What is XML?
When the internet first came to be, all websites were written in HTML. HTML was the only programming language used to describe and display data on the World Wide Web.
As time progressed, programmers started to realize that they were being stymied by HTML. Web designers wanted to be able to describe data more effectively. This need for a better way to deal with data resulted in the development of a new specification called XML.
What is XML? XML stands for Extensible Markup Language. So, just like HTML, XML is a markup language. A markup language is any language that is used to describe or define information and text. XML is not a substitute for HTML. It is to be used in conjunction with HTML.
HTML focuses on describing how data or text is supposed to be displayed. The XML language does something totally different. XML describes what the data is. So, XML is not something that is apparent on a web page, because it does not actually do anything. As information and data presented on the world wide web became more complex, XML was invented to effectively structure, store, and send this information.
What makes XML truly unique is that there are no predefined tags like we have with HTML. All of the tags used in HTML have already been defined, such as the paragraph tag, the header tag, and all the various style tags. XML is not defined. You can make your own tags!
So, the question is, why do we need XML? Why do we need a more versatile specification like XML to describe data? After all, HTML works fine if used properly, so why do we need XML? Well, the answer is simple. XML is a device independent, cross-platform language.
This is extremely important, because people are now using a wide variety of gadgets to connect to the internet, as almost every electronic device on the market now comes equipped with email and internet access. Cell phones, palm tops, computers installed in automobiles, they all have built-in web access. Each of these devices display text and graphics differently, and utilize different platforms and a variety of web browsers. As a result, someone using a cell phone to access a certain web site may not be able to view the data on that website properly because the browser running on that cell phone might not be able to properly display the HTML. The platforms that run on some of these newfangled products and devices are simply not 100% compatible with HTML.
XML solves this problem by making sure that the most important data on your website can be displayed across all of these different platforms. This is what makes XML so valuable. The other important features of XML is that it enables data to be exchanged between incompatible systems, and because XML files are plain text files, basically anyone using any system can view the contents of the text file.
So, all web designers and programmers should become familiar with and learn to use XML for describing, storing, and sending data. With so many different ways now available to connect to the internet, not using a totally flexible language like XML could be extremely costly for any ecommerce business.
Jim Pretin is the owner of http://www.forms4free.com, a service that helps programmers make email forms.
Web Site Package – The Online Solution
Today, companies providing services on the web need to cater for the whole spectrum of services available. The process of having a professional web site starts from designing your site to hosting, supporting and marketing it.
Many web companies still specialize in particular areas of web services. Some offer web design and development, others just hosting and others are purely concentrated on search engine optimization and internet marketing. Without doubt, a web company that can offer all these services without having to switch between different providers for different aspects of the whole process has an advantage.
But what are the main essentials of a web site package and what should it include? First, there need to be different web site packages which can tailor for various business needs. A web site for a sole trader or an artist will definitely require different specifications from that of a large organization.
Here are some processes which definitely need to form part of a web site package:
Feasibility Study
Before designing or even developing a web site, the client’s requirements need to be absorbed and understood. A plan needs to be written down on how the site is going to look, feel, and most importantly, what needs to be achieved. This study can serve as the basis for the design and development stage.
Design and Development
The web site needs to be designed based on the client’s requirements. Once this is done, the client needs to be satisfied with what the end result is going to look like before development commences. The actual development will depend on the nature of the site and the technology needed. The obvious characteristics that define the development stage depend on whether Flash technology is required and whether the site needs to hold static data or dynamic content.
Testing and Client Approval
Before going live, the client needs to be fully satisfied with the site and make sure it respects the business they are conducting. It also needs to clearly transmit the nature of the business or services provided, or in some cases, the information available, in other words, the scope of the site needs to be fully understood.
Implementation and Hosting
The site needs to reside on a hosting server to be available on the internet. The server needs to give access to the administrator of the site to modify it whenever necessary and needs to provide substantial bandwidth paired with maximum performance.
Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing
Hopefully, the site would have been developed in such a way to provide the right guidelines for search engines to understand what the site is all about when they index it. If paid advertising is not an option, search engine optimization is crucial for the success of a web site and this is a definite must for a web site package to have. Web marketing and exposure comes next. This is normally done through articles related to the site and links pointing to it from other web sites.
Support
Whatever happens after the site is online cannot be left to chance. A web site package needs to include a minimum time for maintenance and support. This time is used for the client to get accustomed to the site, make some changes, if necessary, and have the guarantee that if anything had to go wrong in the first few days or months, the supporting company is there to help and resolve issues straight away.
A web site package is the way forward, especially if one is new to the internet and is easily confused with all that is available online today. One person or company that can take care of all your web site requirements is definitely going to reduce the hassle and headache which normally people go through when several web services are required.
Sandro Azzopardi has over 20 years experience in IT. He has worked on various projects with small to large organizations. Together with a team of other professionals, he is specializing in Web Packages, offering a complete web solution on http://www.cbswebpack.com/packages.html
What is XSL?
Remember the good old days, when the internet consisted of nothing more than a few simple websites formatted in basic HTML? Web design was so easy. You could just slap some graphics and text into a file, insert some HTML tags into the document to tell the web browser how the text should appear and what the structure of the page should be, and presto, the job was finished.
As time went on, web design became more arduous. Businesses, especially ecommerce businesses that depended upon their internet storefronts to make a living, began to present web designers with near impossible projects that were too difficult to complete with basic HTML. The data being used and the designs that were being implemented for websites required more versatile programming specifications.
What resulted was the evolution of new specifications and languages for creating web sites. Languages and sub-languages such as XML, XHTML, style sheets, and a host of other more refined and yet more flexible specifications were spliced together to take web design to a new level.
One of the most important languages that came to be in recent years is called XSL. What is XSL, you ask? Well, to totally understand what XSL is and why it is so important, you must first understand XML.
XML is a markup language just like HTML. XML was created to deal with the fact that HTML was limited in that all of its tags were predefined and it displayed data a certain way. XML has no predefined tags, and does not tell a computer how data should appear, it merely defines the data. So, using XML, a web designer can define all sorts of data and more effectively transmit this data to web browsers installed on different platforms that run on a variety of electronic gadgets such as cell phones and other handheld devices that now come equipped with internet access. In a nutshell, XML was created to deal with the fact that so many different electronic products now come equipped with access to the internet and email. These new devices run on platforms that do not always display data properly if it is coded using HTML. XML fixed this situation by simply defining data and not forcing the web browser to display it a certain way, because an XML file is merely a simple text file.
So, again you ask, what is XSL and why is it important? XSL stands for Extensible Stylesheet Language. You have probably heard of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). CSS is a style sheet language that evolved to make it easier for web designers to create a style for an HTML web page. Because XML is now so important, and because XML tags, as explained in the previous paragraph, do not tell the web browser how data should appear, a stylesheet language that was XML-based became a necessity.
XSL consists of 3 components. The first and most important component is XSLT. XSLT transforms an XML document into another XML document that can actually be understood and displayed by a computer. It accomplishes this by transforming most of the document into XHTML, which is a more versatile, cross-platform, XML-based version of HTML.
The second part of XSL is XPath. XPath is used as the navigator for XSL. XSL uses XPath to find parts of the source document that should match a certain predefined template. When XPath finds what it is looking for, then XSLT takes over and performs a transformation, turning the source document into what is called the result document.
The final part of XSL is known as XSL-FO. This component is for the final formatting. Once XPath has searched through the source document and used XSLT to transform the source document into the result document, the document then needs to be formatted so that the web browser will be able to present the document with the proper layout and structure. Simply put, XSL-FO is the part of XSL that produces the final output.
There are all sorts of helpful online tutorials for programmers and web designers to begin to learn how to use and implement XSL, but it would probably be best take a course in XSL at a local institute, college, or wherever you can find one. If web design is your career, learning it is not an option, it is a necessity, as most web browsers are now capable of understanding XSL. Since the advent of wireless internet access, everything from cell phones, to palm tops, to computer screens in automobiles can be used to connect to the internet. These different devices run on different platforms and have different web browsers that cannot properly display many elements of the HTML programming language. As a result, it is critical for all web designers to be able to create web pages using cross-platform specifications with the adaptability provided by XSL.
Jim Pretin is the owner of http://www.forms4free.com, a service that helps programmers make email forms.
How to Hire the Right Web Designer
If you are a novice internet businessperson, and you just started an online business, you probably have no idea how to go about hiring a web designer. Who should you call? Should you look someone up in the yellow pages? Should you hire someone who works for a company that employs many different web designers under a single umbrella, or should you hire a sole proprietor? Or, should you hire a freelancer who does web design part time? How much does it cost?
If you need someone to develop a very simple, static website that is merely a personal homepage or just an informational site about your business, then you pretty much have carte blanche. The only issue in this case would be cost. A freelancer will charge a lot less than a professional, but a freelancer might not do a thoroughly competent job. There are numerous website directories that contain a database of freelance web designers who are seeking work. If you hire one of these individuals, make sure you request to see samples of web designs they have already done, just to make sure they have not done shoddy work in the past. I find it best to hire a professional in this instance, because even though a professional will charge more per hour, they can usually do much better work and get it done faster. So, in the end, a freelancer could actually charge more and you might end up getting a design of inferior quality.
Let us take a moment to delineate what the differences are between a freelancer, a sole proprietor, someone who owns a small, reputable web design business with a few employees, and a designer who is part of a huge company that employs up to one hundred web designers (there are quite a few companies out there that employ hundreds of web designers under a single company umbrella and also provide domain name registration and web hosting services all in one package).
First of all, a freelancer is usually someone for who web design is merely a hobby. This sort of a person has probably taken a few courses in simple web design at a local institute or college, or might be self-taught, and dabbles in web design as a part-time job or a way to earn extra cash. Some of these freelancers might be quite talented, but their designs are ordinarily not as crisp as what a professional can produce. To reiterate, a freelancer is someone who only moonlights as a web designer. So, they are typically busy with their other career, and will take a longer time with your project because of time constraints. In the end, the freelancer probably will not give you the design you really want, and will refuse to refund your money.
A web designer who is part of a larger company that employs one hundred or more designers is just as bad as a freelancer. These sorts of web designers do not have much design skill, and are often given many different jobs to do at once. As a result, they will throw your design together haphazardly. You will be very disappointed with the work they produce.
The best web designers to hire are professionals who do web design as a career, and do focused projects. You should hire either a sole proprietor who has a large portfolio of work to show you, or a small firm of web designers who work together and have extensive web design experience. Professionals charge more than anyone else, but because they have so much experience and such a wide variety of designs for you to choose from, they will do a fantastic job in only a fraction of the time.
The only time you should use a freelancer or other inexperienced designer is if you can meet with that individual in person, explain exactly what you want, and if the project itself is very simple and the design work necessary for the job is not too extravagant. Do not make the mistake of hiring a freelancer over the internet that lives in a different state and only accepts payments via PayPal or some other sort of electronic payment processing service. Make sure your freelancer is someone who resides close by so that you can monitor their progress and visit them if you do not like the initial design they produce.
For almost all web design projects, it is best to hire a professional. Even though it costs more, it is generally only a one-time cost. A website is typically only designed once with major revisions only done once every few years; you may make changes here or there in the short run, but a web site usually stays the same for up to a few years or more. So, you might as well go with the most talented yet reasonably priced designer you can find.
Also, it is very important to hire a designer who has a contract that you can sign that stipulates certain terms and conditions. You should be able to pay the designer a down payment of 25% – 50% of the total quoted price for the job, with the balance due upon completion. This is critically important, because it can be very frustrating to flush money down the toilet on a design you hate without any way to recoup any of your funds afterwards. Also, the designer should be able to quickly produce some sample layouts after they have been assigned the job so that you can at least pick a particular design that you like the most, and then the designer can begin working on that design rather than using their artistic license to create a design from scratch.
Follow all of these recommendations and be careful when hiring a web designer. Always work with a professional if your project requires a certain level of expertise and skill, and make sure you request a portfolio containing samples of their work so you can see what they have already done. Make sure their prior designs meet your standards.
Jim Pretin is the owner of http://www.forms4free.com, a service that helps programmers make email forms.
What is XQuery?
The advent of wireless internet access has made web design a very complicated matter. Previously, all web browsers were created equal. HTML was the only language used to create web sites, and it was only possible to go online with a desktop PC.
Since the turn of the century, cyberspace has changed. It is now possible to surf the world wide web using a wide variety of wireless gadgets, such as cell phones, palm tops, laptops, computer screens in automobiles, etc. As a result, new programming languages and specifications that are more versatile than HTML have evolved to create websites that can be displayed on the new web browsers utilized by these various devices.
Languages such as XML, XHTML, XSL, and a host of other programming innovations were developed because web sites coded in basic HTML were not being displayed properly on the browsers installed on all these neat gadgets. XML is a language that enables data to be displayed across all platforms because XML is a simple text file that merely defines data, it does not tell the web browser how to display the data. XSL and XHTML were created so that XML could be transformed into a web page.
Now that you have a basic understanding of how and why programming has changed, you are ready for a brief introduction to the main topic of this article, XQuery. XQuery was invented so that there was a way to query data stored in an XML document, much the same way SQL is used to query a database.
XQuery uses simple functions to query a document. An XQuery function looks a little like a javascript function in that it uses parentheses containing an element that is to be the object of the function. With XQuery, the element in parentheses is typically the name of the document or file to be queried. To find what it is looking for within that file, XQuery narrows its search by using path expressions that look a lot like the path for an ordinary file stored on your computer, with the various subsets of data within the XML file separated by backslashes. The predicate is the final component of an XQuery function. The predicate tells the function exactly what information, data, or range of data within a particular subset is to be extracted and returned to the user.
For example, an XML file for a dating website would contain a list of men and women who have posted their profiles on the website. Some of the people in the XML file might be classified as single, while others might classified as divorced. The XML file would also contain the age of each man and woman. If a woman were to visit that dating website and perform a search for profiles of only single men who are over the age of 30, that search request would be converted into an XQuery function that would contain a path that would tell the function to search through the list of men who are classified as single, and the predicate would instruct the function to return only the profiles of the single men who are older than 30.
Learning how to use XML, XHTML, and XQuery is of critical importance to every web designer or programmer. There are now so many ways to connect to the internet using computers that run on different platforms that are no longer compatible with many elements of the HTML programming language. Web designers need to be conscious of this and start designing web sites that utilize XML and XQuery.
Jim Pretin is the owner of http://www.forms4free.com, a service that helps programmers make email forms.