Web technologies

Web tech is changing all the time, to allow new possibilities for companies and individuals to display information and allow browsers to interact with the site. While there exist many useful free tools for developing sites like Wordpress, Joomla, etc. they can be overwhelming or not customisable enough for administrators. Below you can view some of the technologies which we can help you to harness to make your website eye-catching, plain useful and easy to manage. Even if the names mean nothing, hopefully the explanation and examples will stir your imagination to see how they could be useful for your website.

My standard hourly rate is €25 (£20) but for larger pieces of work I will quote a daily rate which works out lower than the equivalent number of hours; however, I will always give a quote for an entire job, as jobs usually cannot be calculated on a per-page rate. Please contact me for further information.

PHP/MySQL

PHP is a powerful server-side scripting language which allows interaction between the user and the server where the useful information is stored or needs to be stored. PHP can update and read information stored in a database or other type of file in a secure way. Catalogue information can be accessed almost instantly and updated by the site administrator. Secure member logins can be added and updated. Forums and social media sites quickly display a wide-range of information thanks to interaction with databases.

Increasingly, firms are wanting to maintain their websites in-house after the initial set-up, with the minimum of expertise needed. The usefulness of CMSs (content management systems) has returned a large degree of control of website content to the owner him/herself. This is important because most companies need to make updates or to tinker with the text, and want this without having to wait for an external web programmer (who maybe does not understand the precise needs of that company) to respond.

It is most efficient to incorporate the CMS aspect of a website at its design stage, rather than shoehorning it in later, and this also helps to standardise a consistent site format.

Javascript

Javascript is certainly not a new scripting language, but amongst other things, offers ways to efficiently view data already loaded into a webpage, through tabbed content, collapsible menus, data feeds, pop-up windows, in addition to enabling animation effects. It allows checking of data entered by the user into forms without needing to send it to the server first. One example would be to check the format of a telephone number or email address to detect invalid characters. Many useful libraries have been written in Javascript, two of which you can learn about in the next pages on AJAX and jQuery.

AJAX

AJAX allows updates to the webpage without needing to refresh. Features such as live news feeds, sports commentaries, auto-completion in search boxes based on just a few entered characters and background uploading of images are all enabled through this technology. It allows data to be downloaded as a user needs it, to speed up page loading times (for example downloading older posts on a Facebook wall only when the user scrolls down the page).

jQuery

This Javascript library has made accessible animation effects seen in Flash animations without the need to download plugins and easy to develop without proprietary software: smooth motion of elements, fading pictures, dynamically loaded image carousels.

Web site portfolio

I designed and coded this website for this artist from Montenegro, but the client had a lot of input about the design. She wanted it to be bi-lingual and as simple as possible to administer. The CMS is very self-explanatory and the moderator is informed by email every time someone leaves comments or guestbook entries, so that she can either allow the comment to be seen, or be deleted. Also, there is a page counter, news feed, several picture galleries and a blog.

The design of this website was already complete when I was engaged to do the programming for this website, but it is essentially as very simple HTML presentation, so that the owner, who has a basic knowledge of HTML, can very easily make updates to the text and basic structure without needing a very advanced knowledge of coding.

This website, which is still under construction, is a bilingual site to inform drug addicts and their families about getting help and getting in touch with local rehabilitation facilities. The English version is targeted towards donors and focuses on informing people of the work of the organisation, whereas the Montenegrin/Serbian version is mainly aimed at connecting people who have drug problems, or know someone who has, with relevant institutions.

With my website, I have tried to use as many different technologies to showcase different ways of presenting information, as well as a way of developing my own knowledge and experience.

This is a very simple PHP/MySQL website which stores catalogue information in a database for all the different types of instrument woods sold by the company. Hence, it is very simple to update the information as the prices and availability change.

This church website accesses texts from XML files, using PHP to format it appropriately. It is available in Cyrillic and Roman characters.

The iPolitic political debating website was a low-budget but fully functional social networking site, with a moderation system to control posts, debates, networks and users. It also features a blog aggregator function which takes the latest RSS feeds from more than a hundred political blogs and displays them together with the latest ones highest up. The site uses a MySQL database, with regular maintenance performed automatically by CRON scripts.

This website was designed with the CMS in mind from the beginning, to allow a user with basic training to maintain all of the textual content. I also developed a search facility on its parent website www.fair-news.org to search the news archives on key words.

This consultancy firm's bilingual English/Russian website features a very user-friendly CMS for updating the whole website without any knowledge of HTML. The text and images are stored in a database, and use is made of jQuery and Javascript to access information as needed without filling the screen with too much text.