Problems?

A quick search on the subject uncovers two main concerns that both users and developers have that may cause Google problems in the long run:

App overload

If the tools are made available for everyone to create apps, it is feared that there will be an influx of useless and poorly designed apps that haven’t gone through the rigorous testing processes that professional developers go through. In fact the cynical people amongst you may event think that this is a way for Google to increase the number of apps that they offer to look better in comparison charts with Apple.

The creation of poorly designed apps is a very real concern but I think that it is only problem when looking at one destination for the apps – the app stores. This technology will allow users to create useful apps that they only intend to be used by themselves, allowing them to maximise the devices they own. The app stores will have to rely on the rating systems and the wider community to help ensure the better apps are pushed to the user.

Scammers

If everyday users can create apps, that means more scammers and spammers can create apps. This is more an issue with Google’s laid-back acceptance of Apps rather than the tools themselves. As with everything online users will need to be vigilant and think before downloading and deciding on passwords and personal details submitted within it.

Possibilities

Despite these concerns, empowering more people to realise their ideas will encourage innovation. Solutions like this will close the digital divide and I think some of the concerns stem from the fact that it looks, on the surface, that developers will be out of a job. It is worth remembering that drag-and-drop solutions can only do so much and they will never satisfy everyone’s needs. Just like the surge of drag-and-drop website creators, for a professional looking and functionally rich product, a team of developers and designers will still be needed.

It is a very common practise to do, many of us actually do it on a daily basis, to visualise what the layout should look like. However more often than not the actual content isn’t sent until the last minute as it is still being prepared by the client, or the site users will construct the text as they go along, therefore emphasis is put first on design and then content.

But if we’re not careful with the information flow, we can easily create an unhealthy framework where particular content holders do not compliment the size of the client’s paragraphs, this furthermore creates unnecessary space and a bad structure.

Even though it may not be our job, it would be appropriate to adopt a content strategy, in order to verify from the very beginning what content will go where, and how much of it will appear in each area of our website.

This will furthermore create a much more usable and accessible user interface for the end user.

It is important to recognise here, that the data inputted contributes heavily upon visitors coming back and goes a long way towards user acceptance.

Therefore we (as web designers & architects) should be clear from the very beginning that the structure should be transparent and not over-do the design, but give the content precedence over decorative content.

One of the ways of doing this is to implement a content strategy to make sure we control structure and content at the same time:

• Who’s the target audience?
• Know exactly who you’re writing for before you get started
• What’s in it for the consumer?
• What you can do for them
• Have unique & catchy title
• Keep it consistent across the site – so there’s more likelihood of them coming back
• Short and simple can be beneficial
• Make sure the information flow is easy to comprehend
• Check/ Analyse your content – Make sure it’s complimentary to their product area.

Monitoring

Ensure you have a solid reporting tool that allows you to understand who your visitors are, where they came from and how they found you. This not only allows you to understand your users, but you can also monitor the effect any changes you make to the site has on SEO.

Links

Link back to yourself

Possibly the most basic strategy that can be employed is linking back to your pages from others on the site. When your site gets crawled it means that other pages may be found and it also backs up the content that is presented on the page. It is however very important not to link excessively and please ensure that all links are relevant.

Reciprocal links

For exactly the same reasons as above, getting links to your site from respectable 3rd party websites will help your rankings. As these sites are well-known and are seen as experts in their field, any sites they link to will inherit some of that reputation.

Key phrases

Probably, the most mis-understood aspect of SEO is that of keywords. Bear in mind that your site will have a lot of competition on the Internet for vague key phrases. The more succinct you can make these, the better and greater chance you will have of performing well. Also consider which search terms your customers are most likely to use and how many of those will turn into a sale.

For example getting your site to the top of the rankings for your company name may not be as useful as getting it to the top for a specific product or service.

Relevant content

Your customers are going to want current and accurate information whether they are new or returning. New customers will want current content so that you look active and are up to speed with current developments and existing customers are most likely to make repeat visits if they know new information is going to be available. Because of this, search engines will place a greater emphasis on updated content as it is likely to be more relevant.

Displaying out-of-date content also means that the space on the web page is wasted and would be better off being used for a product or service.

Social Media

Social Media is the new buzz word online but it does have its uses. If you are active on social networks (FaceBook, Linkedin etc) you will have a circle of people and organisations who will hear what you say and that are receptive to the knowledge and expertise you offer. If you create a new page or discussion, link to it from these sites and encourage people to talk about it – you will also get an external link to your site.

It is of interest that Dell is now entering the market with a 5″ device that sits somewhere between a smart phone and a tablet. The Dell Streak, or Dell Mini as it will be called in the UK, boasts support for Adobe Flash and includes two cameras. On top of this the Streak will also include a MicroSD slot which means the device is expandable up to 32GB – something which both the iPad and iPhone don’t offer.

This Android based device will arrive in the UK next month so watch this space.

I have summarised some of her points below along with a number or other hints and tips that you may find useful.

Ordering

Perhaps the simplest thing you can do is to check that the order in which you load CSS and JavaScript is correct. Within the head you should load CSS files first and then the JavaScript files, this is because JavaScript files can be downloaded in parallel with the CSS files but JavaScript files come down in sequence.

Further Information

Compression

If you enable Gzip compression and a webserver knows this is available, the server notifies the client. You can compress many external resources, such as JavaScript files which have to be loaded each time a request is made by the browser. Using this compression will reduce the amount of data that needs to be loaded and so can increase load time of such elements by around 70%.

Further Information

Combination

Where possible combine your CSS and JavaScript files so that the browser reduces the number of resources it needs to load. For example if you have three JavaScript, try and combine them so that only one file needs to be downloaded and not three.

Further Information

Another combination technique is utilising Image Sprites. If a web page has, for sake of argument, 20 common images, then the browser has to request and load twenty separate image files. The idea behind an image sprite is that you put all of the images into one image file and then use CSS to display the relevant image – thus using only the one image file.

Further Information

Spread out downloads

You may be requesting resources (images, maps etc) from many different hostnames. Browsers only allow a maximum number of concurrent connections (should be 2 but newer browsers offer more) at any one time. If you are requesting more resources than this from one hostname, it will only download the maximum number allowed at any time and queue the rest. If you could spread these (evenly) over more hostnames then less will be queued as each hostname is allowed its concurrent downloads.

Further Information

Tidy Up

You should always do this but building sites in a clean and efficient way will undoubtedly improve load times. There are obviously a number of things you can check and these include:

• Specify image dimensions – take the guess work out of it for the browser
• Optimise and scale images – the browser won’t need to do any extra work
• Remove unused CSS and JavaScript – reduces the file size and allows the browser to find information quicker
• Use efficient CSS selectors – keep it simple and don’t over define
• Serve resources from consistent URL – eliminates duplicate downloads
• Avoid bad requests – removes wasteful requests.

Further Information

Tools

There are a couple of tools that you can utilise to analyse the performance of your site. If you are signed-up for Webmaster Tools you will see a link under ‘Labs’ with the title ‘Site performance’. This will give you information about how long your site takes to load and how that has changed over time. It will also tell you how quick it is to load compared to other sites on the web.

There is also an add-on for Firefox called Page Speed which is provided by Google. This tool will analyse your site and tells you what you are doing well and not so well. Most importantly it doesn’t only give you an overall score, it gives hints and tips that will rectify any problems.

The ideal candidate must have a sound understanding of PHP as well as MySQL database development experience. A working knowledge of JavaScript, JQuery, CSS, HTML and XHTML is essential. This role may also involve programming of web-based content management and e-commerce systems. Any experience of CakePHP or iPhone/BlackBerry development is advantageous.

Enthusiasm, attention to detail and high standards of customer care are essential characteristics of any prospective Save9 employee. Good communication skills are paramount.

Successful candidates must be willing to present an example online portfolio at the interview stage.

For further information or to apply, please email jobs@save9.com with a cover letter and a copy of your CV.

Highlights of Monotype Imaging’s Fonts.com Web Fonts solution:

- Over 2,000 high-quality fonts available now for free public beta
- Approximately 7,000 fonts expected by commercial launch later in 2010
- Helvetica, Frutiger and Univers typefaces among several popular designs, available for the first time as Web fonts
- More than 40 languages supported using patent-pending Monotype Imaging technology
- Subscription-based solution to include a free, entry-level tier with ability to use more than 2,000 fonts

Read the full press release here.

Their demo shows the boot process — complete with the Tux Linux mascot. Wang used Android for browsing, receiving a text message, answering a phone call and playing music. The phone is set up with a dual-boot configuration and the video begins with the device running iPhone OS.

iPhone Dev Team – wikee.iphwn.org

Watch the YouTube video…

The report, released on Wednesday, suggests that of those families, about two million choose not to subscribe to broadband in areas where a reasonably good service is available. A poor selection of ISPs and a high overall cost were the determining factors for those families choosing to stay offline, according to analyst firm Point Topic, which released the report.

“One of the reasons they’re not trying [broadband] is because they’re unable to afford it,” Point Topic founder Tim Johnson told ZDNet UK on Thursday.

In addition, Point Topic estimated that 40,000 families with children live in areas where no fixed broadband service is provided. Another 1.4 million are in places where only slow broadband — with reliable speeds of less than 2Mbps — is on offer.

The locations with the poorest broadband adoption for families with children are countryside towns and cities where industry has collapsed, according to Point Topic. It named north-east Derbyshire, Aldridge-Brownhills and the valleys of south Wales as examples.

Johnson said he believes a lack of broadband in the home has both a financial and a social cost for affected children. Children without home broadband will earn less income when they enter the workplace, according to the report. It estimated that the eventual loss of earnings to the UK economy could be as high as £80bn a year.

The report also highlighted the difficulty children without home broadband can have in socialising with their peers in an increasingly digital world.

“Unless they leave the house, [children] can’t do their homework properly; they can’t join in the social world of their peers; and they can’t gain the internet skills and knowledge they will need to live comfortably as adults,” the report stated.

The government has introduced efforts to get low-income families online. In January, it launched a £30m Home Access scheme to provide free internet-connected laptops to disadvantaged children, providing a grant of up to £528 for families to spend with high-street computing and broadband providers.

In addition, it has set up the National Digital Participation plan, which is targeting the 12.5 million people that are currently offline and aiming to get them online by March 2014. A separate initiative — led by UK digital inclusion champion Martha Lane Fox — has the goal of getting as many people as possible online by the London Olympics in 2012.

Some schools are taking a more direct approach to providing e-learning resources to children. Broad Oak Sports College, a state secondary school in Bury, has provided a £140,000 Wi-Fi mesh network to give free internet access to 1,000 pupils.

The government already has plans to provide better broadband coverage across the country, and has pledged to provide super-fast broadband to the entire UK. Other major political parties have similar pledges.

Point Topic builds its model of broadband usage and adoption in the UK from public data, such as census information, and from datasets it generates from Ofcom statistics, BT figures and similar broadband industry data.

(ZDNet UK, 30 April 2010)

(TechNewsDaily, 19/04/2010)