What important technical details should a programmer consider before making the website live?

As a web developer or programmer, you need to concentrate on some vital technical information before making your website live. The foremost thing that you need to concentrate on is using an appropriate platform for your web development.

You need to make sure that the platform you’re going to use for developing the website must be stable, secure, high-performing and scalable. Also, it must meet all kinds of business goals such as less cost, quick development time, high Google ranking, and so on.

Next, you need to be more specific about using web standards for your website development. As a professional web developer, you need to have specific consideration on HTML, JavaScript and CSS over HTTP.

Before using any web standards, ensure that which web standards you are going to use, and also ensure that in what circumstances and why you are going to use those standards.

So, what important technical details you should consider before make your website live?

• Make sure that your website works reasonably well across all major browsers, because sometimes browsers implement standards inconsistently. Also, consider how browsers render your website in various operating systems, and how people might use the website other than from major browsers.
• Ensure that you deploy updates on the websites without affecting the users. Have staging environments(one or more tests) available to implement changes on the websites, such as modifying architecture, adding content, changing code, etc., and ensure that they are deployed carefully without affecting anything else in the website. So, always have an automated way of deploying changes to the live website.
• Never display unfriendly errors straight away to the users of the website. Also, never provide the user’s email ID in plain text as it may get spammed to death. 
• Learn how doing progressive enhancement, which helps you to deliver the best possible experience to the users.
• Always REDIRECT after a POST if it was done successfully. This helps you to prevent a refresh from submitting again.
• Make sure that you take accessibility into account without fail. Because, in certain situation, it is a legal requirement.
• Aware about Injections like SQL injection, and learn how to prevent them. You have to use hash passwords to prevent rainbow attacks.
• Use SSL/HTTPS for pages like login pages or the pages where sensitive data is entered.
• Avoid cross site scripting (XSS) and cross site request forgeries (CSRF). Also, prevent session hijacking and Clickjacking.
• Implement caching if necessary. To do this, you have to use HTTP caching and HTML5 Manifest properly.
• Learn how to deflate content and optimize images in the website.
• To reduce the number of browser connections, try to compress duplications among files by improving gzip ability.
• For performance profiling, use Google page speed with browser extension. This helps to optimize images in the website. You can use CSS Image Sprites for small related images like toolbars.
• Reduce the number of HTTP requests that are required for a browser to render the web page.
• Always remember that SEO or Search Engine Optimization plays a greater role in generating traffic to your website. So, make sure that you use search engine friendly URLs in your website.
• Make sure that you install Google analytics tool or an open source analysis tool right at the start. You can also use Google Webmaster Tools and Bing Webmaster Tools to get a detailed report about the visibility of your web pages on Google and Bing.
• Never forget to have an XML sitemap in the website. This helps you to tell Google about pages on your website.
• Use XHTML/HTML and CSS according to the W3C specifications and also ensure that they authenticate.
• Learn how JavaScript is processed in the browser. If you use iframes, then learn how the JavaScript sandbox works. Also, consider using JavaScript frameworks that hide the browser differences when using JavaScript for DOM manipulation.
• To load frameworks, consider using a service like Google Libraries API. This makes a browser to use a copy of the framework it has already cached instead of downloading a duplicate copy from your website.
• Always set up a better error reporting solution, and document how the application works. Also, make frequent backups and make sure that the backups are functional.
• Use a version control system that helps you to store your files. Also, never forget to do your acceptance testing.
• Ensure that you have enough logging in place using frameworks. When logging, make sure that you capture both handled exceptions as well as unhandled exceptions. And analyze the log output regularly to find out the key issues in your website.

Starting Off On Web Design, Basic Suggestions That Could Move Things Upward - By K2B Solutions

So you have decided to become a web designer, but you don’t have any idea where to start off. Don’t panic! As you think, it is not so hard to design a website. You are just required to spend some effort and time - That’s it!

Generally, web designers build the visual elements of a website. You just need to have a very good grasp of design prerequisites and also learn how to use the chief design software. Also, you must have the specific field of knowledge and the technical skills.

As everyone knows, creating a good first impression is extremely vital. Therefore, it is mandatory to build best websites that help you to increase the number of visitors to your website.

Before start building a web design, you need to have a basic idea about the important things that have to be implemented in the web design.

The following suggestions are targeted at neophyte web designers that help them to create a web design:

• Use similar field websites as references: To get a general idea of what to do with your website, first you need to refer other relevant websites. You can use other websites as your references but at the same time, you need to make sure that you don’t copy the same. If you have seen any attractive web design, color, layout or scheme, then try to use it as the beginning point of your website.

• Build an inimitable web design: To gain more number of visitors to your website, you need to think something innovative and create a unique web design that attracts your visitors. You need to ensure that the web design must not contain too much of animations and graphics. 

• Create pertinent and utile content: Create a content that is relevant to your website and ensure that the content is useful for the website visitors. When creating the content, you should have the conscious that the content should not be too lengthy, which requires the visitors to do much scrolling.

• Use content supportive images: The graphic that you use in your website must not overlook the content. It should always give a great support to the content present in your website. Always avoid using too much graphics on your website because unnecessary dumping of graphics may disturb your visitors’ concentration and thus make them leave the website immediately.

• Ensure limited file size: So many factors are there affecting the website loading time but still you need to make sure that the large files are not the reason. If the file you use is less in size, then your website loads very fast in the Internet and thus results in high Google ranking.  

• Create your website that is easily acquired by visitors: Build your website that is easily reachable and acquirable by visitors across the globe. This makes the visitors to easily meander across the web pages of your website.

• Use good fonts, metaphors and backgrounds: Use very good fonts, metaphors and backgrounds in your website based on your clients’ preference and also make sure that these components fit well to your website. Also, ensure that the font you are using for your website is easily readable and easily obtainable by everyone.

• Don’t use shouting colors: Website color scheme, the tool used for building color combinations, is a very important component of web design. When creating your website, avoid using shouting colors like red, yellow, green, etc. Always try to use the most common color schemes such as Blue, orange and white – Red, yellow and white – Yellow, grey and white – Red, grey and white – Blue and white.

• Use the maximum existing space: Always try to utilize almost all the available spaces and also ensure that the website doesn’t looks congested as well. On the other hand, never leave empty spaces in your website. Instead of leaving empty spaces, you can add some relevant graphics in your website that attracts more visitors. 

• Ensure no white spots: In your website, make sure that there are no white spots left out as such. Always fill up with images and text on all the sides of your webpage. Every spot of your website must have its own things and they should not interrupt the website visitors too.

• Avoid broken links: Ensure that all the links in your website are working properly. A good website shouldn't have any broken links. The broken links give a bad impression to your website and also make your website valueless during the Search Engine Optimization process. As a result, the visitors may lose the chance of viewing your website.

• Don’t forget to add site search option: Site search option is an imperative option that has to be added in your website. Because, the clients generally use the search option when they look for something in your website.      

• Have clear and simple navigation: Ensure that you are using a clear and uncomplicated navigation menu. If you use intricate Flash-based menus or some other tiered menus, then the visitors will not know how to use those menus and ultimately leave your website.

• Avoid using excessive banner advertisements: Instead of using too many advertisements banners, give more relevant content and also its links into your website. Because, visitors don’t like to spend much time on advertisements. So, avoid using unnecessary advertisements in your website.

• Follow proper HTML standards: You should always follow the appropriate HTML standards to make your website HTML-compliant. So that your website will work properly in all browsers.

Hope, the above mentioned suggestions would definitely give you more confidence in tackling web design.