Helios Web

ABSTRACT

The AJAX model of development for Web applications has rapidly gained a lot of popularity because of its promise of bringing the richness and responsiveness of desktop applications to the web. AJAX implementations are fundamentally different from other web implementations in two respects – they make asynchronous requests for parts of the web page. Techniques routinely used for performance testing of traditional web applications need to be modified and enhanced to suit the needs of AJAX-based applications. Using Google’s “Google Select” service as a case study we examine the unique challenges of carrying out performance testing of AJAX-based applications and offer suggestions for overcoming them.

INTRODUCTION

AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) is an approach to web programming that has been enjoying great popularity ever since it was used by Google for many of its applications, notably “Google Suggest” and “Google Maps”. There has been a lot of discussion about a number of issues related to AJAX including:

* tools and techniques for implementing AJAX (e.g. Ruby on Rails, DWR, Prototype, Sajax)

* Ajax.net

* business case for using AJAX

* usability of web applications using AJAX

* optimizing network bandwidth utilization using AJAX for application development
Continue Reading »

Building your first website to begin your journey as online entrepreneur? But you have no experience on how to kick start it? Not to worry, and you should not be too worry even if your website is not as “Fanciful” compare to others which look impressive.

However, not being a web design expert or HTML is not an acceptable excuse for building up a website that’s half done. It is the impression that you are going to give to your valuable visitors. Follow these simple basic and you should not be far for a successful website:-

1. Keep it simple Yes, do keep it simple.
Forgo the fancy feature that you see in other “Big” sites. IF you are not aware, let me share with you this: Some of the successful sites are simple in design. Don’t overload your visitors with too many fancy features that you also would get lost in your own site.

And beware, build your website step by step, don’t simply go and try to build a website with hundreds if not thousands of pages. It will drive you crazy. Build 5 to 10 pages initially, expand it to 50 or more eventually. At the end, you could see your website with hundreds of pages. Nevertheless, it is advisable not to go beyond one thousand pages so that you could still manage it comfortably.

2. Throw away excessive Animation.
Avoid those things that move and block your browsing experience. Ask yourself the question of whether you feel uneasy when those flashy things keep blocking your view?

Furthermore, these flash features might take longer time to load. It means your visitors might just go away while waiting for it to complete loading. Hey, nobody online likes to wait. Time is not on our side. Visitors want to get what they want fast, and real fast. If you take own sweet time to present whatever “Great” thing you are offering, your visitors will eventually lose the interest in it while waiting too long.
Continue Reading »

There are a number of high-end quality Search Engine Optimising (SEO) and Marketing firms out there today. Ever wondered what is really involved when a website is put through its SEO maintenance check list. The following is an example of work that is normally carried out by professional SEO Company 360innovate.

ANALYSIS

Firstly, when a customer approaches 360 with a view to having SEO work carried out on their site the initial stage is to analyse the site and see what keywords they already target (if any) and also what on-site work needs to be done on the website (we call this on-page optimisation). It’s a bit like having a health and safety assessment on your premises, we go through the nuts and bolts of your site, the text, images, layout, navigation, structure and usability features to make sure that its been built to a standard that enables your site to rank at its most optimum in the main search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask).

There are at least 200 individual areas we examine and check and it is a very important first stage that gets you started. Thankfully there are a lot of customers out there who have employed good designers who make sure that the initial work is done and that the first stages as described above can be kept to a minimum.

KEYWORD RESEARCH

Keyword research is a very important step used in identifying what people actually type in the search engines to find your product or services.

For example, most of our customers find us using “SEO Company”, or “SEO Company UK”, but we also get traffic from “Search Engine Optimisation Company Scotland” or “Internet Marketing Company” plus a whole range of other sources.
Another factor to take into consideration is the conversion rate from a particular keyword search. Conversion rates can be determined by how many times it takes a unique visit to your site to actually buy something or even make an enquiry. There may be multiple reasons why your site is not converting from not targeting the correct traffic, bad design or navigation, perhaps your site suffers from a number of negatives that simply put people off from ordering/enquiring due to the lack of trust.
Continue Reading »

An image editor is a computer program that enables you to adjust a photo to improve its appearance. With image editing software, you can darken or lighten a photo, rotate it, adjust its contrast, crop out extraneous detail, remove red-eye and more. Most graphics programs have the ability to import and export one or more graphics file formats. Several graphics programs support animation, or digital video. Vector graphics animation can be described as a series of mathematical transformations that are applied in sequence to one or more shapes in a scene. Raster graphics animation works in a similar fashion to film-based animation, where a series of still images produces the illusion of continuous movement.

Possibly one of the most confusing aspects of dealing with digital imagery is resolution-specifically, what it really is and how changing it affects an image. Simply put, image resolution is the number of pixels displayed per unit of printed length in an image. It’s a measurement used for printing and it’s usually stated in pixels per inch (ppi-used when referencing screen images) or dots per inch (dpi-used in printing because printers print dots). The way resolution affects an image is thus: For a given number of pixels in the width or height of an image, the higher the resolution, the closer the printer packs those pixels together in order to make a beautifully smooth and sharp print. The closer the pixels are packed together, the smaller the image will be physically when printed, and vice versa. Because our monitors can only display a certain amount of information that our eyeballs/brains can process, resolution matters only to printing devices. That’s right, it doesn’t mean a hill of beans until that image is headed for a printer because only a printer can do anything with the resolution measurement.
Continue Reading »