Archive for February 18th, 2010

CSS web design

Web style sheets have been around for a number of years, but their power and importance went largely unnoticed since few implementations existed. Web Designers, anxious to add creativity to their pages by influencing the presentation, began to use Netscape’s proprietary extensions rather than the more powerful style sheets. This was quite natural, since Netscape’s proprietary extensions could be seen by a significant portion of Web users, while few would see style sheet enhancements.

Today, more and more browsers are implementing style sheets, opening authors’ eyes to unique features that allow influence over web design while preserving platform independence. The advantages of style sheets became apparent, as did the disadvantages of continually creating more HTML tags for presentation effects.

Netscape’s BODY attributes are now widely accepted on the Web, and have become standardized in HTML 3.2. Yet BGCOLOR, TEXT and friends simply do not provide the flexibility of style sheets. Most background images would leave a page unreadable to someone whose display only offered 16 colors; many pages are difficult to read with only 256 colors. With conventional BODY attributes, a web designer must choose whether the benefits of a background image outweigh the costs; with style sheets, an author can offer a number of different images, in different style sheets, so that the user can choose the “24-bit style sheet” or “8-bit style sheet,” depending on how many colors his or her system can display. If no author-supplied style suits the user, he or she can simply ignore the web designer’s style.

Style sheets can make an author’s life much easier. While one could use <HR WIDTH=”75%” SIZE=5 ALIGN=center> for every horizontal rule, this becomes very cumbersome for the web designer. With style sheets, one only needs to specify such presentational preferences once, and the style can be applied to an entire site. And if the author decides that WIDTH=”50%” would be better, then he or she only needs to change this preference in one place, rather than having to search through hundreds of pages to change the HTML. Not only that, but style sheets also reduce download time when one file contains all the style information.

Style sheets also offer much more flexibility in terms of the presentation effects that they provide. Properties such as color, background, margin, border, and many more can be applied to all elements. With just HTML and its proprietary extensions, one must rely on attributes like BGCOLOR, which are only available for a few elements. Style sheets give the flexibility of applying a style to all paragraphs, or all level-two headings, or all emphasized text.

With style sheets, authors can use the text-indent property to indent text, rather than resorting to ugly kludges like <DD> or <IMG SRC=”blank.gif” WIDTH=10 ALT=”"> that carry with them many negative side-effects. Margins can be suggested without having to put the entire page in a table. Style sheets also reduce the need for multi-file search and replace; if an author decides to change the indentation of all paragraphs on a site, he or she only has to change one line on a style sheet.

Style sheets represent an enormous step forward for web design. With the separation of content and presentation between HTML and style sheets, the Web no longer needs to drift away from the strong ideal of platform independence that provided the medium with its initial push of popularity. Web designers can finally influence the presentation of documents without leaving pages unreadable to users.

 

Charter a Boat to Dry Tortugas

So where is Dry Tortugas, and how did such a natural treasure get such an odd name? About 70 statute miles off the coast of Key West, Dry Tortugas is a group of tiny islands known for the abundant sea life, including sea turtles. The Spanish word for turtles is torgugas, explaining a portion of its unique name.

But what makes it dry, given that Dry Tortugas National Park is surrounded by the waters of the crystal clear blue Caribbean? The name was derived from the Spaniards – when they settled the islets, they soon discovered that there were no fresh water springs. So the islands eventually became known as the Dry Tortugas, or “dry turtles.” Even now, because the islands are a major tourist attraction, visitors must pack their own water.

First named a National Monument in 1935 by FDR, Dry Tortugas was designated a national park in 1992 at the end of George H. W. Bush’s term. The home of the previously unfinished Civil War era Fort Jefferson, a brick structure later used as a prison to house accused conspirators in President Lincoln’s assassination, the strip of sandy beaches and shallow, colorful reefs has become a destination for 80,000 tourists each year. All leave this national treasure in amazement at its fascinating history involving its original intent to be a fortress against the real Caribbean pirates.

Visitors can now enjoy all sorts of fascinating and recreational activities at Dry Tortugas park, from a historical tour of Fort Jefferson, to relaxation on the sandy beaches, to an absolutely memorable snorkel expedition to see the amazing sea life.

Of course, visitors can only arrive by chartered boat of sea plane. So if you want to book a trip, a Dry Tortugas charter will be necessary. There are some great discounts available on Dry Tortugas charters, Key West hotels, Key West snorkeling, and other recreation packages at Gold Card Key West.

 

What Are The Best Car Stereo Speakers?

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For more years then I have the ability to remember, I’ve been involved in car audio.  While the automobile manufacturers have significantly improved their stock sound in recent years, they nevertheless cannot touch the high quality provided by after market car audio equipment. From my experience, one subject which is always talked about is what are the best car speakers available. Honestly speaking, any answer is purely subjective and according to one’s relationship with a specific car speaker company.

In the real world it would be very uncommon if any salesperson ever endorsed anything other then the brand he personally sells as the best car speakers. Even though salesmen might come in contact with a variety of makes, their motive for recommending any specific car speaker needs to be suspect since their sale is his source of profit. That is the reason it is refreshing to report the findings of an unofficial survey determined by years of feedback and recommendations from real buyers of various makes of car audio speakers. This seems like the best means of judging performance of any speaker in the real world environment. I’ve heard a lot of times about a customer who adored a specific set of speakers inside the show room and then hated them after they were mounted in his vehicle.

Our survey has presented Infinity car speakers to be among the most well liked car speakers in the marketplace. These speakers are favorites among serious car audio enthusiasts in addition to those new to the hobby of car audio. To be judged best car speakers, the speakers considered must be capable of creating good sound quality when played at all power levels. Many times certain brands of car speakers will tend to lose decent sound quality when played at higher levels. This clearly would disqualify them from being judged among the best. The overall winner as best subwoofer has been the Kicker subwoofer for several years now.

However the good thing about improving your car’s sound system is the fact that most of us spend more hours every day in our car or truck then we do in our homes. So upgrading the vehicle’s sound system with the best car speakers available just makes good sense. You can learn more about finding the best car speakers for your vehicle by clicking through and getting the facts and reviews by real life users of your favorite brand of speaker.  Of course you find good deals at discount car stereo websites which offer a full variety of brands.

 

 

Should I get an 0800 or 0845 number for my business?

An 0800 number may seem the obvious choice. Your customers know that the service is free to them from a landline (which encourages them to call you) and the fact that the call charges are born by you shows that you care about your customers. You also have a good way to be available to customers whilst not having to give out a home or personal line. An 0800 number shows you are thinking nationally and that you are a serious business.

0800 numbers are portable – you can redirect them to a mobile (at extra cost) so never need lose touch with your customers. They are also useful for sorting calls – you can have one for sales and one for support and therefore know what your caller is contacting you for. This can help prioritise calls and make you look like a larger business.
The real bonus is that you can track marketing projects. By using only one number on your website or advert you can see where people are finding you and at what time of day. This really improves your business potential.

You can also take your free phone number with you if you need to move premises. This will avoid the need for new business card and other stationary reprints to accommodate a change of landline.

It is worth noting that paying a premium for a memorable number probably isn’t worth it unless you are using it for TV or radio advertising. Most of the really memorable numbers have gone anyway so think carefully before going down this route.
0800 numbers are best for connecting a business with its customers. On the downside, as a business, you pay for every call to the number, including those from time wasters.

0845 numbers can do similar things to 0800 numbers for you but are not necessarily free to call for your customers (although for some BT callers it now is). When paying customers ring an 0845 number all they pay is the cost of a local phone call – just as if they were making a call to someone in the town. That way, some customers who are a long way away from you in the country can actually save money over calling your normal landline number as the call is cheaper to them.
The main advantage to businesses of the 0845 number (and the reason that they are outselling 0800 numbers) is the fact that when you buy an 0845 number the costs are fixed no matter how many times the number is called, whereas for 0800 numbers the costs are for the actual minutes used. Fixed costs and the fact that bills cannot run away for business owners make the service easy to budget for.

If buying either phone number, make sure that the telecomms supplier you are using is reliable. Look at how long they have been in business, try and talk to their customers, and make sure you have a physical address for them. Check their position for if you find that that your number is not doing what you hoped it would, or if you need to change it so that you don’t run into unforeseen costs later.

Itemised bills charged by the second are a sensible way to go to avoid being caught out by the company rounding up calls to the nearest minute, and remember that nothing is free – if there’s no set-up and rental fee your call charges will be higher to compensate.

An example of a company using an 0800 number are Snibor who are Dorset builders and they use the number to be customer friendly. The number is visible on their homepage and throughout their web site. An example of a company using an 0845 number is Omnio who sell KVM switches. Again, the number is prominently displayed on their website and they are seeing the benefits for their type of business model.

Think carefully which number will be best for you before you buy and choose what’s right for you.