WebDesignQuest.com

To flash, or not to flash? That is the question. Weather it is better to meet the user requirements for entertainment or to take arms against overly flashy sites. Flash is one of the most commonly used applications, however lets review. It has been used since the 90’s, evolving into what is now used in many bundle programs. Most web sites today use flash in one way or another.

When you open a site you are most likely to see some kind of flash animation on the site. Some of these animations can be annoying, while others informational and interesting. The common uses for flash applications are:

•  Small “eye candy” animations
• Banner Advertising
•  Corporate presentations
• CD business cards
• Demos and tutorials for web and CD applications

When using flash you can intertwine:

• Animation
• video,
•  sound
• music
•  voice over’s
•  And connect to a database for personalized interactivity or calculations.

Some benefits of flash pieces are that flash be designed for both CD and web applications, this allows for the piece to be used for direct mail and online. If you decided that your site was going to be a full flash site it would be more streamlined, and the look of the site would be more cohesive. It is harder to emulate the same look and feel/ interface using flash and HTML.

However, not everyone has the flash application and so some users may be required to download this application or they could have the wrong version of flash. Sometimes to much flash and music can be distracting and will make the site load slow when the flash is streaming. Also, the search engines won’t be able to properly read a flash intro and unless you have a link to the home page on this flash peice the search engine won’t be able to rate your site.  There are also a lot of sites with flash intro’s that have no purpose, Just because you CAN do it doesn’t mean you SHOULD do it!

You can get templates sites for next to nothing, even in some cases you can get them for free! Sounds like a great oportunity right? To have a pre-built web site with all the bells and whistles on it for a cheap price, but is it really worth it? Template site are perfect for anyone who needs or wants a site available quickly or does not have the desire or patience to learn how to use web design software.

 Downsides:

1.   If you don’t have the patience to learn the ins and outs of desing, then you probably don’t have the patients to run a web based business.
2. Free templates can cause significant design flaws and can end up causing significant damage to your web business image.
3. If using a fee web page template, your files are often distrubuted freely around the internet and is used by thousands of web sites.

Problems with SEO:

1. Many templates are only optimized for one or 2 web browsers (the most popular is Microsoft Explorer), this means that a user that is not using the certain browser that the template site is not optimized for they most likely will not be able to access your site. 

How to protect yourself if you do use a template:

1. Modify any CSS fukes that are included and rename or replace any image files.
2. Test the template across a number of popular browsers ( This is a very effect and fast way to test a template site)

I suggest not setting up and using a template site, instead use a template site for inspiration to build your own site. Use templates for inspiration instead than the solution. Some good inspirational template sites are www.opendesign.org or www.oswdshots.org . If you want a website up and running quickly and don’t mind your site looking similar to other sites, then a template site could be for you. On the other hand, if you don’t make changes to the template file and test it in various Web browsers then you should forget about using them altogether. If your web site is vital to your business, then you should hire a web designer to create a personal, professional, and unique site.

In the short and sweet definition of PHP it is a server sided script writing language usually written in HTML. It is a widely-used general purpose scripting language. Of course it is not like ordinary HTML language, PHP script is especially suited for web development and can be put into HTML.  PHP is now officially known as “PHP: HyperText Preprocessor”.

The long story is that PHP orginally derived from Personal Home Page tools, which is now known as PHP:HyperText Preprocessor.  It was created as an alternative to Microsofts Active Server Page (ASP) technology. PHP and ASP both are scripts that can be embedded into a web page with HTML. Before it can be viewed by a user, the web servers “calls” PHP to interpret and perform specific operations for the PHP script.PHP code can query databases, create images, read and write other files and of course talk to remote servers. The possibilites are endless.

PHP can support environments such as Apace and MySQL, this futhers its popularity. however, it is primarily used in Linux web servers.  It can also work in other environments and is supported by an extensive list of databases and web-servers.  PHP popularity has risen due to the different approaches we are taking now to publish sites (Web-publishing).

If you are curious as to how much money you are going to have to dish out for this specific language, the answer is none. PHP is free and offered under an open source license.  It is a great script for use, and if you can I would suggest trying it out.

When looking for a hosting company, there are several different types of hosting that you can choose (as I mentioned in “What is Web Hosting?”). Your choice should be based on how you plan on using the site, how much money you want/can spend, and how much time you want/can spend maintaining the servers. If  you consider these three things, you can find a hosting company that will work for and with you to make your site the best possible.

ISP 

First, you must have and Internet Service Provider (ISP) to use the Internet with you site. ISPs are a small amount of free web space to create web pages quickly and easily.  An ISP site is perfect for people who want a small site with low traffic. These sites are normally personal sites,  or sites that are put up for testing and preparation of another site. ISPs normally have rate restrictions and most don’t offer a lot of features with their web space.

Free Web Hosting 

 If you have and ISP that doesn’t offer web space, then I suggest that you consider free web hosting. There are many free hosting providers who can offer additional services. Free web hosting is normally supported by advertising on the site.  This type of hosting is beneficial for personal sites as well as small business sites, because they are supported by advertising. I do not suggest using free hosting if you are serious about conducting business on your site. You may however utilize a free hosting service for running test and preparations on pages.

Standard Paid Hosting 

Standard Paid hosting, need I say more? Usually you will pay a monthly fee for a space and services on providers site. Payments can range from $1-2 to several thousands of dollars, normally though it depends on what type of services you will require. This is a great option for most web-based business.

Domain Hosting 

If your business is small and you don’t have a lot of money to spend on web hosting, I suggest taking the route of Domain Hosting. It can be hard to understand at times, but instead of paying for a web space you would pay for your domain. Then you can have you site hosted wherever you would like. Domain hosting is also known as URL redirection. You can user your ISP or free hosting service and can still accrue the benefits of having a personal web site URL.

Colocation 

A great option for small to medium sized business’s that want to be able to control their own hosting company would be Colocation. The server would be put in a machine room of a larger company and can be connected to their high-speed Internet connection. There are two types of colocation: Managed and Unmanaged. Managed Colocation is like having an IT department in your company, even if the company is small.

Direct Internet Access 

If you company has a large database of information or is interested in  controlling every aspect of their web and Internet access should consider Direct Internet Access. This allows you to host your site yourself. However you are required to have:

1. Web Server Computer
2. Software
3. High-Speed Internet with a dedicated IP address

This options offers most control over a web server. Just be sure to contact you ISP before setting up a direct connection on a DSL or Consumer ISP connection. Direct Internet Access does also require that you spend a lot of time maintaining and updating your information and web site yourself. If you do not have a lot of time to spend, I do not recommend this specific type of hosting.

Each company has different ideas on how they want to use their site. When you do decide what you want your site to do, you then must decide how much money and time you want to spend on your web hosting. I hope that this will aid you in making your decision on what type of hosting would be beneficial to you.

For those who decide to build a web site, many do not understand what web hosting is. An easy explanation that I give is that a web host is a service provider, almost like a cell phone provider. If you don’t have a cell phone provider (like AT&T or T-Mobile) then you can not make or receive calls. This is the same for a web site, if you do not have a web host you can not put your site on the Internet. But web hosting is a little more than just a service provider. A server is connected to the Internet at all times, and can hold a lot of information on different sites.

These servers are given Internet Protocol (IP) numbers so that they can be found by other servers or search engines. These servers hold all of your websites information weather it is an HTML file, graphic files, Cascading Style Sheets (CCS) or Javascripts.  There are several different types of Web Hosting out there:

• Free Web Hosting Services - Free (sometimes) is advertisement supported web hosting and is often more limited when compared to paid hosting
• Shared Web Hosting Service - Where a web site is placed on a server with many other web sites (often thousands) a shared web site may be hosted by a reseller
• Reseller Web Hosting - Allows the client to become a web host themselves, resellers could functions (for individual domains) under a few of the listed types of hostings
• Virtual Dedicated Server - Divides a server into virtual servers, where users can feel like there own dedicated server, however they are really sharing a server with many different web sites
• Dedicated Hosting Service - User get his/her own web server and get full control over it, this doesn’t mean that they own the server (however in some cases they can). The owners will have full administration to the box, and are in control over their own maintenance and security.
• Managed Hosting Service - The user gets his/her own server, but they are not allowed full access to it. This is to ensure the best quality service possible. Typically, they do not own the server it is just leased out to them.
• Colocation Web Hosting Service - Similar to dedicated web hosting service, but the client owns the server. The hosting company provides the space for the server as well as the Internet access, and power for the server. The client would have to have their own personal administrator come to update or make any changes on the server. This is the most powerful and expensive hosting.
• Clustered Hosting - Has multiple servers hosting the same content for better resource content.

There a few things that you should consider when trying to figure out what type or hosting you are interested in. Price and capability by your administrators is one of the top considerations.  Three more things to consider are:

1. Database Server Software
2. Scripting Software
3. Operating System

When considering all of the aspects reviewed above, you can better choose which company you want. You could also search the Internet to find active web hosting message boards that may provide more feed back on what type of web hosting you may need. However you decide on you web hosting company and the type of hosting you may need, I hope that this information provided will help guide and inform you to find the correct hosting for your site.