What to expect when you're expecting...a website

A guide for companies thinking about creating a website.
By John Rossitter of www.rossitterconsulting.com, a Shreveport webdesign company

Part 1 |  Part 2 |  Part 3 |  Part 4 |  Part 5 |  Part 6 |  Part 7 |  Part 8 |  Part 9 |  Part 10 |  Glossary

Part 9

Web Caching |  Internet Explorer |  Safari |  Firefox |  Opera |  Chrome |  Graphic Formats |  JPG |  GIF |  BMP |  PNG

Web Caching

From time to time you are going to need to check out the progress of your website as its being worked on. One of the most common things I hear when I have my clients check in on the work I have done is "it looks just like it did yesterday". This usually happens because of the fact that their computers cache web page data on their local hard drives. Caching is a way of speeding up your internet surfing experience by saving things like pictures, sound files and flash animations on your hard drive after the first time you download them. The next time you visit that webpage, you don't have to get a fresh copy of the images and sounds, instead your web browser will load up the copy that is already saved on your hard drive. In most circumstances, this is a great way of speeding up your surfing experience.

In the cases of wanting to track changes to your website, caching will be a problem. You will need to learn how to clear your web cache in the browser(s) you use, so you are able to get a fresh copy of all of the content of your site. Below are some quick descriptions of how to clear your cache on some popular web browsers.

Internet Explorer:

• Open Internet Explorer
• Select Tools->Internet Options from the menu bar.
• Under the Browsing history section, click the delete button.
• When presented with the new window, click "Delete Files".
• Close all open windows
• Refresh your webpage.

Safari:

• Open Safari
• Select Edit->Empty Cache… from the menu bar.
• Click the Delete button.
• Refresh your webpage

Firefox:

• Open FireFox
• Select Tools->Clear Private Data from the menu bar.
• Place a check in "cache"
• Click Clear Private Data Now
• Refresh your webpage

Opera:

• Open Opera
• Select Tools->Delete Private Data from the menu bar.
• Place a check in "delete entire cache"
• Click Delete
• Refresh your webpage

Chrome:

• Open Chrome
• Select Tools->Clear Browsing Data from the menu bar.
• Place a check in "empty the cache"
• Click Clear Browsing Data
• Refresh your webpage

Graphics & Formats

When you develop a webpage, chances are that you are going to want to use some pictures along with those words. There are a few various types of graphics you need to be familiar with on the internet. Mainly .jpg,.gif,.bmp & .png. There are other formats out there, but these are the most common.

.jpeg/.jpg:

Short for Joint Photographic Experts Group is a compressed computer graphics format used early on in the internet. Jpg allows you to use a large number of colors within a single image, but the image sized tend to be large.

.gif:

Short for Graphics Interchange Format is another common internet graphics format. It offers a smaller pallet of on screen colors, but supports transparent backgrounds along with animations

.bmp:

Short for Bitmap is another form of graphic used on the internet, but not as common as gif and jpg. Bitmap uses a large pallet, but does not offer any compression. It's not really that great of an internet based graphics format. Typically it's used when developers just don't know any better.

.png:

Short for Portable Network Graphics is a newer image format. It offers high compression and transparent backgrounds along with a large color pallet. It's a true hybrid of gif and jpg. The only think that it lacks is support for animation.

Along with different graphic formats, you also need to be aware of the various Dots Per Inch resolution. Dots Per Inch is a printers term used to gauge how detailed a print job should be. The most common DPI resolution for internet usage is 72 DPI.

Part 1 |  Part 2 |  Part 3 |  Part 4 |  Part 5 |  Part 6 |  Part 7 |  Part 8 |  Part 9 |  Part 10 |  Glossary

-Rossitter Consulting is a Shreveport-Bossier City web design firm that offers affordable web design and hosting. Click HERE to read more