Testing: Website Validation Services

1) W3C HTML Validation: http://validator.w3.org/. W3C HTML Validation service will check your HTML documents for conformance to W3C HTML standards.

2) HTML Tidy: http://infohound.net/tidy/ . HTML Tidy is a tool for checking and cleaning up HTML source files. It is especially useful for finding and correcting errors in deeply nested HTML and validates your HTML documents off-line on your own PC.

3) Broken links: http://www.htmlhelp.com/tools/valet/. Link Valet is a WWW Link checker. It uses an HTML table to present the links in a page, and highlights information that is likely to be of interest to you.

4) Spellchecker: http://www.spellcheck.net/. At Spellcheck.net you can enter one word or the body text to spell check: (Up to 20,000 characters). Make sure you check all of your pages for misspelled words.

5) CSS Validation: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/ . This W3C Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) validation service checks and (X)HTML documents with style sheets. Simply enter the URI of a document (HTML with CSS or CSS only) you would like validate.

Note: If you want to validate your CSS style sheet embedded in an (X)HTML document, you should first check that the (X)HTML you use is valid.

6) Accessibility Evaluation: http://wave.webaim.org//. WAVE is a free web accessibility evaluation tool. It is used to aid humans in the web accessibility evaluation process. Rather than providing a complex technical report, WAVE shows the original web page with embedded icons and indicators that reveal the accessibility information within your page.

7) Download Time Evaluation: http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/ : To determine your download times using modem speeds of 14.4k, 28.8k, 56k, ISDN 128K and T1 Link 1.44 Mbps. Ideally, try to keep your download time for your home page size under 20 seconds (sites that take more than 20 seconds to load lose up to 50% of their visitors). For your other pages, keep them under 12 seconds using a 28.8 modem.

8) Testing using Different Browsers: http://browsershots.org/. Testing should also include using different browsers to view your Web pages. Browsershots. This is a free online platform where you can test your Web design using different browsers. When you submit your Web address, it will be added to the job queue. A number of distributed computers will automatically open your Website in their browsers. Then they will make screenshots of the O/S and browser views you request and upload them to their central server. It can take about 30 minutes.

9) Testing the Website under different Resolutions: it is also important to test a website under different resolution to make sure web visitors on different screen resolution will have a satisfactory view of the web content. Sizer is a free lightweight Windows utility that allows you to resize any active window on your desktop. It's a very useful tool for web designers. You can get it at http://www.brianapps.net/sizer.html.

Search Engine Optimisatiom ( SEO)

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a website from search engimes. SEO involves designing a website so that search engines like google easily find the pages and index them. the goal is to have your page in at least the top 10 results of a search.

Different search engines use different criteria and different formulas for ranking sites. Every search engine uses its own unique formula, called an algorithm, to index and score web sites. Search engines' algorithms weigh various factors, such as a page's design and links, to rank pages in their search results. They combine many factors and place different weight on each one.

SEO through keywords:

• Format, placement and content of the title tag
• keyword frequency, weight, prominence and proximity
• Use of the meta description tag
• Use of the ALT tag
• Use of the comment tag
• Use of keywords in
  

Links to useful material on SEO:

http://www.searchengines.com/metadescription.html

http://www.ragepank.com/articles/59/on-page-seo-is-not-dead/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization

http://www.ihaveawebsite-nowwhat.co.uk/

http://www.searchengineoptimising.com/

http://www.highposition.net/

Extreme Programming

Extreme Programming (XP)

Extreme Programming (XP) is one of the several agile software engineering methodologies. The main aim of XP is to reduce the cost of change during development ; unlike in the traditional approach where the requirements for the system are determined at the beginning of the development cycle, which becomes very costly and time consuming to implement new requirements later.

Goals of XP

• An attempt to reconcile humanity and productivity
• A mechanism for social change
• A path to improvement
• A style of development
• A software development discipline

XP Values

• communication
• simplicity
• feedback
• courage
• Respect
  

Useful links:

-XP : According to Wikipedia
-Agile Development software resource: http://www.xprogramming.com/welcome.htm

Agile Software Development

Agile Development

Agile development are methodologies that have been proven to be more effective in dealing with business realities such as changing requirements during development. It also promotes industry best practices that emphasises on customer involvement, delivering product in small working pieces that sum to the total working system. All of this in a timely and cost effective manner.

Agile methodology minimises risk by developing software in short 'timeboxes' called iterations, with each iteration treated like a miniature software project on its own. It includes all the tasks necessary to release the mini-increment of new functionality ( planning, requirement analysis, design, coding, testing, and documentation).

Agile methods emphasises real time communication, preferably face-to-face (What we do?) that is why most agile teams are located in a bullpen ( seating area where project teams can communicate openly with minimal effort)

-Agile Development: According to Wikipedia
-Manifesto of Agile Software Development:
-Free downloadable Book on Essential Skills for Agile Development
-The New Methodology : Martin Fowler
-Video: why software development pay

Web Site Management

Web Site Management

While high attention and large volumes have been written on website design and development, little importance have been given to the proper management and maintenance of these sites. Reports have shown that beautifully coded websites have crumbled, gone out of date or lost their aim and purpose because of the lack of proper management and maintenance.

In response to this , Shane Diffily has come up with a detail and simple to understand model on how to manage and maintain websites in his book entitled The Webmaster's Handbook. There have also been an increase in the number of institution that offer web management and web maintenance services.

Link to Shane Diffily's website: http://www.diffily.com/book/index.htm
( with links to free introductory chapters, and his personal blog)

Shazam

SHAZAM

Shazam is an amazing leading music recognition technology.Through a cell phone, It recognises and checks the identity of music in a noisy environment.

How Shazam Works:

Step1: When you hear a track you like and don't recognise, 'shazam' it by dialing 2580 on your mobile phone.
Step 2: When Shazam answers, direct the phone to the sound source.
Step 3: After 20 seconds, Shazam will hang up and check the music sample against its database of 4 million (ever growing) tracks.
Step 4: After 30 seconds or so, Shazam will text to you the name and album of of the track. As of now ( feb 2008) the service cost 50p per search.
You can also register on the official Shazam site and check all the tunes you have 'Shazamed'.

Some links of importance:

• Shazam Official website
• Avery Wang ,"The Shazam Music Recognition Service",Comm. ACM Vol49 no8 August 2006
• Avery Wang, Presentation, ISMIR 2003
  

Google Technology

GOOGLE TECHNOLOGY

Google is one of the biggest names in the IT industry. It is most reputed for operating the leading internet search engine. It is also one of the fore runners in the development of contemporary web 2.0 applications like their Google Maps, Google Adsence and Google Blog. Google is also known for being the company who bought youtube, one of the most visited site on the internet.

- History of Google from Wikipedia

- Google Founders:

• Larry Page : Video Larry Page Keynote, CES 2006
• Sergey Brin: Video unviversity of California, Berkeley

-Video: Inside the Machine of google
- Published articles on Google

For more about the services and technology of Google, visit the blog below.
http://cemsiad.blogspot.com/2006/11/google-technology.html

Social Networks Analysis (SNA)

"Social Network Analysis is the mapping and measuring of relationships and flows between people, groups, organizations, computers, web sites, and other information/knowledge processing entities. The nodes in the network are the people and groups while the links show relationships or flows between the nodes. SNA provides both a visual and a mathematical analysis of human relationships. Management consultants use this methodology with their business clients and call it Organizational Network Analysis [ONA]."
[According to: http://orgnet.com/sna.html]

SNA has been used in different industries to solve problems and unlock hidden mysteries. Some examples are:

• unlock criminal network amongst slumlords
• reveal how hospitals-acquired infection [HAI] spread patients and medical staffs
• tracking terrorists
• decision making in organisations

Case study of SNA and ONA by orgnet.com : http://orgnet.com/cases.html

SNA Resource materials:

• Blog : Network Weaving
• Video : Social Network Analysis Presentation
• Video : Introduction to SNA

Social Networks

Social Networks

Social network in this perspective is about social networking websites. These sites provide a virtual community of like minded people to communicate on a particular subject of interest or simply about anything and everything. It provides facilities/applications that ease the sharing of pictures, voice, instant messages, video conferencing etc.

There has been a rapid increase in the number of social network sites since the first one ( friendster) was created in 2002. Some sites are better specialised for some applications than others(http://www.answers.com/topic/social-networking-web-sites?cat=technology).

There has been a high concern of social network sites on the lives of individuals and the society as a whole, privacy being one of the main issues. It has even become common practice for some employers to use information on social sites to learn about prospective employees. Identity theft has also gained grounds due to the proliferation of personal data on such sites.
Some social network sites are Facebook, MySpace, TagWorld, Hi5, Bebo .

Video: Social Networking in plain English

Web 2.0

Web 2.0

web 2.0 is a word that was coined by O'Reilly Media and CMP media to describe the second stage in the evolution hierarchy of the world wide Web. Web 2.0 include technologies such as Weblogs( like this site you are actually reading ), networking sites ( Facebook, Hi5, Delicious etc), wikis ( wikipedia), podcast, RSS Feeds and many other online web services ( ebay, Gmail etc).

During the course of this module, three aspects of Web 2.0 was researched by three students including myself. See the web 2.0 technologies below and a link to their research report.

RSS : Go to the Block Archive section of this blog; October, PRESENTATION ON RSS TECHNOLOGY
Social Bookmarking: Researched and Presented by Ian Cutts
Wikipedia : Researched and Presented by DJ Critch

Videos on web 2.0 Technology:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=CQibri7gpLM&feature=related
http://youtube.com/watch?v=9JPcno2cJgc&feature=related

Yahoo! Pipes

Yahoo! Pipes ( The Web as a Database )

Yahoo! Pipes is a web application technology developed by Yahoo! that works towards making the web a database. Yahoo! Pipes provides a graphical user interface for building applications that aggregate web content( web pages, RSS Feeds) and other services.
It remixes the world wide web by creating Web-based applications that takes different material from different websites and 'mashing' them up in a customised manner. This eases the stress of always developing what is already available on the web, and also eases sharing of such resources.

Below is the link to the Yahoo! Pipe official website and links to videos elaborating on Yahoo! Pipes and how to create them.

Yahoo! Pipe official site
Yahoo! Pipes: A tool for remixing the web ( A detailed 44 minutes video on Yahoo! Pipes)
Creating your First yahoo Pipe

Web Languages

Web Languages

There are many different programming languages (Markup Languages, Query Languages , Stylesheets Languages, Scripting Languages etc) that are collectively used to develop websites and web applications. Below are the name-link to wikipedia information about some of the Languages, and respective links to learning materials.

HTML : learn HTML
CSS : learn CSS
XML: Learn XML
XSL : Learn XSL
SQL : Learn SQL
PHP : Learn PHP
JavaScript : Learn JavaScript
XQuery : Learn XQuery