Can't we just make our own? Two or three years back when not one of major browser manufacturers was conforming to W3C standards, each invented their own flavour of HTML (the language used to describe web pages). As a result web developers had a really hard time of it as they often had to write several different versions of same content in order to get it to display correctly on everyone's computer. Now that Microsoft and Netscape as well as other players are making a big push towards compliance, not only is job of web developer made considerably easier but users get a more coherent and integrated experience when browsing web.

Accessibility Widespread use of standards (or even enforced use as in Highway Code) has another important benefit that is no less important and is almost a reason on its own to conform. A well designed standard will promote access to system to as wide an audience as possible. Consider disabled drivers - without provision of disabled parking spaces and standard that you shouldn't park in them unless you have an orange badge, road system would be much less accessible to people with physical difficulties. Likewise W3C standards all derive some input from Web Accessibility Initiative (W3C-WAI) that ensures that all web content will be accessible by those with sight problems or motor-control difficulties. On a practical level this involves, amongst other things, providing a textual alternative to all images, ensuring that site will work with a screen-reader (which is a program that can speak words for blind users) and is easy to navigate without use of a mouse.

You can check your site for W3C-WAI compliance at http://valet.webthing.com/access/online.html.

Persistence Already we are finding problem of reading some of our older digital data difficult. Ancient, creaking mainframes with large amounts of tape storage are now all but extinct yet there still exists need to read some of information stored by those systems. If that system conformed to a well known standard then there is every chance that data can be read by obtaining a copy of standard and applying its rules to your tapes. However if system was custom built with no standards in place at all, and original system no longer exists then you have increased difficulty of problem by several orders of magnitude. The moral here is that conforming to standards not only guarantees far-reaching accessibility for your data today, but in future as well.

As some form of W3C-WAI compliance is now a legal responsibility in UK (see http://www.web-access.org.uk/) as well as much of rest of world, need for adopting standards has never been more pressing.

This article is copyright Fire Without Smoke Software Ltd and permission must be sought from www.fwoss.com or info@fwoss.com for any reproduction.

Record expires on: The date domain name expires. Keep a careful eye on this date. If you let domain name expire you risk loosing control of domain name.

Record created on: The date domain was initially registered. Domain servers (Name servers): This contains DNS (Domain Name System) information for a domain. The Name servers represent names of IP address where your domain name is pointed. If you enter this information incorrectly, your domain name will not be pointed at servers where your site is hosted.

There are usually two lines of Name server information. The first is site’s primary DNS information, while second contains secondary or back-up information.

Your domain name is one of most important parts of your web site. Unless you’re hosting your site on an Intranet or in a sub domain of another site, surfers will not be able to reach your web site if you do not have a domain name.

Make sure you keep your domain name contact information up to date. An out of date email address or incorrect contact information may keep you from receiving important information regarding your domain name and could cause you to lose control of your domain name.

If your domain name register does not offer a web-based interface for you to change your domain name information, transfer your domain name to a register that does! You need to be able to change domain name information at anytime.

Managing your domain name is a very simple and important task. Your domain name is name that world uses to find you on Internet. Guard it carefully and it could be name for your success on web.

Copyright © 2003 Richard Williams

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