Glossary

browser

A program or interface whose primary function is to display information from Web sites. Browsers receive information by requesting it from a server. Typical browsers, such as Internet Explorer and Firefox, display information as visible text and images on a computer monitor. Alternative browsers for the visually impaired read the content of the page out loud to the user or convert it to Braille. Creating Web pages that are accessible to all types of browsers is an integral part of usability.

CMS (content management system)

Software that streamlines creating, editing and publishing Web content. Most professional-quality content management systems are designed so that a person with no knowledge of Web languages can edit a Web site’s content. Most of the sites we develop (including this one) use ExpressionEngine, a robust and user-friendly CMS made specifically for small and medium sized businesses.

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)

The style language of Web pages. CSS allows the appearance of HTML documents to be displayed according to the designer’s wishes. For example, Web designers can customize attributes like font size and color, and insert background images into HTML pages using CSS.

domain name

Nothing more than a unique, human-friendly nickname for the server that hosts your Web site. When you purchase or rent a domain name, you are entitled to the right to “point” that domain name to any server that you rent or own. At that point anyone who types your domain name into their browser will be directed to your server, and consequently to your Web site. The technical side to setting all this up is handled by your hosting provider.

GIF (Graphics Interchange Format)

A popular file format for graphics displayed on the Web. The GIF format is excellent for displaying graphics with large areas of solid color, such as logos, without any loss in quality. The main downside to GIF is that it only supports 256 colors, so more complex images must suffer serious loss of quality to be saved in this format. GIF is currently being phased out in favor of PNG, which is much more flexible.

hosting provider

A company that rents out server space, allowing you to place data on the Web without having to buy your own server. Good hosting providers can also help you handle administrative chores like setting up domain names and email accounts for your Web site.

HTML (Hypertext Markup Language)

The structural language of Web pages. The great majority of Web site data is written in HTML. Each part of an HTML document is marked up according to its data type (titles, headers, paragraphs, images, etc) using tags. Tags tell the browser how to display each data type so that it makes sense to the viewer—for example, automatically adding the appropriate numeral before each item in an ordered list. The appearance of data contained within HTML tags can be customized using CSS.

JavaScript

A scripting language that enables enhanced interactivity on HTML Web pages. To see an example of JavaScript at work, visit the home page of this site and click on the red arrow underneath the tree that says “Next Project.” You should see a new portfolio image with accompanying text slide into view. That animation is powered by JavaScript code that instructs the browser to move the appropriate HTML tags into view when you click your mouse on the red arrow.

JPG or JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group)

A popular file format for graphics displayed on the Web. The JPG format is ideal for decreasing the file size of photographs and large, complex illustrations so that they load faster in the browser.

PNG (Portable Network Graphics)

A file format for displaying graphics on the Web that is similar but superior to GIF. The PNG format is excellent for displaying graphics with large areas of solid color or gradients, such as logos, at a small file size without any loss of quality. The PNG format also supports transparency, so it is ideal for layering one graphic over another.

server

A computer, much like the one you’re using right now, that is configured specifically to serve Web pages to browsers. Even entry-level servers can handle page requests from multiple browsers simultaneously. As you might have already guessed, owning or renting a server is necessary if you want to have a Web site. This is easily and affordably accomplished via a hosting provider.

SEO Link Building Services

What is link building?
One of our web site promotion efforts is link building. Links from high ranking web sites to your site can dramatically increase traffic. The goal of link building is to create an excellent source of consistent and targeted traffic through hyperlinks placed on content related and sharing the same audience web sites, linking to your site. If you have no links at all means that Search Engines will drop the site from their index. The more links you have the higher is the link popularity of your site.

Link popularity
Link popularity is the result of link building. It means being a popular web site. Many quality links to your site generate additional Search Engine traffic and is a requirement for a good ranking on the search result pages. Some web sites have more than half a million hyperlinks targeting them. I bet you are surprised by this number?

Our link building team
Our SEO consultants provide link building service and additional link popularity checks on a regular and on a timely basis for your web pages. You will receive all details in our special report documented by SEO-Watch. We also monitor existing links and make sure that links are still implemented on the pages where we posted them for you.

Avoiding mistakes when building the links
Be aware that the links on your web sites grow naturally and not too fast. An unethical practice is to send out messages to hundred thousand webmasters in one go and request that they link to your site. In no time a couple of thousand links will be organized. Know that context of links is also taken into account, rather than sheer numbers. The consequence is that Google will ignore your links or even blacklist your site because the link structure is growing too fast or poor links are added. Solution: An "organic grow" should be achieved with the focus on quality. This takes time but it's worth it.

Improve Google Ranking

How is Google ranking sites?
There are thousands of forums and discussion groups breaking their heads which recipe Google is using to rank the web sites. Let me tell you one thing: it is such a secret, as the one of the Vienna Sacher tart, which is locked in a safe and guarded. But on the other hand through working with Google, you learn to deal with it.

Facts and Stats of Google
Google receives over 200 million queries each day, has indexed up to June 2005 approximately 10.4 billion items, such as web sites and images, Usenet newsgroups, videos, localities, maps, and items for sale online. The servers they use to digest all this operate with Red Hat Linux. It rules globally and is used in Thailand just as well as in Germany, Australia or USA. If you just look at the number of searches this software is processing you can imagine that the chances are a kind of slim landing on the first search result page being in the run with approximately one billion other web sites and in a bin with another 10.4 billions items. Or not?

What do we know about Google?
Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. Links from any page (internal or external) to your site (primarily your homepage) are called back links.It's most important to come up in search result pages that you have high quality back links, because Google loves when sites owners are co-operating with each other. This is what Google says' about it Improve Google Ranking

2nd important
Placing your web site into the right category.Those 200 million queries are not targeted to find one specific web site category but is shared between numerous sorts of categories. Most Directories have already the functionality prepared that you can select first the category and then start the search. They call this advanced search. Google doesn't. Google sorts the sites by what the software finds in the content. The content has to make the category clear and specific. Titles, content and back links are a trigger to get Google working. So no wonder that people need assistance to sort out the content and titles because there is more to it and we are glad to help.

Meta Data out and passé?
No ,... there are more Search Engines out there than Google. Directories which depend on the Meta Data. They bring a good amount of visitors to you and sometimes bring even better search results.

Refreshing content
The more often a site updates the content, the more often Google will visit. The links in these pages are checked to discover new pages that Google then ads to its internal database of the web. With other words Google likes people who are serious about the Web.

Web Site Promotion Services

How we promote your site
To submit your web site to the free Open Directory is the first important step because real people are reviewing it and no software agent or robot is making this important decision if this web site is fit for the internet. It seems that being accepted by the Open Directory Project, is a very good recommendation for Google, because your site should be designed and written for people and not for Search Engines. Therefore Googles preference is logic. HotBot and AOL are again powered by Google there is obviously a domino effect taking place here.
To register at Yahoo is also of absolute importance and the story goes that Yahoo is very selective. Not one of our sites, we have ever built, was rejected by any above mentioned organizations. Understanding that we submit your web site to additional Web Directories and local Search Engines helps. The better you are rooted in the Internet the better your chances are, to show up in the search result pages.

Banner Advertisement on the Web
We will first test the effectiveness of your banners in small campaigns before you spend a great deal of money on banner advertising. The click through rate is only a tenth of what is was 5 years ago but if it proves that every second client is also a potential sales lead or customer, that finds your site by a banner, it's worth a try. We recommend banner advertisement only for online stores or for a campaign that is taking place on your site. The banner should be animated, the font should be readable and a "Click here" always helps. We deliver banners since 1997 and take care that they are seen by the right audience and correspond with the content of the site it is going to be displayed on.

Adwords and Pay Per Click
AdWords and Pay Per Click campaigns make sense when your web site is still in the sandbox of the Search Engines or when your competition is so overwhelming that initiatives have to be seized. It is a whole story for itself and relevant and important information can be found at the Google AdWords Consultancy page with a link to Google Adwords learning center.

Link Building
Is serious business because Google very much bases the ranking on how important your web site is, on how many links from other web sites are pointing to your site. So from this perspective seen, link building is one of the most common and most effective forms of web site promotion but should be left to the professional. Linking to sites without any relevance to your category or profile is not helping at all. Even worse your own ranking can drop if you link to a site which is banned and you do not know about it or which has a bad ranking and not an excellent content and topic to compensate this lack through the promise of future visitors. We have additional information about link building on our SEO Link Building Services page.

Creating returning visitors
Creating visitor loyalty is that those who regularly visit your site most likely tell their friends, family and colleagues about you web site. Even if this visits are all taking place in Cyberspace, never underestimate the power of down to earth mouth to mouth advertisement. High quality content and continuously updating is to do, to retain the interest of your visitors. An update once or twice a month is the very minimum that must be met. When we built a commercial site for a client we always keep the space for a "What's New" page in mind even if we cannot convince the client in the first phase how important this really is, he/she will realize the necessity when he/she views the stats after the launch.

Membership E-mail lists
E-mail lists demand repeatedly scheduled work, but are very rewarding. They are a perfect way to get your visitors back to your site by informing them of Sales and Promotions you are running on your site. Articles that are informative and cover the field of their interests are very much appreciated. The rising number of e-mail recipients also give a realistic feedback how well your web site is perceived. Bear in mind however that you do not send mail to people that did not ask for it on a regular basis. If you do so anyway, make sure they can cancel the second mailing.

Other promotional strategies are:

• Give your clients something for free, they may also order something else
• Have a Discussion forum/ Blog on your web site
• Leave the URL of your web site in the signature when you send e-mails
• Use traditional marketing methods to spread your Internet address.

To spare you the research, the submitting and ongoing maintenance and the evaluation of real time visitor tracking, or online and offline campaigns ...you can leave it all up to us.

Search Engine Optimization

What is Optimization?
Search Engine Optimization means that your site will be analyzed and then improved to make it possible for Search Engines to index and rank it. If your web site does not rank well, optimization helps that your web site will be found in the first upcoming pages of the search results. This can vary from ranking very high in Google to good in Yahoo and excellent in MSN. We cannot predict in which Search Engine the best ranking will take place because they work in different ways.

What has to be done to achieve good search engine ranking?
It is our job to check if Crawlers as Google, Yahoo or MSN can identify all the hyperlinks in the pages and can add them to the list of URL's to visit. The same importance has the content that is reflecting the category your web site belongs too. Additionally the architecture and programming of the web site is of significance because pages have to be readable and accessible for these software agents. Some code is just as "hard to read" for Search Engines, as it is for anyone who is not a programmer. Another aspect we take care of is, that you do not want all your pages to turn up on the internet, or do you? To know how to handle this aspect is just as important as the firewall on your workstation.

When will I see the results?
This is the most asked question. People nowadays expect instant results. This is not applicable when you get engaged in Search Engine optimization. Facing a competition counted in millions and finally out-rank them cannot be achieved with a magic wand. Indexing a fraction of the web can take the Search Engines a long time; this is usually measured in weeks or months. This is also the reason why it still makes sense that we submit your web site to those Directories where also Google and friends (well, rather competitors) feed on. Patience and an ongoing monitoring and modifications are necessary to get the web site into the first search result pages and refreshing content regularly and building up backlinks to keep it there.

WEB HOSTING - Linux or Windows? How to decide?

Whether you are considering starting a website or you have one and want to possibly move it, this article can help you decide whether you should chose a Linux Hosting server or a Windows Hosting server.

Typically, there are three platforms on which a website can be hosted - Linux/Unix, Windows & Macintosh. We do not hear much about Macintosh as there are very few web sites hosted on a MAC server. The majority of web-hosts use Linux or Windows. Windows operating system is owned and sold by Microsoft. Linux is open source and generally free. Thus a Windows Hosting server costs extra due to the cost of proprietary microsoft software that it runs. Some people naturally assume that because their PC runs Windows they need to buy a Windows hosting package. This isn't true. Access to your web account will be through FTP or a control panel and both operating systems support these methods.

Computer Solutions offers both Linux & Windows Hosting Service.

Benefits of Linux Hosting

Linux has proven itself as the operating system of choice for web servers. Today, Linux has progressed beyond infrastructure services like file serving, printing, web hosting and email, and is being adopted even in the enterprise data center. Linux now increasingly finds use as business application servers and data base servers, moving deeper into the data center as a strategic data store, database, and application host.

The benefits of Linux are many:
· Superior economics / lower cost of deployment as the O.S. itself is free and so are the web server, email server and all other software that are needed to set up a web host. Even the My SQL database server comes free.

· Linux is a portable OS and can be installed on a variety of hardwares. This platform independence gives the Web Hosting company a wider choice in selecting server hardware, thereby optimizing cost versus service features.

· High reliability and security - A well configured Linux web server can be very secure. Firewall, antispam and antivirus services for your email can be deployed with ease by a skilled server administrator. There are patches available for the Linux kernel to increase security as well as configuration tweaks that can be made to Apache and PHP.

· Increasing independent software vendor support for Linux.

· System vendor acceptance and support.

· Performance - This is where Linux powered hosting can truely excel - because of the configurability of the Linux kernel and core hosting software such as the Apache Web Server, a Linux based server can be tuned precisly to meet the needs of the websites it hosts.

Benefits of Windows Hosting
Windows Hosting is increasing gaining popularity due to the increasing use of web applications developed in ASP & ASP.Net over an MS SQL database server platform. Many website developers now-a-days develop simpler websites in ASP and MS-Access database.

When do you need a Windows Hosting server?

Your choice of server platform usually gets dictated by the use to which you intend to put it. The majority of web features run fine on both platforms including PHP, MySQL, POP3 etc. If you intend to create your site using ASP, FrontPage, ASP.NET environment, Windows Streaming Media, MS-Access, MS SQL, or any of the other Microsoft proprietary technologies then you need to use a Windows host. There is limited support for a number of these technologies in Linux. A Windows server providing these features can be expensive. It is therefore worth considering using technologies that can be run on any operating system. Thus you are not bound to a Windows server platform, but are free to choose between Windows and Linux. The choice then can be based on parameters like price and more importantly quality of the web service.

What's in the name (Domain Name) ?

Since you've finally decided to build a website, the first thing you need to do is think of a name or rather several alternatives of a name. For a business website, you will obviously want the name of your business; for a hobbyist you'd probably want a name of your hobby attached, such as coin collector. There are several things that you may want to think about before deciding on a name.

1. If your hobby is coin collection as of now, it may not be wise to get a name such as coincollector.com because after a few years, if you want to expand your hobby, coincollector.com will not fit in. It would thus be smarter to go for a generic name or your own very name as a website address. If you are a business, you have far less of a chance of change in a name. For example, if you are called Shree Riddhi Siddhi Computers, it would probably be easy to get the same name, but be ready for a slight alteration if you don't.

2. Getting/deciding on a name can get to be difficult. Understand that Internet has no boundaries and therefore every English dictionary name you think of is probably already taken such as coincollector.com. Also, having a .com address, which is long, can get difficult and frustrating to type in. Like missing out a "d" in Riddhi Siddhi will give an error and most novice users will probably not understand the problem.

3. If you cannot get a name in a .com form, don't fret as not all addresses end in .com. You can look at several alternatives such as .org, .net, .in, .co.in, etc. The cost of each of these may vary.

4. You don't need a web designer to tell you what name you can or cannot choose. You can choose this from a wonderful little site called DomainTyper.com which very clearly explains what site name you can or cannot take. If you really like the name you've chosen but cannot find a .com, .net, or .org name, click on the "Add Extension" next to it where you can choose a different extension altogether.

Practically speaking, there is really no difference in .com, .net, or .org name these days. Search engines don't discriminate between a .com address and a .net address. The .com addresses are just the most popular domain extensions and therefore the Internet is thought of as "dot com". As a rule, go for .com first and if it is taken, try for others.

Buying space
Yes, just like you need space for your office, you need space for your website too. It's measured in MB's and GB's here and not in width, height and depth.

There are various places you can buy space from. However, it's best left upto your web designer/company you are getting this through. If you want a general cost structure for buying space and domain name, is will cost you about Rs.150 per month or more. Here are a few popular hosts that offer webhosting for your website. Each host has several offers/goodies to offer. I will not go into this as it is beyond the scope of this article. However, be careful of webhosts that claim unlimited space and bandwidth. There are no free lunches and unlimited generally means that there is a limit but most small websites will not exceed it. However, once you do, you'll be asked to pay for a higher package or move to another host. Don't worry. The unlimitedness threshold is quite high such as 6GB for space or more and 500GB or more for bandwidth. Also, Linux webhosting is cheaper than Windows.

lunarpages
Bluehost
Hostgator

Want to make your basics stronger?
If you are really technologically-challenged you need to read this. My completely technologically-challenged uncle asked me certain questions I never even thought about. He couldn't understand what the internet was or what a website really is. So, here are some of the questions and answers that I came across.

What is the Internet?
As per Wikipedia (online encyclopedia) , "The Internet is a global network of interconnected computers, enabling users to share information along multiple channels." Basically, for something like an Internet, you need several people who have computers hooked up to each other through wires to send and receive data.

This is what the internet would look like when visualized with colour codes. Original higher size is available at Wikipedia Internet Map.

It is pretty much like a club called the Internet and several people joining in (logging in) to send other club members some information. In order to facilitate faster communication and exchange of services, certain members are rich enough to have big information centres (called servers) that can share info for certain exchange of information from you. This is, of course, a very simplistic explanation and I'm sure many of you are already raising your eyebrows. I cannot discuss this in detail here, do hop on to Wikipedia entry on Internet for better information. If you are interested in actually seeing a better visual representation of how Internet network looks, see World Wide Web Around Wikipedia.

What is URL/Internet address? I already have an office address.
URL/address is being referred to as a location where your website is or will be. You cannot just say "Go to the Internet and see what we are offering." It's like saying "Go to Andheri and you'll find the Techtree office." You need to specify where you need to go exactly and there cannot be landmarks for websites either, you cannot say it's next to the Wikipedia website. The URL address is something like www.techtree.com, which is equivalent to giving exact address to someone to reach your office.

What is a website?
Just as you've an office site/space where you sit, your internet office sits where your website is.

I don't want my competitor to see my website
In business, you can avoid to show your competitor your offerings, but you cannot so that on a website as you do not have control over who comes to see your website. Internet has no boundaries -- anyone, anywhere can come see your offerings and probably copy or offer something better. You can limit your website to a closed set of people with a password protection. However, this defeats the purpose of a website, plus you need to have a real solid offering for someone to really want to get included in such an elitist club.

Designing a Website
Before you skip this, I'm not getting into the technical details here. I will just take you through the thought process that you need undertake when you want to build your own website. Yes, even if you hire a web designer and it's his job to do this, it will help and reduce a lot of heartache if you streamline your thought before you go to explain him what you want.

1. Design for easy reading across webpages. Nothing should interfere with the readability of the webpage, that's the only way you can communicate with your audience. You may like red colour, but, please don't paste it across the entire webpage as it makes readability difficult; use white instead as it's the most readable and professional to look at.

2. Don't try any stupid cheap tricks to fool the search engines. In the past, web designers have developed nefarious methods in an attempt to get higher rankings in the search engines such as repeating several words in the same page, putting invisible text, etc. Gone are those days. Trying to fool Google (the king of search engines) will get your website banned.

3. Forget silly under construction pages. If you don't have anything there, just don't put anything there at all. No one wants to go to an under-construction page. It's like announcing a new road and then saying, "Oh it's under construction come later".

Webology
Domain
A domain identifies a computer or computers on the Internet. The name appears as a Web site URL, e.g. www.techtree.com. A domain needs to be registered on domain name registrars such as the popular three mentioned earlier.

Subdomain
In the Domain Name System (DNS) hierarchy, a subdomain is a domain that is part of a larger domain. For example, "mail.example.com" or "calendar.example.com" are subdomains of the "example.com" domain, which in turn is a subdomain of the ".com" top-level domain (TLD).
Source - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subdomain

ICANN
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, headquartered in Marina Del Rey, California, U.S., ICANN is a non-profit corporation that was created on Sept. 18, 1998. ICANN is responsible for managing the assignment of domain names and IP addresses.
Find out more here.

TLD
A top-level domain (TLD), sometimes referred to as a top-level domain name, is the last part of an Internet domain name, i.e.; the group of letters that follow the final dot of any domain name. For example, in the domain name www.example.com, the top-level domain is .com. Read more here.

Cyber Squatting
Cyber Squatting is the registration of a well-known brand or company name as an Internet domain name in the hope of selling it at a later date for an exorbitant amount. This is considered an offence and is a crime.

Why a website?

Why a website? Asking the right questionsWhy is it that you want a website? Just because the guy next door does or is it that your competitors do and therefore you want it too? This is like a kid telling his mom "If Vishal can have it, why can't I?" It would help more if you think constructively rather than reactively. Ask the right questions and you'll get the right answers.

1. What is it that you are trying to achieve through a website?

This will help you understand your goals and in effect the websites goals much better.

2. Is it business related or pleasure/hobby? What is your business/hobby all about?

This will help you angle the website in a particular way. If it's a business website, it will have a more serious flavour to it as compared with a hobby website, which would perhaps have brighter colours and/or have funky designs.

3. Is your website going to just inform the audience or are you going to sell something on it too?

There are two types of informational websites - one where the content is pretty much fixed and to change it you require the developers help, the other which uses a content management system that enables you to change content yourself such as blogs. If you are going to sell, the simplest way is to let people contact you or have an online shopping cart.

4. Who is your target audience?

This question will help you decide whom you are talking to and how. It will also help you to figure out what language to use and which style would suit your content better. Also, you can decide the kind of images/photos would appeal to the audience.

5. Who are your competitors? In case of a hobby website, who are the other fellow hobbyists?

This will help not only in your website creation but business in general. Knowing what the competition/other guy has up for offer will help you know your place in the business world/hobby world and determine how important you are to your audience.

6. What are the websites that you've referred?

What are the websites that you like?Before you try to decide what your website will look like, look at what other websites look like. Also, see how easy or difficult it is to get what you want on the website. Refer not just competitor websites but take a cue from those you like in general.

Webmaster Glossary

ADSL — Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line
A new standard of Internet connection which allows very large download speeds over your existing phone line by utilising the high-frequency ability of the existing infrastructure.

ASCII — American Standard Code for Information Interchange
This is the standardised code used by computers to recognise letters and numbers by groups of seven 1s and 0s (called binary code). Gradually being superceded by » Unicode, which allows a much wider number of symbols to be encoded. There are several ‘artists’ on the net who make pictures out of letters and punctuation, resulting in ASCII art.

ASP — Active Server Page
» Microsoft made this scripting language, and you need to run it off one of their servers. It allows dynamic page generation.

Attribute
This is a command that goes inside a tag to further define what the tag does. More info is available in the basic tutorials.

AVI — Audio/Video Interleaved
One of several compression techniques (this one’s by Microsoft) for Internet video with sound.

Bandwidth
The speed that information can travel, measured in kilobits per second (kbps). Some servers will have better bandwidth than others, allowing quicker access and more users at a time. Large files consume lots of bandwidth as they download. Think of it as a pipe — only a certain amount of information can fit through at a time.

BMP — BitMaP
This is the file extension for saving Windows bitmap files (used by primitive programs like Microsoft Paint). A bitmap is an image that is made up of lots of rows of little dots. A GIF is another type of bitmap, but is a better format for the web than normal BMPs.
pronounce it: ‘bimp’

Browser
The program you use to view webpages. You’re more than likely reading this through one right now. They translate, or interpret HTML code into the page you see. The most common are Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE), and Netscape Navigator (NN). There are also text-only browsers, used for speedy information gathering.

Cache
A place on your hard drive where downloaded pages are stored temporarily, which means that pages don’t need to be downloaded again if you press the ’Back’ button for example, or if you are reading offline.
pronounce it: ‘cash’

CGI — Common Gateway Interface
This is one way of creating dynamic pages, like when you fill out a form and on the next page the information you entered is displayed. They’re used in Search Engines too. They are scripts which are placed on the server, usually in a directory called the “cgi-bin”, which stands for binary. CGI scripts are usually written in PERL, a programming language; which we have tutorials up for in the CGI Scripting section.

CSS — Cascading Style Sheets
Stylesheets are the hottest thing in web design since they were introduced a few years back. They give you huge control over your design, and with a few small changes, you could change the look of your whole site. Only more recent browsers support them, but now about 90% of web users can see them, so you should use them in your site. To find out how, read our stylesheets section.

DHTML — Dynamic HTML
This is what a page is often called if it uses a combination of both CSS and JavaScript. It is often used to create a highly interactive page that changes as you browse through it. Need to have DHTML Explained for you in more depth?

ECMAScript — European Computer Manufacturer’s Association Script.
This is what we’re going to be calling JavaScript in the future. Otherwise it’s pretty much the same as before.

Email — Electronic Mail
Everyone knows how to send and receive emails, right? Otherwise, you’re probably in way over your head here. Want to get in contact with me?

File Extensions
This is the 3 or 4 letter suffix at the end of any filename. For instance, this page is called glossary.html, with the .html bit being the extension. It tells the computer what type of file it is and therefore, what program to use to open it. You can learn how to save as a .html file, see a list of commonly-met file formats on the Internet, or check out the web’s most popular image formats.

FTP — File Transfer Protocol
A common way that files are moved from one computer to another. If you want to put your website up on the web, you generally need to FTP it up onto a server. To get a worthy program, head over to the Software Review page.

GIF — Graphics Interchange Format
This is the most popular graphics format on the Internet (along with JPEG). It was made by CompuServe, is limited to a palette of 256 colours, and is generally the best format for simple graphics. For a complete profile of this format, head over to the image formats page.
pronounce it: ‘jif’

GUI — Graphical User Interface
This is the part of a program you see — the icons, buttons and menus are all parts of the interface. Everything that surrounds this page in your browser is all interface that allows you to interact with the program.

HEX — HEXadecimal
The format of colours on the web. If you are telling a browser to make a background white, for example, you write background="#ffffff". You could say background="white", but some browsers wouldn’t know what you’re talking about, so expressing colours in HEX is better.

Hex codes are 3 groups of two numbers, which in turn signify the amount of Red, Green and Blue in the colour, hence “RGB”. These are the three primary colours of light. The range is 0 to 9 plus A to F. So, 0 means none (therefore #000000 is pure black; while f means full, resulting in white). With this knowledge, you can now create tonnes of colours by changing numbers. Although, some look better than others at all colour depths — these are the 216 safe colours.

HTML — HyperText Mark-up Language
HTML is the language you’re here to learn. Get the full picture in What is HTML?. “HyperText” is the way you surf the net — by clicking on links to travel between pages, and therefore travelling to sites that are located elsewhere in the world at a click of a mouse. This text is called hyper, because presumably, it’s text that has gone quite mad. “Markup” denotes the way you format documents, by marking up tags around the text; and “language”, because HTML coders like to boast at parties that they are "very multilingual". Or something.

HTML revolves around the standards made by the » W3C (World Wide Web Consortium); and so far we are up to version 4 of these standards (hence HTML 4).

HTTP — HyperText Transfer Protocol
The rules (called a protocol) on how a webpage goes between the website and your computer.

IE — Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer is a popular browser, made by Microsoft. For more, or to download, go to » Microsoft’s IE page.

IP — Internet Protocol
IP Addresses are a set of 12 numbers, arranged in sets of 3 (e.g. 205.123.254.145) that are the ’name’ of a computer connected to the Internet. When you enter an Internet address into your browser, the computer checks what IP number goes with that address — the address you enter is just an easier way to remember sites, and is called a domain name.

ISDN — Integrated Services Digital Network
A digital upgrade of your phone line, which downloads up to twice as fast as a modern modem — around 128 kbps. It’s moderately expensive, and not available everywhere. If you have the option, ADSL is a better connection.

ISP — Internet Service Provider
Your ISP is the company that you ring to connect to the Internet. Common and popular examples would be AOL, CompuServe, or BT. They generally also offer you more features than just Internet access, like email and webspace.

Java
Java is a programming language developed at Sun Microsystems, used to write programs and small-scale applications called “Applets”, which can be used in a website and induce powerful animation effects, reflections and other more crazy magical effects.

JPEG — Joint Photographic Experts Group
The image file format best suited to photographs, due to its ability to handle colour transitions well and compress complicated photos into a smaller size. It is 24-bit, and capable of showing millions of colours. Find out more.
pronounce it: ‘jay-peg’

JS — JavaScript
Not formally linked to Java, this is a scripting language that is coded into your page (unlike Java), and is used primarily for increased interactivity and special effects not possible with plain HTML. Go to our JavaScript section and add some tricks to your repertoire.

KBPS — KiloBytes Per Second
The speed at which you are downloading a thousand (kilo-) bytes of information. For example, a 28.8 kbps modem can transfer 28800 bits a second. A bit is a single 1 or 0, and a byte = 8 bits. Confusing, eh?

MPEG — Motion Picture Experts Group
Another compression technique for video and audio. Over time, there have been versions, called ‘layers’. One such layer was MPEG Layer 3, which was shortened to MP3, a very popular music format.

NN — Netscape Navigator
Netscape Navigator is a popular Internet browser, which was originally based on the Mosaic browser, which contributed greatly to the popularity of the web a long time ago. It has been overshadowed by better browsers since. » Download it.

PHP — PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor
PHP is a simple and widely-used scripting language that can be used to create dynamic websites. First, a .php page is processed by the server and them put together into a HTML page that can be displayed in a browser. More info at » php.net.

Pixel — picture element
A pixel is the smallest area that can be displayed on a monitor. Pictures are made up of lines of different-coloured pixels. Your screen resolution is the amount of pixels your monitor is displaying at a time.

PNG — Portable Network Graphic
The rightful successor to the GIF image format, PNGs sport better compression efficiency, a wider possible palette, and just plain betterness. Only the more recent browsers support them so far, but they’ll become mainstream soon. Learn more.
pronounce it: ‘ping’

Scripts
A piece of text that either gives commands to your web-browser (in the languages of JavaScript and VBScript), or to your web-server (in CGI scripts).

SE — Search Engine
Search engines are websites that build up huge indexes of the Internet. Popular examples are Google, MSN or Ask Jeeves. We have a complete list of the popular search engines over there.

Server
A server is a computer connected to a network that offers some service to users, such as file storage. In terms of websites, the server your site is stored on is a computer permanently connected to the Internet that you upload your website files to. The server will then send your webpages and other files to visitors as they connect to your site. Servers can become overloaded with visitors (their bandwidth is depleted) and stop allowing people in, which is why you sometimes are stopped from getting into websites.

SGML — Standard Generalised Markup Language
This is HTML’s daddy, as HTML is a set group of tags that is unchanging. SGML contains an infinite number of tags as it is customisable. It is defined as “the international standard for the publication and delivery of electronic information”. Very helpful... Here, try » this link out.

Spam
Also known as ‘junk email’, this is bulk email sent out to thousands of addresses at a time, usually advertising a site or product. The hateable thing about it is that no-one asks for it, you just get it and it clogs up your inbox. Advice: don’t do it.

Tag
Tags are the fundamental parts of HTML. they are the pieces of code, like to make bold text for example. Check out some basic stuff.

TCP-IP — Transmission Control Protocol - Internet Protocol
On the Internet, some computers are connected through Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and some through Internet Protocol (IP). Used in conjunction they form TCP-IP. This is a standard for connecting to the net. Therefore, your computer can connect through any other computer that uses TCP-IP, which most do.

T-1
This is a connection capable of 1,544,000 bits a second. The speed goes up to T-3, which is capable of shifting 44,736,000 bits/second. Zoom!

UNIX
An operating system used only by the odd traditional bearded computer professor. Otherwise mainly for web-servers these days. The increasingly popular Linux operating system is based on UNIX.

URL — Uniform Resource Locator
That’s techie jargon for the address of a page. For instance, the url of this page is http://www.yourhtmlsource.com/starthere/glossary.html. It tells you the protocols (http:// or ftp://), and then the path to the file and the file’s name. You can see the address of whatever page you’re reading by looking in the address bar in your browser.

VRML — Virtual Reality Modelling Language
This is a largely unused Internet technology which lets you explore 3D worlds. Communities have been set up where you walk through virtual towns talking to people. » VRML FAQ.

WebMaster
If you own or take care of a website, you now can proudly call yourself a webmaster. This is also the guy to get on to if you need to contact any site you’re on.

WWW — World Wide Web
The name given to the vast library of Internet sites hosted by and served to the network of computers joined together which form the Internet and allow web browsing.

WYSIWYG — What You See Is What You Get
This is the term used to describe the HTML editors that give you a graphical representation of what you’re coding. A highly popular example is » DreamWeaver.
pronounce it: ‘wizzy-wig’

XHTML — eXtensible Hypertext Markup Language
This is a real effort to clean up code creation by making the rules of coding very strict. It is a new standard of HTML (after HTML 4.0) and in essence bridges the gap between HTML and the more powerful XML, below. It won’t take off for a while, but read XHTML Explained and get ready for the future.

XML — eXtensible Markup Language
This is a markup language separate from HTML, which is extensible — i.e. you can make up your own tags and so create your own structure. It involves changing how your browser interprets tags. This is highly advanced stuff, so you probably should stop caring right now.

Installing and configuring MySQL

Steps 1 and 2 - Download and Install the latest version.

Step 1 - Download the Latest stable version.
Go to MySQL Downloads page for the latest stable release. We are using here ' mysql-4.1.12-win32.zip, the latest stable recommended release as of 27/05/05. It is a 35.7 Mb download so either patience or broadband is required here, or get an earlier version from a cover disk of a computer mag. This is the binary version and contains an installer package which does most of the work for you these days. The need for manual editing of config files has therefore been reduced.

Download to a temporary location, I have a 'Master Programs' folder which I download to and extract from there.

Step 2 - Install MySQL
Extract the downloaded zip into its current location, then run the resulting 'setup.exe' file to start the mysql installer.

Open a DOS box (Start > Run > cmd ) and from the 'C:\mysql\bin\' directory , type in 'cd c:\mysql\bin' Once there type in 'mysqld --install'
Thats all there is to it, MySQL should now be ready for use.

Whats next ? Coming up will be a short tutorial on creating a basic database so that you get the idea of what is going on behind the scenes. This will be combined with a quick installation guide and introduction to phpMyAdmin, a great front end GUI to help create and organise your databases. Also coming soon is the installation tutorial for the 'Invision Power Board' forums board program, so you get real benefit from your newly installed php and MySQL.

Uninstall MySQL as a service.

Uninstall Previous Version of MySQL
This will also answer the question 'How to uninstall MySQL as a service'.
If you want to save your exisiting databases then goto 'C:\mysql\data\' and copy all the sub-folders in there that you want to keep, and paste them into a temporary location. Once your new installation is up and running, you can copy them back into 'C:\mysql\data\' ready for use. Note that this is not exactly the same as the 'upgrade MySQL' method on the mysql website, but works for me.

Whether you have saved your old databases or not, the next step in removing MySQL is then to delete the folder 'C:\mysql\' and all its containing sub-folders. Then , to remove the service, goto a DOS box and type 'mysqladmin -uroot -p shutdown' , type your master password if it asks for it. Type in 'mysqld --remove' and this will uninstall and remove the service.
You are now safe to proceed to install your new version.

Installing and configuring PHP

Steps 1 and 2 - Download and Install the latest version.

Step 1 - Download the Latest stable version.
Go to http://www.php.net/downloads.php and download the latest stable release. I mentioned before that I had installed php 4.3.3 RC1 - However , version 4.3.4 is now available from php.net as the latest release. I have not tested this version yet but will update this tutorial to reflect any changes once finished. This tutorial concentrates on version 4.3.3.
Click on 'php 4.3.3 zip package' which takes you to a download mirror site in which to download the file named 'php-4.3.3-win32.zip' , save it to your hard drive in a suitable temporary location. (In case of re-installs being necessary I have a permanent location called 'Master Programs' where I download to and extract from there)

Step 2 - Install PHP
Following on from our previous related tutorial on Apache, extract all files and sub-folders to 'C:\Apache2\php' - if you extract elsewhere, please remember to substitute this file path in any future references.
Copy php.ini-dist file to C:\windows (or c:\%system%) and rename the newly copied file to php.ini.

Steps 3 & 4 - Configure PHP for Apache2 & vice-versa

Step 3 - Configure PHP for Apache2
Edit php.ini in notepad and scroll down to the 'Paths and Directories' section.
· Replace 'doc_root='
with 'doc_root= "c:\apache2\apache2\htdocs' --------> Change file path accordingly if needed to whatever your Apache Servers document_root is. (In httpd.conf)

· Replace 'extension_dir='
with 'extension_dir="c:\apache2\php' ---------> Change if needed to where you extracted the php files to earlier.
Save and Close php.ini.
· Copy 'php4apache2.dll' (or php4apache.dll if using version 1.x.x) from the 'c:\apache2\php\sapi' folder to 'c:\apache2\php' making sure that 'php4ts.dll' is there also.

· Copy ALL dll files from 'c:\apache2\php\dlls' folder to 'c:\windows\system32' folder.
If any dlls already exist in system32 folder , DO NOT* overwrite them unless php does not work after following the 'Step 5 -Testing Your Installation' section.
* - dlls are funny creatures, shared files being used by many programs, in my case I did overwrite all dlls that were in the system32 folder and have suffered no side effects as a result. I do not however want to be held accountable should you have a program that requires an older version of a dll that this installation might otherwise overwrite.

Step 4 - Configure Apache2 for PHP
Revisiting our earlier Apache 2 tutorial I said:-
Locate and edit 'httpd.conf' file (should be in 'C:\Apache2\Apache2\conf\httpd.conf')
--------------
In Section 1 : Global Environment.
ServerRoot should say : ServerRoot "C:/Apache2/Apache2"
Locate '#ExtendedStatus On' and just below it add :-
AddHandler server-parsed .shtml
#LoadModule php4_module "c:/apache2/php/php4apache2.dll"
#AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
The last 2 lines above are commented out to avoid errors, they will be un-commented when php4 is installed,but we put them here now to save time later.
So now we want to un-comment out those lines so they read like this :-
LoadModule php4_module "c:/apache2/php/php4apache2.dll"
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
The rest of 'httpd.conf' should be ok if the earlier tut was followed, so Save and Close this file then 'Stop and Start' the Apache Server service. (A soft start called a 're-start' differs slightly in operation from Stop/Start in regards to the Apache Server and I have had problems with it in the past so don't recommend it until all bugs are squashed!)
Ok, so lets get testing!

Step 5 - Testing your Installation.
Open Notepad (or whatever) and paste the following code into it:-

and save the file as phpinfo.php Open your browser and go to 'http:\\localhost\phpinfo.php' With a bit of luck you should have a screen full of Server related information and variables. If not, something has gone wrong with the installation somewhere and a careful check of the steps is required - or ask in our forums for advice, it is usually a simple config error or path related problem and nothing serious. Thanks for listening, the next phase in this series of Articles is to install and configure mySQL for use with Apache2 and PHP 4.3.3. After that is the installation tutorial for a forums board not unlike the one on this site. Both of these will be finished and posted soon.

A Web Designer's Role

Responsibilities:

• Work on creating graphics for web design, print design in image editing applications.
• Create good Home pages, internal page designs, and admin panel UI of websites as per wire frames or instructions.
• Create good Print media designs, Presentation slides for requirements.
• Spot and Fix the bugs of himself and document the solutions.
• Will be required to document whatever has been learned.
• Understand & create project requirements, specifications
• Give time estimates for task and deliver quality work in that timeframe
• Ensuring correct time estimates for Juniors and their timely deliverables
• Document what is learned and explored/searched (on Net)
• Provide training in required skills to his juniors
• Should spot and report issues, risks, requirements of projects/team and suggest solutions
• Ensure Knowledgebase is properly classified, documented
• Giving good presentations to others for sharing knowledge, experience and latest trends
• Find plugins, tools and creation of library for Improving the efficiency for development
• Strong knowledge of SEO and latest trends and their implementations
• Implement and ensure regular use of VSS / CVS and other data sharing and safety practices.
• Enhance the efficiency of development with respect to the number of issues, there by helping to achieve a level or 100 % accuracy at the development phase itself
• Define and implement testing methodologies and processes.
• Find the root cause of technical problem and find usable solution for them.
• Work on multiple projects and adapt to changing priorities and projects.
• Quick learn application requirement, functionality and business workflow.
• Communicate with client and understand client perspective.
• Train the new recruits on Design standards and processes.
• Maintain proper coordination with other department group members for clarifications on all required aspects of each project.

Mandatory Skills:

• Excellent aesthetic tastes and understanding of visual communication
• Creative visualization and effective explanation, presentations of the same
• Extensive knowledge of Image editing application like Photoshop / Fireworks
• Extensive knowledge of Flash animation and basic programming
• Awareness of latest web design standards and their application
• Ability to create designs for Print media
• Strong knowledge of SEO and latest trends
• Ability to Communicate with client and understand client/business/market perspective.
• Ability to work under pressure and meet deadlines with quality deliverables
  

Desired Skills:

• Good knowledge of Flash for creating animations
• knowledge of Graphics Plugins and utilities
• Basic knowledge of Print Media Software like Corel Draw / Illustrator
• Basic knowledge of Word, Excel, PowerPoint
• Application of usability standards
• Application of web design principles
• Good knowledge of VSS / CVS
• Extensive knowledge of Word, Excel, PowerPoint
• Basic knowledge of HTML coding for websites
• Application of SEO principles and latest trends in designing
• Basic knowledge of Audio/Video editing tools and motion video
• Awareness of animation principles
  

Characteristics:

• Punctual at work
• Smart workings
• Good grasping capability
• Proactive
• Zeal to learn newer technology
• Good Team player & dedicated to work
• Ability to work under pressure without loss of quality
• Good learning and analytical skills.
• Problem solving & Positive attitude.

Benefits to Hand Coding

Are you one of many website designers who use a popular WYSWYG (What You See Is What You Get) program? I was one of them. I blissfully made websites using the ever-popular design view and grew a very nice clientele. Due to years of experience my websites were cross-browser compatible, affordable and attractive. Life was good!!!

I became intrigued by Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) while surfing the net and decided to read about the benefits and do some tutorials. It seemed really interesting and I soon realized I could become a better designer. But there was a problem. I didn’t know anything about html (Hypertext Markup language)!

It didn’t take long to realize I was doing a disservice to my clients.

First let me list the good points about using a WYSWYG program in design view.

Small Learning Curve - With a little time, you will understand how to design a site. Unlike hand coding and learning any new language there is a learning curve which will take a bit of time to overcome.

Secondly it is faster to design a website using the design view and tables. Want the text bold, click the “B” button. Need a different font, select it from the drop-down box.

But that is where the benefits end.

Hand coding websites has many benefits.

Less Code - Less code results in smaller file sizes and faster load time.

Better SEO Results - Proper html with an external CSS style sheet allows Search Engines the freedom to focus on areas of importance without needing to sift through all kinds of meaningless code.

Maintenance and Update Ease - With CSS located in an external style sheet, updates and changes are easier and faster. If you choose to change the color of a link site-wide, you change ONE bit of CSS code in the external stylesheet. You no longer need to scan every html page to find every link.

Better Design Consistency - Because you have styled elements with CSS, you will not have any errors due to having forgotten or simply missed restyling something like a link. With consistency you have increased the chances of an enjoyable experience for the viewer. Also since all paragraphs look alike, all images are the same size, the visitors eye does not need to relearn how your website works thus delivering a very professional end product. Prior to using CSS, changing the styling of one element such as the color of a link required so much time and effort. I would have to search each page for links and hope I did not miss one.

Release all the Mysteries - Understanding html releases all the mysteries. Knowing how things work allows you to solve problems easier and also be more creative. You are no longer limited to square, blocky designs by tables restrictions.

File Size - Need another reason? The size of files should convince you.

Tables with all styling within the html:
Page A = 8.8KB Page B = 10.7KB

HTML with external CSS: Page A = 6.33KB Page B = 6.33KB

HTML is the foundation and structure of a site. CSS is what gives the HTML style.

Knowing how to hand code versus using a WYSWYG program in design view gives you POWER and complete control of your website. Musicians begin by learning one note, one chord until they can play a song. To become a true hand coding designer and developer, learn one element, then another. Soon you will have a website that you can feel proud of because you did it yourself.

What steps are involved in the web design process?

Consultation
Free initial consultation - We have an initial meeting to determine the purpose of your website and gather information on your target audience. We will discuss your ideas on the appearance of the site as well as the functionality you expect it to provide. We explain the technologies involved in the more complex designs using plain language and offer pricing packages on the variations we discuss. Other issues such as site structure can be decided and a potential site map drawn up.
To give you some ideas on what to think about when planning your site we have provided a website planning guide.

Quotation
We provide you with a written quote - Based on our initial meeting we offer you a web design proposal.

Planning
Collate website content - Content such as text and images is collated and the need for either modification or extra content is discussed. The content is arranged in a way that will allow users of your site to quickly find what they are looking for and allow high priority functions of your site to operate smoothly. The site map could be adjusted at this stage and ideas are suggested to improve delivery of the content.

Domain Name and Website Hosting - Domain names are decided and registered. Appropriate hosting services are purchased.

Design and Development
Design Mock - A draft design (look and feel) and/or page samples are prepared for your approval.

Database Design (if required) - The database that holds your website content is custom designed to fit the functions of the website.

Production - All resources required for the project are collected or produced.
Ongoing Consultation - We design and develop your site with ongoing consultation and testing.

Publishing
Site goes live - After your approval the site goes online with your choice of web hosting partner.

Modification
Fine Tuning - We monitor the traffic to your site so we can make suggestions for improvement in either holding the web users attention or increasing the number of visitors to the most important pages.

What do I need to supply?
Because you know your business and market best, your input is valuable to designing an effective site. Generally we supply you with a list of necessary items with our website planning worksheet but we leave the amount of control in the design process up to you.

It will save you time and money if you have any of the following items:

• text content
• company logos or letterhead
• quality photographs or images
• brochures
• previous print advertising material

If your business does not have the time or the resources, we can take care of all the content. This can include copy content, original photography, logo design and branding.

How long does it take to get my site online?
Websites vary enormously in content and complexity. The time involved to create them is a reflection of this.

It usually takes about 1 week for a small site with up to 5 pages.

For larger sites with interactivity, rich graphic content, flash animation, original photography or advanced programming it can take 3 weeks or more.

A large e-commerce or database driven site will usually take 3 weeks or more.

Hosting and domain name registration only take a few days.

Important Web Words

W3C - World Wide Web Consortium
HTML - HyperText Markup Language
CSS - Cascading Style Sheets
DHTML - Dynamic HTML.
XHTML - Extensible HyperText Markup Language
JavaScript - JavaScript's official name is ECMAScript.
AJAX - Asynchronous JavaScript And XML
DOM - Document Object Model
WHATWG - Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group

Web Default Fonts

Arial
Comic Sans MS
Courier New
Georgia
Impact
Tahoma
Times New Roman
Trebuchet MS
Verdana
Webdings

What is the Document Object Model (DOM) ?

The Document Object Model (DOM) is an application programming interface (API) for HTML and XML documents. It defines the logical structure of documents and the way a document is accessed and manipulated. In the DOM specification, the term "document" is used in the broad sense - increasingly, XML is being used as a way of representing many different kinds of information that may be stored in diverse systems, and much of this would traditionally be seen as data rather than as documents. Nevertheless, XML presents this data as documents, and the DOM may be used to manage this data.

With the Document Object Model, programmers can build documents, navigate their structure, and add, modify, or delete elements and content. Anything found in an HTML or XML document can be accessed, changed, deleted, or added using the Document Object Model, with a few exceptions - in particular, the DOM interfaces for the XML internal and external subsets have not yet been specified.

As a W3C specification, one important objective for the Document Object Model is to provide a standard programming interface that can be used in a wide variety of environments and applications. The DOM is designed to be used with any programming language. In order to provide a precise, language-independent specification of the DOM interfaces, we have chosen to define the specifications in OMG IDL, as defined in the CORBA 2.2 specification. In addition to the OMG IDL specification, we provide language bindings for Java and ECMAScript (an industry-standard scripting language based on JavaScript and JScript). Note: OMG IDL is used only as a language-independent and implementation-neutral way to specify interfaces. Various other IDLs could have been used. In general, IDLs are designed for specific computing environments. The Document Object Model can be implemented in any computing environment, and does not require the object binding runtimes generally associated with such IDLs.

Mission of the XHTML2 Working Group

The mission of the XHTML2 Working Group is to fulfill the promise of XML for applying XHTML to a wide variety of platforms with proper attention paid to internationalization, accessibility, device-independence, usability and document structuring. The group will provide an essential piece for supporting rich Web content that combines XHTML with other W3C work on areas such as math, scalable vector graphics, synchronized multimedia, and forms, in cooperation with other Working Groups.

What is XHTML?

The Extensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTMLâ„¢) is a family of current and future document types and modules that reproduce, subset, and extend HTML, reformulated in XML. XHTML Family document types are all XML-based, and ultimately are designed to work in conjunction with XML-based user agents. XHTML is the successor of HTML, and a series of specifications has been developed for XHTML.

What is HTML?

HTML is the lingua franca for publishing hypertext on the World Wide Web. It is a non-proprietary format based upon SGML, and can be created and processed by a wide range of tools, from simple plain text editors - you type it in from scratch- to sophisticated WYSIWYG authoring tools. HTML uses tags such as and to structure text into headings, paragraphs, lists, hypertext links etc.