Website Questions
 

Hey all,

Got a few questions regarding website.
1- Does it have to be able to load on low bandwidth/slow computers? Because shockwave sites won't be possible then.

2- If we were to make a forum/message board, do we have to make our own, like self coded, or can we use something like phpbb or vbulletin? It's pretty obvious that even this site is using vbulletin, but one of my teammate says our website needs to be completely original, so just making sure ;)

3- For the website design award, are they basing it on the design/look, infomation on the site, innovation, or combination of the few, or what?

4- Finally, where do you guys learn languages for web design like php or perl? Online or books? Which way is most effective?

Thanx,
David

ok.

First, is there even a website design award? - I've never heard of that. But... if their is, then wayyyyyy cool! :cool:

With boards, if you would like to make your own then go ahead! Whatever you make, it will definatly go with your site better, but something like phpBB has tons more features than you will ever be able to creat. (PS: Unless you want to spend $$, go with phpBB. You will need to install a few mods (like attachment), but other than that, it's the best free BB out there. Also, in a few months phpBB 2.1-2 will be out which will be very cool)

Also, go with PHP. :) (Personally, that's what i use. All I knew before was vb, and i learned php in 2 months (to a very good usage).) A good book, especially for forums / db is PHP and MySQL Web Development. - Welling and Thomson. It's a little more avdanced book, but if you are good a looking at an example and learning from that, this book is it. It has a bunch of 'starter' real-life examples like a shoping cart and other stuff.

With the Flash / other. Personally, i have a 56k. (We get our dial-up free, and my dad won't pay for it, and i'm trying to save for a car, so i can't give out $30 / month :)) But, don't feel like you need to make so that all can view your site. All i would recommend is that you use some type of intro, with a link to skip it, and then use the rest with good tast thought your site.

As an impartial bystander
 

I'm pretty sure that there is no website design award, but if there is there is no point in competing because Chief Delphi has it won, hands down!

yes there is a website award. I am not sure if it is at all regionals, but I know the Poofs won it last year at SVR.

Well technically your supposed to have a low and high bandwidth site according to all the books I have read.

Re: Website Questions
 

1) The best websites are universal able to load on most computers, obviously if your using a Tandy it won't happen, but u get my point

2) You can make your own...I don't reccomend it, we are getting ours free from http://www.asp.net done nicely and for free.

3) Not sure really.

4) Neither, learning C++ in school I found it super easy just to start using ASP.NET and C#. I used a book that was very good made by a company called Visual with the title of the books being Read Less, Lean More just the book ASP.NET

Have Fun!

The only webstie award I know is the Autodesk Award for Realization. This award tells you make a website the tells a story about the construction of your robot. Its highly detailed, and many teams don't participate in this award.

There have been team awards in the past about best website design. Last year team 341 made such an award.

learn languages...
 

you can learn just about any programming language from www.pscode.com through tutorials, or if you're a more structured learner why not check out www.about.com ? they're an excellent resource.

High and low bandwidth is easy. You can make $@#$@#$@#$@# good php and html pages, although a flash navbar is always cool.

--Petey

na
 

Read the manual... all of the answers to these question are in the section regarding the web design award. About the originality, you can use software to create your discussion board. For bandwidth, it should load fast if you want to be considered for the web design award.

From the rules:

what is considered a popular browser?

imagine if they checked everything in Netscape 3.0 to see if the stuff we build degrades gracefully.:ahh:

Well, the voting is done by a representitive from each team. They must do it prior to 12PM of the Friday of that regional, so it is whatever browser is used by the person evaluating at that time.

It is all in the rules: http://www2.usfirst.org/2003comp/Awards_03.pdf

A popular browser should be considered any browser that fully complies with HTTP/1.1. Sadly, that's not the real definition. Most people don't think about some of us lynx users when designing webpages. If you really want to build a decent webpage, make it fit to the w3c standards. http://www.w3.org/ http://validator.w3.org/ If it complies fully with the validator, then it should be compatible with all browsers. If theres a browser that isn't compatible with it after the validator, then get another browser :D