Archive for December, 2006

Friday, December 29th, 2006

#TILTE#Flash- Pros and Cons#/TITLE#

Flash banners (those of .swf extension) are becoming very common in Internet promotion they are so frequently new because of Macromedia Flash is a rather simple tool to produce complicated animation effects of fine quality. Though, my experience shows that this identifiable variety of banner has several drawbacks.

The first one is that leading browsers do not first support Flash additional plug-ins are required. Furthermore, it in fact happens, that to view banners produced in later Flash versions downloading newer plug-ins is needed. Statistics show that 75% of users feature Microsoft Internet Explorers (data from www.w3schools.com) most of them are users with basic skills that are less likely to download any upgrades.

In Macromedia Flash animated banners a delay is set between frames. In case web-page visitor is using a not very advanced machine, it is most probable that wile loading the page the banner will also be loading slowly user will not obtain the necessary info from it, as he will not wait for the next frame to appear.

Another inconvenience of not only Flash banners, but also of Flash web-sites is that right-click on the splendid link or banner does not offer a chance to open it in used window or feature within the same window. This is often annoying, especially when about 15 windows are already opened used window increases CPU usage.

Though, Flash banners have some advantages in comparison with animated .gif banners Flash banners’ use vector animation, thus a big size banner occupies less memory than ordinary one of the primary same size. Actually, basing on experience I can proclaim that .gif animated banners can only be efficiently new for small banners with 2-3 frames.

The major advantage of Flash banner is the range of available colors .gif format offers a very limited range of only 256 colors very little for a good value banner. Flash provides palette of much wider choice of colors, quality of banner improves immensely.

To conclude I can only advise to use Flash for big size banners (at least 468×60 pixels) or for pop up banners than the quality does really matter. But to draw a small animated button 88×31 px, the usage of Flash will be obsolete.

Flash banners (those of .swf extension) are becoming very common in Internet promotion they are so frequently used because of Macromedia Flash is a rather simple tool to produce complicated animation effects of fine quality. Though, my experience shows that this type of banner has several drawbacks. The first one is that leading browsers do not initially support Flash additional plug-ins are required. Furthermore, it sometimes happens, that to view banners produced in later Flash versions downloading newer plug-ins is needed. Statistics show that 75% of users feature Microsoft Internet Explorers (data from www.w3schools.com) most of them are users with basic skills that are less likely to download any upgrades. In Macromedia Flash animated banners a delay is set between frames. In case web-page visitor is using a not very advanced machine, it is likely that wile loading the page the banner will also be loading slowly user will not get the necessary info from it, as he will not wait for the next frame to appear. Another inconvenience of not only Flash banners, but also of Flash web-sites is that right-click on the link or banner does not offer a possibility to open it in new window or in the same window. This is often annoying, especially when about 15 windows are already opened new window increases CPU usage. Though, Flash banners have some advantages in comparison with animated .gif banners Flash banners’ use vector animation, thus a big size banner occupies less memory than ordinary one of the same size. Actually, basing on experience I can say that .gif animated banners can only be effectively used for small banners with 2-3 frames. The major advantage of Flash banner is the range of available colors .gif format offers a very limited range of only 256 colors very little for a decent banner. Flash provides palette of much wider choice of colors, quality of banner improves immensely. To conclude I can only advise to use Flash for big size banners (at least 468×60 pixels) or for pop up banners than the quality does really matter. But to draw a small animated button 88×31 px, the usage of Flash will be obsolete.

 
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Affordable web design - Let s design a great website

Friday, December 29th, 2006

Are you stuck in different types of buttons? Square, round, flashy buttons? List of buttons are going on and on? If you are after these faulty activities, think again. Will these buttons are going to serve you any more in designing a better web page? Will this bullets will increase the number of your visitors?

Now take a deep breath and read some really helpful tips for professional web sites:

1. Select a colour scheme and stick to it. Choose couple of your favorite colour and stick with it. Here is how a most common colour scheme should look like:

    * Red, yellow and white
    * Blue and white
    * Red, grey and white
    * Blue, orange and white
    * Yellow, grey and white.
You are not very sure about which colour scheme to choose? Then surf the internet and find a website that you like. You can even model colour scheme from what really interests you out there.

2. Make use of templates:

If you are one of those who can’t really decide what they like, you have another option too. That is to choose a template. If you really intend to find them, you will find several pre-set design templates. It could be your web-designing software or even some web-sites which specializes in webpage designing.

3. Let them navigation freely:

When it comes to designing a website you should not forget to provide them an easy to Navigate system where they can find what they want. You can place your Navigation bar on the left or at the top. And since most people are used to this type of navigation, it s best to stick with it. It also helps to include your navigation bar at the bottom of each page to save your visitors from having to scroll back to the top.

4. Special effect need to be special:

What we mean here is you should not use special effects at the drop of the hat. It will only increase the uploading time and you will lose your potential clients.

5. Backgrounds: Lights are right!

Be sure your visitors can read the text on the background, also be careful that your links are visible before and after being visited. The default for links in most programs is blue, and burgundy (before and after visited) so, if you have a dark background, please ensure your links are light.

6. Watch that External Links!

Help your visitor s time, by letting those busy bees open links to other websites in a new window. That way your visitors can easily return to your site when they are finished browsing the external link.

7. Map is important for your Site

If you website have more pages, say 15 or more, than it is useful and recommendable to have a site map or a Search feature to ensure your visitors can easily find what they re actually looking for.

8. Text is the most important factor:

Never refrain yourself from giving some information just to give yourself an excuse to make it look simple or clean. Remember, content is the king and it will always be. People come to web with some clear purpose in their minds, try to justify their needs by never cheating them when it comes to choosing between adding information or just saving some space.

Professional websites will exclude these things:

   1. Flash intros or animated boxes
   2. Pop up
   3. music :( which will play automatically).
   4. Hit counters
   5. Date and time stamps
   6. Backgrounds that are busy.

If you really want to make professional websites try focusing on simple facts given here. We are sure you will not go wrong with the information given here.

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Technorati Tags: logo design solutions softbean.com   Flickr Tags: logo  

Friday, December 29th, 2006

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There are a complete heap of things that contribute towards the success of a business. Having a good quality product doesn’t necessarily assure the success of a business. To build a long term impression on your customers, it is vital that you have a proper marketing strategy and something unique about your company. Here comes resource within the importance for having a custom logo design.

I think it is absolutely important for all corporate bodies to realize the importance of having a custom designed logo. A professional logo design goes a long way to establish the identity and exude the attitude of the company. Now, when we pronounce ‘professional logo design”, we must understand that it is not a child’s play, its a specialist job and better if it is assigned to a professional logo designer. The corporate bodies need to appoint the specialist aspect element within the field to get it done. I definitely do understand that its lot of fun to design your own logo; You play with colors, try out your drawing skills and spend some idle time to think what could be the design, at the end you land up with a very common concept of having the initials of your company in some twisted fashion or putting in a sleazy slogan to pronounce your product is the preeminent or some other things like that. However, that is not how your logo would be, it is not just a small graphics to appear in your business cards and letterheads. A logo, if done properly can leave a long and deep impression on your customers mind. They go a long way in depicting the image of your business. you can most defiantly well understand, how powerful a logo can be in generally speaking, if you or someone that understands and has expert knowledge understand about the golden M of McDonalds the moment you see that, you know its them. Just think about the IBM logo or Swoosh of Nike, do you even take a moment to think, to whom does that logo belong? That shows how powerful impact a logo can create within the mind of your customers. Wouldn t you like your company to have an equally powerful logo?

A professionally designed custom logo can be very powerful in representing the company profile, the nature of job they do and the attitude of the company. It helps to build the identity of the company and distinguishes your service from your competitors aspect element within the market.

These days its really easy to ascertain a professional logo designer and the unsurpassed part is that they offer the service at real low-priced rates which can be afforded by the smallest of business houses. There are so many logo design firm that offers excellent custom logo designs at unbelievable low rates. There are even companies that would happily do a quality logo for you for just $60-$80. Some companies could even allow you to quote “Your price” for “Your Logo” and they will do it at whatever price you quote. What can be more wonderful than this? Does it really make sense not to have a good logo even when you can easily have it so low-cost?

The good news is, these days the corporate houses have started to realize the importance of establishing their brand and they are acknowledging the crucial role that a company logo plays in this process. The sooner the business houses realize the importance of professionally designed custom logo and stationery the better it will be for them and including for the graphic designing market.

Friday, December 29th, 2006

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Affordable web design and hosting - Success with Keywords

Friday, December 29th, 2006

Internet is the game of words. The better you use them the higher the chances of your success. Right words will make you win; use the wrong words and you lose. It’s that simple.

Once you add your website to your marketing tool box you should know how to use it. The problem of people is, even though they need their website to help market and help them grow business, they generally tend to forget the strategy part to promote their business & website. If you are one of these groups of people, your primary goal must be to attract visitors to your site because without them, the whole business of having a website becomes useless.

 Say your primary goal is to depend on search engine traffic for your website promotion, and your web site is not standing nearer than number 200 on the search engine results pages, no one will know you exist because very few people bother to look past the first four pages of results. There are literally billions of websites out there all hoping one day to make it into the top 20. Sadly, most will languish in the wait or just give up trying. So what do you do to make it happen? Well a good place to start is with keywords.

There is a whole science of key words and also there is a professional help available as SEO (search engine optimization) but we will not get in to it. Look at the search engine browser window, if you’re wondering what people are looking for, that is where you’ll find the answers. So the starting point is to develop your site content around the terms (keywords) that people are searching. Though it doesn’t pay to just take a guess at these keywords, you need to know exactly what terms people are using in their searches. You could get a lot of help in this regard with online keyword databases.

You can try this strategy where you choose a domain name for your website that includes your chosen keyword(s). Lets’ say you have an online store and your product is a new types of hybrid flower you’ve developed a new kind called flowerX. Now if you create a website with a domain name that is simply the name of your online store, still chances are your site will get few traffic because very little amount of people will be searching for your company name. But if you have confirmed that flowerX is a popular keyword that maybe thousands of people will be searching for, it would make a lot of sense to include that keyword in your domain name as well as on your sites pages.

It’s all about giving the search engines what they want. Of course there are lots more to consider in pursuing a top position in search engine results, but without the right words, It is never going to happen.

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