Cheap Website Design In Birmingham

Due to the large number of people offering website design services in Birmingham, there is always a bargain to be found.

Web design companies in Birmingham are in a very competitive market and some offer some great deals at various times of the year.

People who are just starting out in a career building custom design websites will often offer their services at a very reasonable rate, basically to build up a portfolio. Once they have established themselves they then tend to increase the amount they charge.

I have even heard about one person who for a very short period of time was building websites for free! This is an extreme case though.

A friend of mine called Dave was looking to have an internet prescence for his small business a number of years ago. He did not have a huge budget, however was looking for a person or company to create him a professional looking website which would be search engine friendly.

He tried looking in many areas including yellow pages, ebay, bargain pages and also by asking his friends, to see if they knew of anybody.

He also searched in Google for the search term, very cheap website design in Birmingham. There were many different websites listed, after a few phone calls, he managed to find a very good deal.

There are plenty of people offering quality website design services, who do not charge huge fees, just keep looking and you are sure to find them.

Handy Tips for Robust Website Hosting

Basics of web hosting

Websites no matter what purpose they stand to serve, personal and professional, brand new or existing ones, need a reliable and committed web host. But when it comes to start looking around for a host, one is often flooded with plenty of choices. The options herein are varied: from absolutely free to excessively expensive, from damn feature-packed web hosting to services which sound sincerely modest and realistic in claims and offerings.

How you make a decision amid such apparently lucrative or tacitly disadvantageous, if you dig a little deeper, options depends on how best you know what you need, and what you are eyeing eventually. And definitely not to say, whether you want a lot of business or none at all.

Here are a few things that may act as a ready reckoner while you are contemplating a reliable and sincere web host:

Go for a free web hosting, and get ready for a ride

Free web hosting is a tempting offer. But your business needs investments - wise investments. Don’t let yourself be fooled in your desperation to save some monies.

Paid hosting has got a lot more advantages over free hosting. First and foremost, you will get more useful features as against free hosting. Technical support will be far much better, with help available in times when you critically need it. Moreover, paid hosts will have much faster connections and your site will appear quicker, which may be a distinct advantage for you.

What is most significant is that with paid hosting you won’t have to display a banner on each page advertising the Hosting Company and, worst still advertising to the world that you are on a free host

While choosing the operating system, make a need-based decision

Quite often you will find Windows tempting enough as your operating system. What you know is that your PC runs Windows and that’s why you need a Windows Host. What you do not know is that you may be wrong here. You may take a lead from the fact that the marble halls of business most major companies host their websites on Linux Servers. Linux Servers actually runs faster and are more secure than a windows server. Windows seek to include every possible function in the base package whilst Linux allows the host company to add the functions they need.

Analyze value-added services on offer Hosting companies offer different value-added services to stand tall in the crowd. Make sure you do not go for value added services that you won’t use anyway. Some of the really cool features are: auto-installers which saves you time if you are going to install a forum, image gallery, or content management system, and online website builder which lets you design a website in a few minutes without having any creation software and knowledge.

Look for around the clock tech support

This is precisely because if you have a problem with your website, you need to be able to talk to someone and have them fix it immediately. As long as the host offers this sort of support, it is perfectly okay. If they don’t, chances are that you might wait several days with your website down, and might experience the agony of lost business.

Settle for large bandwidth

While going for a web host, negotiate for plenty of bandwidth to support your site. More bandwidth means your site loads as quickly as possible, opens fast, and will carry a hell of lot of information.

Ask for excessive storage space

Even though you do not need much storage space, do not hesitate to have it in excess because you may need to give your business some growing space.

Get email that relates to your company

The moment you have a web host and a URL, you need to have your own email that ties into your company name. This is very common place, but you may be tricked here nonetheless.

Ready the web host for additional domains

Future holds all kinds of possibilities. You never know how soon you might feel the need of more than one domain. So, it is fine that you talked about ready willingness of your web host to provide you the same once the need arises.

Do not forget to include domain parking

If you have already a domain name, but do not have your own name server then you will surely require a web host that will allow you to store or “park” your domain name on their server. It will help your domain remain valid for a longer period of time. Make sure you get toolkit to manage your site

Be sure you get a tool box that will help you manage your site easily and the way you want. This is really important for you that you are able to do it with ease and convenience.

These useful tweaks will definitely come in handy to you whenever you sit down deciding which web host’s features should take precedence over rest others and why.

Deepak Sharma is a Web Designer at BlueApple, a Web Design and Development Company with a well connected development infrastructure in India having a strong portfolio with global clientele and offering superior web services and solutions at competitive costs.

Affordable Website Hosting Plan?

Heck, I think there is enough of that on the net already! These days you can just about get a website hosting plan with all the “bells and whistles” for 3 - 4 dollars a month. Still think it is too expensive? Try going for a little less than all the “bells and whistles” and you can probably get a hosting plan for 2 dollars a month. Just take a look around and you will see for yourself!

To be bluntly honest, this should be the least of your worries. Would you like to know what the real obstacle is? How about rather looking for an Affordable website hosting company that can give you great quality service and also has the habit to stick around for the long term.

Now now, I am not trying to scare you. Just trying to make a valid point.

It is really not difficult at all to pick the right hosting company. One of the most effective ways to do this is by following all the points written in the list below:

In the beginning do not give them a full up front payment for the whole year. Pay monthly instead. Do this at least for the first six months to a year. By doing this, it will set you up for the following points.

Make sure they have a 24 hour / 7 days a week support line. Test this support line on a continuous basis. Take note at how fast they answer your requests. requests should never take more than 24 hours to be answered.

How long have they been in business? However, at the same time, don’t think that every new company that is out there is evil. After all, every one has to start somewhere. But at least keep this in mind. Another reason to be paying monthly for the mean time.

Read reviews on the company. Try to make sure that the reviews you are reading are independant reviews. Also go to forums that relate to this subject and ask anyone there for their honest oppinion.

check around to see what the average going “bells and whistles” are. If you don’t understand what some of them mean, take the time to find out, then ask yourself if you really need it.

Just use common sence!

So let us be reminded!
Affordable website hosting is easy to find. Take the time instead to make sure you are getting great quality with that plan too. After all, it is not always the direct price of the plan you are looking for when you are looking for an affordable website hosting plan.

By Paul Ghossain
http://reseller-hosting.multisect.com

Accessible Web?

The web started out its life as a collection of simple HTML
pages which were, by nature, accessible. Many people with
disabilities latched onto the web as a revolutionary new way for
them to communicate. However, since the commercialisation and
diversification of the Web, it has gradually become less and
less accessible with many sites relying on the use of a
particular browser, broadband connection speeds or proprietary
software.

Some people with disabilities use Assistive Technology like
magnification software, screen readers (speakable browsers) and
desktop Braille displays to access the Web. Many more others
simply modify their browser settings to their own preferences.
It is therefore very important that Web sites and other online
content functions with assistive technologies as well as being
customisable and functional without a mouse.

The vast majority of online content falls far short of these and
other requirements for accessibility.

There have already been a few cases worldwide where
organisations have been taken to court by individuals who feel
that they have been disadvantaged by not being able to gain
access to a web site. In the UK, most disputes have been and
still are being settled out of court so the full implications of
the law are still very uncertain. With regard to commercial
intranets and extranets, any inaccessibility issues will already
have been contravening the Disability Discrimination Act for
several years.

The first rule of web accessibility is that designers should not
make assumptions about who may be viewing a web site and what
equipment they may be using. Most people will have come across a
web site which instructs them to get a newer browser or to
download a plug-in. This may not be convenient for the majority
of users let alone a person with sight impairment using a
specialist spoken screen reader to access the web.

Web accessibility advocates also aim to assure designers,
programmers, project managers and marketing managers that good
accessibility practice doesn’t necessarily mean bland and boring
web sites.

It is more a case that following accepted guidelines for design
and programming should result in legal compliance and reach the
maximum possible audience. Well designed HTML documents that
distinguish structure and presentation will not only be more
accessible, but will also adapt more easily to new technologies
as they emerge.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) issue guidelines which, if
followed, should make web sites more accessible to specialist
users and less frustrating for more ‘regular’ users. By
following these guidelines and using other accessibility tools,
designers and programmers can create online content that is not
discriminatory, more immune to future litigation and also
available to the widest possible audience. So, there is a strong
business case as well as a moral and legal one.

The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) is part of the W3C and
offers specialist accessibility guidelines.

Copyright © 2005 Tim Jones

Web Design Is Not For The Squeamish: 9 Things You Should Know Before Designing A Website

The internet has become an integral part of our lives. Everyday
more and more websites are going online. With the advent of
online sitebuilders included with many hosting packages, anyone
can easily create a web presence and feel comfortable knowing
that the WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor is pretty
simple to learn. You don’t need to know how to write HTML
because the sitebuilding software generally has a word
processing type of interface and all you need to do is pop
things in here and there. But soon you’ll realize that there are
many limitations to what you can and can’t do. If you’re
satisfied with these limitations, then nothing anyone says will
matter.

Ignorance may be bliss, but knowledge is freedom. Freedom to
create a website exactly the way you want it to look and perform
the way you want it to perform. Of course, there’s more to web
design than writing HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) code and
putting pretty pictures on a webpage. It takes time, skill and
patience to master the concepts needed in order to create an
effective website.

I’ve listed at least nine items that I feel you must know a
little bit about before seriously embarking on designing a
website. They aren’t listed in any particular order of
importance as each web designer has his/her own opinion as to
the importance of each one.

1. HTML. One must learn the HTML language, which is not
difficult, but nevertheless a necessity, since this is the only
way that the browsers (i.e. Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox,
Netscape, Opera, etc.) will be able decipher the code in order
to view a webpage. There are numerous places to learn HTML for
free on the internet. The one place I would recommend would be
to go to the W3C website. Here is where all the standards are
written. You can find them located here
http://www.w3schools.com/.

2. CSS. It would be a big advantage for you to learn CSS
(Cascading Style Sheets). CSS gives you total control over the
style and layout of your webpages. By learning CSS, you would
only need to edit one file in order to make some changes in all
of your pages. You wouldn’t have to go into each webpage
separately to change fonts, or background colors and images.
It’s really kind of neat when you think about how much you can
do with the inclusion of just one or two lines. I like to call
it my ‘magic file’ because that’s what it does…it performs
magic instantly!

3. TITLES,META TAGS and KEYWORDS. There has been volumes
written about these items. But for my purpose here, I will just
mention what each are and where they’re located. Suffice it to
say that knowing a bit about each one will only enhance your
learning experience in designing an effective webpage. Every
webpage or HTML document must have a title. The title should be
representative of what your website is about. It is located
between the and area at the top of your document.
HTML tags which describe the content of a webpage and utilized
by search engines are called META Tags. They provide useful
information to the search engines such as Author, Copyright,
Description, Expirations, Language, Keywords and Robots. There
are others but those are the basic ones used. One of the more
important META Tag used is the Keyword META Tag. This is where
you put your specific keywords and key phrases. The keywords you
choose which best describes your webpage is what the search
engines look for. They also notice how often these keywords and
key phrases are used within the webpage. One must be careful how
the keywords are used because too many and it’s considered
spamming the search engines, too few and they aren’t even
noticed.

4. DOCTYPE. DOCTYPE is short for “Document Type
Definition”, or, DTD, and it informs the web browsers which
version of (X)HTML you are using in order to process it. The
DOCTYPE must appear at the very top of every webpage that you
design. You can check W3C’s webpage here at
http://www.w3.org/QA/2002/04/valid-dtd-list.html for a list of
recommended DOCTYPE’s.

5. COPYRIGHT INFO. You can find out all about the
copyright laws here at http://www.copyright.gov/, but what it
basically boils down to is - if you didn’t write it, you will
need approval of the person who did in order to use it within
your website, or there could be real problems for you with
copyright infringements. It’s against the law to take what
someone else wrote and pass it off as your own. This goes for
everything from photo’s, clip art, designs, website templates to
articles and website content on other websites.

6. CONTENT. I’m sure you’ve heard the statement that
“Content Is King”. What this means is that whatever you write
within your website (the content), not only does it have to be
original but it should possess a number of your keywords and key
phrases. These keywords and key phrases should fit in within the
content and make sense with whatever it is you’re writing about.
This content will not only explain to any visitor what you’re
website is all about, it will be used by the search engine’s
that rate how important your content is in relation to the
keywords listed.

7. LINKS. Links within your website are important,
whether you’re linking to other websites or other websites are
linking to you. However, with Google’s new update “Jagger”,
Google is placing more importance on credibility and
added-value, rather than the amount of links you have. Google
continues to change their algorithms by which websites are rated
and it’s becoming almost comical that many a website owner must
scramble to figure out the best way to make changes in order to
either keep their high rankings or even get noticed. It will be
interesting to watch what happens here.

8. VALIDATION. There is much to be said about being
validated. There are some web designers that feel it’s not
important, but know that I feel that it’s extremely important.
What exactly does ‘being validated’ mean? Simply put, it means
that the coding of your website has passed the test in utilizing
the W3C conformance standards by which web documents have been
written. It places no value on the content, just the HTML or
XHTML structure. There is also a validation service for passing
the CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) conformance standards. Both of
these services are provided for free by the W3C (World Wide Web
Consortium).

9. SEO. Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is the key
factor by which your website will be rated by Google, MSN, Yahoo
or any of the other search engines. Quite simply it’s optimizing
your website for the search engines to notice you. Again, the
importance is placed on content. There are many SEO companies
that promise high rankings, or worse, they promise you number
one ranking if you hire them to optimize your website. Be wary
of anyone that makes those statements. Know that there is no
possible way for them to make such promises because there is no
way to know how a website will rank. You an submit your own URL
to some of the major search engines yourself at no cost. Now
whether or not you get noticed is another story entirely, but
know that eventually your website will be indexed by the various
robot programs that most search engines use anyhow.

In summary, there is much to consider when designing a website.
It’s not an easy task and the importance of the items I’ve
listed should not be ignored. It also takes a bit of ingenuity
and creativeness in addition to the semantics, but with
practice, patience and knowledge, it can be done.

Fix Your Site With the Right Dogtype

HTML and XHTML Doctypes have been around for a long time, but in
order to make the Web that bit easier for novice webmasters, who
don’t always understand the intricacies of Doctypes, it will
soon be time for all of the current Doctypes to bow-wow out
gracefully and make way for something new:

DOGtype Declarations!

Dogtype Declarations are easy to use. You simply choose the
Dogtype that most closely matches the characteristics of your
website.

Here, from the newly-formed ‘Woof Woof Woof Consortium’ is a
handy beginners’ guide to available Dogtypes:

Collie or Sheepdog Dogtype - Use this DTD if your site is there
to do a job, rather than being there merely for entertainment
purposes. Suitable sites will be totally professional,
ultra-reliable, and never let you down, although they might be a
trifle dull or lacking in surprises at times.

Poodle Dogtype - for Flash-heavy sites that are all style and
very little substance. Why poodle? Think dyed pink and
over-pampered showdogs, usually called Fifi and often seen
sporting lots of bows or ribbons and other canine bling.

Whippet or Greyhound - For fast-loading sites. Not too many
images. No animated gifs. Lightweight stylesheet.

Bloodhound (or alternatively the Spaniel dogtype) - Do you use
‘browser sniffing’ javascripts in your page? Then you need one
of these ’sniffer dog’ Dogtypes!

Mutt or Mongrel - For sites that have been around since the dawn
of time. The site owners have only just heard about Doctype
declarations and decided to stick the first doctype that comes
along at the top of their page. Anything’s better than Quirks
mode, they think. Ha! But if backwards compatibility is an issue
for you then use Mutt/Mongrel. Labrador - A useful Dogtype if
you need to address issues of accessibility particularly with
regard to blind users.

Pit Bull - Suitable for any site that grabs your browser, locks
on and simply refuses to let go, so you can neither click to go
back, forwards or anywhere and have to do a Control-Alt-Delete
manoeuvre in order to escape. This usually happens because of
images that have not been properly optimised. Or there may be
too many animations. Or scripts. On rare occasions these
problems might not actually be caused by the website. It could
just be that your old Commodore 64 just can’t handle today’s
fast-paced Internet. But usually it is the site that is at fault.

Dachshund - The dachshund is a long dog, also called a ’sausage
dog’ because of its shape. Use this Dogtype if you have one of
those old sites that has everything on the site on one looooong
single page. This page will carry on scrolling down forever as
it loads. You know the ones I mean. Scroll much further and you
will probably find yourself in Australia. (Of course, if you
live in Australia, then you will probably end up scrolling down
to England. Life can be tough sometimes, can’t it?) When I come
across one of these sites I start to get really jittery as I
watch the scrollbar shrink down to about one millimeter wide. My
mouse is simply not engineered to be able to get hold of
something that small!

Great Dane - Restricted Dogtype for websites in Denmark (near
Norway, Europe). This Dogtype is expected to be of little
significance to most webmasters in the rest of the world.

Unfortunately none of the current versions of IE are compatible
with any of these new Dogtypes (except Mutt/Mongrel). So IE will
render your pages in Quirks mode whether you use them or not.
Other browsers handle Dogtypes correctly and it is anticipated
that IE7 will do so too.

Web developers believe that if the Dogtype declaration is
included in major search engine listings it will be a big help
to Web users everywhere. Surfers will be warned in advance
whether a site uses lots of Flash, scripts or animations and can
then decide whether or not to click on a link.

The above Dogtypes will all have a Strict and a Transitional
version. The Transitional Dogtypes all allow for the use of
deprecated squeaky pet toys. Unfortunately though, there are no
plans for any of the new Dogtypes to have a Frameset version.

Creating Dynamic Layers with Interactive Image Rollovers Using Dreamweaver

Layers area special kind of HTML elements, which can be used as a container to hold other HTML elements and to show them dynamically using JavaScripts. We can stack more than one layer over another. One or more Layers can be made visible dynamically, by hiding others. But using Macromedia Dreamweaver you can do all this without even knowing JavaScript or coding.

The disadvantage with layers is, they can be viewed only with 4.0 and above browsers. Here in this tutorial let me assume that you are using 4.0 or above version of the browser.

In this tutorial we are going to use multiple layers stacked over another, and make it viewable, when the mouse is rolled over in an Image. In this case study I have taken 2 rollover images Image1, Image 2 and three layers:Layer1, Layer2 and Layer3.

When we mouse over on the Image1, the second layer will appear while Layer1 & Layer 3 will be hidden along with its content. Likewise for the Image 3, Layer1 and 2 will be hidden and only Layer3 will appear with its content. When we mouse out from the Images Layer 1 will come up again. To achieve this Follow the steps and enjoy!

1. Creating rollover Images:

First as I said let us create 2 Images,we can use Macromedia Fireworks to create the images, In our case I have designed 4 buttons; 2 for the up state and 2 for the down state. After desigining the buttons, open a new page in Dreamweaver, create a 2X1 table. Now Insert the images using, Insert>Interactive Images>Rollover Image. Browse and select the first one for the up state and the second one for the down state. ( I assume the images or in the proper folder). Now do it for the next Image, so that both the Images are in the first column of the table as shown in this example). Now it should look like this.

2. Placing Layers:

Open Insert>Layer and place the Layer1. Move the layer into the column2 of the table. Now you can write the content inside the Layer. Select the layer in the Properties Inspector and select Overflow as ‘visible’. This makes this first layer as default layer and makes visible while the page is loaded.

Note down the position of the Layer(566px and 163px). Insert the second and third layers on the same position, so that they will sit over the first layer. Now insert the text on those layers. (Note: Due to the over lapping of layers the text may not be clear. So, You can place the layers at somewhere else, write down the text and then change the position of the layers to sit on the first layers position)

3. Changing the Layer properties:

Select Window>Layers. You will get the Layer Inspector, with all the three layer details. Select the Layer2 and Layer3 and If the eye is open click on it to close for both of them. In the properties Inspector you can see the OverFlow is selected as hidden for Layer2 and Layer3. This enables the Layer2 and 3 to be hidden while the page is loaded.

4. Adding Behaviors:

Now select the Image1 where we are going to add the dynamic Layer effects. Then Open Window > Behavior. You can see the Events and actions created by Dreamweaver for the Rollover Images which we did in the step1. Click on the button and select “Show-hide Layers”. You will get this box to ‘Show or Hide” the Layers.
Now do the following…
a. Select Layer1 than click on ‘Hide’

b. Select Layer2 and click on ‘Show’ then,
c. Select Layer3 and click on ‘Hide’.
This action will make the Layer1 and 3 to disappear and to show the Layer2 while you move your mouse over the Image1.

You can also see the new JavaScript events created by Dreamweaver in the Behaviors Inspector. Here the new onMouseOver and onMouseOut with Show-hide Layers as actions.

Note here, You can use other events also as you like. For example instead of onMouseOver you can use onClick. To do this you need to click on the tiny black, inverted arrow next to the event. Use this to select other events, ie OnClick, Down etc.,. At the foot of the list there is a category which allows you to choose which browsers to support, make sure a check is next to 4 and higher browsers. (Only after choosing the browser 4 or higher you will be able to see all the Events in a list)

Follow the step 4 by selecting Image2. Then, a.Select Layer1 than click on ‘Hide’; b.Select Layer2 and click on ‘Hide’ then, c.Select Layer3 and click on ‘Show’. This action will make the Layer1 and Layer2 to disappear and to show the Layer2 while you move your mouse over the Image1.

5. Bringing default layer again:

Now as a final step, you need to bring back the Layer1 when you move your mouse out of the Image(Or when you mouse away from the images at somwhere on that page). Select the Image1 and click on the button and select “Show-hide Layers”. You will get this box to ‘Show or Hide” the Layers.
Now do the following…
a. Select Layer1 than click on ‘Show’

b. Select Layer2 and click on ‘Hide’ then,
c. Select Layer3 and click on ‘Hide’.

This action will make the Layer2 and Layer3 to disappear and to show the Layer1 while you move your mouse out of the Image1. Also do not forget to change the Events to onMouseOut.

Repeat step 5 with Image2 also. Now you should get the Behavior Inspector like this Image, showing all the Events for both Image1 & Image2.

Finally let us test it. If everything is fine, It should work as shown in the the demo. Also click here to see how we have used in our site.

If you find this article, write to the author at Benny@macronimous.com Your suggestion to improve this article are welcome. You can also write about your design and development needs.

Macronimous is a specialised international web development agency, with a difference. We realise that Web development agency is a terminology that has been recently misrepresented and aim to differentiate ourselves from the others.

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