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Tag Archive: HTML

Html5 – Not Designed For Business Applications

HTML5 – Not Designed for Business Applications

HTML5 is the next version of HTML to come along since version 4.0 in 1997.

HTML is an acronym for Hyper Text Markup Language and HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of web pages. The Internet would not exist as we know it today without HTML.

But HTML is not a programming language at all. This concept is confusing to some people. Web pages rely on a scripting language such as JavaScript in order to respond to user input. Think of it as HTML being a car and JavaScript being the engine.

JavaScript was introduced in 1995 by Netscape and coincidentally, that’s when the web started to really “take off”. This is an important fact to consider before we dig deeper into HTML5.

The open source nature of HTML and JavaScript has contributed to the growth of the Internet as a whole. Source code and design ideas are often borrowed from around the web and even from competitor’s web sites. This is facilitated by the fact that HTML and JavaScript are impossible to hide or protect.

HTML5 is no different!

There has been a lot of talk about HTML5 over the past couple of years and developers think that HTML5 is “cool” and “fun” to work with. But the logic ends there.

As usual with most new technologies, there has been confusion and misinformation over when HTML5 should be used and for what purpose. We aim to enlighten you about what HTML5 can and can’t do in this article.

New Features Same Old Concept

HTML5 includes new features such as the “Canvas” element, along with audio, video and Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) content, some of which replace the “object” tags of HTML4. There have also been some modifications and standardization of tags such as (a, cite, menu) but the basic concept of HTML remains the same in HTML5.

Who’s Promoting HTML5?

HTML5 was originally proposed by Opera Software (makers of the Opera web browser) and designed by the World Wide Web Consortium, also known as W3C.

An important point is that the W3C has been criticized as being dominated by larger organizations and thus writing standards that represent their interests.

The large organizations (Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, Google and Facebook) have promoted HTML5 as the most up to date technology for web development. In fact the late Steve Jobs termed HTML5 as the win-win solution for consuming any kind of web content on all types of web platforms. But it is important to note that Apple, Microsoft, Google and Facebook each have an incentive for promoting HTML5; each own and operate very profitable “app” stores such as the Windows Marketplace, Google App Store, iTunes App Store, Facebook Canvas Apps, etc. Protection of intellectual property and trade secrets is of little or no concern to those companies and in fact it is almost a conflict of interest.

Fact #1: HTML5 is based on JavaScript, which is impossible to protect. Yes, that’s a fact!

As we discussed a moment ago, JavaScript is the core “language” of HTML5, whose source code is impossible to protect. The most evident reason is that anyone can view HTML5 and JavaScript source by just a simple click. JavaScript was never intended to be anything more than an engine for client-server communication and re-useable web content, including menus, buttons, tabs and the like.

Developers may argue that they can mangle JavaScript source code by obfuscation and pseudo-encryption (such as “minification”, where the code is compressed and “minified”). But this is a dangerously false sense of security. Any skilled developer can reverse engineer a “minified” or “obfuscated” JavaScript application. By design, JavaScript cannot be encrypted and it cannot be hidden. JavaScript files must be downloaded in order to run in a web browser.

To make matters worse, JavaScript also cannot be locked down to a specific web domain.

The code is accessible to be hacked by any competitor. No matter how many steps are taken to hide the JavaScript, the web browser eventually downloads the JavaScript file to run it within the client’s web browser.

For comparison, hacking a Flash or Silverlight application just by viewing the source is not very easy but anyone with a little knowledge of HTML5 can do it in minutes.

The hacks of famous HTML5 games like AngryBirds, Texas Holdem and many others are excellent examples of the insecure techniques employed by HTML5 developers. All security measures are useless once the code has been obtained and reverse engineered. No matter what any HTML5 or JavaScript developer may claim, these facts are true and irrefutable!

Fact #2: The concept of HTML5 Canvas is nothing new.

As we discussed already, HTML5 is based on the same concepts of HTML4. The most useful and talked about feature of HTML5 is the new “Canvas” object. Canvas makes it easy for JavaScript developers to “paint” within a web browser, simplifying the design of applications that utilize graphics. But you may be surprised to know that this functionality has been available in a simulated manner with very little attention since the release of HTML4.

Fact #3: There is a widespread misconception about HTML5

HTML5 has been labeled as a “cross platform programming language” which is a serious misconception. It is true that HTML5 is capable of running on all types of platforms such as Windows, Linux, Android and other mobile operating systems but let’s not forget that HTML5 is nothing more than web page markup, which is controlled by JavaScript. Classifying HTML5 and JavaScript as a true programming language would be incorrect. It is a browser integrated language that cannot utilize all the features of the underlying operating system.

When Should You Use HTML5?

The answer is quite simple. Use HTML5 when you do not care about your source code, intellectual property, or trade secrets. If you do not care that a competitor may steal your source code after it has been uploaded to your web site then use HTML5. As you can see, HTML5 is perfect for buttons, menus and website specific content, for which it was designed.

The Bottom Line – Better Options Available

The bottom line is that HTML5 and JavaScript are great for a lot of things, but you can’t effectively protect anything that you develop with them. This clearly doesn’t add up if you are using these technologies for developing business applications, which they were not designed for.

If you are developing a web application then consider using Flash or Silverlight, both of which run in all popular web browsers for desktop operating system, including Windows, Mac and Linux.

If you are developing a mobile application, there are far better options for iPhone, iPad and Android development that afford better protection of trade secrets, better security, performance and usability for the end user and also allow you to take advantage of the native features of the underlying operating systems. For iOS (iPad and iPhone), use the Object C programming language. For Android, use the Java programming language.

For Windows development, consider C++, C#, Delphi or other proven languages.

Although slightly more difficult to develop with, Objective C, C++, C#, Java and other low level languages are always the best option no matter if you are developing desktop, web, or mobile applications.

Permission to Redistribute

Copyright (c) 2012 by Modulus Financial Engineering, Inc. http://www.modulusfe.com All rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted to redistribute the article providing this copyright notice remains in place.

About the Author

Richard Gardner is Founder/CEO of Modulus Financial Engineering, Inc. In addition to his leadership role of the firms team members, Richard is an influential member of the financial technology industry at large, a globally-respected professional trader and software engineer, a guest speaker at industry conferences and among the inventors on over 70 technology patents.

Web Design Melbourne How Your Online Business Can Be Transformed Into A Thriving Cash Cow

If you plan to enjoy any online success, it is vital that you have a well-designed website. Such a site will look clean, neat and professional, and it will attract visitors. Sites that are well designed will leave a good impression with your customers, and it will be this impression that will keep them coming back to you repeatedly. If you do not want to spend time working on web design, or if you do not possess a whole lot of web design experience, then it is essential that you hire professionals to do the work. If you are starting an online business and are in need of top-of-the-line web design services and you reside in the Melbourne area, web design Melbourne companies will be able to provide you with what you need to succeed on the net.

A quality web design Melbourne company will make sure your site is designed to your specifications. However you want the web design company to construct your site let them know. They will make your dreams come to life on the web. The staff at a top notch web design Melbourne company are well trained in all web design and development languages, thus nothing will be too difficult for them to accomplish.

Another benefit to having your site built by a Web design Melbourne company is that your website will also be SEO friendly. Part of a good SEO campaign is to have your site designed in such a way that the search engines will be able to easily read it. This means that your site will have a properly designed sitemap, pages that are written in clean HTML, metatags, keywords in anchor text and headings, keywords in bolded text and keywords in the URL as well as the links. When your site is designed in this fashion, the rest of the SEO campaign will be a cinch. All you will need to do in order to obtain outstanding SEO results is focus on building your backlinks and come up with a strong off site SEO strategy. Then, you will be able to expect your profits to soar.

When you have a professional web design Melbourne company build your website for you, you will have the peace of mind knowing that your site is done right. You can also count on your site being search engine friendly, enabling it to be properly optimized for SEO campaigns. Your well-done, professionally designed, attractive website will be transformed into a thriving cash cow, as customers will come and want to remain your customer for life. They will refer others to you also, allowing your business to grow substantially.

Web Design Manchester

Web design is used as a general term to describe any of the various tasks involved in creating a web page. More specifically,Web design is the process of planning and creating a website. Text, images, digital media and interactive elements are used by web designers to produce the page seen on the web browser. Web designers utilize markup language, most notably HTML for structure and CSS for presentation as well as JavaScript to add interactivity to develop pages that can be read by web brows.As a whole, the process of web design can include conceptualization, planning, producing, post-production, research, and advertising. The site itself can be divided into it pages. The site is navigated by using hyperlinks commonly these are blue and underlined but can be made to look like anything the designer wishes. Images can also be hyperlinks.Web design is used as a general term to describe any of the various tasks involved in creating a web page.Web design is used as a general term to describe any of the various tasks involved in creating a web page. More specifically,Web design is the process of planning and creating a website. Text, images, digital media and interactive elements are used by web designers to produce the page seen on the web browser. Web designers utilize markup language, most notably HTML for structure and CSS for presentation as well as JavaScript to add interactivity to develop pages that can be read by web brows.As a whole, the process of web design can include conceptualization, planning, producing, post-production, research, and advertising. The site itself can be divided into it pages. The site is navigated by using hyperlinks commonly these are blue and underlined but can be made to look like anything the designer wishes. Images can also be hyperlinks.Web design is used as a general term to describe any of the various tasks involved in creating a web page.Web Design Manchester company in the UK offering Manchester Web Design Best Priced Websites Guaranteed. Web Design at affordable prices only at Web Design Manchester. Try it here.

Advantages Of Tableless Websites

HTML was originally designed as a semantic markup language intended for sharing scientific documents and research papers online. However, as the Internet expanded from the academic and research world into the mainstream in the mid 1990s, and became more media oriented, graphic designers sought ways to control the visual appearance of the Web pages presented to end users. To this end, tables and spacers have been used to create and maintain page layout.

Problems then started to arise from the use of these techniques. As many webpages are build with tables nested within tables, this resulted in large HTML documents which use more bandwidth than documents with simpler formatting. With slower performance, the internet slowly begun to decline and the Web development industry shrank. Because of this, several UI development was carried out by coders with greater knowledge of good coding practice. It was around this time that many became critical of messy coding practices and the idea of tableless design began to grow.

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) were developed to improve the separation between design and content, and move back towards a semantic organization of content on the Web. According to popular Web design outsourcing Philippiness companies, the term “tableless design implies the use of CSS to position HTML elements on the page but it should be noted that tables and CSS are not mutually exclusive. Many experienced HTML coders use CSS to manipulate tables frequently.

Advantages
There are several advantages through the use of tableless websites, these includes:

Accessibility
As a result of the separation of design (CSS) and structure (HTML), it is also possible to provide different layouts for different devices, e.g. handhelds, mobile phones, etc. According to different Web design outsourcing Philippiness companies, it is also possible to specify a different style sheet for print, e.g. to hide or modify the appearance of advertisements or navigation elements that are irrelevant and a nuisance in the printable version of the page.
Maintainability
In tableless layout using CSS, virtually all of the layout information resides in one place: the CSS document. Because the layout information is centralized, these changes can be made quickly and globally by default. The HTML files themselves do not, usually, need to be adjusted when making layout changes. If they do, it is usually to add class-tags to specific markup elements or to change the grouping of various sections with respect to one another.
Bandwidth Efficient
Clever implementation of tableless design can produce web pages with fewer HTML tags thus reducing page download times. According to web design consultants and Web design outsourcing Philippiness companies, using external style sheets to position page elements means more mark up language may be cached and further reduce download times for subsequent pages using the same resources.

Know Your Options Before Selecting The Best Professional Web Design Company

The first look of a website is the core of success to any online business. Professional web design company holds the responsibility of making the website accustomed to potential buyers needs and that of search engines. Search engines too like the optimized and structured websites while ranking them in search results.

When the task of a website development is initiated, the very first challenge for the custom web designer and web owner is to select the right web development platform. Popular options are PHP, .NET and JSP. Each has some plus and minus points to be compared.

PHP is a popular open source text scripting language to be embedded with HTML pages. Extension of website is quite easy. ASP.NET is a proprietary platform of Microsoft. It is not free but it offers many unique features. Website constructed over this platform is considered more secured because HTML source codes are not visible. JSP is server side technology that is the proprietary platform of Sun Microsystems. It was introduced to compete with ASP.NET and PHP.

Selection of web design tools also creates a huge difference in the look of website. Fireworks, Adobe Dreamweaver, Panic Coda, Adobe Photoshop and Firebug are popular web design tools that most of custom web designers love to play with. Other options you may chose from are Adobe Flash, Notepad++, GIMP, Web Developer, Aptana and CSS Edit.

The selection of a professional web design company is as important as the entire business plan. It is not one time activity. Web owners need the web maintenance and web development support till they want to earn profits from that website. After getting the basic knowledge of web design and web development tools, select the best web designer. While conducting he searches, you will come across many terms like Website Designer, Website Programmer, Graphic Designer, Internet Marketing Consultant and SEO experts. Lots of custom web designers offer comprehensive services to take all your concerns for business development. So, you dont need to rope in different sources for variety of services needed at later stage. Here are some not to be missed important aspects while comparing your options:

KExperience

Expertise in particular platform

Trade repute

Profile for website development in same platforms

Diversity in clientele

It is not so that cost of website development is not important; it is important but do not limit your opportunities by opting for only the cheapest professional web design company. Open source options are simple and free but there may be some management and operational limitations. Also, you may come across many sources inviting and encouraging to build the website by self but experience counts everywhere.