need of, you will be in a high demand job where layoffs become a thing of the past.

The author is a trainer and developer with Macresource Computer Training, a UK IT training company offering JavaScript Classes at their central London training centre.

JavaScript Training Preparing Our Youth For The Future is a post from: fountain graphics

JavaScript Training Preparing Our Youth For The Future is from fountain graphics

When it comes to your company you’re going to find that your website is very important. Most importantly you need to make sure that the website is of high quality. This means keeping up with the competition and making sure that you have a similar easy to use layout on your site. Most cellular phone companies have done this actually, and you can see how similar and easy to use all webpages of this nature actually are.

If the time comes that you need to change your web page to improve you should check out the competition to see what they are doing on their web pages so you can be more competitive. After doing so you may find that you need to educate yourself more on web design or even though expensive, hire an outside company to do it for you since in the end it will be worth the expense .

Not only do you need to make sure you are developing the best website, you also need to make sure that you are using up to date development methods. Every few months a new version of CSS is released, meaning that you should incorporate the changes into your site. Why should you do it? Because as soon as a new type of code or software is released, the development team stops making updates for the old version, meaning certain security holes may not be patched. Hackers love to take advantage of this, and that’s why you need to make sure that your website is completely secure.

Another fact is that today Browser compatibility is a cause for concern due to the numerous ones being used today. You will find that internet explorer and Netscape are far from the only browsers these days. Others such as Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Safari and numerous others are out there. The codes are read differently by them all so they need adjustment for the different browsers or the results will be a disaster

What about mobile browsers? More and more people today are connecting from hotspots using their cellular phones, iPods, and even portable gaming systems. You want your website to be viewable on these systems, so you’ll want to configure them in such a way that they’ll be viewable on lower resolutions, and invest in a .mobi domain so mobile users can be directed to the mobile website.

These are a few things that you can do to make your website a little friendlier to the general public. Of course the number of little tweaks you can make here and there are virtually infinite, so you’ll want to play around and experiment. With enough work you’ll surely be able to find the website configuration that works best for both you as well as your customers.

Importance Of High Quality And Security In A Website is a post from: fountain graphics

Importance Of High Quality And Security In A Website is from fountain graphics

Websites are evolving in the sense that they are becoming more attractive than ever before. Many visitors see websites as a work of art and these good designs are greatly helping these webmasters meet their personal objectives in regards to the site. A lot of people create these websites just to get noticed and simply enjoy sharing new information to their target audience and that is why so many high quality websites are around.

Websites for business need a more professional and serious design, though. However, that does not mean that all professional looking sites are also high quality ones and there are even business owners who don’t see the value of a good website or how it can help a business to grow. The following four reasons will clearly show why every business should put a focus on improving the quality of their website in regards to its functionality and design.

Leaves Behind a Good First Impression

There is a huge difference in reaction between a visitor that checks out a standard website and a visitor that checks out a really nice website. It could be a facial reaction or possibly an exciting reaction that encourages the visitor to check out more areas of the site and read the finer details. Making that first impression is just as important as looking good for your next meeting because you want to generate a good first impression with the people that you are entertaining. With a high quality website, it is your business that is represented here.

Visitors are Encouraged to Come Back

A first impression has more benefits than you would at first think, because it will in the long run increase the chances of visitors coming back again and that is a great way of increasing the daily traffic to your website. All of the commonly used internet browsers have a bookmark feature and if the website does leave a good first impression, then the visitor will also most likely use that function within a few seconds so that they don’t lose the site. This gives you a valuable chance to frequently update your site and keeping visitors interested in new content will only ensure that they keep coming back.

Gaining a Competitive Advantage

Always keep in mind to check on how your competition is doing in regards to their websites, because there will always be other websites online that also are of a high quality. Some of the other websites also are always refining and adding contents and designs. If you can gain the competitive edge over the other websites, then your site will be the more popular one and you may even find your site being ranked higher which is one of the best ways to attract new traffic to your website.

Functions Independently

Making high quality websites takes a lot effort and dedication, but once the bulk of the work is all finished and you are satisfied with the results, the website pretty much functions on its own and continues to impress new visitors. As a webmaster, all you need to do is make sure that it is updated so it never loses its appeal.

It is very important to set up a high quality website even if you see that your business is doing well. Visitors will always judge your business online by how your website is designed. From there they can take a closer look once they are convinced with the design.

High Quality Websites Are Important For Businesses is a post from: fountain graphics

High Quality Websites Are Important For Businesses is from fountain graphics

One of the easiest ways to understand Ajax is to get an idea of what you can achieve with it, what it can do for your web development. Principally, Ajax can help you develop web pages and websites that function and respond like desktop applications. The Ajax technology achieves this by working away in the background, grabbing data from a server and then displaying it as it’s needed. As internet access speeds continue to increase, there will come a time when the user will not be able to perceive any difference between the performance of a web application and that of regular desktop software.

If you are an experienced web developer but have not started to delve into the world of Ajax, now is a good time to seriously consider finding some form of Ajax training.

The Ajax technology offers developers a new way of interacting with a server. With classic server-side pages, the user normally has to submit information via a form and then wait for the page to reload and display a set of search results. With Ajax, interaction with the server can take place in a much more subtle manner, often without a form having to be submitted or the page having to reload.

The name Ajax is an acronym for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML and Ajax involves the use of several web technologies. First of all, we have HTML and CSS, the raw material of which web pages are constructed. HTML defines the structure of the page content while CSS controls the layout and formatting of those elements. Next, we have XML data sources residing on a server. XML is a neutral standard for describing and storing information. Then there is JavaScript, the main scripting language used to add interactivity to web pages, which is used to fetch data from XML sources and use it to update the web page.

The XMLHttpRequest object plays a key role in the way that JavaScript implements Ajax. It is used to send requests to the server without the need of refreshing the page. The key feature of this process is that it is asynchronous. This means that when a request is made for data from the server, the browser doesn’t need to wait for the data to come back. Therefore the page continues to function and when the data has been retrieved, the necessary parts of the page are updated.

If you are a web developer looking to expand you skill-set, look no further than Ajax. Ajax training will definitely enable you to take your web development expertise to a new level.

Take Your Web Development To The Next Level With Ajax Training is a post from: fountain graphics

Take Your Web Development To The Next Level With Ajax Training is from fountain graphics

Graphics are a key component in any website and are extremely important in communicating key messages to website visitors. Since a web page consists entirely of textual markup, images cannot be embedded in a web page. Rather a reference to the image is placed in the markup and the visitor’s browser uses this reference to display the correct image. Adobe Dreamweaver offers three basic methods of adding images to a web page. The standard method is to use the menu command: Insert – Image or to click on the equivalent icon from the Insert Panel. However, Dreamweaver offers two convenient alternatives: firstly, the Files Panel and, secondly, the Assets Panel.

The Files Panel lists all of the files and folders within the site in a manner not dissimilar to Windows Explorer or the Macintosh Finder. If you know the name of the image you want to add to the page, you can simply drag it from the Files Panel directly onto your page.

The Assets Panel offers access to several different categories of web asset and provides a list of elements available not only in the current site but also in other sites defined on your computer. The elements it keeps track of include images, colours and Flash movies. To work with image assets, simply activate the Assets Panel (using the menu command Windows – Assets) then click on the Image category. As you highlight each image, a thumbnail preview is displayed at the top of the Assets Panel. To insert an image, either drag the image onto the page or highlight the image and click the Insert button.

There will be times when you want to insert images via the Assets Panel which are not within the local root folder of the site that you are currently working on. Dreamweaver has a useful way of ensuring that you don’t end up with broken images on your page. When defining your site, Dreamweaver includes the option of specifying a “Default Images Folder”. The folder you specify here will be used by Dreamweaver to ensure that all images you add to your pages are inside the local root folder.

Let’s take a simple example. Say you use the Assets Panel to add an image to one of your web pages but that the physical location of the image is in different site. No problem! Dreamweaver will automatically copy the image into the default images folder and then create a reference to this local version of the image on the current page.

Working With Graphics Via The Assets Panel In Adobe Dreamweaver is a post from: fountain graphics

Working With Graphics Via The Assets Panel In Adobe Dreamweaver is from fountain graphics