Miami web design - content management systems

Web Design

If you didn't know, a favicon is that little icon that appears both in your bookmarks in your web browser, your tabs in your web browser, and next to your navigation bar for whichever website you are on.

Adding a favicon to your website is a smart thing to do for a number of reasons. For one thing, adding a customized favicon significantly improves upon the level of professionalism for your website and company which people associate with it. It's another part of your branding which you should definitely not neglect.

Secondly, using a favicon on your website also separates your website from everyone else's. Not only does it help to differentiate your site from other bookmarks which someone might make within their web browser, it also puts you a leg up upon any website without an icon. Finally, it's also extremely simple to add a favicon to your website, so there's no reason to not do it.

Now that I've outlined what exactly a favicon is and why it is important to have one on your website, let's talk about how to add a favicon.

First off, you have to design your icon. Your favicon should be 16 pixels by 16 pixels in height and width. You can create an icon using your graphic designer of choice. I personally prefer Adobe Illustrator but I know a lot of people like to use Photoshop.

You can even get by using Paint which is a free program which comes with Windows. If you have an existing graphic or logo for your company, you might think about shrinking that or taking a piece of it in particular and shrinking that and making that your icon if you don't feel like creating one from scratch. If nothing else you might just take the initials of your company and write them in a flashy font.

Once your icon has been created, you should save it as a .ICO file. If you are having trouble with this, you can save it as a JPEG, GIF, or PNG file and then convert it with one click using a free service which I cannot link to here but will link to a mention of it at the end of this article. This service will churn out the exact file which you need for your website.

Now that we've designed our icon and rendered it down to an icon file, all that's left to do is publish it on our website. After we have uploaded this file using either an FTP program or your WordPress theme if your theme has a custom area for uploading your icon file, the changes will take place immediately and you'll see your icon in your browser.

Miami Web Design

Web design is one of the fastest growing fields of industry presently and it is only going to continue to grow. If you are just diving into this industry after graduating, or if you are self taught, you are going to want to choose the best web design software to fit your design style and the types of websites you will be building. Here are some reviews of some of the most popular web design software currently available to help make the decision a little easier for you.

Adobe Dreamweaver

Dreamweaver has certainly increased in popularity over the years due to its versatility and ease of use for the professional web designer. Dreamweaver was originally developed by Macromedia and was acquired by Adobe in 2005. It is available for use by both Mac users and PC users. Dreamweaver continues to be improved and updated with the most recent version being Dreamweaver CS5.5. Adobe's website lists the following features for this software:

Multiscreen preview panel

jQuery mobile integration

CSS3/HTML5 support

Live view rendering

Build Android and iOS apps with PhoneGap

Integrated CMS support

FTPS and FTPeS support

Site-specific code hinting

Integration with Adobe Creative Suite

W3C validation

Subversion support

Adobe Browser Lab integration

CSS inspection

Intgelligent coding assistance

PHP custom class code hinting

Simple site set up

CSS starter pages

CSS support

Integrated FLV content

Microsoft Expression Web (Quartz)

This software replaced Microsoft's Front Page. It is an HTML editor and web design product and is part of the Microsoft Expression Studio suite. The original version, Microsoft Expression 1, was released in May of 2006. Since then three more versions have been released, each one offering more and better features than the last, with the most recent version being Microsoft Expression Web 4. MicrosoftStore.com advertises Expression 4 as offering the following features:

Supporting both standard and HD video encoding

Professional code editing

Graphic design and illustration creation

Vector artwork and bitmap image integration

Direct import of Photoshop images

Support of PHP, HTML/XHTML, XML/XSLT, CSS, JavaScript, ASP.Net, ASP.Net AJAX, Silverlight, Flash, Windows Media, and Photoshop

Built-In accessibility checker

Import and export of a wide variety of file formats

SuperPreview feature which allows multiple browser debugging

Easy addition of Silverlight, Flash, Deep Zoom, and Windows Media File with drag and drop

Generate and edit modern CSS layouts

WMV, VC-1, and H.264 Silverlight video encoding and insertion

You can choose the FTP method for publishing your site: FTP, SFTP, or FTPS

NetObjects Fusion

Fusion is a product of NetObjects, Inc. and has been around since 1996. Between 1996 and 2010 twelve versions have been released of Fusion. It is a truly easy to use program, and offers some very nice tools that are very user friendly. NetObjects.Com lists the following features included with this software:

NetObjects Cloud Burst technology

Website management

New image processing engine

Form components

Mobile templates and SiteStyles

Photo galleries

CSS controls

SEO improvements

Image bank

Database components

Site Wizard (features templates, SiteStyles, page and mobile layouts)

Modern templates with Ajax elements

Improved code generation methods

Site Safe (back up)

Drag and drop for text, images, photos and other media




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