Web Development Archive

Website Translation

By Neil Payne

Websites are now a crucial part of most businesses. They generate revenue, offer an avenue for promotion and are easily accessible means of providing information on a company. However, the global economy now demands that companies look beyond national borders if they wish to expand.

Many developing countries now have internet access, internet cafes can be found from Bogotá to Bangkok and the falling costs of PC’s means more home users are logging on. This means there is a large pool of potential visitors to your site. However, the majority of these will not speak English. Website translation is therefore critical.

Website translation is currently big business as companies and site owners begin to realise its benefits. Type ‘website translation’ into the major search engines and you are instantly met with paid advertisements and streams of links to ‘relevant’ sites. However, it is important to carefully consider any website translation project properly as there are many potential pitfalls.

Firstly, when tasking someone to undertake your website translation be sure to establish credentials. Ask to look at previous work, ask for a sample or ask for a reference. A translator must have qualifications, training and experience.

Secondly, ensure you explain clearly why you need website translation. What is the purpose? Is there a target audience? Ensure you provide clear and accurate information on the company and the website. All this helps the translator properly reflect your needs in the translation work.

Thirdly, do not cut corners by using electronic translations. They may be useful for plain sentences but not for your website content. It is inconceivable that a software programme can translate metaphors, similes, innuendos and colloquial phrases. Website translation is a major investment, so do not approach it lightly. You need human beings to analyse your content and transfer the meaning in the best way possible.

Fourthly, consider the impact culture can have on the website translation project. For example, is the language pitched appropriately at the target culture? Should it be formal or informal? Are there pictures, colours or images that would cause offense? A good website translation company will analyse your site and offer you a cultural applicability consultation. This will then help you make modifications to ensure your website appeals to the target culture.

Fifth, many website translation companies will translate your website content then consider the job done. However, most websites are constantly changing in style and content. A decent website translation company will offer an after-care service that assists in helping you with the small changes, if not as part of the original fee then for a small charge.

Website translation is not as straightforward as other translation projects. There are too many variables involved that, if not considered properly, can ruin a website translation.

Consider the potential revenue a decent website translation could generate long term and invest wisely.

Website Translation
Website translation and localization consultancy.
   By Neil Payne
 
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Spiral Model – A New Approach Towards Software Development

By Nilesh Parekh

Spiral Model - A New Approach Towards Software Development
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In last article we discussed about “Waterfall Model”, which is one of the oldest and most simple model designed and followed during software development process. But “Waterfall Model” has its own disadvantages such as there is no fair division of phases in the life cycle, not all the errors/problems related to a phase are resolved during the same phase, instead all those problems related to one phase are carried out in the next phase and are needed to be resolved in the next phase, this takes much of time of the next phase to solve them. The risk factor is the most important part, which affects the success rate of the software developed by following “The Waterfall Model”.

In order to overcome the cons of “The Waterfall Model”, it was necessary to develop a new Software Development Model, which could help in ensuring the success of software project. One such model was developed which incorporated the common methodologies followed in “The Waterfall Model”, but it also eliminated almost every possible/known risk factors from it. This model is referred as “The Spiral Model” or “Boehm’s Model”.

There are four phases in the “Spiral Model” which are: Planning, Evaluation, Risk Analysis and Engineering. These four phases are iteratively followed one after other in order to eliminate all the problems, which were faced in “The Waterfall Model”. Iterating the phases helps in understating the problems associated with a phase and dealing with those problems when the same phase is repeated next time, planning and developing strategies to be followed while iterating through the phases. The phases in “Spiral Model” are:

Plan: In this phase, the objectives, alternatives and constraints of the project are determined and are documented. The objectives and other specifications are fixed in order to decide which strategies/approaches to follow during the project life cycle.

Risk Analysis: This phase is the most important part of “Spiral Model”. In this phase all possible (and available) alternatives, which can help in developing a cost effective project are analyzed and strategies are decided to use them. This phase has been added specially in order to identify and resolve all the possible risks in the project development. If risks indicate any kind of uncertainty in requirements, prototyping may be used to proceed with the available data and find out possible solution in order to deal with the potential changes in the requirements.

Engineering: In this phase, the actual development of the project is carried out. The output of this phase is passed through all the phases iteratively in order to obtain improvements in the same.

Customer Evaluation: In this phase, developed product is passed on to the customer in order to receive customer’s comments and suggestions which can help in identifying and resolving potential problems/errors in the software developed. This phase is very much similar to TESTING phase.

The process progresses in spiral sense to indicate iterative path followed, progressively more complete software is built as we go on iterating through all four phases. The first iteration in this model is considered to be most important, as in the first iteration almost all possible risk factors, constraints, requirements are identified and in the next iterations all known strategies are used to bring up a complete software system. The radical dimensions indicate evolution of the product towards a complete system.

However, as every system has its own pros and cons, “The Spiral Model” does have its pros and cons too. As this model is developed to overcome the disadvantages of the “Waterfall Model”, to follow “Spiral Model”, highly skilled people in the area of planning, risk analysis and mitigation, development, customer relation etc. are required. This along with the fact that the process needs to be iterated more than once demands more time and is somehow expensive task.

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Computers & Internet » Computers & Internet Articles






Web Site Optimization Chapter 1

By Jason Black

Why Only Optimize For The Search Engines

First things first! Why do I keep seeing lame looking web sites at the top of the major search engines? I will tell you why. These web sites concentrate on search engine optimization only and forget a fundamental principle. Looks. Nobody wants to return to a web site or stay on a web site if it looks bad.

This is the very first thing an amateur web master should be thinking about. A web template is worth its weight in gold if it looks professional. Nobody seems to want to spend the money or time into creating a sharp, professional looking web site. If you decide to forgo the template and want to try to create a template from scratch, please keep the background white. No jazzy background pictures. This could distract your visitors from your product or web site content.

Your color scheme needs to match. Plus keep the amount of colors to a minimum. Why? To many colors can make your web site visually confusing and your visitors may not stay long enough to find out what your product(s) are. Your theme should be obvious. Tell your visitor exactly what you are selling with a keyword rich description. A logo is a must. This will help your web site stand out amongst the millions of other lame sites. Do not forget to add alts to all your pictures including your logo.

Other important factors are: About us, Privacy Policy, Sales page, Refund Policy, Contact Information, Feed Back Forms, FAQ’s and Email Lists. These are all topics I will elaborate on at a later date. But for now, follow these guidelines if your a web master looking to professionalize your web site and if your not. Well, just get out there and have fun. For more info on how to professionalize your web site go to:
The Best Damn Links Page.

By Jason Black
 
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Computers & Internet » Computers & Internet Articles






Give Your Web Site a Small Business Marketing Tune Up

By Jeremy Cohen

Give Your Web Site a Small Business Marketing Tune Up

Your web site is like your car. Both are significant investments that require the right features and regular and proper maintenance to ensure maximal satisfaction and performance.

Your car is a finely tuned machine. You bought it not only to get you from point A to point B but also perhaps to have some fun and look good as you go. If you purchased your car new its engine had no wear. To keep it running like the day you bought it you maintain it regularly: you change the oil every 3000 miles, you inspect its belts and hoses, you check its fluids and rotate its tires (or at least you should). Without such attention the money you spent on your car will eventually seem like a mistake as it sits idly in your garage because it won’t start.

Your investment in your web site deserves the same care you give your car. While the purpose of your car is to get you from place to place, the purpose of your web site is to help you develop new business and become more successful. It doesn’t matter if your business is retail sales or professional services, your web site is supposed to act as your store front on the Internet. While your web site doesn’t need its oil changed or tires rotated it does require maintenance to ensure it performs as the marketing tool you intended it to be when you paid to have it developed.

Here are five things you can do to tune up or add to the marketing function of your web site.

Fresh content

Fresh content will keep your visitors coming back to your site just like the oil and gas in your car help ensure it starts every time you put the key in the ignition. If you neglect to maintain fresh supplies of either, you’re asking for trouble. Your visitors seek fresh content. Once your visitors realize they’ve gotten all their going to get out of your site they will not return.

Add new, relevant and helpful content to your site as often as you can and you will keep your visitors happy and returning.

Keywords

Your keywords are the words your visitors use when they think about the products or services you provide. They are like the make and model of your car – they are what get noticed. Your visitors use keywords and phrases to perform searches at sites like Google and Yahoo! to find what they need. They recognize and respond to these words when they see them featured in search listings, advertisements and other promotional materials. Make sure you know your keyword phrases and incorporate them into the Title, Meta Tags and copy of your web site.

Copy

The advertising copy of your web site can be likened to the amenities of your car. Your car has a stereo, cup holders and convenient storage space to address your wants and needs as you drive. The copy of your web site should do the same thing. To maximize the marketing function of your web site’s copy make sure it focuses on the problems, wants and concerns of your clients. Your visitors will be more likely to identify you as the solution to their problem if you demonstrate to them that you understand their needs.

Require Action

Just like your car requires you to step on the gas to make it go, your web site requires your visitors to take the action you want them to take in order to function as an effective marketing tool. No one has to tell you to step on the gas. Your visitors need to be told what to do. Tell them to “buy now” or “request our catalog”. If you don’t they might ever know that’s what they’re supposed to do.

Get Contact Info

Getting contact information from you visitors is like remembering the keys to your car. If you can’t get into you car and start it, you’re not going anywhere. Likewise, if you don’t learn who your prospects are you can’t continue marketing to them. Most people who visit your web site will not buy from you the first time they stop by. In most cases, it takes between six and eight marketing contacts with a prospect before they choose to purchase something. Your prospects are no different. If you acquire their contact information you will be able to repeatedly market to them.

Take the steps you need to maintain your web site and it will run smoothly and get you where you want to go.

Copyright 2005 Jeremy Cohen, Better Marketing Results

The author, Jeremy Cohen, helps small business owners and professional service providers attract more clients and be more successful by helping them deliver a web site that sells and improve their marketing materials to generate more interest in their products and services Get his free marketing guide, Jumpstart Marketing: More Profits, Clients and Success:
http://www.bettermarketingresults.com/marketing-services.asp

By Jeremy Cohen
 
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Business & Finance » Business Articles






The Portal Development

By Jay C

The Portal Development
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On Intranet or Internet, Marketing or HR, Enterprise or B2B – the importance of portal is rapidly increasing. Considering portal as product has invited numerous players. Either with collaboration or independently – portal market is full of competitive players.

However portal based on Java platform has attracted many players as well as customers. Microsoft’s Share point, Biz talk and Commerce server on front of serving enterprise solutions have not proved like its Office or OS.

What is Portal?

Portal is an enterprise.

Single window to access details of your enterprise

Portal is a web site or service that offers a broad array of resources and services, such as e-mail, forums, search engines, and on-line shopping malls. The first Web portals were online services, such as AOL, that provided access to the Web, but by now most of the traditional search engines have transformed themselves into Web portals to attract and keep a larger audience. – Intermark.org

According to Portal Standard (JSR 168 specification), a portal is web based application that commonly provides personalization, single sign-on and content aggregation from different sources and it hosts the presentation layer of information systems. Aggregation is the action of integrating content from different sources within web page. A portal may have sophisticated personalization features to provide customized content to users. Portal pages may have different sets of portlets creating content for different users.

Portal and Open Source Tools

The major features or components of Portal are:

1. Content management
2. Enterprise search
3. Taxonomy management
4. Single sign-on
5. Business process management
6. Instant messaging
7. Collaboration
8. Directory services

Portal building using open sources is quite interesting and exciting experience. The ultimate is – it is free. This article is to summarize available open sources for portal development. For further reference in detail, please go through “Professional Portal Development with Open Source Tools” and “Suggested Links”.

JSR 168 defines a standard Java portlet API, a portlet container, and the contract between the API and the container. JSR 168 experts include Apache Software Foundation, Art Technology Group, BEA Systems, Boeing, Borland Software Corporation, BroadVision, Inc., Citrix Systems, Inc. EDS, Epicentric, Fujitsu Limited, Hitachi, Ltd., IBM, Novell Inc., Oracle, SAP AG, SAS Institute, Sun Microsystems, Inc., Sybase and TIBCO Software Inc.

Specification

Portlet API an extension to Servlet specification as portlet container (further up gradation to web container.) Portlet is nothing but little window into your enterprise. JSR 168 establishes a standard API for creating portlets, the integration component between applications and portals that enables delivery of an application through a portal.

Portlet Config, Generic Portlet, Action Request & Action Response, Portlet Exception, Validator Exception, Portlet URL, Portlet Mode, Render Request & Render Response are key objects to build Portlet further.

Enterprise search

Lucene is open source Search Engine API. Implementing set of classes given under Search Engine API enables you to add Lucene Search Engine into your portal. Analyzer, Index Writer, Directory services and Querying sort out the search engine procedure.

Mail

Java Apache Mail Enterprise Server (JAMES) is an excellent enterprise mail solution. James is further 100% compatible with Java Mail API and Java 2 platform. Further James is flexible, powerful and easy to configure. Seven core classes including Session, Message, Address, Authentication, Transport, Store an Folder make up Java Mail API.

Database

Connecting to database through Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) or embedded SQL, Object relational mapping tool e.g. Object Relational Bridge enables you to store java objects in relational database. OJB features ODMG API, JDO API, OTM Layer and Persistence Broker API with best suit of your needs. This supports nearly fourteen database platforms including MS SQL, MS Access, DB2, Oracle, Sybase and Sapdb.

Content Management

Apache’s Jakarta Slide is most suited content management and integration system available in open sources. Internal & External architecture, Transaction management, namespace and domain are five pillars of Slide architecture. Domain and namespace are mainly used for security & authorization purposes.

Security

Authentication, Single Sign On, Authorization, Confidentiality, Integrity and Non-repudiation are well managed with JSR 168 for your portal.

Taxonomies

Taxonomies are quickly gaining prominence as navigational tools in portals and with good reason. Taxonomies, or classification schemes, provide a high-level view of the content and other resources available in a portal.

Dom4j is available open source product to manage taxonomies efficiently through parcing and manipulating content that resides in XML. It also supports JAXP, SAX, DOM and XSLT.

Open Source Poral Servers

Here are few examples of Open Source Portal Servers written in Java.

1. Liferay
2. Exo
3. JA-SIG uPortal
4. Redhat Portal Server
5. Jakarta Jetspeed
6. CoCoon
7. Lutece

The Market of Portal Development

The market of portal development according to IDC is to reach at US $3.1 billion by 2006.

Plumtree is participating in the development of two portlet standards, Java Specification Request (JSR) 168 and Web Services for Remote Portals (WSRP).

Other vendors include Accenture, Apache Software Foundation, BEA, Boeing, Borland, Bowstreet, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, Citrix, Computer Associates, CoreMedia, DaimlerChrysler, Documentum, Enformia Ltd, Epicentric, Hewlett-Packard, Interwoven, Macromedia, McDonald Bradley, Oracle, SAP, Silverstream, Sybase, Tarantella, Inc, Vignette.

Source & Further Reading : Professional Portal Development with Open Source Tools By Richardson, Avondolio, Vitale, Len and Smith.

You Too Can Have an Amazing Website

By Cal Hyslop

You Too Can Have an Amazing Website

It is a well-known fact that a successful business depends greatly on how it is marketed. With an ever increasing dependence on the web, the use of a professional website is not only a necessity, but a priority. Although it is a common thought that only large businesses can have top-notch websites, with the tools available today what seemed impractical can now be a reality. Best of all, designing an extraordinary website can be done without hiring expensive web developers to create your site from scratch. Usually the first comment I get from my customers is, “I have the idea, but not the tools.” In this article, I will recommend which tools are the most helpful and where to find these tools so that you too can have an amazing website.

So you say, “I have the idea, but not the tools. What are these tools and where do I get them?” Let me answer that question with a question. Have you ever heard of web site templates? If not, they’re your answer to a professional website at a very reasonable price, usually around $60 to $70. A website template is a ready-made website design created for you to use as the foundation for quick and high-quality web development. There are thousands of templates available online so you are virtually guaranteed to find something that suits your design and format needs. It can be as easy as simply adding your text to the template or rearranging photos along with your text to produce the outcome you have been searching for.

Finding web site templates is easy, but be aware of the differences in template providers you will come across. Performing a Google or Yahoo search with the phrase “web site templates” will yield several vendor choices and not all of them offer the quality you demand. They all promise the best templates around, but that is obviously not the case. So, how do you find the right template vendor? First, visit some of the sites you come across and examine their templates. You will know you are on the right track if you answer “Yes” to the question, “Am I impressed with these templates?” Always trust your taste.

Next, explore how many templates the vendor offers and how often their database is updated. As a rule of thumb, the more they have the better they are. This helps assure you that your choice will be more unique than otherwise. If you choose a template from a vendor who only offers a few select quality templates then the chances are that a great deal of other customers have chosen that same template. You certainly don’t want a website that is practically identical to dozens of others online. You will also want a vendor who updates their site on a regular basis. Weekly updates are good, but daily updates are even better. This guarantees that they will have fresh templates on a regular basis for you to choose from.

Finally, you want to make sure that your template is editable. This means that your template will come with the appropriate files (PSD, HTML, SWF, and FLA) that will allow you to make the necessary changes to your template. Ask you vendor before making your selection. Most templates come with these files, but it is better to be safe than sorry. You should be able to download your selection immediately or your vendor will provide a link to do so.

Great! Now you have a really impressive template and can’t wait to make the changes that will get you a completed website that blows away your competition. Well, you’re halfway there. You have one more important choice to make. Who will do the editing? You will either have someone internally run with the project or you can hire someone and outsource the job. If you decide to handle things internally make sure you have the necessary software to edit your files and someone who is somewhat familiar with how to do the editing. This is what your template vendor probably didn’t tell you. Certainly it isn’t as easy as purchasing a template and plugging in text. If it were then there wouldn’t be a market for web design and development companies. If you’re confident about handling it yourself then great, but be careful. You might find yourself investing a lot of time and money trying to get your desired results.

Your alternate choice, hiring a development firm, will almost certainly get your site looking and functioning the way you want it, but for a fee, of course. It is easy to find a development firm to handle your needs and you can find several online. Simply search with the keyphrase “web site design”. Call or email a few of them explaining your situation and needs and ask for a quote to perform the editing for you. Depending on the amount of editing you will require you should receive price quotes in the $500 -$1500 range. This is a very reasonable price to pay for a professional website. Most likely, you will be glad you did.