Web Design: A Custom Icon For Your Web Site

A Custom Icon For Your Web Site

Written by Amrit Hallan

WHAT IS FAVICON (Or repparttar

Icon in general)

It is repparttar 134605 little thing you see on your Location bar (History/Address bar) when you visit a web site, on repparttar 134606 left of http://. For example, if you view a site through Internet Explorer, you see an e superimposed over a blank white paper sheet. The icon also shows up when you press CTRL+D to save repparttar 134607 link in your Favorites folder. I think repparttar 134608 icon is showed anywhere you store repparttar 134609 link, whether on repparttar 134610 Desktop or some other place.

But some web masters prefer to have their own icon. Apart from being an ego issue, it makes repparttar 134611 web site memorable, and more prominent in repparttar 134612 list of hundreds of Favorite links (gosh! do you ever visit them?!), or repulsive if you make an ugly icon

COMPATIBILITY

It only works with IE5 or higher versions. Otherwise browsers like Netscape Navigator and Opera do not support such an indulgence. Well, to be frank I haven't checked with repparttar 134613 current versions (I have IE5, Netscape 4.7 and Opera 5 on my machine). But repparttar 134614 last time I read, more than 75% surfers are using IE5 or plus these days.

MAKING THE ICON

In repparttar 134615 following steps, you can create an icon from your web site. This reminds me, a more complex icon can be created by a software like Microsoft Photodraw where you can first enlarge repparttar 134616 view without distorting repparttar 134617 pixels, create repparttar 134618 icon, and then reduce to repparttar 134619 normal size and then paste it into an icon editor. Look out for a similar editor if you don't have it.

Take care that repparttar 134620 icon you make/draw/scan/steal has a dimension of 16 x 16 pixels. Preferably, in 8-bit color.

Now go somewhere, where there are lots of downloadable programs, and download "Icon Collector Graphics Editor" from http://www.greatowl.com. I mention this software because somehow I have it on my computer, and don't remember when I installed it. Probably I was trying to make a Favicon for myself but then changed my mind. On second look, I didn't change my mind after all. The icon does show up if you load my web site - http://www.bytesworth.com - and maybe in buffer it doesn't show up.

Stop Driving Your Visitors Away!

Written by Bill Daugherty

Your web site may contain flaws or glitches that are driving your visitors away! Such a thought is enough to give repparttar

most laid back webmaster a migraine. How can you uncover and fix any problem areas that may be lurking in repparttar 134604

dark recesses of your site? Relax gentle readers, there is a simple answer.

All you have to do is follow a few basic guidelines that all web sites should adhere to and you can be assured that your site is in tip-top shape. It's not unlike giving your automobile a little tuneup.

1 - Slow Loading Pages

Nothing drives a visitor away faster than having to wait around for a web page to load. Most experts will tell you that 8 seconds is repparttar 134605 maximum load time for your pages, and anything slower needs some attention. But, this doesn't take into account repparttar 134606 visitor's modem speed. Here are repparttar 134607 results from a load time check I had conducted recently on repparttar 134608 first page of one of my sites.

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This diagnostic checks how fast your page loads up under 6 common modem speeds.

Connect Rate Connect Time -------------- --------------- 14.4K 10.12 seconds 28.8K 6.05 seconds 33.6K 5.34 seconds 56K 4.41 seconds ISDN 128K 2.04 seconds T1 1.44Mpbs 1.00 seconds

LOAD TIME CHECK.......................EXCELLENT -------------------------------

I have included these results so you can see repparttar 134609 difference in load time for various modem speeds and use it as a guide instead of repparttar 134610 8 second benchmark you are often given. Please note that repparttar 134611 page tested has very few graphics. A page with more graphics will load slower, but may still load in an acceptable time. Slow load time is usually caused by either too many graphics or by graphics that are too "fat." You can have those "fat" graphics optimized by an experienced HTML programmer. If your problem is too many graphics, you need to eliminate a few.

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