The design and creation of websites goes around in circles. I remember how inspired I was ten years ago by those wonderful sites created in Director or Flash! In fact I got totally hooked on them and produced some funky pages, sites & presentations.

Then reality hit me. Neither the search engines nor the average users liked them. Apparently, the SEs could not read the files, and people could not be bothered to download the plug-ins. So I panicked. How on earth am I going to recreate my sites without using Flash or Director?????

I stared to experiment with Javascript and Java applets. To be honest they were just too complicated for me and use a lot of scripts. As far as layouts were concerned, I also found tables and cells frustrating - something never worked with them, or if they did work, they worked in IE but not in Netscape and vice-versa. It used to drive me crazy!..

Then I discovered CSS - cascading style sheets. I was suspicious at first - not another non-standard tool that could make my life hell???? I was right, nothing seemed to work properly - or the same old scenario of working in one browser but not in the other kept happening.

Gradually, however, I got used to it, I got the hang of it, I got even quite good at it… and now I’m loving it! Why?

CSS gives total flexibility in designing layouts

You can have many divisions (i.e. what Netscape originally called layers) and position them wherever you want on the page. 

Using CSS results in clean pages

It’s best to create an external style sheet and attach it to the pages. This creates a clean HTML or PHP page, that is quick to load and can be read easily by the SE robots.

CSS can be used to make websites creative again

Just check out the Zen garden templates. It’s amazing what you can do with a bit of imagination and some knowledge of CSS. Basically, the coding is the same for all those examples - it’s just the CSS that is different.

CSS versus flash?

My verdict is that the combination of animated gifs and CSS can create just as good and creative pages as Flash can - and, of course, it’s open source i.e. free!

Another good thing about CSS is that it’s now becoming more standardised across the various browsers - so if you haven’t yet given up on tables to position your objects it’s really time for you to learn some CSS!

We have decided that we no longer require the following domain names:

Buildcontacts.com
Buildingcontacts.com

These are excellent names if you want to create a web site for the building industry or a useful site for the public to find builders or building products. They would also be suitable for networking type web pages, where people could build their own network of contacts.  If you already have a similar domain name or a successfully running site, it might be worth it for you to buy them up to stop your competitors grabbing such good domain names! You could then make use of the domains or just redirect them to your current site!

We are the legal owners of these names which were registered through an ICANN accredited registrar.

If you’re interested in purchasing one or both of them, just click on the hyperlink and fill out the enquiry form with your bid.

If we accept your offer, you can send us a payment with Paypal. Then we push the domain to your account, or we set up a new account with our registrar on your behalf and send you the username & password (which you can change). Then you’ll be the legal owner of the domain and be able to amend the contact & admin details as well as the DNS settings. You might wish to redirect these domains to your currant site - this is also possible.

Domain Tips

The best domain names are:

• Short
• Easy to remember
• have a keyword in them relating to the theme of the site
• have  no dashes in them
• .com domains

Please let us know if you you’re interested in buying one of these domains or you have any questions regarding the purchase. We are a fully registered company in the UK.

Web Jungle:: web lingo

Definitions

Lots of our clients get confused by the lingo of the internet, websites, domains and hosting. So here is a list of quick & simple explanations..

Internet

The internet is not just out there in space.  When you look at a website, it is a document on a computer somewhere in the world. The internet is a network connecting millions of computers. 

Internet Service Provider

ISP in short. This is a company that provides access to the internet. This access can be dial-up, broadband or wireless.

Dial-up Connection

A way of accessing the internet. Temporary connection is established through a modem & telephone line - when you’re online, the phone is engaged, and when you’re offline the phone can be used to make calls. It’s considered very slow these days and therefore only suitable for those who don’t use the internet a lot or cannot get broadband.

Broadband Connection

Broadband provides high-speed and high-capacity transmission.  You access the internet through a special modem - when you’re online, your telephone can also be used. You can be permanently online.

IP

Short for Internet Protocol. An IP address is a unique number that identifies any Internet-connected computer. It’s four groups of digits separated by dots.

DNS

Short for Domain Name Service. It is a system that translates domain names into IP addresses. It’s easier for a human to remember a domain name, but computers & the internet are based on numbers. So every time you use a domain name it is translated to an IP address via the DNS settings.

URL

Short for Uniform Resource Locator. It is a unique world wide web address that identifies a file (or webpage) on the internet. They generally begin with http://. You can use the IP address instead if you want to.

Website

A collection of interconnected pages that can be accessed on the internet by a unique URL. Webpages can contain text, graphics, images, text, sound, video and other media. These files are normally stored on a computer (a server) that can be accessed via the internet.  Most websites have a home page or index page that links to other pages on the site.

Domain

It’s a name by which a website is identified and connected to the internet. The last three letters represent different categories e.g. .gov is government; .com is commercial; .org is non-profit organisations; .co.uk is Britain; .de is Germany etc. The url of a webpage starts with the domain name, e.g. www.ediandesign.com/blog/

Web host

A company that provides storage space on their server for your websites’ files. They also provide many web services and maintenance tools.

 A good webhost guide can be found here

We have the following domains that we no longer require:

Architectnetworking.com
Designnetworking.com
Artnetworking.net

Online networking can improve business and bring industries together.  If you want to set up a networking site for architects, designers or artist, these domain names could be ideal for your purpose. If you already have a similar website, you could just redirect the domain to your current site

These domain names were registered through an ICANN accredited registrar and our company is currently the legal owner of them.

Transferring the ownership to you is simple and quick.  When we’ve received your payment we’ll set up an account with the registrar and transfer the domain name to this account. You’ll be able to access this account with the username & password that we’ll email to you. Then you can change the details of the Whois records, DNS settings, emails etc. Alternatively you’ll be able to transfer the domain to another registrar.

Payment

We accept payment via Paypal or cheque.  It’s easy to use Paypal, particularly if you want to make international payments. If you don’t have an account, you can set one up by clicking here.

If you’re interested in buying one of the above domains please click on the domain name make a bid for it. Alternatively, just drop us an email.

Tips for choosing domain names

When you choose a domain name make sure that it’s

• not too long
• not stuffed with keywords
• not full of dashes
• not difficult to remember
• not obscure
• not offensive

Edian Design Ltd is a fully registered company in the UK

Why blog??

You are now probably quite familiar with blogs, the web phenomenon of the last couple of years.  Blogs, or weblogs, started as personal journals and now are taking over the internet. Why ??? - I hear many people asking..

Firstly, you don’t need to have your own domain & hosting it. There is no need to worry about designing or maintaining your site. You can just go to blogger.com or blog.co.uk, choose a name, choose a template and off you go.

Free of charge - free of hassles.

Secondly, blogs are no longer used just for personal diaries. They are very effective venues to sell your products and services or attract more visitors to your main site. You can easily publish new information, update your posts, upload pictures & images, organise your posts & categories etc. You may also allow others to comment on your posts or invite them to write about related subjects.

Thirdly, given that blogs are mainly text-based and updated regularly, the search engines love them. So if you want to rank high in the SEs - adding a blog to your site  could help you to achieve this. In fact it’s much easier to publish news, information, articles etc in your blog than adding new pages to your existing site. Wordpress is free and can be easily installed under your existing domain.

Here you can find look find a suitable theme  - here you can download themes for Wordpress.

Happy blogging! 

If you’re unable or too busy to install a blog on your site, please contact us and, for a small fee, we’ll be happy to do it for you.

Do you have a business that is about networking in the financial & banking industry?

Or do you want to create a website for people working in the financial world?

Or do you already have a site in this sector - but do not want your competitors to buy up good, keyword-rich domain names?

If your answer is yes to any one of these questions, you should consider buying the following domains:

Banknetworking.com

Financialnetworking.com

Perhaps you already have a similar site name in this area - why don’t you grab these domains before one of your competitors buys them? You can use them for a new networking site or just redirect them to your current site.

We are the legal owners of these domain names and have decided to sell them. The registrar we have used to buy these domains is ICANN accredited. Transferring our ownership to you is easy and quick, whether you’re an individual or a business entity.

Just click on the domain name you’re interested in and fill out the bidding form.

Payment

We accept payment via Paypal. When we have agreed on the sale price we will set up an account for you with our registrar. When we receive your payment, we push the domain to your account and email you your user name & password which you can (and should) change. Then you will be the legal owner of the domain and can transfer it to another registrar if you so wish or stay with the current one and point the DNS settings to your webhost or redirect your new domain to your other domain! That’s all there is to it! We can even help you with this (free of charge) if you’re not familiar with these aspects of the web.

Tips on buying domains

• A good domain name can bring in more visitors
• Domains containing keywords (one or two) can help your search engine ranking.
• Keyword-stuffed domains are considered spamming (buy-this-and-that-online-cheap.com etc)
• Only buy your domain from an ICANN accredited registrar

Edian Design Ltd is a fully registered company, based in the UK.