Design a website for a target audience

It is important to recognize your target audience. As a web designer you always consciously choose colors, select fonts and write appropriate content based on your clients target audience and how they want their brand perceived. You always need to keep your  target audience in mind when you are in a process of creating a website, so you will be able to make better decisions about the look and feel of your website and how you want it perceived by your visitors. You should always know what your primary message is, who you’re writing for and how you want them to respond. Try to have a clear picture of who your target audience is, what they look like, what age range they’re in, working or retired, what gender they may be, any details that might help you clarify who you’re writing for. A clearly focused website enables you to attract more traffic; help you to differentiate you from your competitors; and ultimately ensures that you rank well with the search engines.

First clarify your underlying strategy. Each web page should have a different key message – you don’t want to duplicate content. Every web page should be prepared with this in mind, write:

• for a specific purpose
• for a specific type of reader
• for a specific result

Start with research with a client survey. Ask questions to find out who the clients are, what they do, who’s their competition and how they want to be perceived.  Research their competition and see what you are stacked up against. By knowing and understanding who your target audience is, it helps you to use the appropriate tone, language and vocabulary in your writing. For clarity and good search engine rankings, you need to think about exactly what the people you are hoping to attract actually want. So give them what they are looking for and use appropriate language that would be appropriate and relevant to your prospective audience.

If you are designing and writing  for professionals, you may use industry specific terminology more freely. But if you are designing and writing for children, you would use different methods to communicate the message. Develop good headlines. Headlines are the first thing readers see, and are typically the only thing they see if the article is shared. Your headlines should jump out at the reader and quickly draw their attention. A good headline can dramatically increase your views when shared on a social network.

Create a profile for different visitors of the site. Determine their age, job title, gender, education and how each profile will be interacting with the website. Sometimes your target audience will most likely be a group of different people. Then start designing  for your audience.  Layouts, color choices, font selections and content are all important decisions that need to be made.

Your target audience will also affect the content on your site and how the information is presented. Good sites address a specific audience. If you want your site to be the one resource that your readers go to first, research your audience! The age of your clients is one of the most discerning characteristics of your target audience. Websites should be geared for certain age groups be respecting the different needs and wants of those at various ages. For example, websites for products focused on a client base composed of  senior citizens should be very easy to navigate with short informational text areas and little animation or distracting graphics. Websites for children should be easy to navigate as well but must also be enticing and engaging for youth, including whiteboard animation videos or cartoons, for example, to keep their attention.

Colors are powerful and play an important role in the world we live in. Colors can make us  think, change actions and affect moods. Color can also play an important role in the perception of the target audience. For example, I wouldn’t expect to see a fluorescent green hospital website, so I suggest that you choose colors that make sense to the market.

Selecting appropriate fonts for your audience is also important. If you were designing for a younger group, you may use a fun scripted font whereas a corporate site would use a more conservative font such as Open Sans, Arial or Helvetica.

There are many creative ways to increase traffic to your website design. As long as your creating good, original content and make sure that your articles address the needs of your readers, and that they can find all of the information they need in one spot.  You need to offer visitors the information they need to achieve a goal, solve a problem, be entertained, and find out quality news. This is the most effective means for increasing traffic to a website

Static and Dynamic Websites

Static websites can only really be updated by someone with a knowledge of website development.There are many static websites on the Internet, you won’t be able to tell immediately if it is static, but the chances are, if the site looks basic and is for a smaller company, and simply delivers information without any bells and whistles, it could be a static website.Static websites are the cheapest to develop and host, and many smaller companies still use these to get a web presence.

A static website consists of a series of HTML files, each one representing a physical page of a website. So on static sites, each page is a separate HTML file. When you visit the homepage, you are viewing the actual homepage file. Even if two pages contain a chunk of identical content (like a footer), they both contain two versions. So, if you want to update the footer, you must do so twice, once on each page. This is fairly straightforward and it’s how all websites were built during the early years of the world wide web. With a static website, you simply have the raw HTML that creates your page in a file. A visitor’s web-browser will just directly request that page, and all the server has to do is hand it off as is.

Advantages of static websites
• Quick to develop
• Cheap to develop
• Cheap to host
Disadvantages of static websites
• Requires web development expertise to update site
• Site not as useful for the user
• Content can get stagnant

Dynamic vs Static website
Depending on your needs, either a dynamic website or a static website could do just fine. The best of both worlds would be accomplished by using a cache or caching plugin for your dynamic site, so that frequently accessed dynamic pages can be automatically turned into static pages.
A great example of this flexibility would be using a WordPress cache plugin. These can easily turn your WordPress dynamic website, into a site that still handles dynamic requests, but at the same time saves on resources by still serving up static pages when dynamic ones aren’t needed.
Static websites are popular because they are super efficient, extremely fast and usually free to host. Blogs, resumes, marketing websites, landing pages, and documentation are all good candidates for static websites.

Many sites from the last decade are static, but more and more people are realising the advantages of having a dynamic website. Dynamic websites can make the most of your site and either use it as a tool or create a professional, interesting experience for your visitors. Websites come in a variety of different shapes and sizes but one way they can be divided is between static sites and dynamic sites. The difference is not obvious when you’re just looking at a website in your browser, but it can make a big difference in the function of your website.

Dynamic websites on the other hand can be more expensive to develop initially, but the advantages are numerous. At a basic level, a dynamic website can give the website owner the ability to simply update and add new content to the site. For example, news and events could be posted to the site through a simple browser interface. Dynamic features of a site are only limited by imagination. Some examples of dynamic website features could be: content management system, e-commerce system, bulletin / discussion boards, intranet or extranet facilities, ability for clients or users to upload documents, ability for administrators or users to create content or add information to a site (dynamic publishing).

A dynamic website uses server technologies (such as PHP) to dynamically build a webpage right when a user visits the page. Basically, what happens is the user goes to a certain web address and the server finds a bunch of different pieces of information that it writes into a single cohesive web page, which is what you see. This way of building web pages “on the fly” has several advantages.

Since each part of a web page is separate, it is much simpler to update something across many pages, all at once. For example, if you have a change to your website’s navigation you only have to change it in one place (the file that holds navigation information) and it is updated on all pages that contain that file. If you had a static website, you would have to edit every single page in order to make a change to the site’s navigation. This is tedious, repetitive, and prone to errors.

Are there any disadvantages to a dynamic site?
It really depends on what the purpose of the site you’re building is. Dynamic sites may take longer to initially code and develop than static sites.
However, in most cases any up-front savings you may achieve from a static website will be wiped out multiple times over by the additional time you’ll need for future updates and revisions.
So if the site is simply for a limited-time promotion, only has a page or two, and is going to be taken down when the promo ends, it’s possible that a static site might be the better option. However in the vast majority of website projects, dynamic sites pay off in the end.
If you are trying to speed up your website, it’s important to first know the difference between a dynamic website, and a static website. These are the two types of websites that currently exist on the Internet.
A quick break down would be that dynamic websites require more server resources, but provide more flexibility when it comes to updating them. While static websites are fast in nature, because they don’t ask the server to do extra work, other than just handing off already completed files to the visitor.
Each one has its own advantages and disadvantages, and in this guide I’ll discuss why you might want to use one over the other in your specific case.

Advantages of dynamic websites
• Much more functional website
• Much easier to update
• New content brings people back to the site and helps in the search engines
• Can work as a system to allow staff or users to collaborate
Disadvantages of dynamic websites
• Slower / more expensive to develop
• Hosting costs a little more

Copyright, Trademark and Patent differences

COPYRIGHT vs. TRADEMARK vs. PATENT
Some people confuse patents, copyrights, and trademarks. Although there may be some similarities among these kinds of intellectual property protection, they are different and serve different purposes.

Trademark, Patent, or Copyright?
A trademark is a word, phrase, symbol, and/or design that identifies and distinguishes the source of the goods of one party from those of others. A service mark is a word, phrase, symbol, and/or design that identifies and distinguishes the source of a service rather than goods. The term “trademark” is often used to refer to both trademarks and service marks.
Must all marks be registered? No, but federal registration has several advantages, including a notice to the public of the registrant’s claim of ownership of the mark, a legal presumption of ownership nationwide, and the exclusive right to use the mark on or in connection with the goods or services set forth in the registration.
A patent is a limited duration property right relating to an invention, granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office in exchange for public disclosure of the invention.
A copyright protects works of authorship, such as writings, music, and works of art that have been tangibly expressed.

Copyright is a form of protection provided to the authors of “original works of authorship”,  including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works, both published and unpublished. The 1976 Copyright Act generally gives the owner of copyright the exclusive right to reproduce the copyrighted work, to prepare derivative works, to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work, to perform the copyrighted work publicly, or to display the copyrighted work publicly.

The copyright protects the form of expression rather than the subject matter of the writing. For example, a description of a machine could be copyrighted, but this would only prevent others from copying the description; it would not prevent others from writing a description of their own or from making and using the machine. Copyrights are registered by the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress.

Copyrights protect the expression of ideas. Artistic works are generally considered to be expressions of ideas – books, paintings, songs, movies, and computer programs are examples. Copyright will not protect the process through which a particular work was created or the use of information within it (instructions, etc.).
Cookbooks are often used to illustrate the difference between the expression of an idea and the idea itself. Cookbooks cannot be reproduced without permission because they are an expression of ideas (the recipes). However, people can still follow the recipes in the cookbook because they are replicating the ideas contained in the literary work. If the recipes were protected by a patent, users would need permission to follow them, since patents protect particular ideas from being used without authorization.

Copyright contains moral rights and economic rights. Economic rights include the right to copy or publish a work or any substantial part of it. Moral rights include the right to the integrity of the work and the right to be listed as its author (though this is subject to certain limitations). The author does not lose these rights when they allow their work to be copied or published. Moral rights can be waived, but they cannot be assigned to others.

Intellectual Property Protection
Intellectual property includes works, processes, symbols and designs that were created or are owned by a company. This can include logos and slogans, and written documents or artistic works. To enforce the ownership and right to use intellectual property, the business owner must register it at the United States Patent and Trademark Office or the United States Copyright Office, depending on the type of property a business wants to protect.
Copyright Protection
According to the United States Copyright Office, copyright protects original works including “literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works.” For example, a business can copyright its books, reports, audio or video materials.Work is automatically copyrighted at the time of creation; however, registration is required if a business wants to sue over the use of the material by another party. Copyright registration requires the filing of a form, paying a fee, and sending a copy of the work to the United States Copyright Office.

Registering for Copyright
Copyright registration involves filing the proper form obtained from the U.S. Copyright Office and submitting it with the required fee and work sample. The Copyright Office does not compare new works with those previously registered by others, and only serves to provide dated evidence in cases of infringement or misuse. When infringement lawsuits are filed, the courts make the final ruling by comparing the works in question. When misuse suits arise, the court relies on copyright registration dates to prove ownership.

What is a Trademark or Servicemark?

A trademark is a word, name, symbol or device which is used in trade with goods to indicate the source of the goods and to distinguish them from the goods of others. A servicemark is the same as a trademark except that it identifies and distinguishes the source of a service rather than a product. The terms “trademark” and “mark” are commonly used to refer to both trademarks and servicemarks.

Trademark Protection
The United States Patent and Trademark Office indicates that a trademark protects “words, names, symbols, sounds or colors that distinguish goods and services from those manufactured or sold by others and to indicate the source of the goods.” This means that a company can register a trademark for its business name, slogans, logos and other items that essentially brand the product or company. Registering a trademark first requires doing a trademark search to ensure it’s not already in use. Because of the legal ramifications, most trademark experts recommend using an attorney to assist in trademark registration.

Trademark rights may be used to prevent others from using a confusingly similar mark, but not to prevent others from making the same goods or from selling the same goods or services under a clearly different mark. Trademarks which are used in interstate or foreign commerce may be registered with the Patent and Trademark Office.

The Difference Between Copyright and Trademark
While both offer intellectual property protection, they protect different types of assets. Copyright is geared toward literary and artistic works, such as books and videos. A trademark protects items that help define a company brand, such as its logo. For example, Acme Publishing Company can trademark its name and logo, but would copyright books and videos that it created.

Some additional differences between a copyright and a trademark are as follows:

1. The purpose of a copyright is to protect works of authorship as fixed in a tangible form of expression. Thus, copyright covers: a) works of art (2 or 3 dimensional), b) photos, pictures, graphic designs, drawings and other forms of images; c) songs, music and sound recordings of all kinds; d) books, manuscripts, publications and other written works; and e) plays, movies, shows, and other performance arts.

2. The purpose of a trademark is to protect words, phrases and logos used in federally regulated commerce to identify the source of goods and/or services.

3. There may be occasions when both copyright and trademark protection are desired with respect to the same business endeavor. For example, a marketing campaign for a new product may introduce a new slogan for use with the product, which also appears in advertisements for the product. However, copyright and trademark protection will cover different things. The advertisement’s text and graphics, as published in a particular vehicle, will be covered by copyright – but this will not protect the slogan as such. The slogan may be protected by trademark law, but this will not cover the rest of the advertisement. If you want both forms of protection, you will have to perform both types of registration.

4. If you are interested in protecting a title, slogan, or other short word phrase, generally you want a trademark. Copyright law does not protect a bare phrase, slogan, or trade name.

5. Whether an image should be protected by trademark or copyright law depends on whether its use is intended to identify the source of goods or services. If an image is used temporarily in an ad campaign, it generally is not the type of thing intended to be protected as a logo.

6. The registration processes of copyright and trademark are entirely different. For copyright, the filing fee is small, the time to obtain registration is relatively short, and examination by the Copyright Office is limited to ensuring that the registration application is properly completed and suitable copies are attached. For trademark, the filing fee is more substantial, the time to obtain registration is much longer, and examination by the Trademark Office includes a substantive review of potentially conflicting marks which are found to be confusingly similar. While copyright registration is primarily an administrative process, trademark registration is very much an adversarial process.

7. Copyright law provides for compulsory licensing and royalty payments – there is no analogous concept in trademark law. Plus, the tests and definition of infringement are considerably different under copyright law and trademark law.

 

What is a Patent?

A patent for an invention is the grant of a property right to the inventor, issued by the Patent and Trademark Office. The term of a new patent is 20 years from the date on which the application for the patent was filed in the United States or, in special cases, from the date an earlier related application was filed, subject to the payment of maintenance fees. US patent grants are effective only within the US, US territories, and US possessions.

The right conferred by the patent grant is, in the language of the statute and of the grant itself, “the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling” the invention in the United States or “importing” the invention into the United States. What is granted is not the right to make, use, offer for sale, sell or import, but the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, selling or importing the invention.

A patent is a right, granted by the government, to exclude others from making, using, or selling your invention. Patents protect inventions such as new processes, machines, or chemicals. The central idea is that patents protect ideas, not just expressions of them. The main effect of patents is to give their holders the right to challenge any use of the invention by a third party. He thereby gave a temporary monopoly of exploitation which can be understood as a financial incentive for inventive industrial activities.
Registering Patents
Patents must be registered. If you invent something and fail to register it, another person who independently invents or discovers your invention can patent it. There are 3 general requirements for patentability: (1) the invention must be novel, (2) it must be useful, and (3) it must show ingenuity (i.e. not be obvious). Patents expire for 20 years after the filing date, at which point they must be re-registered.

Applying for Patent
Patent applications can be complex and costly, and patent attorneys are often consulted to assist inventors. A patent search is perhaps the most labor-intensive process and involves searching through past patents to ensure that the property has not already been patented. Abstract definitions, detailed drawings, inventor information, inventor claims and specifications are required, and it can take up to several years for a patent to be issued.

The Difference Between Copyright and Patent
Patents refer to an invention, whereas copyrights refer to the expression of an idea, such as an artistic work. They are governed by different rules, so it is important to know which is applicable to your works.

 

 

 

 

 

Fair Use and Designers

 Under the doctrine of “fair use,” the law allows the use of portions of copyrighted work without permission from the owner. Fair use is a defense to copyright infringement. This means that an unauthorized use of copyrighted material is excusable if it falls under the principle of fair use. Although the law does provide guidelines for making this assessment, determining fair use is not always easy since it is a grey area of the law.

The Copyright Law provides a limited right to make fair use in a later work of elements that otherwise would be found to have been copied from, or derived from an earlier work. This is known as “fair use,” but it rarely applies to designs because it generally relates to uses for purposes such as “criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship or research.” (Copyright Law § 107.)

Consequently, courts make decisions on a case-by-case basis. So, Fair use is a legal concept that allows the reproduction of copyrighted material for certain purposes without obtaining permission and without paying a fee or royalty. The idea of fair use originally arose for written works. But with the advent of digital technology and the Internet, fair use has sometimes been applied to the redistribution of musical works, photographs, videos, and computer programs.

Fair Uses of Copyrighted Material
Under the Copyright Act, the fair use of copyrighted material without permission is allowed when used for the following purposes:
• Criticism
• Comment
• News reporting
• Teaching, includes making copies for use in the classroom
• Scholarship and research
• Parody
These uses do not grant the right to use the copyrighted work in its entirety. Rather, the use should be limited to quoting, excerpting, summarizing, and making educational copies of the material.

Court Decisions on Fair Use
Courts evaluate fair use on a case-by-case basis. The following are cases in which a court ruled that an unauthorized use was fair:
• Google’s reproduction of images into thumbnails to display on search results pages was fair use because the alteration of the image was transformative, and therefore, it outweighed the commercial benefit received by Google.

The difference between fair use and matters of integrity is not always crystal clear. Those involved in visual communication are often called upon to decide which takes precedence.While issues about copyright and fair use are not new, our feelings about them may never have been more divisive than they are today. It’s also highly unlikely that in today’s work environment, graphic designers won’t be faced with these issues on a daily basis.

“Hope” Poster – Fair Use or Copyright Infringment?

On left, Obama “Hope” poster designed by artist Shepard Fairey took a digital copy of an Associated Press photo of Barack Obama taken by Manny Garcia in April 2006, made changes n it, and used for the HOPE Poster he sold during the 2008 Presidential campaign. The  poster, was added to the collection of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington. The poster has been the focus of a copyright-infringement lawsuit. AP asserted an infringement claim, and Fairey went to court for a declaration of non-infringement. Fairey eventually settled AP’s infringement claim by paying more than $1 million to AP. (Fairey v. Associated Press).

One of the more controversial fair use areas involves so-called “appropriation art” in which an earlier work is reproduced in a later work with some changes. Richard Prince tore 35 photos from a book published by photographer Patrick Cariou, pinned them to a piece of plywood, and exhibited them with varying degrees of alterations. The court compared the artistic works side-by-side, and in a discussion that has been controversial, found that most of them were sufficiently transformative in aesthetics, size and expression to qualify for fair use. (Cariou v. Prince)

In determining whether a particular use is a fair use, the Copyright Law mentions the following factors, which are not exhaustive:
1. “The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for non-profit educational purposes.” A commercial use is less likely to be found to be fair use.
2. “The nature of the copyrighted work.” Fair use is less likely for unpublished works than for published works, for creative works than for factual works, and for readily available works than for rare works.
3. “The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole.” This concerns both quantitative and qualitative amounts used. There is no per se rule. Using an entire photograph in a compilation probably is not fair use. But using a qualitatively important detail from a photograph also might not be fair use.
4. “The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.” This has been said to be the most important factor. Lost licensing revenues may be part of this analysis.
The courts have applied a fifth factor, namely, whether the use is “transformative.” For example, fair use also was found where small digital “thumbnail” reproductions of photographs were used in a visual search engine.

Inspiration
All designers look to prior works for inspiration. The crucial inquiry, however, is whether the source of the inspiration has been transformed sufficiently that the new design can be considered “original” rather than “derived.” In making this determination, you compare the designs side-by-side or you overlay one design on the other. Then, you decide whether the protectable elements of the two designs are “substantially similar.”
It is very difficult to predict the outcome of a particular claim that a later design infringes an earlier design. It is certain, however, that the cost of dealing with an infringement claim can be high, both in terms of interference with the continued use of the design at issue, the cost of changing it, the cost of possible lost income, and attorney’s fees. Accordingly, you should try to find your inspiration from several different sources, should not use elements taken from only one of them, and should retain your notes and source materials so that you can substantiate your creative process.

Infringement
There is a disconnect between the views of graphic artists and the views of judges as to what constitutes substantial similarity. The judicial standard that is most commonly applied is as follows:
Whether the ordinary observer, unless he set out to detect the disparities, would be inclined to overlook them and regard the aesthetic appeal of the two works as the same.
On the other hand, designers are more likely to focus on the individual design elements and the differences between the designs. This has given rise to some widely held myths:
Myth 1: Many designers believe that the designer point of view as to specific changes will be given legal recognition. This is not necessarily so. A Judge will look at the overall visual effect—the total concept and feel–regardless of the individual elements that may have been changed, added or even removed. For example, the design of an oriental carpet which was a simplified version of a Persian antique, was copied in part with some changes and additions and was viewed by the designer as being original. However, an appellate court viewed it as being derivative and infringing. (Tethenkian v. Einstein Moomjy, Inc.)

Myth 2: It is commonly believed that a specific number of changes in a design — such as five, six or seven changes — are automatically sufficient to make the later design original. This is not true. Rather, a Judge will consider whether the changes were sufficient so that the new design would be considered transformative of the original design rather than derivative of it.

 

The difference between HTML, CSS, JavaScript and PHP languages

HTML

HTML was invented in 1990 by a scientist called Tim Berners-Lee. The purpose was to make it easier for scientists at different universities to gain access to each other’s research documents. The project became a bigger success than Tim Berners-Lee had ever imagined. By inventing HTML he laid the foundation for the web as we know it today.

HTML is constantly undergoing revision and evolution to meet the demands and requirements of the growing Internet audience under the direction of the W3C, the organisation charged with designing and maintaining the language.

THEN, WHAT IS HTML? It is a markup language for describing web documents (web pages). HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language.  A markup language is a set of markup tags.  HTML documents are described by HTML tags.  Each HTML tag describes different document content. You use HTML to create the actual content of the page, this means in HTML you define the basic structure and the contents of a website. It is simply a format that allows you to specify certain ways to display information on a page.

HTML consists of a series of short codes written in “tags” into a text-file by the site author, which are types of a structure that are written between opening and closing brackets. The tags are what separate normal text from HTML code. You might know them as the words between the <angle-brackets>. Tags can be used to make links, format text, build the page layout and more. For instance this bold link is made of HTML code that looks like this: <strong>this bold link</strong> is made of HTML code. Different tags will perform different functions. The tags themselves don’t appear when you view your page through a browser, but their effects do. The text is then saved as a html file, and viewed through a browser. You can use anything from a rudimentary text-editor to a powerful graphical editor to create HTML pages.

If you want to make websites, there is no way around HTML. Even if you’re using a program to create websites, such as Dreamweaver, a basic knowledge of HTML can make life a lot simpler and your website a lot better. The good news is that HTML is easy to learn and use. In just two lessons from now you will have learned how to make your first website. Complete websites can be built out of pure HTML and text, but they wouldn’t be very attractive looking, so we use CSS to style them.

HTML and JavaScript are two completely different things. HTML is a markup language designed for defining static web page content. JavaScript is a programming language designed for performing dynamic tasks. Sometimes the distinction is confusing because JavaScript code can go in the same file as HTML.

CSS

CSS was first developed in 1997, as a way for Web developers to define the look and feel of their Web pages. It was intended to allow developers to separate content from design so that HTML could perform more of the function that it was originally based on – the markup of content, without worry about the design and layout. CSS didn’t gain in popularity until around 2000, when Web browsers began using more than the basic font and color aspects of CSS. Web Designers that don’t use CSS for their design and development of Web sites are rapidly becoming a thing of the past.

THEN, WHAT IS CSS? Cascading Style Sheets, or CSS, allow you to specify things like the font you want on your page, the size of your text, whether the page is to have 2 columns, whether your text is to be in bold or italics, and so on. In other words, it is the part that lets you control the appearance of your web page.  CSS is responsible for the Design of the Webpage, how every thing looks, and where it is on the page. (CSS) dictate your website’s look and feel. Font size, font color, font type, styling around images, page layout, mouse-over effects, colors, margins, lines, height, width, background images, advanced positions and many other things are all determined by CSS.

If HTML is a house, with the structure (walls, roof, etc) and contents, like furniture, CSS is the color of the paint, the size of the rooms and the ornamentation. CSS is used on a website to make the design. Ok, so with HTML we make our webpage and CSS allows us to style it.  CSS revolutioned the world of web design!

JAVASCRIPT

JAVASCRIPT is a scripting language and was first implemented by Netscape Communications Corp. in Netscape Navigator 2 beta (1995).

THEN, WHAT IS JAVASCRIPT? JavaScript is the most popular programming language in the world,  used to make web pages interactive. JavaScript support is built right into all the major web browsers, including Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari. So, it runs on your visitor’s computer and doesn’t require constant downloads from your website. Provided that the visitors to your site are using web browsers that support JavaScript (most do) and have JavaScript enabled (it is by default), then your JavaScript will run when they visit the page.

JavaScript is not a programming language in strict sense, is most commonly used as a client side scripting language, that is, a lightweight programming language that is interpreted by the browser engine when the web page is loaded (JavaScript codes are written into an HTML page.)  When a user requests an HTML page with JavaScript in it, the script is sent to the browser and it’s up to the browser to do something with it. Javascript can dramatically improve the content of a website. There are a number of different places where JavaScript can be used but the most common place to use it is in a web page. In fact for most people using JavaScript, in a web page is the only place where they use it.

Creating a clock using Javascript:

1 <!doctype html>
2 <html>
3 <head>
4 <meta charset=”utf-8″>
5 <title>Untitled Document</title>
6 <script type=”text/javascript”>
7 // 1. Created the function
8  function updateClock ( )
9 {
10 // 2. Created some variables
11 var Time = new Date ( );
12 var Hours = Time.getHours ( );
13 var Minutes = Time.getMinutes ( );
14 var Seconds = Time.getSeconds ( );
15
16 //3. If needed, add Zeros to single intergers
17 Minutes = ( Minutes < 10 ? “0” : “” ) + Minutes;
18 Seconds = ( Seconds < 10 ? “0” : “” ) + Seconds;
19
20 //4. IF Else logic for choosing “AM” or “PM”
21 var timeOfDay = ( Hours < 12 ) ? “AM” : “PM”;
22
23 //5. Change from Military time to 12-hour format
24 Hours = ( Hours > 12 ) ? Hours – 12 : Hours;
25
26 //6. If Hour time is 0, change it to 12
27 Hours = ( Hours == 0 ) ? 12 : Hours;
28
29 //7. Final Clock output
30 var currentTimeString = Hours + “:” + Minutes + “:” + Seconds + ” ” + timeOfDay;
31
32 //8. Function to display current time
33 document.getElementById(“clock”).firstChild.nodeValue = currentTimeString;
34 }
35 </script>
36 </head>
37 </head>
38 <!—9. Update clock every 1000ms or one second—>
39 <body onload=”updateClock(); setInterval(‘updateClock()’, 1000 )”>
40 <span id=”clock”>&nbsp;</span>
41 </body>
42 </html>

JavaScript adds interactivity to Web pages and creating Web applications.It  is often used to create polls and quizzes,  and if you command an image to be replaced by another one, JavaScript tells the browser to go do it. Because the browser actually does the work, you only need to pull some strings by writing some relatively easy lines of code.   Do you need a clock or date on your site? Dancing bears and hula girls? That’s what makes JavaScript an easy language to start with.

PHP

PHP was originally an acronym for Personal Home Pages, but is now a recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor. Originally developed by the Danish Greenlander Rasmus Lerdorf, and was subsequently developed as open source. PHP is not a proper web standard – but an open-source technology. PHP is neither real programming language – but PHP lets you use so-called scripting in your documents. To describe what a PHP page is, you could say that it is a file with the extension .php that contains a combination of HTML tags and scripts that run on a web server.

On a server side and just before a page is delivered to the client browser, PHP makes it possible to create pages that changes depending on the data given to PHP, for example you can show a different page to people from different countries or you can show a different page depending on what was posted recently on the page. PHP is a server-side scripting language designed for web development but also used as a general-purpose programming language. PHP is what makes your website do stuff and works like this: A PHP script runs on the server and can alter or generate HTML code at will. An HTML web page is still delivered to the browser, which doesn’t know or care that PHP is involved in tweaking the HTML on the server.

PHP is the code that is used to interface with the database. The power of having all of the content stored in a database means that you can switch out themes and code to radically change the design of a website while maintaining the same content. PHP gives you the freedom to add advanced features to your website. PHP can be used in many contexts – discussion forums, polls, shops, SMS gateways, mailing lists, etc. The only limitation with what you choose to do with PHP is your imagination.