
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.