When talking about web careers, issues connecting to Web design and Web development are often at the fore. But what is Web Development? Definitions differ widely depending on your view point. Web development is all you need to design, create, support and build websites.

Web development is what makes a website - ease of use, aesthetics, impressive and related content, appropriate graphics, functionality, search features, visual clues, conventional navigation and other features.

The essence of Web development therefore is to make sure that a website fulfills all its purpose.

Web career options

Popular options or sample titles in the web arena consist of Web developer, Web designer, Web master, Web project managers and Content provider.

Web developers develop websites that offer content, calculate amounts, provide e-business services and present data. Web design is often implied in Web development i.e. the meeting of the two skill sets of programming and design or graphics.

On the other hand the Web administrator and Webmaster, usually focuses on the effectiveness and efficiency of the site, after the site has been built and is already in use.

The manager of Web project works with other web team members for bringing web projects on time, to specifications and on budget. Not every website uses project managers, but they are essential for large web projects and business sites.

The content writer or developer makes sure that the content is appropriate and up-to-date and for this purpose good editing and writing skills are essential.

Many web developers go for a preferred OS platform for doing their work. Selecting a platform early in your career helps you in becoming skillful in that platform. Many people generally choose between Microsoft and Unix or Linux. But to expand your options, you may learn and master both platforms. For programming depending on your platform, the selection could be either between PHP or MySQL or ASP or Access.

Generally the styles and platforms of design and programming language may differ. But the end result is what is important. There are many ways of attaining a common design or development by using different methods.

No career option is better than other. The decision of which to use on a web project often depends on the project’s objectives as well as the value judgment of site owner. However, it should be obvious that the busiest areas are web design and web development.

Web design and web development is all about a high quality experience for the website audience by creating the right feel and look and usability design while optimizing website functionality and interactivity.

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Now the system of Cash-on-delivery is out for a long time. Credit cards are certainly in. Most of the online businesses have found this means to increase their income from online payments. This system has also made the tracking and collection of payments faster and easier.

This system has motivated more and more merchants to try their luck in the cyberspace. As online shoppers and stores are increasingly flocking the internet, more and more payment systems have been developed.

The online payment processing companies usually provide a service which basically combines the characteristics of separate PSP and IMA in one account. While the process of application is still rigorous, the chances of being accepted are higher as compared to IMA without the need of thorough checks into your history. You can also generally be approved, incorporated and taking payments within days instead of weeks.

Online payment processing companies accept payments on behalf of your business, which means that the actual transaction generally takes place within their own secure web page rather than on your website.

Using an online payment processing company is often easy and the most cost effective way for new ecommerce businesses to step in the market, as many new businesses will not have the necessary amount of trading history to qualify for IMA.

There are numerous online payment processing companies to choose from, and all of them have various benefits and fees, but there are some key points that should be taken into consideration while comparing them:

• How fast you get your funds - do you receive immediate cash-flow?
• Can you change the checkout payment pages to feel and look the same as your website?
• Do you have to pay a monthly or annual account charge?
• Do customers have to spend more time in asking to sign-up or login to the service before being able to make their payment?
• Is it simple, easy and quick to put together without the need of a web developer?
• Will you be provided with telephone support and good account management?

Following are the advantages of using an online payment processing company:

• Quicker process of application and easier to be accepted for an account
• Reduced amount of charges and fees
• Only one account needed for taking online payments
• Easy to manage and integrate
• You are not generally locked into lengthy contracts
• Better for merchants of small volume

The payment option that you finally choose to use will be dictated by your requirements of particular business. Though price is undoubtedly one of the most important factors to be taken into account, it is also important to take into consideration additional features like anti-fraud tools and cash flow.

Thus, whichever option you do choose, it is essential to carefully research all your alternatives by comparing a number of suppliers to ensure that you make the correct decision.

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Network topology basically refers to the physical network that is the locations of the computers and how the cable operates between them. For choosing the right topology for how the network will be used is very important. Each topology comprises its own strength and weaknesses.

The choice of a topology for installing a computer network depends upon a combination of factors like performance of the system, reliability, geographical distributions of the system and number of nodes.

The two main types of network are:

Peer to Peer topology and Bus topology

Peer to Peer topology consists of Ring topology and star topology.

Bus topology

It is often used when installation of network is small, temporary or simple. On a typical bus network the cable consists of only one or more wires with no active electronics to strengthen the signal or pass it along from computer to computer. This makes the bus a passive topology. When one computer send a signal, through the wire all the computers get the information but only with the address which matches accepts the information, the rest of the message is ignored.

Following are the advantages of Bus topology:

• It is easy to use and understand.
• It requires least amount of cable to connect the other computers together. Therefore it is less expensive as compared to other cabling arrangements.
• It is easy to extend a bus. Two cables can be joined into one longer cable with a BNC making a longer cable and allowing more computers to join the network.

Star topology

In this type of topology all the cables operate from the computers to the central location where all of them are connected by a device called switch or hub. All computers on a star network communicate with a central device which resends the message either to all computers or simply to the destination computer. E.g. if it is a hub then it will send to all of them and if it is a switch then it will send only to destination computer. When the greater reliability is needed and when network expansion is expected, star topology is the best.

Following are the advantages of star topology:

• It can modified easily and can add new computers without even disturbing the rest of the network.
• The center of the star network is considered as a good place for diagnosing the faults.
• Single failure of computer does not automatically bring down the entire star network.

Thus, each type of network has its own unique features and they are considered as an essential part of network design speculation.

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The concept of using the power of internet for marketing products or services is becoming popular day by day. Many people are getting attracted to E-commerce for this reason. Therefore, the utility of internet marketing service is also increasing in similar manner.

Internet market service is becoming a very important tool to move business to online sites. It is quite possible that there are many other web sites who are also selling similar products. There might be sites that are backed up with good financial support to enable them to monopolize the market.

To fight against all these sites would require the help of internet marketing service. This is especially true while developing a new site. This will help the new site to compete with other existing sites marketing similar products or services.

Taking the help of a good Internet Marketing Service would help a site to get ahead of the competition and earn good profit.

The most common tool used by a good Internet Marketing Service to improve the profits earned by a site is to use SEO tools. Applying such a tool would increase traffic to the site. And the increased traffic to the site would definitely increase sales from the site and thus increasing profit.

Applying SEO tools to a site would improve the page rank of the site in any internet search in popular search engines like Google, Yahoo or MSN. When a site gets a good page rank, it is generally features amongst top five results when a search is made on the internet regarding products which are connected to the site. Such a high ranking would bring large traffic to the site. This will have the effect of higher sales and correspondingly would lead to higher profit.

There are many agencies available to provide their Internet Market Service expertise. But, how do you select the best among them?  A few tips are given below to help you make proper selection:

1.      Before you select any agency to provide you their service, please find out about their performance. You may contact the clients of the company to find out their opinion of the service the company provided them.

2.      The agency should have a good training program. Such a training program would help marketing service operators to utilize the service to the fullest extent.

3.      It is very important that the agency should provide prompt response to any problem faced by you.

4.      It would be quite helpful if the agency runs a support forum. This would help in transfer of ideas amongst various users and the agency

5.      And lastly, the training program of the agency should be well documented to help you to refer to it later whenever required by you.

If you are thinking of increasing your profits from E-commerce site, it is advisable to contact a good Internet Marketing Service provider to help you.

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As the use of the internet becomes more popular and it becomes more powerful, there will be an increasing demand for setting up of web sites, both for individuals as well as companies. To set up a web site, one should have some understanding about how such a site is designed. It requires some knowledge regarding designing web pages and web pages.

To start designing any web site would require some knowledge of HTML. There are three options for a beginner to start designing a web site. They could either use a pre-made template, a HTML editor, or a HTML hand code.

Using pre-made templates would make the process of web design quite easy. These templates are compatible with HTML editors and they are already prepared for use. These templates could be customized as per individual requirement.

Using a HTML editor, a web page could be designed with static elements and would look like a text document.  Advanced HTML techniques could be used to make the web design look better. One of these advanced HTML techniques is to use Cascading Style Sheet or CSS in short. Using CSS would introduce some stylish design on web pages.

A few concepts of design could be considered while designing a web site. Basically, these principles are common for making any kind of design including web design. Web design should be considered to involve something more than only using HTML editors. A brief idea regarding these design principles are being given now.

Balance

Balance means the distribution of heavy and light elements on a page. Larger, darker elements would appear to look heavier than smaller, lighter elements in a design. The principle of balance would show you how to lay out your page to make it look attractive.

Contrast

When we think of contrast, we generally think of contrasting of colors or black with white. There are many other aspects in making proper contrast. It could be contrasting different shapes like squares against circles, contrasting different sizes like large against small, or contrasting of textures like smooth against sharp textures.

Emphasis

Emphasis in a design would attract the eye towards the emphasized area. It would be a mistake if everything is emphasized. While designing the web, a hierarchy of emphasis should be created and apply it on the design accordingly.

Rhythm

Repetition of patterns would provide a rhythm in the design. Such rhythm would produce an internal consistency to the design.

Unity

This is also called proximity. The idea is to keep similar elements and dissimilar items as far apart as possible.

If you want to go for a simple web design, you may start using the ideas given above. In case, you require a more complex design for your site, you may contact an expert to help you.

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There are many reasons when a person would like to set up a web site. It might be to set up an eCommerce site or to set up a personal site for keeping in touch with one’s friends and relatives. Whatever may be the requirement, to establish any web site on the net, it requires to be hosted on the net. This process of hosting web pages on the net is known as Web Hosting.

Now, to get your web page hosted on the net, you require the service of a hosting service provider or a web host. They are also known as HSP in short. The business of these HSPs is to provide the necessary technological support and the services required to make their client’s site visible on the net.

When a company has a dial-up or broadband connection with Internet, they could contact a HSP to utilize their service of web hosting. By setting up a site on Internet, anybody who accesses Internet would be able to view all the information of your company on the website and make a contact with you.

Web sites are generally hosted in separate computers which are known as web servers. The site would be given a name like www.YourCompany.com.

To setup a web site on the Internet, a separate computer called web server is required. For a small company, it could be a costly proposition to setup a web server dedicated to that company only. For them a cheaper alternative is to avail the service of a Host Service Provider or HSP.

These HSPs would provide the services of a server machine to host the site of their clients. The client would be paying rent to HSP for the service provided. Hosting companies would also help the company to obtain a domain name in case they do not have one.

These service providers would provide all technical resources required to for hosting the company’s web site on the net. The company would have to pay rent to HSP for the service provided by storing the web site on the net and allowing web traffic to come to the company’s site.

Utilizing the services of a HSP is a good proposition for many a small and middle size organizations. To host site on the net, they do not require employing any technical manpower or worrying about its operation. This would enable them to concentrate on the area of their core business while they would be getting proper technical support for running the site.

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As the popularity of internet grew and people became aware of its power, the concept of eBusiness was developed.

Electronic Business or eBusiness or e-Business may be defined as “utilization of information and communication technologies to support all the activities of any business”. This term was first introduced by IBM in 1996 in their marketing effort.

E-commerce only deals with earning revenue using the Internet by building and enhancing relationship with clients. It may be considered as a subset of eBusiness. Electronic Business is involved with all aspects of doing business which would include electronic purchasing and managing the supply chain, electronically processing the clients’ orders, providing customer services and cooperating with other business associates.

Exchange of data between different companies is possible in eBusiness by using special technical standards. E-business software applications integrate business processes both within the company and with other companies.

While developing eBusiness, different business models are used. A business model is defined as “the organization of product, service and information flows, and source of revenue and benefits for suppliers and customers”. To develop eBusiness, the concept of business model is used in the context of online processing.

A list of some of the business models used in eBusiness is given below:

Ø      E-shops

Ø      E-procurement

Ø      E-malls

Ø      E-auctions

Again, eBusiness is classified according to provider/producers and consumer/clients involved in business transactions involved. Some of these classifications are given below:

Ø      Business-to-business (B2B)

Ø      Business-to-consumer (B2C)

Ø      Business-to-employee (B2E)

Ø      Business-to-government (B2G)

Ø      Government-to-business (G2B)

Ø      Consumer-to-consumer (C2C)

Ø      Consumer-to-business (C2b)

E-Business is all about using technology to improve the business processes of your organization. It is involved with the internal processes of the organization like human resources, financial accounting and administration as well as external processes like sales and marketing, supplying good and services and customer relations.

Some of the activities which are conducted using eBusiness tools are:

Ø      Trading of goods and services like eProcurement using internet

Ø      Electronic retailing (eTailing)

Ø      Conducting research and managing business activities using Internet, Intranets or Extranets

Ø      Web site marketing

Ø      Online communication like eMail

Ø      Online training for employees (eLearning)

E-Business should not be considered only as a Website. By using the tools used in eBusiness, your business would become more efficient by following activities:

Ø      Accessing Internet to gather information regarding your industry, your suppliers and products as well as for general research.

Ø      Streamlining some of the activities into electronic transactions which were previously carried out manually.  A few examples could be online banking, financial management.

Ø      Customer relationship management by integrating front office and back office operations.

Application of eBusiness tools would help you streamline your business processes and help you find new market for your products. Therefore, you should now seriously think of using eBusiness tools in your company for its growth.

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In the present world, computers are becoming an integral part of our daily life. Every computer consists of a number of computer parts. Computer is essentially a machine and would malfunction sometimes. Therefore we should have a good idea about different computer parts which goes in building a computer.

A personal computer generally consists of following parts:

§         Computer Case

§         Power Supply

§         Processor (also known as CPU) along with Heatsink/Fan

§         Motherboard

§         Hard Drive

§         Memory

§         Keyboard and Mouse

§         CD Drive

§         Floppy Drive (but it is slowly becoming obsolete)

§         Monitor

§         USB Port

§         PCI Card

§         Operating System

§         IDE Cables

§         Graphics/Video Card

§         Sound/Audio Card

§         LAN Card

§         Modem

You should also buy a good security program which would give your computer protection from virus attacks and hacking. It is recommended that you procure a UPS system which will provide protection against power interruptions. You should also think of buying a surge suppressor for the safety of your computer.

There are many other accessories that you could add to your computer installation. They are speakers, headphone, DVD players, scanners, ink jet printers etc.

You should also have a little idea how these parts work so that you could carry out minor repairs in case of any malfunction without calling for the assistance of a computer technician.

Basically, any computer consists of two parts - hardware and software. Hardware consists of the all the physical components of the system while software deals with programmes that provides different functions of the computer.

The most important piece of hardware of a computer is its Central Processing Unit or CPU. Again, CPU consists of a number of parts. These would be the Processor, CPU fan, Motherboard and Printed Circuit Board (PCB). CPU would also be having Random Access Memory (RAM).

CPU essentially processes all the signals it receives from an input device of the computer and passes on the result to an output device. It would also store some amount of data which could be accessed by the user.

Input devices of a computer could be keyboards, mouse and scanners, while output devices could be monitor, speaker or printer.

When you want to buy any computer parts, you could look for them on the net. Buying these parts online may turn out cheaper than buying them from a dealer. To locate the best source, you might have to do a little research on the net. Also, reader reviews available on the internet could provide you some guidance in this regard.

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With the increasing popularity of internet, lots of business is being transacted over the net which is known as E-commerce. E-commerce which is more fully known as electronic commerce may be defined as “the absolute set of procedures that carry commercial or business activities over a network and further aid in performing commercial transactions electronically.”  This concept of E-commerce is quite new and makes the best use of technologies like electronic data interchange for transferring information and documents electronically.

E-commerce involves in electronic transactions for ownership or rights transfer of using a good or services. These kinds of solutions are involved in setting up “Virtual Storefronts” on the net by displaying online catalogs.

Presently, people, who are engaged in the traditional way of business, are finding their expenditure is rising compared to the revenue they are earning. E-commerce provides them a newer and cheaper way to conduct their business keeping in direct contact with their clients.

With the introduction of credit cards and mobile phones, E-commerce option has become a very convenient and time saving option for customers. They could purchase the products they want to buy without physically visiting a store.

In the traditional format of business, you could contact only people living in your city. But, with the introduction of E-commerce any person from anywhere from the world could be your customer. Therefore, you would be getting the opportunity to expand your business to different parts of the world. You could advertise your products on the internet and receive your payment through credit cards.

E-commerce is a very cheap way to explore newer market and reach newer clients. It is one of the best ways of expanding your business and could be made a part of your marketing strategy. People would be able to carry out their business just with the click of a mouse. E-commerce solution also includes internet banking facilities provided by a number of banks to their clients.

But, to run your E-commerce site successfully, you should implement E-commerce solution that accepts credit card transactions. It has been found that sales of those sites are increasing which accepts credit cards for payment. In the beginning, customers were apprehensive about providing details of their credit cards over the internet. But, with the increasing security of internet transactions using encrypted SSL (Secure Socket Layer) technology, there is no fear that the credit card details would land in the hand of unscrupulous people.

While selecting a suitable E-commerce solution for your business, you should check for following features:

i.            Security

ii.            Cost

iii.            Speed of processing

iv.            Variety of options offered to a customer

v.            Ability to access your money

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