2009 has definitely been challenging so far. Besides the constant flow of bad news on the mainstream media regarding the economic situation, I believe most of us can see the effects directly. Increasing prices, decreasing revenue, retrenched friends… it is kinda hard not to be worried but then again, as a business organisation, being depressed is never a choice ;-)
We have been doing pretty well here at Pixaworks. Having settled down at our new office at Damansara Perdana, we’re constantly busy launching websites after websites… except for our own :-) It does look ridiculous to see a web development company without a proper corporate website… so yeah we’re currently working on getting our new site up.
Hopefully with a range of interactive services to serve our clients better :-)
We’re looking for skilled web programmers to be involved in web development projects on a contract or full time basis. You don’t have to be a “geek” to qualify ;-)
Requirements:
Good knowledge & experience in ASP/MySQL/MSSQL programming
Experience in developing e-commerce applications will be an advantage
Knowledge in PHP/XHTML/CSS will be an advantage
Able to learn new things and deliver high quality work according to schedule
Q. What is a Web-based Content Management System (CMS)?
A Web-based Content Management System (CMS) is an application which enables a website owner/administrator to create, edit and manage contents of a website over a browser. Most modern Web-based CMS allows us to easily integrate our own template into the system and stores all the contents on SQL or MySQL database formats.
A typical CMS will separate the contents and templates so that the website developer can work on the templates and other technical aspects while the administrators focus purely on the contents. Most Web-based CMS are designed to operate without the need of any web authoring software such as Adobe Dreamweaver or Microsoft Frontpage. Managing the contents of a website through a user-friendly CMS is as easy as updating your Facebook account.
Some of the popular CMS you might have seen before:
Wish you can search for available domains instantly without having to wait and wait for the search results? Try Instant Domain Search! Pretty cool domain search which displays the results in “real-time” as you type in your preferred domain.
www.instantdomainsearch.com
You can even purchase domains for a cheap price from the recommended registrars or you can always contact us for domain registration services ;-)
Q: What is the difference between domain name and web hosting?
A: A domain name is the digital “address” for a website. This is how someone accesses a website through a browser (i.e. Firefox, Internet Explorer, etc). For example www.pixaworks.com is the address for the Pixaworks Website. There a two major types of domains; Top-level domains (TLD) and Country top-level domains (C-TLD). TLDs are common to all with extensions such as .com, .net, .org, etc while C-TLDs are unique to the countries with extensions such as .us, com.my, co.uk, etc. The country top-level domains for Malaysia are .com.my, .net.my, .org.my, .gov.my, .edu.my and .my. Regardless of whether a domain is a TLD or C-TLD, the websites associated with the domain can be accessed through the World Wide Web (WWW) from anywhere in the world. Domain names are available on a “subscription” basis and can be registered & renewed annually though domain registrars.
Web hosting on the other hand is the actual “space” where the website files are stored so that they can be displayed on the WWW. A website can be either hosted on our own server which is connected to the Internet or on a remote server which is housed in a secure data centre and managed by a web hosting service provider. It is definitely cheaper to purchase a shared web hosting account from a reliable web hosting service provider than to setup and manage our own hardware. For websites which require high resources, you can also “rent” a dedicated server from a web hosting service provider. Web hosting services are normaly provided on a “subscription” basis as well and can be registered & renewed annually though a web hosting service provider.
This might come as a surprise to most of you since Flash is such a powerful interactive design element. So how can it be bad? Well it can be when it’s not implemented properly… and sadly most websites do not utilize Flash well hence turning it into a nuisance. How many times have you closed a browser tab because a Flash-based website took forever to load?
Yes, that’s the first problem with Flash. If the file is not optimized properly, it can be very large and take a long time to load. This wouldn’t be a big problem if we had super fast broadband connection but considering what we have at the moment, you wouldn’t want to chase visitors away with an annoying piece of flash animation which never loads. Especially if the animation is just for “cosmetic” purposes and doesn’t serve any real purpose.
The second problem is, in order to view Flash content, we need to install a plugin. This may not seem like a problem but what most people don’t realize is that most government agencies and large corporations lock their computers and only system administrators are allowed to install/uninstall programs. If you have a Flash-based website, all they would see is a blank space. You will be losing a great number of visitors who wouldn’t return to your site again.
Of course there is a simple solution to these problems… just have a non-Flash version for those who don’t have the Flash plugin installed and include a slick Javascript, PHP, ASP, etc code in the main page of your website to automatically redirect these visitors. That brings us to the third problem… the cost. It’ll definitely cost more to develop a Flash and non-Flash websites instead of just one. Most web developers will recommend you to use Flash to make your website look more attractive but in reality, they just need an excuse to charge you more for the website.
If you don’t want to use Flash but still want some animation and dynamic elements on your website, there are other simpler solutions you can consider. You can always use programming languages such as Javascript, PHP, ASP, AJAX, etc to create dynamic slide shows or animations which are highly compatible with most browsers without the need for any additional plugins. At least your contents wont be locked inside a Flash file making it unreadable by search engine robots.
But if you need high level of interactivity such as an application which needs to interact with the users and display dynamic content, Flash is definitely the most powerful option available but please consider a higher budget to make sure you offer a non-Flash alternative for everyone. At the end of the day, all that matters is the number of quality visitors you can reach through the web to share the information you want to share. Whether your website looks fance or not should be secondary.
From today onwards, Pixawork Services will be known as Pixaworks Web Solutions. We have re-branded our company to include our popular brand name “Pixaworks” into the company name and also reflect our focus on premium web-based solutions.
Inbaraj Suppiah, founder & Director of Pixaworks is an entrepreneur, creative director, web designer, talent manager, paintballer, futsaler, diver, photographer... and much much more.
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