Even google fears recession.

People see the internet as a living breathing thing. It changes by the second, advances by the hour and more and more people use it by the day.

Many people forget about the goings on of 2000/2001 (read more below) and seem to think that websites, due to relatively low overheads will be more immune to the impending recession we now face.

Well think that at your own peril!

Even google are at present preparing themselves for the recession.
Their share price is at a 3 year low and has halved in the last year.
Every company peaks! And maybe, just maybe google has peaked and is now seeing a downturn. It’ll take a while for the boys like Yahoo and MSN to catchup but with google this past month reversing certain “Rules” they had, such as allowing gambling firms to take out sponsored selling and attempting to push You-Tube into E-commerce. They are seriously throwing their weight about trying to bring in extra revenues.

Established websites are cutting their marketing budgets and smaller websites are pushing less into google adwords and more into SEO, hoping the longer term effects of good seo will see their sites thrive or at least survive.

All of this will hit google hard over the next 8 months or so. Maybe they are big enough to ride the storm but the term “The bigger you are the harder you fall.” has never seemed more apt!

In 2000 /2001 there was a big “dot.com bubble burst” which saw many websites, which had received millions of pounds of investment thrown at them, go POP!

The stock markets in western nations had watched stock valuations rise faster than usual and with less caution. This quickly turned into a gold rush.
Venture capitalists suddenly wanted a dot.com or a part of a dot.com.
Being dot.com’s these companies where nigh on impossible to value, but simply based on the amount of investment received many individuals who had the intitial ideas for these websites, found themselves on paper at least to be suddenly multi-millionaires.

It didn’t take long of course for the stock market to step back and look at these sites and realise they where never in a million years going to recoup the tens of millions invested in them. That’s when it all fell flat on it’s face!

The Dot-com bubble crash wiped out $5 trillion in market value of technology companies from March 2000 to October 2002.

Famously Boo.com set out to become a global online fashion empire. They spent about £100m in a space of 6 months, the site launched in Autumn 1999 and was placed into receivership in May 2000.

Yahoo went from a high stock price of $128 at the peak of the bubble to a low of $4 at the end.

Lycos where the “google of their day” and where sold to Terra Networks for $12.5 billion in 2000, they where sold on for just $95 million dollars three and a half years later.

Infospace stock price hit $1,305 per share in March 2000 but by April the following year the price had crashed to $22 !!

Facebook in the workplace

It seems to be a trend these days for companies to ban the use of sites such as Facebook, Myspace, Bebo etc. for personal use during the working day. Understandable to a point I would have to say, but I would also add that I think it’s also important for staff to have a certain amount of freedom in the workplace and as long as they still produce results in their respective field a little surfing of the web is a small price to pay for a happier workforce.

The truth is that people will find another equally unproductive way to take up that 10 minutes or so of time, only in that 10 minutes they will moan to the person who they are nearest to about being unhappy in their work and the conditions of the place that they work being unbearable.

A former MD of mine told me that I should try and take a 10 minute break from my monitor each hour and break up the day by surfing the web when things where quiet. He added that in my role as a web developer it was good to keep up with popular sites even if they had no relevance to my work. His philosophy was that if I and the other employees where treated as adults and allowed to govern our own web usage we would A) be happier in our roles and B) be more likely to work overtime (which is generally unpaid in this profession) as and when required.

It resulted in me working 7 days a week at some periods to ensure deadlines where met and clients kept happy, but amazingly I still enjoyed and liked my job and the company I worked for.

In fairness I must add that my current employers attitude to web usage has been quite sensible to date although they have just announced a restriction, not a ban, on Facebook and similar sites.

I think also that Facebook in particular can be used as it was originally inteded as a networking site.
There are a lot of groups set up on Facebook that are good for business.

In my opinion people don’t need Facebook or alternative sites to waste time. They’ve been doing that since well before facebook or the internet as a whole was available to them. Whether it be going for a smoke break or simply chatting to a colleague for 10 minutes at a time there will always be ways to slack off.

Time to go mobile?

With internet speeds ever increasing, mobile phone technology ever changing and people becoming more used to what they want when they want, the time to go mobile is finally upon us.

About 6 years ago I developed some WAP sites for the Battlemail gaming platform on the Siemens mobile phones. It was quite a coup at the time, we signed a deal with siemens and it was a buzz to be able to walk into a mobile phone shop and see something we’d actually worked on in the shops.

WAP though was not the perfect solution. This was before we had the full colour screens we have today, and well before having the actual internet on our phones was too imaginable.

Now though with browser applications such as Opera Mini etc there’s no need to develop in a different technology just to see your site on a phone. It’s all there in glorious colour at faster speeds than some people still get at home!!

I have heard the arguments that the internet on mobile phones will never really take off because the screens are too small etc. To those people I’ll say one thing “Wake up!!!” those problems are already being solved with phone browsers showing whole pages and allowing to zoom in to just the pieces of information you are interested in.

The good thing about these great little browsers is this, you probably don’t need to redevelop because they can read your existing site.

True mobile sites are in fact mini versions of our sites formatted for viewing through mobile phones and devices. all in all it’s just another nice big arena for us to show off our wares and we’ll ignore it at our own peril.

Internet development – where to start….

When I started off in Web Development about 10 years ago, there weren’t too many resources to get good tutorials, code examples and just overall advice from.

These days with everyone and their dog developing sites in their bedrooms and calling themselves Web Developers, there are countless sitres offering tutorials and samples for people just starting out.

I thought it might be useful to list a few of my bookmarks.
Places you can get help, tutorials and advice on development.

W3schools

One of the best sites in my opinion on the web for developers is http://www.w3schools.com/
Here you will find tutorials on just about all web development topics.
When I was starting off I bought books such as the “For Dummies” range etc but even they where unclear. At W3Schools you will find all the Web-building tutorials you need, from basic HTML and XHTML to advanced XML, SQL, Database, Multimedia and WAP.

Even for those people who are seasoned developers will find useful reference guides there.

Aspin.com

http://www.aspin.com/ is a resource for all asp scripts and components which can save you hours in development time.  If you are not developing using asp then it’s still worth going to the http://www.codango.com/ which is the group site for aspin as they also do sites for JSP, PHP and asp.net

Poll daddy

http://www.polldaddy.com/

Is a site that can provide polls and surveys for your site. Again a great time saver and so easy to implement into your own site.

http://www.wordpress.com

Remember that there are millions upon millions of people on the internet and a hell of a lot of them blog.
What I’m saying is that there are loads of people in the same boat as you, search wordpress or blogger for people who are writing about their experiences.

So take a look and if you have some resources that you think other developers may find useful then please leave them in the comments.

Print vs Web or Print & Web?

First of all I’ll apologise for not updating the blog recently.
It’s been a hectic month or two both in work and at home.

Work is interesting at the moment, lots of different bits to work on, linking up with external companies to handle various elements of our business and also we have our in house builds to keep on top of.

We’re constantly trying to think up ideas that will provide extra value to our customers and of course we want to make a bit of money along the way. As a newspaper publisher we have tried our best to keep up with modern trends and realise that we are now much more than a print publisher but an all round Media company. Print is still at the forefront of where we want to be and where we want to go, but our web offerings are really coming on and if we can maintain our momentum we can achieve great things I’m sure. We’ve got an enthusiastic and talented digital editor in Christian Dunn and in Martin Wright we have an editor who identifies the web as friend rather than foe, which breaks down a lot of barriers.

It’s still tricky convincing a lot of people who have spent their life working with print that the web is an enhancement to our business, not a replacement, yet!!!
The web, should we use it correctly, should in fact drive readers to the paper and vice versa, afterall research shows that title websites have, if anything, a positive effect on print sales.

It’s easy to blame the internet of course. In a climate that sees one medium decline and another increase you would think there was almost certainly some cross over. This is more evident with the nationals but still relatively unheard of as far as the regional / local paper is involved. The best way still to publicise in any town is a story in the local newspaper. And if you’re selling advertising to local businesses, a lot of your clients still want to be able to hold that ad in their hands. Me included!!

It’s an interesting argument, and one to which the is no definitive answer but I firmly believe in the sustainability of both print and web services running hand in hand for some time yet.

The Project

Just stumbled upon this.

It made me laugh. I’m sure many of you who are developers will identify with it.

(Click image to view full size)

Test your web design in different browsers

Most people test their sites in Firefox and I.E. but there are a whole host of different browsers out there.
I’ve quite literally stumbled upon http://browsershots.org/ by using the Stumble tool bar.

It’s a good idea and not only has a range of Windows based browsers but Linux and Mac ones too.

Worth a look and a bookmark I think.

Explaining things to management……..

I’m sure we’ve all been in the situation where we are trying to explain our latest project or proposal to our superiors and are blissfully aware that they don’t have the foggiest idea of what we are talking about but refuse to admit it. Most of the time we try to be very diplomatic and explain things again and again, more and more clearly until they finally …… nope they don’t get it!

I think this sums it up quite well…….

XML , What’s that then??

Whenever a manager or even other developers in my current business hear the letters XML the colour drains from their cheeks and they pass the buck. Usually to me!!

This is not because they’ve had a bad experience with XML, this is not because they think it’s some kind of incurable disease that will infect them, their computers, their cars and lives in general. It’s because of one thing, thye have not a clue what it is!

They then come to me and say something along the lines of “Ah Nathan I’ve been talking to the guys at xxxxxxxx xxxxx and they say that we can do it using xml, give them a call will you and hopefully we’ll see it all up and live by end of day today.” Then they walk down the corridor, glance over their shoulder and call back “Let me know how you get on!”

XML is nothing new! It’s been around for … well I’m not sure how long exactly but probably 6 or 7 years since it became a high profile subject.

Hopefully I can now try and clear up for them and some of you, what xml is.

XML (Extensible Markup Language) is a standard for creating markup languages which describe the structure of data. It is not a fixed set of elements like HTML, but rather, it is like SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language) in that it is a metalanguage, or a language for describing languages. XML enables authors to define their own tags. XML is a formal specification of the World Wide Web Consortium. To find XML editors, see `Whirlwind Guide to SGML to ols’ http://www.infotek.no/sgmltool/editetc.htm and also http://www.stud.ifi.uio.no/~larsga/linker/XMLtools.html.

I think most of the people I was talking of at the start of this article have searched google with the string “What is xml” and come out with a similar definition to the one above. Then they’ve gone back to browsing the web thinking “Blimey, I didn’t understand a word of that!! We’ll pass it on to Nathan!”

Let me try to make this clear for you, XML does not actually do anything.

XML basically just carries data, not too different to a excel document only not as complex.

XML is not like HTML, the tags are NOT predefined. When creating xml you specify your own tags.

If you are trying to work out an easy way to determine the difference between HTML and XMl I would probably put it like this:
HTML is all about displaying information where as XML is solely about carrying information.

XML Does not DO Anything

Maybe it is a little hard to understand, but XML does not DO anything. XML was created to structure, store, and transport information.

The following example is a note to Tove from Jani, stored as XML:

<note> <to>Tove</to> <from>Jani</from> <heading>Reminder</heading> <body>Don't forget me this weekend!</body> </note>

The note above is quite self descriptive. It has sender and receiver information, it also has a heading and a message body.

But still, this XML document does not DO anything. It is just pure information wrapped in tags. Someone must write a piece of software to send, receive or display it.

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XML is Just Plain Text

XML is nothing special. It is just plain text. Software that can handle plain text can also handle XML.

However, XML-aware applications can handle the XML tags specially. The functional meaning of the tags depends on the nature of the application.

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With XML You Invent Your Own Tags

The tags in the example above (like <to> and <from>) are not defined in any XML standard. These tags are “invented” by the author of the XML document.

That is because the XML language has no predefined tags.

The tags used in HTML (and the structure of HTML) are predefined. HTML documents can only use tags defined in the HTML standard (like <p>, <h1>, etc.).

XML allows the author to define his own tags and his own document structure.

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XML is Not a Replacement for HTML

XML is a complement to HTML.

It is important to understand that XML is not a replacement for HTML. In most web applications, XML is used to transport data, while HTML is used to format and display the data.

My best description of XML is this:

XML is a software and hardware independent tool for carrying information.

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XML is a W3C Recommendation

The Extensible Markup Language (XML) became a W3C Recommendation 10. February 1998.

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XML is Everywhere

We have been participating in XML development since its creation. It has been amazing to see how quickly the XML standard has developed and how quickly a large number of software vendors have adopted the standard.

XML is now as important for the Web as HTML was to the foundation of the Web.

XML is everywhere. It is the most common tool for data transmissions between all sorts of applications, and becomes more and more popular in the area of storing and describing information.

So that’s XML in a nutshell.

It is quite a basic subject when you get into it but one that is quite important to have at least a little knowledge about in this day and age, I took some of the above from the http://www.w3schools.com website.

ASP.net vs ASP

I’m relatively new to asp.net, sure I’ve bought the fancy £30 books that tell you how to do it all, read them and vocally argued with them but I still have not cut my teeth on a juicy .net project.

Something I’ve been asked many times by people who are breaking into web development is this “Should I learn asp.net or asp? What’s the difference?”

My response is usually this. If you are learning from scratch then I would suggest you jump in at the deep end and look at .net, if you intend to make a career out of web development it will stand you in a much stronger position for jobs out there and could improve your wage by a signifacant amount.

That doesn’t outline what the main differences are between the two though and that is something I am going to try and clear up in this article.

ASP, or classic asp as it is now commonly known has served me well over the years, earning me some fun, high profile site credits to put on my CV.

For those of you that do not know what ASP is here s abrief overview:

Classic ASP (Active Server Pages) is a server side scripting technology developed by and for Microsoft platforms.
ASP 3.0 was the last version of classic ASP and is a free component with Windows 2000 that runs inside IIS (Internet Information Services).

If you have heard of other variations such as ChiliASP or InstantASP they are just different technologys that allow asp to run on NON windows operating systems.

ASP pages/files can contain HTML, XML and scripts.
Any ASP scripting is executed on the server.
For those of you new to web development this is what is meant when you see the words SERVER SIDE SCRIPTING.
An example of Client Side Scripting would be Javascript. (Something I’ll talk about in another article maybe).

ASP can dynamically edit, change or add content on a website, access databases and return results to the browser.
ASP code cannot be viewed from the browser which offers a limited amout of security. (very limited!)
I would say that there are few things that can’t be done using asp if you use it cleverly and learn all the available functions, however technology improves from day to day and prgramming has to move on too.  That’s where ASP.net comes in.

Firstly understand this, ASP.net is NOT ASP.
It is an entirely new generation and technology of server side scripting. It is NOT an upgraded version of ASP.

It has been developed from scratch and has no compatibility with classic ASP.

But I’ve also seen something called ASP+ out there should I learn that or asp.net?

They are the same thing. ASP+ was a working title microsoft used when developing ASP.net there is no difference.

Put Simply ASP.NET works like this:

A browser requests a ASP.net file and so IIS passes the request on to the .NET engine sitting on the server.
the .NET engine reads the file line by line and executes any files that sit within the file, the ASP.NET file is then returned to the browser as standard HTML 

Differences between asp and asp.net

ASP.net has much better language support and a wide range of new controls and xml support.
Because ASP.net code is compiled, it also offers much better performance than standard ASP.

Those of you from a Visual Basic background will be glad to hear that ASP.net supports full Visual Basic rather than the VBscript that ASP supported. (VBscript is a trimmed down, quite limited, version of Visual Basic.) 

ASP.NET Controls

ASP.NET contains a large set of HTML controls. Almost all HTML elements on a page can be defined as ASP.NET control objects that can be controlled by scripts.

ASP.NET also contains a new set of object oriented input controls, like programmable list boxes and validation controls.

A new data grid control supports sorting, data paging, and everything you expect from a dataset control.

Event Aware Controls

All ASP.NET objects on a Web page can expose events that can be processed by ASP.NET code.

Load, Click and Change events handled by code makes coding much simpler and much better organized.

ASP.NET Components

ASP.NET components are heavily based on XML. Like the new AD Rotator, that uses XML to store advertisement information and configuration.

User Authentication

ASP.NET supports forms-based user authentication, including cookie management and automatic redirecting of unauthorized logins.

High Scalability

Much has been done with ASP.NET to provide greater scalability.

Server to server communication has been greatly enhanced, making it possible to scale an application over several servers. One example of this is the ability to run XML parsers, XSL transformations and even resource hungry session objects on other servers.

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Compiled Code

The first request for an ASP.NET page on the server will compile the ASP.NET code and keep a cached copy in memory. The result of this is greatly increased performance.

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Easy Configuration

Configuration of ASP.NET is done with plain text files.

Configuration files can be uploaded or changed while the application is running. No need to restart the server. No more metabase or registry puzzle.

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Easy Deployment

No more server restart to deploy or replace compiled code. ASP.NET simply redirects all new requests to the new code.

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Compatibility

ASP.NET is not fully compatible with earlier versions of ASP, so most of the old ASP code will need some changes to run under ASP.NET.

To overcome this problem, ASP.NET uses a new file extension “.aspx”. This will make ASP.NET applications able to run side by side with standard ASP applications on the same server.

So I hope that outlines the main differences between the two.
As I say I am still new to ASP.NET and learning daily but thankfully I was a VB user some years ago and it’s all coming back to me now!!!!

If you want to learn more about asp.net I can recommend the books:
Beginning ASP.NET using VB.NET from WROX and ASP.NET Developer’s Guide from Osborne.
Of course there are plenty of online resources and I always find a good starting place to be W3Schools.com