Tips and tricks on effective web design

The Number 1 rule that every web designer should follow is to create a fast loading web site. You might have a great design but very few people are going to see it if it takes a [...]]]> 10 Tips on designing a fast loading web site

Tips and tricks on effective web design

The Number 1 rule that every web designer should follow is to create a fast loading web site. You might have a great design but very few people are going to see it if it takes a long time to load.

1. Minimize the use of images - The key to a fast loading web site is to minimize the use of images. Images do enhance a page but don’t make 80% of your web site only images. Instead break it down as much as possible to simple HTML.
2. Optimize images for the web – Once you have decided on the images that you need on your site, make sure that it is optimized for the web. You can also minimize the size of the image by choosing the number of colors you need, from the color palette.
3. Use Tables creatively – You can get some great looking designs by using tables creatively. Tables load very fast because it is just HTML code. Check out our homepage and our menus to see how we have used tables in our site.
4. Cut down the use of animated gifs – Don’t use animated gifs unless it is necessary. Animated gifs take a long time to load and can also be very irritating
5. Design simple icons – Instead of using big, bulky images use simple and small icons that add a little color and draw the attention of a visitor.
6. Use background images instead of big images whenever possible – Use background images whenever possible. This is usually a very useful tip for headers and footers.
7. Try out CSS Styles – Have fun with CSS styles to get some cool text effects. Again, a CSS Style is simple HTML code so it loads very fast.
8. Use Flash sparingly – There seems to be a lot of hype about Flash but I recommend that you minimize the use of Flash on a site. Don’t make entire sites using Flash
9. Design most of your site in HTML – As much as possible try to design your site using HTML. You can create great designs by just using HTML code. Minimize the use of animated gifs, Flash, bulky images etc.
10. Keep checking your load time – Last but not least, before you decide on the final design of your web site.



by Trenton Moss

Why is Download Speed So Important?

Do you like to wait for pages to download? Neither do your site users. Read on and find out how to speed up that download time…

1. Lay [...]]]> Ten Ways to Speed Up the Download Time of Your Web Pages

by Trenton Moss

Why is Download Speed So Important?

Do you like to wait for pages to download? Neither do your site users. Read on and find out how to speed up that download time…

1. Lay Out Your Pages with CSS, Not Tables

• CSS downloads faster than tables because:
• Browsers read through tables twice before displaying their contents.
• Tables appear on the screen all in one go – no part of the table will appear until the entire table is downloaded and rendered
• Tables encourage the use of spacer images to aid with positioning
• CSS generally requires less code than cumbersome tables

2. Don’t Use Images to Display Text

It’s our old friend CSS to the rescue again. There’s no need to use images to display text as so much can be accomplished through CSS.

3. Call Up Decorative Images through CSS

It’s possible to present images as part of the background, called up through CSS. If you’ve got an image that’s 200px by 100px you can use the following HTML code: This may at first seem a little pointless but this technique could really improve the download time of your pages.

4. Use Contextual Selectors

This second CSS example basically says that every paragraph within should be assigned a colour value of #03c and a font size of 2em.

5. Use Shorthand CSS Properties

You can use the following shorthand properties for the marginCSS command.

6. Minimize White Space, Line Returns and Comment Tags

Every single letter or space in your HTML code takes up zone byte. It doesn’t sound like much but it all adds up.

7. Use Relative Call-ups

Try to avoid absolute call ups as they take up more space.

8. Remove Unnecessary META Tags and META Content

Most META tags are pretty much unnecessary and don’t achieve very much.

9. Put CSS and JavaScript into External Documents

Any external file is called up just once and then cached (stored) on the user’s computer. Instead of repeating JavaScript or CSS over and over again in HTML files, just write it out once in an external document.

10. Use / at the End of Directory Links

Why? If there’s no slash at the end of the URL the server doesn’t know if the link is pointing to a file or to a directory.

In the observance of Labor Day, MSWEB/8Finity will be closed on Monday, May 3, 2010.   Normal business operation will resume on Tuesday, May 4, 2010 at 9:00 am.

For your immediate technical concerns, please send your email to support@mswebnetwork.net.  Billing and sales concerns will be accomodated on Tuesday, May 4, 2010.

In order to serve you better and more efficiently, we are upgrading our servers.  In this regard, you may experience difficulty in sending/receiving of emails as well as timed out connection when accessing your website.

Please bear with us during this time for we are doing this to further improve [...]]]> To all our loyal clients,

In order to serve you better and more efficiently, we are upgrading our servers.  In this regard, you may experience difficulty in sending/receiving of emails as well as timed out connection when accessing your website.

Please bear with us during this time for we are doing this to further improve our services.   We also scheduled the changing of name servers during the Holy Week break so that any impact this may have in your business operation will be minimized.

Thank you and have a meaningful vacation.

MSWEB Network Team

Please be informed that an emergency service maintenance was done on some of the servers causing service interruption between 10:30 Friday night to 11:00 Saturday morning.

The maintenance was necessary in preparation of the server upgrade that is expected to occur in the months to come.

We apologize [...]]]> To the best clients in the world,

Please be informed that an emergency service maintenance was done on some of the servers causing service interruption between 10:30 Friday night to 11:00 Saturday morning.

The maintenance was necessary in preparation of the server upgrade that is expected to occur in the months to come.

We apologize dearly for any inconvenience this had caused you.

MSWEBNETWORK Team