Web Technologies

The internet is a continually evolving medium and I constantly study the new technologies.

A web site can be broken into two distinct types of pages, static & dynamic.
      Static pages are those where the information rarely changes, such as your welcoming text on the home page. Static pages are easier to create and used when the information changes less than every six months to a year. If you need to make changes to a static page, the web developer will need to do that, although it’s often just a simple matter of replacing text or photographs.
      Dynamic pages are those that change often enough so that it’s more convenient for your staff to make the changes themselves. Dynamic pages are database driven, meaning the content resides in a database on the web site server, and the pages just contain the layout and a reference to the information in the database. When a visitor views a dynamic page, the page fetches the information and displays it according to the page layout.
      Most good sites today contain a mixture of static and dynamic pages. It takes more time to develop and build dynamic pages than static pages, but it alos makes it easier to make updates and keep the site current. It is very easy to change the information that is displayed on dynamic pages, as I build an Admin section for the site, where the office personnel can change or add information just by editing a form.

Separating Layout from Content
Current best practices of web site design employs separating layout from content via Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) for layout, PHP or ASP for scripting, and storing content that changes frequently in a server side database. I program using the PHP / MySQL scripting model giving me great flexibility. Building a site with many dynamic pages will make it easy for your staff to keep the information fresh & current.

Printer Friendly Site
It's amazing how many high end sites have pages that clip text from the edges when you print them. Or, that they make you click on a link to a "printer friendly page". I develop sites so that all pages will automatically print without clipping any of the page, and not having to click on a link for a “printer friendly page”.