Web Design: Putting Sound on your Web Site

Putting Sound on your Web Site - Part 2

Written by John Rickey

In repparttar

prior article I discussed repparttar 134653

fact that MIDI is repparttar 134654

best choice when adding background music to autoplay on your web site. Choruses of favourite songs can be looped to play while images and text are loading. MIDI is repparttar 134655

best choice as it takes up very little space on your web space(2-7k bytes). Other types of sound files that are useful on web sites are MP3, au, wave, real audio(.ra) to name a few. These are not practical as background sounds due to their large file size but do have some unique features that make them useful .

MP3 MP3(Moving Picture Experts Group1Layer3 Audio) is a type of sound file used to compress large sound files. The most common use of MP3 files is to compress a CD album. A complete CD album can be compressed into a file size of 50MB. This has sparked a great deal of illegal copying on repparttar 134656 web as people can copy Cd albums into a MP3 and send it to others on repparttar 134657 web. Nevertheless, a good use for MP3 is as a 'download' on a web site. If you have an audio speech or song album you want people to listen to, MP3 is repparttar 134658 way to go. Many musicians put their songs as wave files on their sites for download which take just too long to download. A typical song might take 35-50MB in wave form but saved as an MP3 would take only 3-5 MB. The amazing thing about this type of compression is that it replicates repparttar 134659 quality of repparttar 134660 wave file as well. However, even though a song in MP3 format takes only 3-5MB in file size, it still may take 15-20 minutes to download for most people on a 28.8 modem line. Although with faster lines this is becoming repparttar 134661 best way to give downloads of music. There is a faster way to broadcast your songs that will play a large sound file almost immediately . This is repparttar 134662 Streaming Audio File (.ra). Many web sites wisely give repparttar 134663 visitor a choice between a streaming audio or a MP3 download.

Real Audio There are many types of streaming audio on repparttar 134664 web but Real Audio seems to be repparttar 134665 most popular. A Real Audio file will play in seconds. The reason for this is that repparttar 134666 real audio file plays as it downloads. This is true of even a very large audio file. The quality of real audio file can be poor though on slower modem rates (28.8). It is excellent for talking but not for showing off a musicians album unless you are using a faster line. In which case repparttar 134667 sound quality is quite acceptable. Many radio stations keep archives of broadcasts so repparttar 134668 visitor can go back to programs to hear a certain person talk. Sometimes when there is net congestion a real audio file will cut out and then come back which can be frustrating to a listener if repparttar 134669 net congestion continues. The other problem with real audio is that it can cost repparttar 134670 web owner to use it. Anyone using real audio can go to someone owning a real server. They are given a text file on their server(.ram) that connects to repparttar 134671 real server. This in turn connects to repparttar 134672 real audio file(.ra). Most real servers charge about 5$ to$40 US/month depending on repparttar 134673 amount of space you need. This same process can be done on your own server if it is configured correctly. This is obviously cheaper but you will need large amounts of space for repparttar 134674 ra files. Many of repparttar 134675 real audio options are not available on your own server also. Real Audio Files compress well but still take up a large amount of space if you're putting albums etc on your web space. Many servers that offer free space limit repparttar 134676 amount of streaming audio files on their server. There are many competitor's software available for repparttar 134677 streaming audio but Real Audio seems to be repparttar 134678 most popular. Some you might look at are Playstream, Beatnik, Quicktime and Windows Media Technology.

Bad Web Design: Advertising Mistakes

Written by Richard Lowe

Okay, we know we all need to pay repparttar

bills. I know that many of us want to get traffic to our web sites. And some of us just want to make enough money to pay for our costs so that this thing we love to do is free.

But, come on, that doesn't mean you should plaster a hundred ads or a dozen banners on every page of your web site. A banner here and there, a small button or a few text links is fine, but I've seen some web sites that have dozens and a few that have hundreds of ads on each page! Now this is just tacky and is virtually guaranteed to get your visitors to hit that handy back button fast.

One of repparttar 134652 worst kinds of web sites, in my opinion, are those that are just huge advertisements. Especially those that are advertisements for dozens or even hundreds of other services. People do not surf repparttar 134653 web looking for banners, text links and other advertisements to click on. In fact, statistically, most people are surfing because they are looking for (a) information, (b) entertainment, or (c) someone to talk to. Most web surfers are not looking for something to purchase.

A good web site offers excellent content (which can be graphics, text or interactive features). Even those sites which sell something also offer content which is of interest to their visitors. Go take a look at any really good shopping site and you will see what I mean. Look at Amazon.Com or Barnes And Noble and you will understand - these sites offer tons of content. Reviews of their products, consumer comments and large amounts of data about repparttar 134654 items being sold. This is what people want - information. Some common things on web site that you should never do.

Banner exchanges - It's real simple - these do not work. Oh, you will get a click or two, but banner exchanges tend to look tacky, take up valuable space on your web pages and increase your load time. To make it even worse, many times you will lose far more traffic than you will gain. Don't even bother putting even one of these on your entire web site.

Notices saying "please, pretty please, keep my site free and click on something". This just makes you look like a rank amateur. In my humble opinion, it's very tacky to expect people to click on links just so you can "keep your site free". Come up with or find a good product or service, and sell it if you must. Advertising is not in of itself of value - only products or services have value.

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