Squeak Design

What is HTML?

2011-11-15T13:51:00.000-08:00

What is HTML?

HTML is a computer language devised to allow website creation. These websites can then be viewed by anyone else connected to the Internet. It is relatively easy to learn, with the basics being accessible to most people in one sitting; and quite powerful in what it allows you to create. It is constantly undergoing revision and evolution to meet the demands and requirements of the growing Internet audience under the direction of the » W3C, the organisation charged with designing and maintaining the language.
The definition of HTML is HyperText Markup Language.

HyperText is the method by which you move around on the web — by clicking on special text called hyperlinks which bring you to the next page. The fact that it is hyper just means it is not linear — i.e. you can go to any place on the Internet whenever you want by clicking on links — there is no set order to do things in.
Markup is what HTML tags do to the text inside them. They mark it as a certain type of text (italicised text, for example).
HTML is a Language, as it has code-words and syntax like any other language.

How does it work?

HTML consists of a series of short codes typed into a text-file by the site author — these are the tags. The text is then saved as a html file, and viewed through a browser, like Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator. This browser reads the file and translates the text into a visible form, hopefully rendering the page as the author had intended. Writing your own HTML entails using tags correctly to create your vision. You can use anything from a rudimentary text-editor to a powerful graphical editor to create HTML pages.

What are the tags up to?

The tags are what separate normal text from HTML code. You might know them as the words between the <angle-brackets>. They allow all the cool stuff like images and tables and stuff, just by telling your browser what to render on the page. Different tags will perform different functions. The tags themselves don’t appear when you view your page through a browser, but their effects do. The simplest tags do nothing more than apply formatting to some text, like this:

<b>These words will be bold</b>, and these will not.

In the example above, the <b> tags were wrapped around some text, and their effect will be that the contained text will be bolded when viewed through an ordinary web browser.
If you want to see a list of a load of tags to see what’s ahead of you, look at this tag reference. Learning the tags themselves is dealt with in the next section of this website, My First Site.

Is this going to take long?

Well, it depends on what you want from it. Knowing HTML will take only a few days of reading and learning the codes for what you want. You can have the basics down in an hour. Once you know the tags you can create HTML pages.
However, using HTML and designing good websites is a different story, which is why I try to do more than just teach you code here at HTML Source — I like to add in as much advice as possible too. Good website design is half skill and half talent, I reckon. Learning techniques and correct use of your tag knowledge will improve your work immensely, and a good understanding of general design and the audience you’re trying to reach will improve your website’s chances of success. Luckily, these things can be researched and understood, as long as you’re willing to work at it so you can output better websites.
The range of skills you will learn as a result of running your own website is impressive. You’ll learn about aspects of graphic design, typography and computer programming. Your efficiency with computers in general increases.You’ll also learn about promotion and your writing will probably improve too, as you adapt to write for certain audiences.

Do I have to be online all the time?

Not at all. You can code your entire website offline, storing it all on your own computer, and then just transfer all the files onto the web. Then whenever you have new content, you just add that to the existing online version of your site. It’s really quite simple.

Is there anything HTML can’t do?

Of course, but since making websites became more popular and needs increased many other supporting languages have been created to allow new stuff to happen, plus HTML is modified every few years to make way for improvements.
Cascading Stylesheets are used to control how your pages are presented, and make pages more accessible. Basic special effects and interaction is provided by JavaScript, which adds a lot of power to basic HTML. Most of this advanced stuff is for later down the road, but when using all of these technologies together, you have a lot of power at your disposal.

thanks to http://www.yourhtmlsource.com/starthere/whatishtml.html

2011-08-25T13:36:00.001-07:00

BBC unveils map of UK 3G coverage

2011-08-22T15:26:00.001-07:00

Ex-Wikileaks man 'deleted files'

2011-08-18T13:57:00.001-07:00

HP to exit PC and tablet business

Official Google Blog: Games in Google+: fun that fits your schedule

2011-08-16T06:08:00.000-07:00

Official Google Blog: Games in Google+: fun that fits your schedule: "My family has a games closet. Inside you’ll find a few decks of cards, two decades’ worth of board games and a Twister mat for those times w..."

Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Preview the latest +1 button changes

2011-08-11T11:31:00.000-07:00

Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Preview the latest +1 button changes: "Webmaster level: All Want to test the latest +1 features? Today we’re introducing a new option for webmasters who want to be the first to k..."

Official Google Blog: Introducing the Google+ project: Real-life sharing...

2011-07-12T15:18:00.000-07:00

Official Google Blog: Introducing the Google+ project: Real-life sharing...: "Update : For our international readers, this post is also available in French , German , Italian , Japanese , Portuguese , Russian and Span..."

New G9 Tablet Series

2011-06-23T14:55:00.001-07:00

Archos Introduces The New G9 Tablet Series, Features Android 3.1 and 250GB HDD - Android Apps - Best Android Apps, News and Reviews | Android-Apps.com

Intel chips promise more speed

2011-05-06T02:38:00.001-07:00

Electronics giant Intel says it has redesigned the electronic switches on its chips so that computers can keep getting cheaper and more powerful.
The switches, known as transistors, have typically been flat. By adding a third dimension - "fins" that jut up from the base - Intel will be able to make the transistors and chips smaller. The company said the new structure will let chips run on less power, giving the company its best shot yet at cracking the growing markets for chips used in smartphones and tablet computers. Intel has been weak there because its current chips use too much power.
Chips with the 3D transistors will be in full production this year and appear in computers in 2012.
Intel has been talking about 3D, or "tri-gate", transistors for nearly a decade, and other companies are experimenting with similar technology. The announcement is noteworthy because Intel has figured out how to manufacture the transistors cheaply in mass quantities.
A chip can have a billion transistors, all laid out side by side in a single layer, as if they were the streets of a city. Chips have no "depth", until now.
Analysts say the design is one of the most significant shifts in silicon transistor design since the integrated circuit was invented more than half a century ago.
"When I looked at it, I did a big, 'Wow.' What we've seen for decades now have been evolutionary changes to the technology. This is definitely a revolutionary change," said Dan Hutcheson, a longtime semiconductor industry watcher.
For consumers, the fact that Intel's transistors will have a third dimension means that they can expect a continuation of Moore's Law. The famous axiom, pronounced in 1965 by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, has guided the computer industry's efforts and given decade after decade of cheaper and more powerful computers.
The core of Moore's prediction is that computer performance will double every two years as the number of transistors on the chips roughly doubles as well. The progress has been threatened as transistors have been shrunken down to absurd proportions, and engineers have confronted physical limitations on how much smaller they can go. Controlling power leakage is a central concern.
The new technology will be used for Intel's PC chips and its Atom line.

http://tech.uk.msn.com/news/articles.aspx?cp-documentid=157298700

Android phones 'top with consumers'

2011-04-06T15:08:00.001-07:00

Android phones 'top with consumers'

pa.press.net
Apr 06 2011
Android-based phones, such as the HTC Legend, have edged out the iPhone to become the UK's most popular smartphone
Android phones have edged out the iPhone to become the most popular smartphone in the UK, according to new research.
Android phones have edged out the iPhone to become the most popular smartphone in the UK, according to new research.
Some 28% of smartphone users own an Android, with 26% using an iPhone and 14% a BlackBerry, the study for digital banking provider Intelligent Environments found.
More than four million British people over 18 years old own an Android - and it is popular with both young professionals and older people.
More than a third (36%) of those aged 25-34 who are smartphone owners use an Android phone, and a quarter (25%) of retired people who own a smartphone use an Android phone.
Android users are most likely to spend time mapping and planning travel - 34% rate this in the top three "apps" they spend the most time using, compared with BlackBerry and Apple (both 28%).
iPhone customers are the heaviest smartphone users - 18% spend more than four hours on their phone each day, compared with just 4% of Android and BlackBerry users.
Some 63% of iPhone users rank social networking and 48% games in their top three apps.
Nearly one fifth (18%) admit that their main bank account is always overdrawn, compared with an average 12% of all Britons.
James Richards, director of mobile at Intelligent Environments, said: "The top three mobile platforms in the UK certainly seem to attract different personalities. It's fair to say that iPhone and BlackBerry have strong identities but given that Android is on a number of handsets, we are clearly seeing more of a mixed user base.
"Perhaps we will see the telecoms industry of the future tailoring their apps and services further to suit the variety of demands being placed on the mobile."

2011-03-21T14:39:00.001-07:00

BBC News - Amazon readies Android app store

Facebook - where next for social networks?

2011-03-17T15:02:00.000-07:00

Want to know what the next big thing in social networking is after Facebook and Twitter? Of course you do.
Humans are, after all, social animals and we are genetically programmed to seek out spaces, real or virtual, where we can meet, chat and socialise with
So are we all going to live in virtual 4D holographic bubbles come 2020? In which we can virtually socialise and interact with our friends and family as if they were sitting in the same room? Just as you call up your contacts on Skype or Facebook Chat or Windows Live Messenger, might you soon be able to instantly ping a virtual representation of their body in real-time right onto the couch in front of you?
Or, if some of the advocates of artificial intelligence are to be believed, might we, before long, be able to create our own AI friends and family - should we be particularly unhappy with the ones we've been landed with in real life? Beguiling notions, for sure, but whether or not they are ever going to resemble reality or be discarded into the recycling bin marked 'daft sci-fi futures' remains to be seen. We can reconvene in 2020 to check on which.
One industry that does have a grasp on where the future of social networking is headed is the marketing and advertising trade because, like it or not, advertising dollars are the fuel that Facebook, Google and all those other 'free' online services you use day-in-day-out run on.

The Facebook of tomorrow
For those with a professional interest in the future of online social networking, it may well be worth your while booking a flight to Montreux in Switzerland this coming May, to attend this year's Festival of Media. Speakers at the festival's Media Accelerator Program (MAP) are selected from the cream of the most successful media, marketing and app development companies in the world.
Basically, if any group of people has a grasp on what Facebook and its ilk might turn into over the next decade, it's these guys. And the festival's 'Hot Companies of the Year' awards, which go to those devs and new media companies creating the latest innovations and pushing the coolest new possibilities with social media, give a clear indication of where all of our online social lives are headed in the future.
As such, I asked a number of MAP delegates about their views on what comes after Facebook, to try to get an inside track on where social networking is heading in the next five years.
MAP panel chairman Bernhard Glock, former global media director of Procter and Gamble and President of the World Federation of Advertisers, describes MAP as being, "about finding the Facebook of tomorrow, by bringing together start-up and new emerging companies in the media and marketing communication area and putting them in front of industry-leading participants."
Interestingly, in Glock's opinion, many of these marketing and advertising industry heads don't actively scout for new ideas, relying instead on their external agencies to alert them to new trends in the online social networking market.
"I was very much "internally focused" and "externally protected" as Vice President for Global Media at P&G and received filtered information from my own organization and agencies," says Glock. "Now that I have been out in the media market for more than a year with my own consultancy company and more recently as a partner with Medialink, I am fascinated by and excited about dealing with start-up and new emerging companies with genuinely groundbreaking media ideas."

But what might MAP 2011's speakers and new start-ups have to tell us about the future of social networking?
"My assumption is that we'll see several Facebook-style companies, as well as plenty of totally fresh ideas," says Glock. "Among all digital developments, social media is one of the fastest growing and most exciting phenomena. Facebook has changed how human beings socialise forever, so I look forward to seeing world changing ideas emerge at the Festival."
Facebook: the poster child of social media
Another MAP judge, Greg Brooks, content director for the festival organisers, C Squared gave me his own thoughts on the future direction of Facebook.
"The future Facebook will be a platform-neutral company, with its services accessed through mobile phones or tablets as easily through a PC," said Brooks. "It will also likely involve the innovative use of data, both in collection and also usage with regards to connecting users to advertisers in more relevant ways."
In Brooks' opinion, while Facebook is "the poster child of social media," the advertising industry feels that it has "only just begun to scratch the surface of the power of the social graph" opened up by Mr Zuckerberg's network.
"The next wave of pure plays will use social data at their core, to connect users and advertisers in more meaningful and engaging ways, whilst enhancing the overall digital experience for the user," says Brooks.
"There is also no guarantee that the next Facebook will come from the West," notes Brooks. "China has more mobile users than any other country on earth, almost three times the number of US mobile users, and with the rise of the BRIC economies (Brazil, Russia, India and China) you are just as likely to see the next two guys in a garage coming from Guangzhou as Palo Alto."
Which, translated into non-ad-industry-speak, all seems to suggest that, in the future, online advertising will become both less intrusive - targeting your own very specific needs and interests - and, at the same time, more entertaining.
Well, that's what I hope (and fervently pray) my translation means...

http://tech.uk.msn.com/news/articles.aspx?cp-documentid=156431285