Understanding the two……

A web application is software that uses a web server, like the internet, to get delivered to the users. Web applications can also be run on intranet, which many businesses do. The main reason that can be given for the growing popularity of web-based applications is the widespread use of web browser as a client

A desktop application is a self-contained program that performs a specified set of tasks under a user’s control. Desktop applications don’t require a network or connectivity to operate or function properly and run from a local drive. However, they might use the resources of a network if attached to it.

Comparing……

1. Accessibility - Web applications can be easily accessed from any computer, device, or location that has internet access. Travelers especially benefit from this type of accessibility.
2. Maintenance & Upgrades - Desktop applications need to be individually installed on each computer, while web-based applications just need a single installation. Many web applications are hosted by a third party and the upgrading and maintenance fall under the responsibility of application host. This can be a blessing and a curse both as users of web applications on hosted systems are at the mercy of the host; if an individual user doesn't want the new features, the upgrade will still go forward.
3. Security - There are always risks involved when dealing with online working. Regardless of how secure a host might say a web application to be, the matter of the fact stands that the security risk of running an application on the internet is more significant than that running on a standalone desktop computer.
4. Cost - Web applications are typically substantially more expensive over time. Desktop applications are purchased outright with rarely having a recurring fee for the software use (though some do have a fee for maintenance/upgrade, but rarely any subscription fee associated with an ongoing use). Many corporate web applications, on the other hand, use a subscription model where users are typically charged monthly service fee to operate the software.
5. Internet Connectivity - Web applications rely on persistent, unmanaged connectivity. Critical applications or businesses that are time sensitive cannot risk denial of service attacks or power outages to interrupt their operations.
6. Performance - Web applications may operate slower. The speed may also vary based on how many users are accessing the application.
7. Backups & Ownership - Regardless of the platform, companies need to be sure that their data is appropriately backed up. When using a web application that are hosted by a third party, companies should clearly determine who owns the data housed in the application and be sure that privacy policies prevent that data from being used by the web host.

Judging……

Some applications are more likely to become successful as web applications. Web based applications designed specifically for search engine optimization are becoming increasingly popular. It is easy to understand now why web applications that relate to the internet would prosper, while business applications may have less appeal in a web environment.

Ultimately, the accessibility of web-based applications makes them highly desirable but not monopolizing as they do have some fundamental limitations. I believe that security concerns and legacy systems will still prevent the obsolescence of desktop software packages. Understanding the pros and cons to each business model will help users determine whether a desktop application or web application will better suit their needs.

MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube…it was easy to keep up with online marketing without confusing the senses some time ago. Now, due to increasing copiousness of social media possibilities with social media and blog sites popping up on a seemingly daily basis, internet marketers can just be overwhelmed trying to keep up with them all. Do you really need to do that? It’s the same answer that you’ll give for: When opportunities increase, do you try to get them all or pick up the right ones?

The vast and motley social media platform has everything to offer you. You just need to apply your senses to search what favors and makes most sense to your business. Even before that, you should be fully convinced in the first place relating the worth of social media for your business. While the benefits of social media marketing are great, it’s even better applying in a down economy when your marketing budget has heavily crashed. A whole lot of social media sites is scattered over the net that takes time and energy but no cash to invest. Interactivity in social media marketing finds interesting ways to communicate beyond the traditional marketing techniques. Besides, those social media sites that rank well in the search engines get you the added bonus of enhanced search engine visibility.

As a bottom line, with social media marketing you are able to say you get what you can’t from print media, radio, or television, things like:

1. Great money saving (or not spending at all!)
2. Tremendous growth in visitor traffic to your site
3. Fast-spreading link popularity of your website
4. Rapid increase in brand awareness
5. Increased search engine rankings
6. Connecting to huge masses
7. Benefit of building an online community
8. Knowing customers’ views

Behind the scene

It was quick call from one of our client regarding issue that images are not being displayed on IE8 while checking their beta website. With my surprise, same site is rendering all images properly in Firefox 3.6, and Google Chrome. I tried once again with check back into the code and verified all the relevant IMG tags and it seems everything is fine.

Cause of Problem

The reason is Internet Explorer has issues displaying JPEG images that have been encoded using CMYK, rather than the default RGB encoding. Even Internet explorer does not supports other image formats like EPS, GIF created in CMYK mode.

Typically, JPG files are encoded in a three-channel RGB format.  It is possible, in some programs like Photoshop or Corel Draw, to create JPG files that are encoded in four- channel CMYK color format. Microsoft Internet Explorer is unable to display JPG files that are not in three-channel RGB color format.

Example of RGB vs CMYK images

Firefox 2.x and earlier version also doesn’t support images created in CMYK color format. You can refer below browser matrix that supports CMYK encoded images.

Solution

To resolve this problem, simply open the file in Image Editor i.e. Photoshop or GIMP, and re-encode it by copying the image, going to File > New, and making sure "Color Mode:" is set to "RGB" at "8-bit". Once the new canvas is open, paste the file, and save as a JPG.

Quick Solution for Photoshop users

Check the color mode of the image. In Photoshop, by clicking "Image," then "Mode," you can check it. If CMYK, change it to RGB before saving it for use on the web. To avoid JPG saving in CMYK, you can also use the "Save for Web" option in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, instead of choosing "Save As…" and choosing JPG. "Save for Web" will convert your image to RGB before saving.

Now Firefox 3.x supports CMYK JPG

Good news for Firefox users is… Firefox has resolve the CMYK Image rendering issue and now Firefox 3.x supports CMYK images. For further reference, see Mozilla Firefox CMYK Image rendering Bug Post in their Bugzilla system… https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=44781

Browser Matrix for RGB vs CMYK Image rendering support

Conclusion

CMYK format is universally accepted format for Print Media, while Web Designing always prefer to encode your images to RGB format to avoid CMYK image rendering issue in IE. If your website’s images are not displaying in IE8, check the image in Firefox 3.0 or greater. If it displays there, it’s likely to be in the CMYK color mode. Fix the problem by changing the color mode of the image, re saving it and then replacing in your website.

First, ask yourself why do you need a web design? It’s not a display of art to exhibit on net. You, of course, don’t aim to get visitors praising the fancy of it, but you want them for a purpose. Right? You want them to understand something about you which can be of your and maybe their benefit too. Thinking this, you are in the right direction. So, what will make a website a website of great value?

Find out who and why would come to your website. This is crucial. How informative your website is for your visitors would largely state how they would respond to it. Unless they are aimless web browsers, they would like to know your website from productivity point of view. Think what would be the specific target groups. Your information, for the most part, should be more appealing to them than any web wanderers. However, I cannot stop myself admitting that great websites do happen to be so thought provocative that all those who get engaged would have not essentially come by choice.

There should be a clearly defined purpose of a website. A clear idea of what is desired by it would ease up its designing. Selling, debating, thought sharing, or anything else – if you know it well, your website design will get a proper theme to match it.

Now, do you expect people to open and study your website first for it is too complex! You can’t be doing so. Hence, experienced developers would always structure or engineer a website to achieve a great degree of user-friendliness. You need to figure out the fewest number of pages that would possibly harbor the best information. Even the navigation, menu, sub-menu categories are to be so structured that it is simple to understand.

The combination of the functionality and layout will determine the look and feel of your website. You need to get absolutely convinced that when it rolls out visiting is going to be an eventful journey.

Search engine optimization (SEO) tactics use “link building” as an effective strategy for raising search engine ranking. It basically means generating a network of links leading back to your website, and that means internet users from various other sources would visit your website by way of these back links. It is a crucial promotion strategy as quality links are considered one of the several important parameters for search engine ratings. Here quality links means links pointing back from the relevant, quality websites. Thus, it’s no use encouraging the incoming links from a non-popular or unrelated website.

SEO experts can carry out link building through various tried and tested methods. It may be time-consuming but holds a long-term impact if conducted vigorously over a period. The first and foremost essentiality is having a quality website per se. If you have the best of the content and design, webmasters would automatically link to your site.

Blogging is another effective way of building links. There are a lot of free blogging websites where you can write blogs related to your products/services and place anchored links for your website. You can even target high-PR blogs related to your targeted keywords for providing quality comments and leave anchored links to your website. Online forums also are a good place for exchange of knowledge and thoughts with a provision of back links. Regularly participating in forum discussions related to your website content through quality posts makes a firm ground to gain trust of the members and visitors and then by adding links it’s easy to make the visitors follow.

Article submissions are one of the most powerful internet marketing techniques. Here comes the role of a content writer who can write an innovative quality content to distribute over the internet. Popular article submission sites are the right place to submit your articles providing back links which a bulk of interested readers would follow and land up to your website. An easier way than article submission is submitting your site to web directories. You will find a number of free and paid website directories relating to your website niche. However, it’s important that you be careful in submitting your website to any directory. You should check and avoid penalized or banned directories that may, in fact, harm your website ranking. Social networking websites such as MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter also provide a way to do effective link building. Once you find out communities related to your website on these social networks, you can continually provide value-adding information followed by linking.

Link building done adopting the abovementioned methods and a right technique can greatly enhance a website’s SEO. There are unethical link building ways too like link farming that gives an immediate network of thousands of back links. However, leading search engines were smart enough in modifying their search algorithms to make link farms a spam and banning websites participating in them for three years. So, better is to follow the old saying “no pains, no gains” and stick to legitimate link building.