I am working on some addition series type content posts.  These will be displayed over a period of a week or so.  Some of the content you can look forward to includes:

• How to develop using Access and Sql Server
• How to display a message in front of the web page layer and gray out the background

You can look forward the these two series of posts as well as much more coming soon!

The post is part of a 7 part series.  Click here to visit the first post in this series.

Maintenance and updates are an important part of the life of a website. Once the initial site is launched, it’s time to start working on upgrades on a consistent basis. Maintenance occurs when a piece of the website needs to be fixed.

Some of the maintenance tasks involved in running a website include fixing spelling and grammatical errors in text, patching security holes in applications, and keeping website code up to date.

Upgrades to an application or website are necessary to keep the design up to date and to keep visitors returning to the website. Say a website launched today. It may be quite popular for a while, but without upgrades and enhancements, it will fade into history. Part of keeping the website up to date is including regular content updates. You need to give your visitors a reason to return to your website.

If you liked this post, please consider subscribing to my rss feed.

This past weekend, I was developing some pages for a website of mine, and in search for a missing piece of code, I stumbled across a really neat website. I ended up at O’Reilly. The book publisher has an online library of books for designers, developers, or anyone who is involved in the Information Technology Business.

I noticed a link in the top menu on their page. This link lead to Safari Books Online. I looked around for a little while, then decided it would be worth my while to join the website. Since then, I realized the full potential of the information available. I suddenly had a virtual library of over 5500 technology books in front of me. I can use this site for learning new skills, looking up a solution to a problem, or just general technology knowledge.

I believe this site would benefit anyone who wants to learn more about Information Technology. This includes programming, design, security, databases, desktop development, Information Technology Management, and many other categories.

Visit Safari Books Online

If you liked this post, please consider subscribing to my rss feed.

This post is part of a 7 part series. To view the first post in this series, click here.

There are numerous tools available for developing websites. Some of them are free and open source, while others are proprietary. Each tool has their own unique features to help you accomplish your goal of building a website.

Website Coding Tools

Adobe Dreamweaver

I use Dreamweaver for all my website designing and coding. I have been using it for about five years now. The interface is extremely easy to use and is very powerful. It will support development on just about any type of file used on the web. Syntax highlighting is very helpful for the many types of scripting languages available for the web.

HTML Kit

HTML Kit is an open source development platform for website files. I have used HTML Kit for the development of websites where Dreamweaver was not available to me. The menu system can be a bit overwhelming until you get to know how to use it, but it’s well organized and very useful.

Graphic Design Tools

Adobe Fireworks

For graphic design work on websites, I prefer Adobe Fireworks. The interface is very similar to Dreamweaver and is very easy to navigate. Fireworks is not as powerful as Adobe Photoshop, but it should be able to do everything you need to for the web.

Paint.NET

Paint.NET is an open source graphic design platform which is powerful and easy to use. It was originally intended to replace Microsoft Paint. The best part about this program is it’s free.

If you liked this post, please consider subscribing to my rss feed.

This post is part of a 7 part series. To view the first post in this series, click here.

Developing a website can be overwhelming because of the amount of code and markup involved in an interactive website. Luckily, there are a large number of tutorials on the web to learn about coding a website. There are also many tools available where no coding knowledge is necessary. Part 5 of the How to Build a Website series will discuss these tools.

HTML

HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language. HTML defines sections of a page and how to display the content. To develop a simple website, HTML is all you need to know, but the complex websites of today require tools to help you complete the project in a reasonable timeframe.

CSS

CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets. CSS is used to present a website in a more readable format. It is used to define fonts, colors, backgrounds, and much more. Using HTML and CSS together, you can create a professional looking website layout.

JavaScript

JavaScript is a client side coding language. This means the program code is executed on the machine you’re viewing the website with. JavaScript is used to create a more dynamic and interactive environment for the website you’re viewing.

Scripting Languages

To create the dynamic websites of today, you need to use a server side scripting language, such as php, asp, Java, or ColdFusion. Each scripting language has its strengths and weaknesses. I prefer php, since it is can be blended well with HTML and is learned quite easily.

Where to Find More Information

As I mentioned before, there are many great resources across the web for learning web development. The following are some examples:

• W3Schools - website tutorials and reference
• Sitepoint - web development articles, reference, and help forum
• Wikipedia - articles on just about any web development topic you need to know about

If you liked this post, please consider subscribing to my rss feed.