Sicmass Technologies - Blog    Below you'll find several blogs on Web Design, SEO, Graphic Design and IT news, issues and updates.

HTML & Browser Compatibility

Posted By   Nathan Russell   on   November-18-2008 09:38:10                                                                Article 5

Browser Compatibility has been plaguing web programmers for decades. I personally can't tell you how many times I've come across a browser rendering HTML different than expected. But is the browser to blame? This article should help debunk the misconceptions regarding HTML and Browser Compatibility and give you a clear understanding on how to overcome these pitfalls.

First let's identify the major browsers:

Firefox	Google Chrome	Internet Explorer	Opera	Safari

Most of you have at least heard of 1 or 2 of these browsers, since the most commonly used are Firefox and Internet Explorer. However, each of these browsers may render your HTML different then the next.

Why you ask?

Well that's because each interprets the HTML code a little different. The W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) develops the specs that govern how each and its attributes work. The problem therein lies room for interpretation.

For Example:
The <q> tag is supposed to be used for an inline block of text that represents quotes. Prior to Internet Explorer (IE) 8, this tag was never implemented. While other browsers implemented this tag, prior to IE 8 you would have to detect the browser and write code around this so that in IE your quotes used the <blockquote> tag.

Other issues are prevalent when you use certain attributes. For instance, the inline style attrib. can display different results for pixel positions and even your text formatting.

For Example:
This code <div style"text-align: center;">; works great in Firefox, Opera, Safari, and the like, but IE may not center your text how you expect. To get around this you'll need to add redundant code in a CSS file.

Now the above example is more of a stylesheet example, but this is a good example nonetheless.

Why Is There A Large Interpretation Of The HTML Specs?

Well that's because the W3C wrote the HTML 4 specs using language that allowed for interpretation, such as the words "Should" and "Should not" instead of "Must" and "Must Not". To correct this problem, they are in the process of developing the new specs for HTML 5.

So Should I Use The HTML 5 Standards?

While HTML 5 is more strict and correct in how the browser "Must" interpret the HTML schema, not all browsers to date are compliant with this standard. So make sure that if you choose to use HTML 5 that your browser does support it. Also, you may want to do a check on the browser and display an alternate HTML 4 page just in case.

With that said, if you run into an issue where your HTML code doesn't display properly, then you can safely blame the HTML 4 spec rather than the browser.

But How Do I Overcome These Pitfalls?

To overcome these shortcomings and or pitfalls, you should always test your code in multiple browsers. Even if you don't like to use the other browser, your visitors might. Also, you should have a good understanding as to just what the HTML 4 specs really say. If you do run into a problem, reference the spec and see what it says regarding that particular <tag>, here's the link to the HTML 4.01 spec http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/.

Above all, don't give up. You can always find the answer to your problems either in a book or surely someone has written a tutorial or discussion thread on it on the web.

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Top 10 Website Hosts

Posted By   Nathan Russell   on   August-16-2008 10:57:29                                                                Article 4

Trying to find a good website host that meets all your requirements and your pocket book? We've all been there. Finding the one that's right for you can be extremely cumbersome and down right frustrating. We've compiled a list of the top 10 Best Website Hosts to date.

The List

>> View Web Host

Domain Name	Disk Space	Bandwidth	PHP	ASP	Databases	Sub Domains	Price
Free	Unlimited	Unlimited	PHP 5	No	MySQL - 100 DB Postgre SQL - 100 DB	Unlimited	$6.95/Month

>> View Web Host

Domain Name	Disk Space	Bandwidth	PHP	ASP	Databases	Sub Domains	Price
Free	Unlimited	Unlimited	PHP 4 or PHP 5	No	MySQL - 25 DB	Unlimited	$5.95/Month

>> View Web Host

Domain Name	Disk Space	Bandwidth	PHP	ASP	Databases	Sub Domains	Price
Free	1 TB	1 TB	Yes	No	MySQL - 3 DB	10	$6.96/Month

>> View Web Host

Domain Name	Disk Space	Bandwidth	PHP	ASP	Databases	Sub Domains	Price
Free	Unlimited	Unlimited	PHP 4 or PHP 5	ASP & .NET	MySQL - Unlimited 10 Access DSN Connections	Unlimited	$5.95/Month - Linux $7.95/Month - Windows

>> View Web Host

Domain Name	Disk Space	Bandwidth	PHP	ASP	Databases	Sub Domains	Price
Free	1.5 TB	15 TB	Yes	Yes Add $2.95/Month	MySQL - Unlimited Postgre SQL - Unlimited	Unlimited	$4.95/Month

>> View Web Host

Domain Name	Disk Space	Bandwidth	PHP	ASP	Databases	Sub Domains	Price
Free	Unlimited	Unlimited	Yes	No	MySQL - Unlimited	Unlimited	$4.95/Month

>> View Web Host

Domain Name	Disk Space	Bandwidth	PHP	ASP	Databases	Sub Domains	Price
Free	Unlimited	Unlimited	PHP 4 or PHP 5	No	MySQL - 2 DB	25	$6.95/Month

>> View Web Host

Domain Name	Disk Space	Bandwidth	PHP	ASP	Databases	Sub Domains	Price
75% off	10 GB	300 GB	PHP 4 or PHP 5	ASP & .NET	MySQL - 10 DB MS SQL - 1X200 MB	25	$4.29/Month

>> View Web Host

Domain Name	Disk Space	Bandwidth	PHP	ASP	Databases	Sub Domains	Price
Free	750 GB	7.5 TB	PHP 5	No	MySQL - Unlimited Postgre SQL - Unlimited	Unlimited	$5.95/Month

>> View Web Host

Domain Name	Disk Space	Bandwidth	PHP	ASP	Databases	Sub Domains	Price
Free	Unlimited	Unlimited	PHP 5	No	MySQL - 100 DB Postgre SQL - 100 DB	Unlimited	$6.95/Month

Tips

Finding a reputable hosting company is difficult and time consuming. Conducting a basic Google Search will land you approximately 468,000,000 results! So how do you weed out the good from the bad? Follow these tips and you'll be set.

• Domain Names
  Never let a hosting company have control of your domain name. If a hosting company tells you that they will register your domain under theirs, don't fall for it. This means that they OWN your domain and not you. If you decide to transfer your domain to another hosting company, good luck cause it's not going to happen. A Domain Name is yours and has nothing to do with Web Hosting! If your Domain Name is in your name or business then your safe.
• Resellers
  Companies that resell server space for a larger company are doing just that, reselling. They don't actually have any control or say over the server you're using. If you have a basic site or a site that doesn't utilize complex features, then it may be acceptable but use them at your own risk. Always check with the hosting company if they resell server space for another company and if so, what control if any they have. Also, you'll want to inquire about what kind of support you can expect from a reselling host.
• Support
  I'm not just talking about Technical Support, but rather over all support. You should check a hosting companies reviews, good and bad before you make a decision. A good hosting company will have decent sales and technical support, while an excellent hosting company will have outstanding customer service, sales support, and technical support. Also, you'll want to search through their on-line knowledge base articles to see what kind of self-support they provide. Most companies will allow you to perform some sort of search before you purchase.
• Take Your Time
  The most important tip or advice you can use, is to take your time. Don't rush into purchasing a website domain or host if your not ready. Take your time, review over all the documentation and always, always, always, read the fine print. Remember, go with YOUR gut feeling, not someone else's.

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POGO - The 3D Web Browser by AT&T

Posted By   Nathan Russell   on   August-01-2008 03:40:08                                                                Article 3

Tired of browsing the Internet the same boring way? Perhaps you should prepare yourself for a browser making a leap into the 21st century. No I'm not talking about a new Firefox, Opera or IE upgrade or plug-in, I'm talking about Pogo, a new 3D Internet Browser brought to you by the minds at AT&T and Vizible. Are you prepared to browse the Internet your way?

"Pogo's graphical nature evolves the browsing experience from a text-centric interface to one that is highly visual, and therefore more intuitive, in line with the way people think and use the Internet." - Vizible.com

Here's What's In The Future Of Internet Browsing!

The Spring Board

Ever wish you could set more than one Home Page? Well the Spring Board is your home page that allows you to set multiple "One-Click" easy to access pages. Each page appears as a thumbnail of the destination's homepage. Best part is, you can add as many as you like.

Bookmarks

Bookmarks aren't something new to Internet browsers, however Pogo does it with style. A graphical layout allows you to organize and visually see what bookmark you're looking for at the time. As with the spring board, bookmarks are not just a list of links, but thumbnails of each bookmarked page.

What About Tabbed Browsing?

Pogo does not have tabbed browsing, it has something better! What we would call a tab, Pogo calls "cells". Each cell stores a visual representation (yes more thumbnails) of the web page you're browsing, not just a tab with the HTML title tag displayed. Just as with a tabbed browser, you can sort them however you wish.

Visual History

Wish you could find a page you visited yesterday or last week? Well with Pogo's new Visual History, finding the page you're looking for has never been easier. Searching has been made easier. You can find a page by mouse, keyboard, or simply browse the history itself. What really sets this apart from the rest, is the title clues that gives you information regarding the next or previous pages and when they were last accessed.

All in all, Pogo is a visually stunning browser. Very Mac or Vista-esque. The downside is that the system requirements need to be brought down a little bit so that the "ordinary" user can enjoy this one of a kind experience. Their beta sign-up page lists some system specs inquiring about what you're running. The lowest they go in the list is 1GHZ CPU, 512MB system memory, and 64MB Shared Video Card Memory, however the requirements far out way those. The browser is also only supported on Windows XP and Vista, of that it appears that it's only a 32 bit app as well. To say the least, in it's current incarnation, you'll need something that has a little more under the hood to get its full potential.

Worst of all, there seems to be some buggy aspects of the software not to mention it really doesn't speed web surfing up. As I said, it's more "visually stunning" than practical. But keep this in mind, it's still only a beta. Look how long Vista was in production. I'd bet that there's more development work to be ironed out before they do a full release, otherwise this will be a big flop in the browser realm.

Pogo is only available in a limited beta by invite only. However, they are planning two more phases where they will open the beta up to additional people ending with a full public beta release. As long as the bugs and speed get fixed, I'd use this bad boy. Reminds me of something out of the Iron Man movie.

Want to see more? Check out their Product Demo.

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ASP vs. PHP

Posted By   Nathan Russell   on   July-27-2008 04:32:43                                                                Article 2

When building a website you'll eventually run across a time when HTML and javascript can only go so far. This leaves a couple of possibilities, JSP, ASP and PHP. While JSP can do a lot for you, it's not necessarily the language of choice. This then leaves ASP or PHP. ASP stands for Active Server Pages and was developed by Microsoft based on vb-script and only runs on Microsoft Servers. PHP or PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor, created by Rasmus Lerdorf, is an open source language that has an ever growing community. PHP is able to run on UNIX, Linux and even NT servers. So how do they match up?

Cost

To run a PHP server, all one needs to do the following:

• Purchase a server
• Install Linux (which is free)
• Install PHP (again, free)
• Finally install a database, usually MySQL (also free)

So the only output expense here is the purchase of a robust enough server to handle your website needs.

ASP on the other hand can be expensive. Here's the breakdown:

• Purchase a server running Microsoft Windows
• Install/setup IIS (comes with Windows)
• Install a database, in most cases it's MS SQL (usually very expensive)

NOTE: For ASP.NET all you need is to download the .net framework, download MSDE (MS SQL Light) and the ASP.NET web matrix, all of which is free. However, the SQL-light edition may not be allowed for corporate use.

Running ASP does indeed have a higher start up cost, however this is all relative to which operating system and programming language you're comfortable with. Contrary to some other posts out there, IIS is actually free. It comes with every Professional and Server version of Windows, and only needs to be installed by running Add/Remove programs. So really the only expense is to purchase a server running Windows and potentially MS SQL. The fact that bringing up a PHP server is extremely inexpensive, PHP wins this one hands down.

Speed/Memory Usage

The speed between ASP and PHP to the end-user is generally non existent. However, ASP runs using a COM based Architecture, which increases the load on the server, thus slowing down the overall efficiency of the code and the system itself. PHP on the other hand runs on it's own memory space. This not only speeds up the time your PHP programs run, but it's also extremely efficient. In this case, PHP again wins. However, read the Compiling section below to compare PHP against ASP.NET.

Programming Language

PHP is based on the well known C++ language. The syntax and overall feel of the language is very similar to C/C++. Since C++ is one of the premier languages for developing software applications, it would be natural for a programmer to be comfortable when working with PHP.

ASP has 8 objects and uses simplified form of the popular Visual Basic language, known as vb-script. ASP can be easier for new programmers to learn since it's based more on the English Language rather on a complex programming language. Since vb-script is included with every version of Windows since 98, and Windows is the most common operating system, so in this case it's a matter of preference for the programmer. PHP's C++ style or ASP's vb-script.

Databases

As stated before the most popular forms of Web Design databases are MS SQL and MySQL. However there are several other database applications that can also be utilized. Below is a known list of databases run on various web servers.

• Microsoft's MS SQL
• MySQL (Now owned by SUN Microsystems)
• Oracle 9i
• Postgre SQL
• Microsoft MS Access

PHP and ASP can both connect to each of these systems since the underlying language is based on the popular Structured Query Language or SQL. The most common for these two to utilize is MS SQL and MySQL. However if you want the same type of functionality, such as stored procedures and the like, then you should run PHP with Postgre SQL instead. But again it all depends on your experience and comfort level with databases. In general I recommend MySQL or Postgre SQL since they're both free and very robust.

Working With Components

Even though PHP is extremely robust itself with a myriad of functions, its components are widely open source and can easily be found by running a simple Google search. ASP on the other hand can work with several of Microsoft's own products including Office itself. This makes it quite handy when you want to display a chart, graph, slide show and the like. To do the same in PHP requires a more high level programming knowledge or a very well rounded component.

Other Programming Languages/Styles

While PHP programming is well, only PHP and maybe some java script, the introduction of ASP.net allows the programmer to choose between C#, C++, VB, Python, etc... This means your not just stuck with ASP's vb-script with some java script mixed in. However, PHP 5 has made leaps and bounds in the language making it just as robust and well rounded as ASP.net. In fact comparing PHP to .NET is rather difficult since .NET is an environment for building and executing applications, not a programming language. So basically your comparing PHP to [insert a Microsoft language here].net. However, you can use Java for PHP, or the new upcoming Python extension.

Compiling

The biggest statement coming out with the .NET crowd is "PHP isn't compiled, except at runtime and .NET enjoys all the benefits of being compiled" isn't entirely accurate. Microsoft's use of the term "compiled" is not what a normal C++ coder would call "compiled". Zend has been doing this for a while now with PHP Accelerator. However, ASP.NET does indeed compile better and faster out of the box than PHP. The only way to achieve the same results with PHP is to use Zend's PHP Accelerator as mentioned above. The draw back is that in most cases, it's not installed by default on the server you're running.

Accountability

So when the time comes that you need support for your product, where do you turn. With ASP you have Microsoft to lean on, a household name. However, in PHP you have an entire community from NuSphere, any of the numerous partners on Zend, or the entire PHP community including WWW.PHP.NET.

Object Oriented Programming - OO

While .NET claims it is a superior object oriented programming environment, starting with version 4.3, PHP can probably claim this title. PHP allows you to use OO programming when ever you need it. The .NET frame of mind tries to force you into that paradigm from the beginning. However, in general the web doesn't require OO programs for the average website. Most sites, are more "hacked" together than anything else, so I wouldn't sweat too much over this subject. If you need it, you can bet that both can do it but PHP can probably do it better.

Templates

While ASP doesn't have a whole lot of useful templates, ASP.NET offers a whole slue of templates to choose from. How developers feel about these templates, still remains to be seen. PHP on the other hand has more templates than people have excuses (so to speak). You can easily make your own template in PHP or choose from the many professional, fully customizable templates. Oh did I mention that they're open source too?

PHP Will Never Out Last ASP

This is simply not true. In fact in June of 2002, PHP over took ASP to become the first open source project to come from behind and surpass Microsoft's solution.

Conclusion

With that said, which is the better web development language? Considering ASP's slow decline, ASP.NET's steep learning curve, and the shear cost to either self host or utilize a hosting company for a ASP site, PHP is the superior web programming language. PHP hosts are inexpensive (see SiteGround's Web Hosting) and full of support, templates and customizations to ease you into the dynamic world of PHP.

See Also:

.NET vs PHP: Top 10 .NET Myths Exposed
.NET vs PHP: Top 6 Reasons to Use .NET

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Windows Vista & Me!

Posted By   Nathan Russell   on   July-20-2008 04:12:39                                                                Article 1

What can be said about Microsoft's Windows Vista, that hasn't been said already? There are a lot of mixed feelings about Microsoft's latest incarnation of the famous Windows series of operating systems, but are the rumors true?

Let's start with compatibility

Sure there's a lot of programs, video games and the like that didn't work when Vista was initially released. Not to mention a lot of hardware. However, Microsoft did something innovative. Yes that's right, I said Microsoft and innovative in the same sentence. The folks up in Redmond, Washington decided to make a leap in the technology realm. They took the good parts of Windows XP and redesigned the underlying technology. So sure when they released Vista, there were compatibility issues. That's how it was designed. The problem that people had with Vista, was that there was such a dramatic change that the "backwards compatibility" people were used too didn't exist. This isn't the first time this issue has come up, remember Windows XP, Mac OSX 10.5, even new versions of Linux are running into some sort of backwards compatibility problems. Since its release, the compatibility issues it originally had are now almost all but gone. But to give you piece of mind, check out the Vista compatibility wizard.

How does Vista compare to XP?

Well for one, the entire operating system is indexed. This means that the search capabilities have been vastly improved. Not to mention, when you install a program the operating system actually knows where the files are. This is because unlike XP, you don't have to defrag Vista. Vista actually defrags itself automatically keeping files in order.

Ok, but what about resource usage?

Yes, it's true that Vista uses a significant amount of resources as compared to XP. This means that more than likely, your old XP box may not be "Vista" ready. Especially if when you bought your system, Windows 2000 or older was the original operating system loaded on your machine.

What else can Vista do that XP can't?

For starters, Vista has Parental Controls. These controls help parents determine which games their children can play, which programs they can use, and which websites they can visit—and when. Parents can restrict computer use to specific times and trust that Windows Vista will enforce those restrictions, even when they're away from home (Courtesy Vista Parental Controls). You can even review activity reports and view how your children are using the computer or restrict them to computer use between certain times. Microsoft also made enhancements to a few of XP features, such as:

• Media Center
• Windows Movie Maker
• Windows Firewall

In the Business and Ultimate versions a backup and restore option is now available. Here you can backup your hard drive's contents at your leisure. If anything happens to your system, you'll know that you have the piece of mind that your data was restored.

Our Tests

In our tests, we found that once the shock wore off, Vista actually out performed XP and was actually easier to use. Of course in order to fully utilize the operating system, we had to make some optimization and configuration changes. These changes, while some are easy to make, others require a more computer savvy person to make. We do recommend Vista, however before making the change you'll want to ensure your applications and hardware are compatible with the upgrade. If you're a concerned parent, then Vista is the operating system of choice. For business uses, we suggest Vista only after you do extensive testing.

See Also:

Windows Vista - Whats New
Windows Vista - Site Index (Everything you should know.)

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