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"The work completed
was excellent! I.T. Web Experts was very
responsive to our needs and got the job
done! It was also easy to go over tweaks
and changes as we went along. Thanks sooooo
much. We really love what you have done
for us! Our users are impressed with our
site as well, we are receiving feedback
almost daily saying what a great site we
have!" |
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Debra
Aldred
Treasurer, United Fan Con Inc. |
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What Technologies Do I Need for My Website? |
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When embarking upon your web project it will be important that you know something about what web technologies are appropriate for your website. There are quite a few, so we will break down the technologies here and what they do.
HTML – Starting with the basics, all websites use HTML. HTML is what web browsers read to display your website. HTML includes tags like head, table, font, etc. to render your website.
Streaming Videos – Streaming video can now be easily used on your website by encoding Flash streaming video. This technology is used on websites like YouTube, AOL Movies, and many other video sharing websites.
Flash Animation – Flash animation can add a nice touch to your website when used properly. We never recommend building your entire website in Flash because it is difficult if not impossible to get high search engine rankings that way. Flash is a technology developed by Macromedia now owned by Adobe which enables animation to be stored in very small files sizes.
Databases – A database will need to be used if you plan on storing data and then later being able to filter it, sort it, or retrieve it. All E-commerce shopping carts use databases, as well as any application in which you maintain your account online, such as bulletin boards, social networking, and calendars.
MySQL – Probably the most popular database format being used right now. It can be used along with PHP to program database applications.
AJAX – AJAX stands for asynchronous javascript and xml. This is one of the most important web technologies developed in the past few years. This allows data to be sent to your web browser without having to refresh a web page. This allows websites to behave much more like regular software you use on your computer because you can get more immediate interactions. Good examples of AJAX web technologies include Gmail, Kayak, and Yahoo Mail.
RSS Feeds – An RSS feed is an XML file that your website auto-generates from your website content. It might include your latest news articles, or latest inventory of products. You can automatically download and display RSS files from other websites on your website to show for example the latest sports headlines from CNN.
Dynamic Website – This means that the content on your website changes or can be modified without you having to upload new HTML files. The content might include customer account records, products, social networking messages, etc.
PHP – Stands for Hypertext PreProcessor. PHP is a scripting language used to develop web applications such as shopping carts, guest books, property listing systems, and a huge variety of other applications. The PHP environment can be installed free of charge on any web server.
ASP.net – ASP is Microsoft’s web programming language. It is used for web applications similar to PHP, such as shopping carts, content management systems, guest books, bulletin boards, etc. Usually ASP.net is paired with a database such as SQL Server, or Access.
FTP – FTP stands for file transfer protocol. Usually only your web development company needs to use this to upload files to your website.
CMS – CMS stands for content management system. A content management system will allow you to edit the text and information on your website without the need of web design software.
E-commerce – E-commerce shopping cart systems generally include the following components: shopping cart that stores the products you plan to buy, backend administration where the admin can add/edit products and fulfill orders, checkout system that calculates the shipping charges, tax, and credit card billing, and a customer account management system. Many shopping carts have gotten quite advanced and offer many other features, such as content management systems, QuickBooks integration, search engine optimization features, and more.
XML – XML is a data interchange format that is used to send data from your website to other websites or programs in a standard yet customizable format.
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