Probably you know someone who has created a web site all by himself or herself. So if they can do it why use a professional at all? Can’t you create your own business or organization’s web site in your spare time and without the services of a professional web site designer? The answer is probably, yes. But following are some reasons why it may not be a wise idea for you.

Many non-professionals use WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) web page creating software. While this kind of software is nice in that it’s similar to working with a word processing program, many of these programs don’t write “valid” HTML code. The problem with invalid HTML code is that while the page may look fine on some browsers (Internet Explorer, Netscape, etc.), it may not look even acceptably good on some other browsers or even on different versions of the same browser. HostTycoon designs web pages that WILL validate according to W3C validations specifications. (Try using the W3C Validation Service to test a web site that a non-professional has designed and see the results.)

For most of us, time is a precious commodity. Is it better to take the time away from your business and other activities to learn how to create and maintain an effective web site? You need to decide if you have the time to follow through on these necessary parts of web site design:

- Learn HTML coding (it requires more than just wysiwyg web editing software)
- Learn how to use the various software packages needed to:
- create and edit web pages
- scan or otherwise create graphics
- optimize graphics
- upload pages to the host
- run telnet sessions
- decipher raw log files to analyze traffic to your web site.
- Learn good web design principles - design your pages so they load quickly, are easy to navigate and do well in Search Engine queries

- Learn where to go and how to obtain a domain name
- Learn what to do with the web pages once they are created - where they go and how to get them there.
- Obtain several types of browser software to test your web pages for browser compatibility/validity.

Saving money is the main reason most would consider designing their own web site. But by designing their own, are they really saving? It’s takes a substantial monetary investment to purchase the necessary software to create a professional looking web site. It also takes a considerable amount of time to learn how to use the various programs effectively.
Many business owners don’t have that kind of time to spare and are usually better off investing their time in what they know best - running their business.

When a professional web designer is hired the customer receives the benefits of their business experience, artistic talent, technological skills and the expertise to help you establish a effective, highly visible presence on the Internet. They will work with you to analyze your competitions’ web presence - their strengths and weaknesses. Using that research they will construct your web site based on your business strengths and the weaknesses of your competition. Your web pages will be built to load quickly, be user friendly, appeal to your target audience and encourage repeat visits.

HostTycoon (http://www.hosttycoon.com) is a web design, web hosting & IT services company. We are a creative and very cost-effective business solutions provider for medium businesses and organizations.

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The Picture

Imagine if you will, trying to buy a car, it looks slick, shiny, fast, the salesman wants you to have it as bad as you do. But you’re a smart buyer you want to check things out before you lay the money down. But the salesman won’t let you see inside! Won’t let you look under the hood. You have no idea what the vehicle can actual do or if it can do anything. I feel the very same way with commercial software. It cost half a grand for the Operating System to run a computer, another half grand for some decent graphic design software, and however much for a legitimate HTML editor. From this and, of course from the title, you can tell that I am focusing on software for web development, but many principles discussed here can be applied to all software. So many stores sell on the web, it’s a hassle free environment, and so many people buy from the web because they know they can buy anything. So a web page may be something you really want, but you’re going to want to get what you paid for, or heaven forbid it being an investment….more out of it than you put into it. Read on!

Why Open Source

The reason Web Development is a such a huge industry is because it is a business that has everything all other businesses don’t have. Accessible from millions of locations, in every country that has plumbing, AND….theoretically it can be manufactured, maintained, changed, or destroyed from any internet capable computer (included phones, and hand helds). The biggest upside to anything Open Source is the cost of the software, you cannot compete with free. The cost of a website is pretty high when you go through a company, which takes their cut and then assigns it out to one or two employees that do all the work. But that company has to buy software to run right? Of Course! But what does a company do when an Open Source product is better then the ones it is currently using? Do the people on the inside of the company prefer to use the same software, usually not until they have had that software pounded into their head, and even not then if it costs a lot. So why Open Source, is it the cure all? You still have to work, have hardware to run it on and so on and so forth. But then you can pay just for the time of an employee, you can try different solutions. And since we are speaking about web development, we can look at the amazing content managers that are Open Source such as Joomla, or PHPNuke where anybody can put the content in.

Big Companies and Open Source

So knowing that Open Source is free and it’s freelancers and underpaid programmers that work on this with the occasional paid employees and projects that have sponsors, who benefits and who does not from the Open Source movement? I will readily let you know that I benefit extremely from all the free software that is out there in my own freelance web design, like I explained above, the software to edit graphics and HTML code is expensive, I could not imagine also paying for the FTP (File Transfer Protocol, use to upload files to a server) client. Now it is a given that all us little people save tons of money, but now who does it hurt? I was doing a little research and found that a lot of companies that were beginning to embrace Open Source solutions such as IBM and Novell, also any smaller company providing a service and struggling to become larger. The larger companies like IBM don’t mind that the programs are free because they are making hardware and if people don’t have to spend as much on software they would spend a little more on the hardware. Novell wouldn’t mind because they can make the code flawlessly integrate with the Operating Systems that they can see all the code for. The only software company that is hurting (I’m sure I could find more if I looked) is Microsoft, funny to me it seems that Microsoft would put so much money and time into their gaming console when it specializes in its operating system. At first I though it was another piece of the market that Microsoft wanted to dominate, but now knowing how prevalent Open Source is becoming, it was actually a brilliant idea that will give them something to live off of when people eventually switch over to Linux or any other free OS.

The Internet in All We Do

The reason this article focuses on Web Development along with Open Source is that we spend so much of our computer time on the internet, if it were not for music I think I wouldn’t need a large hard drive at all, I only have a few gigs of applications at any given time. But if my computer cannot connect to the internet I feel stranded! I mean, I got to check my e-mail (the two different online accounts that I have), edit or just view my website, chat with my family in Canada and friends that still live an hour or so south of Salt Lake City, and make web pages for other people. So the internet is critical for myself, and that is why I need Open Source products, I could never afford to buy high end software and then make a web page for as little as I do.

This Concludes this Broadcast Article

Thanks for reading and please give Open Source a chance, if you are using Google you can type in Linux, Joomla, SourceForge, or Open Source and you can find all that free software for Linux and Windows. Enjoy!

Michael Hart
www.hartdevelopments.com/joomla

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