10 Website Design Mistakes

1. Unnavigable sites. Do not expect visitors to jump through "link hoops" to get to your information. They won't. Make your product, price, or service, clear, precise, and easy to find. Design your content so that even elementary school children can understand your site.
2. Excessive pop-ups. In this day and age, pop-ups are inevitable. But if visitors have to close multiple pop-ups to get to your site, they may leave and never come back. The same applies for "fly-in" or "hover" that bounce across the screen. If you have to use anything, incorporate a pop-up that loads when a visitor leaves your site.
3. Automatic audio. Always give people the option of listening to any audio or not listening at all.
4. Spinning, flashing, or blinking ads. Flashing banner ads are the equivalent of a carnival barker trying to lure people into a sideshow. You don’t need to shout to people to have your message heard. Keep you ads limited and your content abundant.
5. A page full of dead links and 404 error messages. Keep your links up to date and take down the links that are no longer active.
6. Dark text on a dark background. Don't expect your readers to work to read your content, because they won't. They will leave and find the information they need elsewhere.
7. Use Flash judiciously. Unless you have a film site or a product that requires a detailed visual description, resist using Adobe's Flash for e-commerce. If you are using your site to sell a product, use high-quality, fast-loading photos and creative descriptions of each item. If you must use Flash, make your files as small and fast-loading as possible.
8. Solid blocks of text with no breaks between paragraphs. That may work in print, but it will not fly on the Web. People don't read online content the way they read offline -- they skim. Imposing blocks of dark text will put off your readers. Make your content clear and concise. Break up your paragraphs, and use plenty of white space.
9. Not Changing the Color of Visited Links. A good grasp of past navigation helps you understand your current location. Knowing your past and present locations makes it easier to decide where to go next. Links are a key factor in this navigation process and knowing which pages you’ve already visited frees you from revisiting the same pages over again.
10. PDF Files for Online Reading. People hate coming across a PDF file while browsing because it interrupts their flow. Even simple things like saving documents or printing are difficult because standard browser commands don't work. If you have a PDF file, get rid of it.
    

If your site makes any of the mistakes mentioned above, make the necessary changes as soon as you can. In fact, if you haven't redesigned your site in the last 6 to 12 months, you may be due for a redesign anyway. It will bring you more traffic, keep your visitors happy and increase your sales.

ASP.Net or PHP – Which is a better web programming language

There are several languages that are used for internet programming and web designing, but there are two that are being used extensively and are considered to be very effective on all aspects – the .Net framework and PHP. It can be a little complicated when it comes to comparing or deciding on which language to implement.

Data integration, swapping information, adding enhancements, maintenance and security are the most common clients’ requirements these days. Both these programming languages are known for their effectiveness in these areas. However, there are quite a few dissimilarities which can help you choose between the two.

Here are a few distinctive features of ASP.NET and PHP

Cost for Design and Development

PHP is an open source programming language which is available for free downloads. ASP.NET follows an entirely different rule. It only runs in specific windows operating systems. It also requires additional programs like Dreamweaver and Visual Studio for development and implementation. This not only toughens the work of a programmer, but also increases cost when compared to programming in PHP.

Efficiency and Effectiveness

Hyper Text Pre-processor is an interpreted language. The code directly gets executed each time you run it. ASP.NET on the other hand, is an optimization and compilation language. Here, each time the program is written it undergoes a compilation process and then gets executed. It is known that compiled applications run faster but an interpreted language must follow manual instructions given on that machine. This is an effective way of execution since the programmer knows what is happening and maintenance is simpler.

Compatibility and Language Support

PHP runs on all servers and platforms like Windows, UNIX, Linux and Apache whereas ASP.Net runs only on Windows servers. PHP follows the C++ language which is voted by all as the best ever programing language. ASP.Net support different platforms such as Visual Basic, C++ and C#. It can only be advantage when the programmer is comfortable using all languages. But statistics and reports show that the majority of the programmers still prefer using C++ as their core programming language.

Web Design Tips and Guidelines

Below are some of the important web design tips and guidelines which i think are necessary for every web design.

1.Layout

In web design first step is to choose the layout which best suites your needs. Layout is basically the placement of your content, images and information in your web page. Normally layout is designed in Adobe Photoshop or any other graphic tool. Please consider these few things while designing layouts.

    * Width and height of design screen (What resolution to design?)
    * Height of header and footer content
    * Where to place the content so it can be useful or readable
    * Keep white spaces (gaps) within your text content and images
    * Keep it simple and clean, don’t make too much information stuck on just one page
    * You can also draw the layout on simple paper by your hand

2.Color Scheme

Second step in web design is to choose the right color scheme. Your color scheme may be comprised of two or three colors. But don't use more than 3 colors, it will be difficult to control more than 3 colors. There are some websites where you can pick up the color schemes like kuler.com or you can also find amazing color schemes @ colorlovers.com. Now we will see some tips on color choices.

    * Choose at least 2 colors or 3 colors, like black, dark brown and dull green.
    * Keep your text in a readable color like white text on dark brown background.
    * Keep your links a little bit more sharp in colors than your text
    * Keep the balance in colors like light colors on dark backgrounds
    * Dont make a fruity effect by using too many colors in one place
    * Try to use Web 2.0 sleek and clean color schemes

3.Content Positioning (Balancing)

Third step is to position and maintain your contents so that the user feels like all the pages of the site and in balance. It is very crucial step in web design. You also have to keep in mind to view your web pages in multiple major browsers. Okay now here are some listed tips.

    * Keep the distances same on each page like distance from header of the content must be same on all pages
    * Left and right margins and positions should also be same on all pages
    * Keep a balance in positioning so nothing looks odd on the web page
    * These days giving some space or white space is a fashion in web design

4.Optimization

First three steps were purely design based; now when you have built your page a bit, you must not overlook the page size and how it is going to load in the browser. Web page optimization means a very broad term. It may also include Search engine friendly coding. In the list below i will also list some websites/links so you can check your web page performance.

    * Keep the usage of images at minimum, loading time will suffer due to heavy images
    * Minimize the usage of too many scripts and Flash content
    * Use CSS and div based layout and eliminate any unnecessary code from CSS and HTML
    * Words in the title of page and headings and your meta tags all counts to Search Engine optimization
    * Don’t miss to check your web page in different browsers, cross browser compatibility is a must

Now i will list some of the websites which i personally use as a web designer to optimize my pages.

    * A very nice Meta Tag analyzer tool SEOcentro Meta Analyzer
    * A very nice Web Page Optimization tool, Web Page Analyzer 0.98
    * Pingdom tools is a great resource to check your loading time and your page efficiency Pingdom tools
    * To check your webpage across multiple Operating Systems and browsers Adobe Browser Lab
    * And in the last don’t forget to validate your html/CSS code with W3C W3C Markup Validation

5.Design Exposure

In the last, i will talk about your design and color scheme sense improvements. Your exposure to new and latest technologies, design patterns and layouts will also improve your web design overall sense. Some tips are listed below.

    * Search about latest trends in web design and latest web design techniques
    * View portfolio websites of other great designers
    * View art related websites like Deviantart.com to get some good exposure
    * Try learning new tutorials of Photoshop and Dreamweaver, this will help a lot

I would try to write another article on Optimization alone sometime soon.

Cakephp PhpBB Integration

In Today’s technology world, An Internet forum is a discussion area on a website. Website members can post discussions and read and respond to posts by other forum members. An Internet forum can be focused on nearly any subject and a sense of an online community, or virtual community, tends to develop among forum members.

To make your Website appear inviting, warm, and interactive, it may be necessary to allow visitors express their views on topics related to your business. A Website forum is like a virtual round-table conference, where your visitors can virtually sit next to each other and bounce ideas and views across the room. The knowledge that they can offer could be beneficial to all who participate in these forums.

PhpBB Forum is a popular bulletin board script written in the server side scripting language PHP. Installable on most web servers, it is free open source Framework available under the GNU public license. The software allows website and forum administrators to set up unlimited number of forums and categories. It is also possible to create users, moderators and user groups with varying degrees of permissions.

As the world moves towards Web 2.0, it is becoming increasingly important to have a dynamic website – something which most people are using the PHP language to achieve. Unlike the use of HTML by itself to create a website, HTML and PHP together allow a website to be much more flexible, such as connecting to a database. If you are running a bulletin board based on phpBB3, then it is worthwhile considering the benefits of integrating your main website into phpBB3.

Besides the development of website, cakephp framework is used for developing enterprising solutions like e shopping carts with content management system, customer relationship management solution, and web calendars for communities etc. It has also been used for open source software integration like OsCommerce, Drupal, Joomla, Typo3, Simple Machine Forum, vBulletin, phpBB forum, and others. Some time it gets complicated to integrate PhpBB with Cakephp based web applications but we at Biztech Consultancy specialize for such integration what ever type of web application needs to be integrated with phpBB.

At Biztech Consultancy we provide cakephp development services like cakephp application development, cakephp customization, cakephp development, cakephp custom component development, cakephp third party API integration, cakephp PHPHBB forum integration and many more…

Integrating facebook in cakephp

In this Era of Technology, any type of business cannot survive amongst the competitive market without promoting itself. Banner advertisements, television commercials, flyers and brochures all are a part of the traditional promotional campaign. Today however these traditional advertisement methods are no longer effective. This is the age of social media marketing, where promotion of products, services and businesses is done on social networks like Facebook.

Facebook Applications are a sound way of reaching out to millions of probable customers and increasing your clientele. Engaging and custom Facebook applications draw a lot of user attention and can be effectively used to target your niche related audience. Facebook apps have a viral effect which further helps in enhancing your company’s image and reputation.

Facebook application is the new-fangled trend of making money online. The social networking industry has boomed in the recent years giving way to investors to earn by creating their applications and using it for commercial purposes. According to the statistics, Facebook today is the number one used social network leaving behind all others such as Orkut, Bebo, Myspace and the like.

FaceBook Application is the powerful tool of marketing or to connect people for all type of business. Now it's easier to find social applications on Facebook, on your phone, and on external websites. The new "Featured by Facebook" section highlights Facebook's favorites. Since 2007 the kind of concept FaceBook has come up with become a unique challenger to established payers. The benefit of FaceBook application is any one can post their  own application with out any cost.

At Biztech Consultancy, our professional facebook developers provide Facebook integration services with use of Facebook Connect. With Facebook Connect, your users can log into their Facebook page from your website, making data flow between your site and Facebook in the quickest and easiest way possible.

Facebook Connect is the latest service provided by the facebook platform which allows third parties to integrate their websites/applications to the facebook platform. This has proved to be a very useful resource for improving and stabilizing your market position and according to the current statistics using facebook connect increases 30-40% user traffic as compared to non-facebook connect websites.

Facebook connect allows users to use your website by login in with their facebook credentials (facebook Id’s), doing so they bypass the registration process meaning that the user can use your application or visit your website without going through the listing process.

Cakephp Development Solution

In Today’s fast growing world it is essential for web developers to expand their skill of development and minimize the coding. CakePHP breaks the monotony during development and offers tools and logics specific to the application and subsequently saves a lot up repetition in coding thus coder need not to reinvent same coding in new project.

CakePHP is open source web application frame work. Base language used in CakePHP is PHP, compatible with PHP4 and PHP5 and MVC architecture. It is introduced after the concept of Ruby Rails. Its basic advantage is to provide architectural base in creation of Websites. CakePHP is recent system of open source customization. This system follows the pattern of model-view-controller (MVC) like other systems of open source customization.

CakePHP is a rapid development framework for PHP that provides an extensible architecture for developing, maintaining, and deploying applications. Using commonly known design patterns like MVC and ORM within the convention over configuration paradigm, CakePHP reduces development costs and helps developers write less code.

Cakephp is a Robust open source framework that imposes few restrictions on development, Cakephp framework based websites are  Structured website, when you get a site developed using the cake php framework you are Assured that the developers have followed a fixed coding pattern, in this case it is the model View controller pattern. This allows the user interface to be as creative as possible while allowing for a robust integration with the database.

CakePHP is fast and easy to install. Installation preparation consists of the following steps:

Downloading a copy of CakePHP

Configuring your web server to handle php if necessary

Checking file permissions

CakePHP development at Perception System follows the MVC software design pattern. Programming using MVC separates your application into three main parts:

The Model represents the application data

The View renders a presentation of model data

The Controller handles and routes requests made by the client

At Biztech Consultancy, we provide CakePHP Development services with the use of CakePHP framework for speedy and robust web application development. We offer cakephp development services like cakephp website development, cakephp customization, cakephp shopping cart, cakephp integration, cakephp custom component development, cakephp Amazon Api integration, cakephp phpbb integration, cakephp content management system, cakephp facebook application integration and many more…

Server Side Programming Languages

programming languages are scripts that are executed on the server, and are then translated into HyperText Markup Language (HTML) which can be viewed by all web browsers. The two most popular server-side scripting languages are PHP: Hypertext Processor and Active Server Pages (ASP). Additionally, there are numerous other languages like AJAX and Coldfusion.

PHP can run on both Unix and Windows servers, which makes it more accessible than its Windows counterpart, Active Server Pages (ASP). Most full-service web design firms will have at least one PHP guru.
PHP uses are widespread, and can include any kind of server functionality that takes user's input and displays or manipulates the input. Some pertinent examples of such work are message boards, auction sites, shopping carts, and more. There are numerous free (open-source) scripts out there for PHP newbies to use. This synopsis is meant to serve only as a gateway to other works; although the main goal is to give a reader enough information so they can make educated decisions about what their web developer should do. For those looking to get into PHP, there are many free tutorials and primers out there: http://www.4webhelp.net/tutorials/php/basics.php is a pertinent example.
PHP generally uses the mySQL database system. MySQL is a server-side system that is included on many Unix, and some Windows servers.

On the other hand, Active Server Pages runs - for the most part - solely on Windows servers. This can cause some problems. Windows hosting or private servers generally cost more than Unix servers, making it less accessible than PHP. Like PHP, ASP can do just about anything. There are considerably fewer open-source scripts written in ASP, another testament to its inaccessibility.
For those interested in ASP, here's a great free tutorial: http://www.w3schools.com/asp/default.asp.

ASP can use many different database systems. Many users prefer Microsoft Access. Access, unlike MySQL, offers a what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) editor as part of Microsoft's Office suite. In fact, you may already have a copy of Microsoft Access on your computer and not even know it. Its uses aren't limited to databasing, it's also used as a basic spreadsheet application for those who need a more programmer-friendly environment than Excel. ASP can also work well with MSSQL or MySQL.

A third programming language with burgeoning popularity is Asynchronous Javascript and XML. AJAX, as it's commonly referred to, creates interactive web programs just like its cousins ASP and PHP. AJAX uses XHTML and CSS, along with the Javascript Document-Object Model to create interactive pages designed for speed and overall usability. Although AJAX hasn't gained the acclaim of PHP and ASP, its future is certainly bright.
AJAX Basics - http://dhtmlnirvana.com/ajax/ajax_tutorial/

It's difficult to say which of the three programming languages, or the numerous others for that matter, is the best. There will always be disputes, and no standard is set. With the varying interpretations of what a programming language should be, predilections to PHP or ASP arise. PHP is certainly more widely used, but isn't necessarily the best. When a site is being created to be interactive, a professional can give an educated opinion on which technology should be used.