DandyWebDesign Techmiscellanea
Welcome to the technical pages...
I have always been interested in programming, I started writing 'Basic'
at school in the late 1970s but then I left school and gave it up for the
sex, drugs and rock'n'roll lifestyle of any self-respecting twenty-something.
Meanwhile, computers got more advanced and rapidly passed me by, relegating me back to
the ranks of the non-computer-literate. But in the mid 90's I got myself an
old Windows PC and gradually got my head round it, within a few months I had
figured out how to make it do what I wanted and as the saying goes I have never
looked back since.
I have worked in many areas of computing and along the way I have picked up many languages and skills, however the most useful (and pertinent here on this website) is web-programing using a combination of HTML, xHTML, JS, DHTML, Perl, CSS, MySQL, PHP, Apache & CGI techniques. Behind the scenes, shell programing using both DOS and unix proves invaluable to manage and maintain the many files that go to make up a modern website.
The information here does not purport to be the sum of all knowledge, there are many other websites out there that will give far more detail on any particular subject, but it does have a good range of detailed information, with many working examples, covering most aspects of website creation, setup and maintenance. The ultimate goal of this website is to give you enough information to go out and do this for yourself. But if you are in a hurry or do not have the time or skills to do it yourself then get in touch with who may be able to help you.
- Webserver Notes
- Run Your Own Webserver
A basic setup list to get your own webserver running at home
Download and setup details for Apache, Perl and MySQL win32 ports and configuration on a Windows host. This applies just as well to Linux users except that all of this is already there as standard! - Apache win32 - A basic overview and download notes...
- Apache Configuration - Installation and configuration guide (Includes virtual hosts config.)...
- Perl win32 - A basic overview and download notes...
- MySQL win32 - A basic overview and download notes...
- win32 Web Setup - Getting a basic development environment set up at home...
- Upload Management - Description of a simple utility to manage this task...
- Website Design
- Design Considerations - An overview of the many things that you should consider when designing a website...
- Theme/Content - What your website will be about and what it will contain...
- Website Structure - How the pages within the website will relate to each other and how the site will be structured...
- Page Layout - How the pages are laid out, which part of the page will serve which task...
- Aesthetics - The aesthetic look and feel of your site, its style...
- Content vs Style - Content is defined by the webpage text, style should be defined by the CSS, keeping these separate is highly recommended...
- Maintainability - Ease of maintainance by sharing common resources between pages...
- Tech Requirement - Deciding which technical resources to make use of, JS, DHTML, CGI and more...
- Future Scalability - Making sure your site can easily grow or change in the future...
- Website Security - Making sure your webpages are not vulnerable to hackers and spammers...
- Browser Support - Basic considerations on how your pages will work in different browsers...
- Graceful Degradation - Making sure that if your webpage is not going to work it will at least bow out gracefully and not crash the browser!
- Accessibility - Applying basic standards to ensure that your pages are useable by all people regardless of their medium, browser capabilities or personal disabilities...
- Webpage Coding
- Getting Started - Some basic points to consider before you set finger to keyboard and start coding pages...
- #1 Example Webpage - Building a demonstration webpage from scratch: A draft version and its many shortcomings...
- #2 Adding CSS - Building a demonstration webpage from scratch: Separating content from style and collating the CSS - CSS details and explanatory notes...
- Compatible CSS - Building a demonstration webpage from scratch: Creating CSS that works the same way in all browsers. A selection of basic CSS hacks to ensure the relevant CSS goes to each browser for a consistent appearance each time...
- #3 Adding Metadata - Building a demonstration webpage from scratch: Removing CSS to external file, adding page metadata - Metadata details and explanatory notes...
- #4 JS Masked Email - Building a demonstration webpage from scratch: Using JavaScript to mask email addresses from spam-harvesting spiders...
- #5 Sharing SSIs - Building a demonstration webpage from scratch: Breaking the repeated sections of the page down into server-side includes for sharing with other pages...
- #6 Support Testing - Building a demonstration webpage from scratch: Testing for support of 'advanced' features such as cookies and DHTML...
- Password Access - The basics of protecting parts of your website using Apache's .htaccess files and passwords...
- Custom 404 Page - Customising 404 errors (page not found) within your website to provide a specific page instead of the browser's default 404 error page...
- JavaScript/DHTML
- JS Overview - A basic overview of JavaScript and how it can be useful...
- Basic JS Usage - Some simple examples of JS/DHTML in use...
- DHTML Games - Some novelty DHTML games and puzzles written in JavaScript...
- JS Shared Code - Some handy subroutines to share amongst your pages, the contents of a common shared JS function file, mainly simple DHTML widgets, short-cuts and check routines...
- CGI Scripting
- Perl CGI Index - A basic overview of CGI programing using Perl and how it can be useful...
- Basic CGI Scripting - A very basic explanation of how CGI programs are set up on a webserver, how they work and how they are invoked...
- Simple CGI Demo - A step-by-step explanation of a CGI based temperature converter...
- Styling CGI Output - Getting your CGI program output to match the static pages of your site, getting Perl programs to parse SSI files...
- Sharing Perl Code - Making your perl subroutines available to other programs using perl modules...
- CGI Code Suite - Building a suite of perl programs for an entire website, all using the same subroutines and making full use of shared code methods...
- CGI Environment - Establishing a simple yet robust perl framework which will provide each program with a consistent and stable environment. The resulting program script is simpler, leaving you to concentrate on the primary task: the web application...
- Web Applications
- Web Apps. Overview - Using a combination of HTML, CSS, JS, DHTML and CGI to produce all manner of web applications...
- Get Page - /cgi-bin/getpage.pl A simple web application to fetch and return another webpage for further analysis...
- Analyse Page - /cgi-bin/analpage.pl Another web application to fetch and return any webpage and parse its source code into a usable form ready for further processing or analysis...
- Site Mapper - /cgi-bin/sitemap.pl An application that will locate all of the links within a website and display them as a site map...
- Custom 404 Error - /cgi-bin/dandy404.pl An application that can be triggered by a 404 (page not found) error and will search out the existing URLs that best match the failed one and suggest it to the user...