Web Development Live

Link Development’s work received two awards, one Gold and one Silver, beating many other web development companies across the region in the categories of ‘Best ICT company’ website and ‘Best Airline’ website. The awards were received for the development of Mobinil and Egypt Air’s online sites.

These latest wins come on top of the great success achieved by the company in the Egypt round of the competition earlier in the year, where Link Development had received ten awards and special recognition with a Diamond Award for developing the ‘Best Site in Egypt’ for Mobinil.

During its ten years of operation in the Middle East, Link Development has played an important role in the adoption of the Internet into the private and public sector, having developed numerous corporate websites and e-government portals.

One of the company’s strengths lays in the unique combination of software development and creative design skills, thus enabling the company to deliver complete e-business solutions. The company is also one of very few Middle Eastern software development houses to serve the European market, with an office recently opened in Italy to add to its regional network.

The Pan Arab Web Awards take place across the Middle East every year. Winners are elected for awards in various categories by experts from within the industry. The Awards aim to promote creativity in web design, to encourage professional work and international standards, to develop an interactive community and to serve as a platform for web designers to showcase work and attain market recognition.

This year marks Link Development’s third during which its work has been honoured by the organisation, having previously received awards in the UAE and Egypt rounds and later in the final Pan Arab round of the annual competition.

The recent years India has emerged as the outsourcing destination of choice for many of the global online businesses. With English speaking, talented and dedicated workforce, Indian IT companies are the top choice for clients who are looking for affordable outsourcing to India. Offshoreweboutsourcing is one of the leading IT companies in India who provide web development outsourcing services to online business houses. The company provides offshore outsourcing services ranging from web design, internet marketing, graphic design, multimedia services and web development.

Outsourcing development services to India is cheaper as compared to other countries as the client doesn’t have to take any hassles of hiring new employees, setting up infrastructure and bearing the cost of equipment. Offshoreweboutsourcing has world class infrastructure and equipment in a work friendly environment where the employees can work towards completing the client projects. By outsourcing the work to companies like Offshoreweboutsourcing, clients can rest assured of a timely delivery of their project and a high standard of output. The clients have the full control of the project at any given time in the duration of the project and offshore web development in India gives the clients dedicated resources for a long term basis till the completion of the project.

The offshore outsourcing services provided by Offshoreweboutsourcing are ideal for small, medium and large businesses. The company boasts of a portfolio that features some of the best online business firms from the fields of academics, fashion, entertainment, technology and many more. The highly experienced team of web designers, programmers, graphic designers and web content experts at Offshoreweboutsourcing are well versed in the demands and requirements of the clients and the every member of the team has extensive experience to handle any kind of project. The company believes in providing first class offshore development services that are customized according to the client’s requirements.

The clients are provided a team of skilled professionals to work with and the work hours of the teams can be adjusted to suit the client’s time zone. The client can also consult with the project managers at any given time to assess the progress of assigned projects. Offshoreweboutsourcing provides clients the best of offshore web development in India at most affordable prices and the wide array of services is available at an affordable fixed monthly price.

Local web design company Webflo Studios has announced that its most recent project is a customized website for Verbraken and Sons Arizona Paint Company, which is based in Mesa.

The owners of the company wanted a professional website that would bring their specialty painting services to the forefront. As most of their clients are either involved in commercial work or own a large home, the owners’ goal is for their website to emphasize the company’s ability to take on projects industrial and elegant alike. Their overall objective with the website, like most clients, is to raise awareness about Verbraken and Sons Arizona Paint Company.

The website will be considered a full content management system. According to Webflo’s Senior Web Designer Travis Simpson, “The owners of Verbraken and Sons Arizona Paint Company will be able to update the site by themselves, allowing more control over their website than many other web design companies offer.” The website will also feature a Flash banner on each page, detailing services that the company offers.

Verbraken and Sons Arizona Paint Company purchased a full package deal, so aside from the website, they will also receive an informative business CD to distribute and two advertising brochures, each one focusing on the different services that they offer.

DEEP in the bowels of a Las Vegas hotel, a smiley face and the
words “Hello World” display on a web page. Applause breaks out. The
page is called the Acid2 Browser Test, and the web browser is a
preview of Internet Explorer 8, presented by its platform
architect, Chris Wilson.
“Thank you from the bottom of my heart,” says a member of the
audience to more applause from about 3000 web designers and
developers at the Mix08 conference, where Microsoft showed its
latest internet technology.
The Acid2 page (webstandards.org/action/acid2/) was created by
the Web Standards Project to test whether a browser conforms to the
official standards for describing page layout, mainly focusing on
cascading style sheets (CSS).
The reason for the applause is twofold: first, until now
Microsoft’s web browser, used by an estimated 75 per cent of
net surfers (although Firefox has been eroding that hold), has
never been close to passing the test; second, Internet Explorer’s
poor standards compliance causes significant extra work for web
designers.
When users navigate to a web page, they expect it to look and
work the same whatever the browser or operating system they are
using. Achieving this is difficult. Different browsers display the
same page differently, with IE often the worst offender.
Web developers now hope they do not have to insert conditional
code to account for these differences, but can deliver a standard
page to all browsers. “CSS support in IE8 looks thus far to be
very, very promising,” says Eric Meyer, an independent expert in
the field. “It’s very important, because the level of CSS support
in IE7 and IE6 has served as a brake on advanced CSS adoption by
authors, limiting them to less-advanced techniques and
capabilities.”
Internet Explorer has a curious history. Six versions were
released between 1995 and 2001, the time of the “browser wars” with
Netscape. Microsoft won the war and then did not release another
major version of the browser for five years - long enough for it to
become thoroughly outdated.
IE’s CSS implementation fell far behind that of other popular
browsers. In late 2006 Microsoft released IE7, which fixed some
problems but still lagged behind its rivals. “Differences between
browsers simply waste too much developer time,” says Dean
Hachamovitch, Microsoft’s general manager for IE, without
mentioning the extent to which Microsoft created the problem.
Mr Hachamovitch, who has led the Explorer team since 2003,
explains why Microsoft took so long to address these deficiencies.
“It comes down to what we were doing with our time,” he says.
“Between 2001 and 2003 we were building what you experience now as
Windows Presentation Foundation and Silverlight.”
These technologies display not HTML, the language of web pages,
but XAML, Microsoft’s proprietary code for creating rich visual
content.
“In 2003 and 2004 we were making IE secure,” he says, referring
to the security-focused Windows XP Service Pack 2.
Security remained the theme in IE7. The dilemma was that fixing
bugs introduced compatibility problems. “You can’t just flick a
switch and have all the browsers in the world change, or have all
the servers and services in the world change,” Mr Hachamovitch
says. The result was that some websites looked worse than before,
because they detected that IE was accessing them and delivering
content that took into account presumed peculiarities.
Microsoft’s answer was to build “compatibility modes” into IE8.
The manner in which this was done remains controversial. The
question was whether to default to the IE7 compatible mode, or
default to the better standards mode, Mr Hachamovitch says. “(We
found in) releasing IE7 that web developers were slow to modify
their sites. We wanted to keep the web working.”
Microsoft initially announced that IE8 would behave by default
like IE7. Page designers would have to include special code to turn
on IE8’s standards support. The decision was greeted with a hail of
protest because it might perpetuate a non-standard web.
Earlier this month, Mr Hachamovitch announced that Microsoft had
changed its mind. “We’ve decided that IE8 will, by default,
interpret web content in the most standards compliant way it
can.”
Apparently the key to that change of heart was a separate
strategic announcement last month, covering what Microsoft calls
interoperability principles and promising “open connections to its
products, support for industry standards and data portability”.
According to Mr Hachamovitch, Microsoft now had “a more
interoperable way; a more compatible way”.
It sounded good, but what about browser scripting. The context
is important. Mr Hachamovitch had already stated that Microsoft
spent three years neglecting IE for the sake of a more proprietary
technology, which is now appearing on the web as a browser plug-in
called Silverlight.
This is similar in some ways to Adobe’s Flash, and supports rich
multimedia effects within web pages as well as the ability to run
applications written in Microsoft’s .NET Framework.
Silverlight and Flash applications in effect bypass the browser.
Web standards advocates are wary of them because they replace the
open web with content that depends on a proprietary plug-in.
The Mozilla Foundation, creator of the cross-platform Firefox
browser, prefers to upgrade the capabilities of the browser itself.
A key component of this is JavaScript, the programming language
that runs in the browser and that is standardised by ECMA, the
European standards body, under the name ECMAScript. Mozilla is keen
to see the current JavaScript upgraded to a far more powerful
version called ECMAScript 4.0.
“Why do we care about ECMAScript 4.0?” asks Mozilla’s
vice-president of engineering, Mike Schroepfer. The answer is that
JavaScript is the language of the net. We want to keep pushing that
technology forward to make it easier for people to build bigger,
faster, more secure websites.”
Asked if Microsoft will implement ECMAScript 4.0, Mr
Hachamovitch prevaricates and talks about competing demands on the
IE development team.
“Right now there isn’t really an ECMAScript 4 offering to
implement, there is an ECMAscript for discussion.” he says.
The Guardian

DEEP in the bowels of a Las Vegas hotel, a smiley face and the
words “Hello World” display on a web page. Applause breaks out. The
page is called the Acid2 Browser Test, and the web browser is a
preview of Internet Explorer 8, presented by its platform
architect, Chris Wilson.
“Thank you from the bottom of my heart,” says a member of the
audience to more applause from about 3000 web designers and
developers at the Mix08 conference, where Microsoft showed its
latest internet technology.
The Acid2 page (webstandards.org/action/acid2/) was created by
the Web Standards Project to test whether a browser conforms to the
official standards for describing page layout, mainly focusing on
cascading style sheets (CSS).
The reason for the applause is twofold: first, until now
Microsoft’s web browser, used by an estimated 75% of net surfers
(although Firefox has been eroding that hold), has never been close
to passing the test; second, Internet Explorer’s poor standards
compliance causes significant extra work for web designers.
When users navigate to a web page, they expect it to look and
work the same whatever the browser or operating system they are
using. Achieving this is difficult. Different browsers display the
same page differently, with IE often the worst offender.
Web developers now hope they do not have to insert conditional
code to account for these differences, but can deliver a standard
page to all browsers. “CSS support in IE8 looks thus far to be
very, very promising,” says Eric Meyer, an independent expert in
the field. “It’s very important, because the level of CSS support
in IE7 and IE6 has served as a brake on advanced CSS adoption by
authors, limiting them to less-advanced techniques and
capabilities.”
Internet Explorer has a curious history. Six versions were
released between 1995 and 2001, the time of the “browser wars” with
Netscape. Microsoft won the war and then did not release another
major version of the browser for five years - long enough for it to
become thoroughly outdated.
IE’s CSS implementation fell far behind that of other popular
browsers. In late 2006 Microsoft released IE7, which fixed some
problems but still lagged behind its rivals. “Differences between
browsers simply waste too much developer time,” says Dean
Hachamovitch, Microsoft’s general manager for IE, without
mentioning the extent to which Microsoft created the problem.
Mr Hachamovitch, who has led the Explorer team since 2003,
explains why Microsoft took so long to address these deficiencies.
“It comes down to what we were doing with our time,” he says.
“Between 2001 and 2003 we were building what you experience now as
Windows Presentation Foundation and Silverlight.”
These technologies display not HTML, the language of web pages,
but XAML, Microsoft’s proprietary code for creating rich visual
content.
“In 2003 and 2004 we were making IE secure,” he says, referring
to the security-focused Windows XP Service Pack 2.
Security remained the theme in IE7. The dilemma was that fixing
bugs introduced compatibility problems. “You can’t just flick a
switch and have all the browsers in the world change, or have all
the servers and services in the world change,” Mr Hachamovitch
says. The result was that some websites looked worse than before,
because they detected that IE was accessing them and delivering
content that took into account presumed peculiarities.
Microsoft’s answer was to build “compatibility modes” into IE8.
The manner in which this was done remains controversial. The
question was whether to default to the IE7 compatible mode, or
default to the better standards mode, Mr Hachamovitch says. “(We
found in) releasing IE7 that web developers were slow to modify
their sites. We wanted to keep the web working.”
Microsoft initially announced that IE8 would behave by default
like IE7. Page designers would have to include special code to turn
on IE8’s standards support. The decision was greeted with a hail of
protest because it might perpetuate a non-standard web.
Earlier this month, Mr Hachamovitch announced that Microsoft had
changed its mind. “We’ve decided that IE8 will, by default,
interpret web content in the most standards compliant way it
can.”
Apparently the key to that change of heart was a separate
strategic announcement last month, covering what Microsoft calls
interoperability principles and promising “open connections to its
products, support for industry standards and data portability”.
According to Mr Hachamovitch, Microsoft now had “a more
interoperable way; a more compatible way”.
It sounded good, but what about browser scripting. The context
is important. Mr Hachamovitch had already stated that Microsoft
spent three years neglecting IE for the sake of a more proprietary
technology, which is now appearing on the web as a browser plug-in
called Silverlight.
This is similar in some ways to Adobe’s Flash, and supports rich
multimedia effects within web pages as well as the ability to run
applications written in Microsoft’s .NET Framework.
Silverlight and Flash applications in effect bypass the browser.
Web standards advocates are wary of them because they replace the
open web with content that depends on a proprietary plug-in.
The Mozilla Foundation, creator of the cross-platform Firefox
browser, prefers to upgrade the capabilities of the browser itself.
A key component of this is JavaScript, the programming language
that runs in the browser and that is standardised by ECMA, the
European standards body, under the name ECMAScript. Mozilla is keen
to see the current JavaScript upgraded to a far more powerful
version called ECMAScript 4.0.
“Why do we care about ECMAScript 4.0?” asks Mozilla’s
vice-president of engineering, Mike Schroepfer. The answer is that
JavaScript is the language of the net. We want to keep pushing that
technology forward to make it easier for people to build bigger,
faster, more secure websites.”
Asked if Microsoft will implement ECMAScript 4.0, Mr
Hachamovitch prevaricates and talks about competing demands on the
IE development team.
“Right now there isn’t really an ECMAScript 4 offering to
implement, there is an ECMAscript for discussion.” he says.
The Guardian

A new Australian website is encouraging people to create an online memorial to their dearly departed.
The Our Tribute website (www.OurTribute.net) has been developed by Melbourne web designer Benjamin Nicoll, after he created an online memorial to his late grandmother.
“My mother wanted to remember her mother in a lasting way, so the Novanate team set about creating a significant site that would allow mum and others to remember people close to them,” Mr Nicoll said.
“It grew from there, after we talked with professionals in the funeral industry, who said there was a real need for the type of service we are now providing.”
Mr Nicholl said the website would initially appeal to the social networking generation, but should gain wider appeal.
“It is a new concept,” he said.
“As people become more accepting of the online territory such as Facebook, people will be more accepting of this concept.”
The website allows users to create a profile and upload pictures of the deceased, which can be viewed by anyone, or restricted to invited guests.
Visitors can add their own memories and photos, which can be moderated by the memorial page creator.
Celebrant Jennifer Floyd believes the concept of having a permanent tribute online is a positive step towards commemorating the life of a loved one.
“Our Tribute really has added a new dimension to the way we remember and celebrate those who have died, particularly those who have made a significant impact on our lives,” Ms Floyd said.
“I expect that the website will appeal to all ages, particularly the computer literate older people now using their computers for genealogy searches and other projects.”
Mr Nicholl said while the site is currently free, a small subscription fee may be introduced in the future, rather than rely on online advertising.
“Eventually we will introduce a small fee to pay for maintenance and upkeep. I personally wouldn’t want advertising on my grandmother’s tribute,” he said.
“(Therefore) we are adamant that Our Tribute will remain a place where friends and relatives can share their thoughts and memories without interference.”