Dedicated Designs - Professional Web Design in the Pacific Northwest

Dedicated Designs - Web Design in the Pacific Northwest

Web Guide

There is so much terminology to grapple with when it comes to talking to web designers, hosting companies etc. Our easy guide should help you get on the right track!

Web Hosting - Your website needs to be stored in a physical location ("a web server") and connected to the internet. Companies called Internet Service Providers (ISP's) charge for storing your site on one of their servers which is connected to the internet. These fees are payable each year.

Domain Name - When you came to this site you may have typed in (or clicked on) a web address www.dedicateddesigns.com - this address is called a domain name. You will need your own domain name so that your customers can reach your site.

Search Engine - Often you won't know the address of a site that you are looking for. One way of finding a website is to use a search engine. These search engines scan the internet and log the names, addresses and content of websites. You can then search through the search engines database for sites of interest.

HTML Design - The web page you are currently viewing (and in fact all of the pages on the web) is coded in a design language called HTML (hypertext markup language). This language is the main building block of any page and will be one of the key elements of design work that Dedicated Designs do for you.

Web Browser - You are currently using a browser to view this webpage! It's the piece of software on your computer that you use to view the internet. There are many different makes and versions of browsers - some of the common ones are Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, Opera, Safari. One of the problems of web design is that each browser often displays web pages in its own way with its own peculiar quirks and bugs. It is important to make sure that your page looks good in all modern browsers.

CSS - An abbreviation of Cascading Style Sheet. CSS is a technology that many modern browsers support enabling the colors and layout of a website to be easily changed independent of the content.

Java, Perl, Python, PHP - These are all programming languages that can be used to either automate common tasks or present information in different ways on the web.