Weber Web Design - Descriptions
The Web is constantly evolving and it can be confusing to understand how technology and programming languages fit in to your Website. This is where we come in. We have the experience to design a simple informational Website to a full .NET based business site. Your company can grow as fast as you want it to by offering your products or services to the world. Below are a few descriptions of the programming languages, Web based services, and protocols to help you understand how they are intergraded in the design of your Website.
- HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) is the set of markup symbols or codes inserted in a file for display on a World Wide Web browser page. The markup tells the Web browser how to display a Web page's words and images for the user. Each individual markup code is referred to as an tag. Some tags come in pairs that indicate when a display effect is to begin and when it is to end.
- XHTML (Extensible Hypertext Markup Language) is "a reformulation of HTML 4.0 as an application of the Extensible Markup Language (XML). There was then a need to reframe HTML in terms of XML. The result is XHTML, a particular application of XML for "expressing" Web pages.
- XML (Extensible Markup Language) is a structured set of rules for how one might define any kind of data to be shared on the Web. It's called an "extensible" markup language because anyone can invent a particular set of markup for a particular purpose and as long as everyone uses it, it can be adapted and used for many purposes, including, describing the appearance of a Web page. Such a standard way of describing data would enable a user to send an intelligent agent (a program) to each computer maker's Website, gather data, and then make a valid comparison. XML can be used by any individual or group of individuals or companies that wants to share information in a consistent way.
- .NET is both a business strategy from Microsoft and its collection of programming support for what are known as Web Services, the ability to use the Web rather than your own computer for various services. Microsoft's goal is to provide individual and business users with a seamlessly interoperable and Web enabled interface for applications and computing devices and to make computing activities increasingly Web browser oriented. The .NET platform includes servers; building block services, such as Web based data storage; and device software. It also includes Passport, Microsoft's "fill in the form only once" identity verification service.
- The .NET platform is going to provide:
- The ability to make the entire range of computing devices work together and to have user information automatically updated and synchronized on all of them.
- Increased interactive capability for Websites, enabled by greater use of XML (Extensible Markup Language) rather than HTML.
- A premium online subscription service, that will feature customized access and delivery of products and services to the user from a central starting point for the management of various applications, such as email, for example, or software, such as Office.NET.
- Centralized data storage, which will increase efficiency and ease of access to information, as well as synchronization of information among users and devices.
- The ability to integrate various communications media, such as email, faxes, and telephones.
- For developers, the ability to create reusable modules, which should increase productivity and reduce the number of programming errors.
- Web Services (sometimes called application services) are services that are made available from a business's Web server for web users or other Web connected programs. Providers of Web services are generally known as application service providers. Web services range from such major services as storage management and customer relationship management (CRM) down to much more limited services such as the furnishing of a stock quote and the checking of bids for an auction item. The accelerating creation and availability of these services is the direction the Web is evolving.
- WSDL (Web Services Description Language) is an XML based language used to describe the services a business offers and to provide a way for individuals and other businesses to access those services electronically. WSDL is the cornerstone of the Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI) initiative spearheaded by Microsoft, IBM, and Ariba. UDDI is an XML based registry for businesses worldwide, which enables businesses to list themselves and their services on the Internet. WSDL is the language used to do this. WSDL is derived from Microsoft's Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) and IBM's Network Accessible Service Specification Language ( NASSL ). WSDL replaces both NASSL and SOAP as the means of expressing business services in the UDDI registry.
- UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration) is an XML based registry for businesses worldwide to list themselves on the Internet. Its ultimate goal is to streamline online transactions by enabling companies to find one another on the Web and make their systems interoperable for e-commerce. UDDI is often compared to a telephone book's white, yellow, and green pages. The project allows businesses to list themselves by name, product, location, or the Web services they offer.
- SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) is a way for a program running in one kind of operation system (such as Windows 2000) to communicate with a program in the same or another kind of an operating system (such as Linux) by using the World Wide Web's Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and its Extensible Markup Language (XML) as the mechanisms for information exchange. Since Web protocols are installed and available for use by all major operating system platforms, HTTP and XML provide an existing solution to the problem of how programs running under different operating systems in a network can communicate with each other. SOAP specifies exactly how to encode an HTTP header and an XML file so that a program in one computer can call a program in another computer and pass it information. It also specifies how the called program can return a response.
- ASP (Active Server Page) is an HTML page that includes one or more scripts (small embedded programs) that are processed on a Microsoft Web server before the page is sent to the user. ASP is somewhat similar to a server-side include or a common gateway interface (CGI) application in that all involve programs that run on the server, usually tailoring a page for the user. Typically, the script in the Web page at the server uses input received as the result of the user's request for the page to access data from a database and then builds or customizes the page on the fly before sending it to the requestor.
- VBScript is an interpreted script language from Microsoft that is a subset of its Visual Basic programming language designed for interpretation by Web browsers. VBScript is Microsoft's answer to Netscape's popular JavaScript. Both are designed to work with an interpreter that comes with a Web browser. VBScript is designed for use with Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser together with other programming that can be run at the client, including ActiveX controls.
- ActiveX control is a component program object that can be reused by many application programs within a computer or among computers in a network. The technology for creating ActiveX controls is part of Microsoft's overall ActiveX set of technologies, chief of which is the Component Object Model (COM). ActiveX controls can be downloaded as small programs or animations for Web pages, but they can also be used for any commonly needed task by an application program in the latest Windows and Macintosh environments. In general, ActiveX controls replace the earlier OCX (Object Linking and Embedding custom controls).
- Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) is a method of building interactive applications for the Web that process user requests immediately. Ajax combines several programming tools including JavaScript, dynamic HTML (DHTML), Extensible Markup Language (XML), cascading style sheets (CSS), the Document Object Model (DOM), and the Microsoft object, XMLHttpRequest. Ajax applications do not require installation of a plug-in, but work directly with all Web browsers. Click here to interact with a simple Ajax page.