Posts In Web Design & Development

Copyright- Yeah… It Is An Issue

Copyright- Yeah… It is an Issue

Plagiarism is the truest form of flattery! Yeah… but not when you steal and replicate the product of my genius and plead the cause of compliment.

I was reading about fashion brand, Ksubi the other day that has potentially taken on Google with the launch of its new global website. Curiosity bugged me and I took a break from my heavy schedule to sneak a peek at www.ksubi.com. And boy… whoever has designed the look sure boasts of some grey matter. The site design was based on Google’s minimalist look but just so much as to narrowly escape any copyright infringement charges.

Google might not take the pain of getting into courts, but the issue raises an interesting question: How much can you copy of a website design and layout before breaching copyright or other intellectual property rights in the originator’s design?

What is copyright?

If you did not write or create the article, graphic, or data that you found, then you need permission from the owner before you can copy it. And even if you console your conscience saying you are just “using” the graphic, HTML, or text, you are stealing, and they can take action against you.

Infringement Infringement!!

Images top the list of copyright infringement on the web. No matter by which means you make use of that awesome images that fits like a glove with the content on your site, until and unless you get the permission from the owner, you can be accused of theft. Even if you copy the image to your web server or point to it on some other web server, the accusation remains the same. And same goes for text, HTML, and script elements of a page.

Hey, Am a Pro! How will they Know??

If by any chance you harbor the same sentiment. Let me enlighten you. No matter how smart you play and how far you plant the stolen booty, there are smarter players out there. Many corporations have programs called "spiders" that search out images and text on web pages. If it matches the criteria by any means like the same file name, content matches, and other things, they will flag that site for review and it will be reviewed for copyright infringement. These spiders are always surfing the net, and new companies are using them all the time. So beware!!

And let me tell you… "Integrity is doing the right thing even if no one will know.”

Help! Someone stole my idea

Now this is a cry and trust me I know how miserable it feels to see your baby up there at some other place when you had burnt midnight oil to get the thing done. But you can drag the thief to court if you spot any such thing. And some good news for you, even if your image or document does not carry a copyright notice, it is still protected by copyright laws. But yeah, the other party should not have done that. But if at all they have, then there is no way out for you.

Prevention is Better than Cure

To save you the ordeal of getting double crossed, I suggest you just take some precautionary measures:

• Have copyright on all your pages
• For images, add watermarks and other copyright information into the image itself using special software
• Include your copyright in the alt text
• If you website contains articles, make sure you mention copyright issues below it and ask for notification if it is reproduced by any means, part or whole
• If you are getting your website developed by a service provider, make sure you check their track record
• Mention it specifically that you want nothing copied, part or whole on your website.
• If at all, you want to display some useful information from some other site onto yours, make sure you ask permission.

No Issue at my LeXolution IT Services

At LIT, customization has been a principle rather than a work strategy. We understand that every website is different and has to be developed in a unique way. This is what sets us apart. Just like out customized approach in handling your projects, we have codes that are written exclusively for you. This banishes all the fears of infringement and even inspiration is no recluse here.

This by the way is our trademark. I better rush to issue a copyright ;-)

 Bye

See You Later

What Does Web 2.0 Mean To You?

Hi,

 A lot of print and space have gone in an attempt to describe what Web 2.0 is. Yeah… one blog post too.

 But then I was thinking… to hell with the technological definitions or any attempts whatsoever. What does it really mean to me and you? What relevance does any of it actually have to growing your business, finding more leads, getting your brand out there or reducing your offline advertising costs?

Honestly, with all due respect to its myriad features, I think you should be more in tune with what it can do for you rather than reading another top ten web 2.0 innovations.

To set a framework that will be far easier to understand than drop shadows and gradients, let’s equate web 2.0 to the Industrial Revolution of the early 19th century. Marking fierce technological and sociological change, put simply, everything was to be done differently after this period.

Web 2.0 is like the Industrial Revolution that facilitated an upward curve in the locomotive industry. Just like steam engine and internal combustion engine, advances in web technologies such as AJAX and CSS have marked a new era of strategic, interactive and service on demand websites. This is the web 2.0 revolution, and it isn’t going anywhere.

Fueled by such changes in technology, web 2.0 has now lead to new era of doing business online where publishing articles, news, and product information online is no longer done ‘to get something up there’ in a hit and miss manner but is strategically targeted and then disseminated to a specific audience who are actively seeking the information that your business can provide.

Now think about it… How about letting Web 2.0 work for your search engine optimization needs? you can now know exactly how many people are searching for your services or more importantly seeking information related to your services each month in Google.

Picture this… someone types in the query “how to write a resume” into Google and they find your recruitment agency giving them advice. Need I say more who would they contact to be their recruiter should such a need arise.

This is what Web 2.0 gives you. You can tailor your website’s content and framework to ensure that particular query leads to you.

More than filling your website’s product area with pages of testimonials or ensuring that you have big enough images in your about us section, think about educating your audience and providing them with the answer they require when they are searching for anything related to your products or services.

Web 2.0 enables businesses to find out how many people are searching for any variation of their product or information related to it in Google and then strategically optimize a website to attract the traffic, provide information and generate new qualified business through clear calls to action.

We at LIT understand what web 2.0 is and how to apply it to each of our client’s businesses. It’s just another one of our stars on the house ;-)

Bye till the next time…

Web 2.0- The New Age Wisdom

Who’s the new chick in town?

The all new Web 2.0!

Conventional wisdom is what I will call this, in the face of critics who accuse
it of being a marketing buzzword. ‘cause in today’s age if you
are a stranger to Web 2.0 then I might as well show you way out of antiquity
pal.

For the records, let me state that Web 2.0 is the brainchild of Tim O’Reilly,

who started working on it soon after the dot com bubble burst in 2001 and there
have been constant improvisations, the latest one just now. It can be defined
as a standard set of principles and practices that binds the web world together.


Web 2.0 has given the world
of web designing a whole new facelift. Its templates
offer you the luxury of numerous designing facilities like as innermost layout,
effortlessness, content versatility, intelligibility as well as appealing
color contrasts. Could you ever have thought about this in the previous standardizations?

Let me skip flamboyance and tell bout the goodies that it has to offer:

Regain your Artistic Senses

There is no end to the warnings that forbade you from using more of the artistic
elements owing to increase in the loading time. But all that is history dude,
for the Web 2.0 allows you to add all those astounding effects that you would
beautify your site and keep your visitors hooked.

Cool Content

With the web 2.0 design style, you can use larger fonts to decorate your web
pages. You can make focus on vital key phrases by making those fonts larger.

Amazing Logos

This is perhaps the best feature of Web 2.0. You can design large and complex
logos to promote your brand.

Innermost position

Web 2.0 allows for building your website in an innermost manner, and so you
can let out a more honest impression of your products and services to the
customers. It also does well to your budget as you can use minor pixels or
texts on your website.

Labeling

You can insert remarkable labels at your design for highlighting special offerings
of your business. By using this special feature of web 2.0 design style you
can directly reflect your selling strategies in front of your business market.

Natural helpful icons

You can make use of impressive icons to highlight the important areas of your
website. Placing notable icons is a designing credibility apart from using
much content. These icons will automatically put visitors at your required
area.

Number of columns reduction

the number of columns that you use in your webpage goes a long way in deciding
the clarity and visibility of the website. The fewer the columns, the easier
it is to read what is written. Infusing too many columns on your webpage
is always a bad deal for web 2.0 style.

Separating segments

The web 2.0 design style gives you the power to use fluorescent color segment
to separating different important parts of your web page. Now if I am a visitor,
I’d find that a huge favor.

There is much more to this, wait till I post next…

Important Web Maintenance Tips

Hi,

As you sow, so shall you reap!
So goes the age-old adage.
But cut to the present and it goes like “As you maintain, so shall you gain!”

In the world of cyberspace, it does you no great good if you have a website. What matters is how you go about maintaining it. With the ever growing competition, it gets a little hard to maintain and especially keep your website alive.

Your website is how YOU look online. So is it not worth an effort to look your best?
Let me tell you some vital clues for staying in shape and fashion ;-)

Valid Copyright
Now this is simple. But records the highest odds of going unnoticed. Yeah! Did you update the copyright message at the beginning of this year?
No one wants to see a "Copyright 2002 Business Inc." in the year 2008. Not only does it look unprofessional but also talk’s loads about how up-to dates are you.

Current Affairs
How I wish I could change the look of my website as I did my wallpapers! Well…. That seems like a distant dream.
But what you can do is add an element on the front page that you can update at particular intervals. Like I added the ‘Latest News’ widget on the homepage of one of my websites. Thus, I had something new to look forward everyday.
And brownie points… this makes you a favorite with search engines like Google. Because every time a search robot crawls over, they will pick up the updated content thus making the search engine believe that the site must be current.
And higher the ranking, higher is the traffic. ?

Lines of Communication
Make the website work hard by opening lines of communication with your target audiences or should I say potential customers. Load your site with a well- designed usable contact form that would generate leads for you.
But yeah do behave whilst you are at it. Do not collect the user’s IP address without advising them, like in a privacy policy or disclaimer as part of the contact process. And then again, do not share their information with any third parties unless, once again, you have completely stated you’d be doing so; to which they have agreed-to through a checkbox, for example.

Audiences and Objectives
All my years in the industry has but taught me one thing. Your initials aims and objectives are not the same when you are one or two years down the line. Your business expands, your verticals increase, you get in more work… just anything happens.
And with that, your target audience also changes with it molding the business objectives.
Make sure you stay up to date on whom exactly you want to target and define how successful your website is by how well you meet your business objectives and requirements!

Well that was about it. Will get you more next time. Stay beautiful!

Media Options- Way To Go!

Hi,

Welcome to my new dwelling!

This is my new web place, my new face.

For all of you who have supported and been with me earlier, I assure you the same satisfaction, but yeah… from here, things are only going to get better.
Read on…

Media Options- Way to Go!

‘Dare to be different’ seem to be the new age mantra. Over the course of time in this industry, what I have observed is people who questioned stereotypes and dared to tread unexplored terrains made it big.
What use is a website that looks like a template in the crowd? If you have it on the net, you might as well make it seen there! And to tell frankly, all the ten-pointer guidelines to make your site look distinct have become but a norm.

And going by what I noticed, people who disown the traditional rules for designing a website have become a success story. There are many upcoming trends that are brought about by young designers. After all my criticisms about the products of those designing schools, this comes as a welcome change.

If you have ever been to the fish markets of the city, you would know what I am talking about. He, who shouts the most, gets the most customers! And in case of our websites I can bet you would check out the one with more live features before any other. All human fall prey to movement, not your fault!

Here are some new media options that can set the vibrancy factor on your site aflame!

Quick Time Movies
These are the standard movies played within the QT player. You can very easily add this onto your website. Your visitors can enjoy a free movie viewing experience. You can have your ads and other promotional clippings in your website through QT. There is another form of QT that is QTVR or Quick Time Virtual Reality. You can have numerous features in QTVR. It is also called an object movie. Your visitors can turn the images to as much as 360 degree with mouse through QTVR. It provides your visitor more fun and excitement.

RealPlayer
M sure this is no new term for you. RealPlayer is perhaps the most popular and most widely used player. Its all there in mobiles, computers and even ipods. It uses a buffer which can play the music before it is being fully downloaded. Though RealPlayer has a good sound quality but what I found is, the videos are not that satisfactory. Nevertheless, the easy accessibility is what makes it so popular.

Flash Movies
Think flash and your mind shows you glittery graphics. But there is more to it. Though its literally pasted across the tutorial walls to avoid it all costs, but hey we are talking about defying logics here!
Macromedia, the company who creates numerous products for graphic designers had introduces Flash. Though it is overtly criticized for its heavy file size, but there are good things that come out of it too. Flash could be the way to interactive graphics for the visitors. Think of sites for children and there is no way to go but Flash!

Adobe Acrobat
We all have that urge to take home a souvenir. Don’t you? when you visit a website that is just loaded with pages you like. Sure you can hit the ‘Favorites’ tab but there can be more to it.
Acrobat can convert your word documents into PDF file (Portable Document Format) which your visitors can use to print and view your content. PDF files are easy to download and anybody with free Acrobat reader can easily view your document.

Try these new tricks on your website and get ready to counter those visitor attacks!