David D. Scribner: Web Site Design & Maintenance

In today's era of e-business, having a presence on the Internet plays an ever-increasing role in not only broadening your business's recognition, but in disseminating information about your business as no business card, flyer, brochure, radio or even television advertising can.

However, the popularity of the web has brought to us more than just "surfing the web," it has helped standardize a document format known as HTML. This format allows us to view documents originating from various platforms, whether they are from PC, Macintosh or even mainframe computers, allowing for a tremendous increase in compatibility, flexibility and usability.

Since you are reading this, you are familiar with web sites on the Internet, but equally as valuable for many are internal company web sites, or intranets. The use of intranets has allowed companies, large and small, to disperse and share information amongst the employees and departments via their internal network.

I would like to discuss how the advantages of web sites, both Internet and internal intranet, could help your business operate more efficiently. Efficiency pays dividends in profits, and if you didn't care about profits, you wouldn't be in business!
A few of the web site design and authoring services I offer include, but are not limited to:

Intranet workflow consultation and interface design

Web site organization, style and layout

Web site navigation objectives and interfaces

Web site "personalization" and themes

Custom graphics design for site elements

Custom scripting and coding for pages, navigation and special effects

Web site authentication and restricted access policies

Search engine database construction, logistics and interfacing

Consulting in choosing the right hosting service

Submission to search services and directories

Web site maintenance and upkeep

For examples of my web site design skills, I invite you to review just a few of the web sites I have authored. The styles presented include a corporate Internet web site, a small business intranet, a stylistic site authored for an artist, a hobbyists web site and a personal web site. In all web sites created, I work closely with the business or individual in evaluating the site's needs, as well as injecting as much of the business or individual's character into the site as possible. And, unlike other web site designers that work with standard "cookie-cutter" templates, you will find your web site is designed to work the way you do, best reflects your business and is truely one of a kind!

Also, when you choose to use my services in designing and developing an Internet web site for you or your business, I also include posting the web site's URL, keywords and other information to hundreds of search engines and directories on the Internet. This decreases the time it takes for your web site to span the Internet and be included in search services and directories from a period of several months to just a few weeks, speeding your Internet presence to the forefront. This service, also available separately for a fee of $49 per URL, is included as part of the web site design and authoring service free of charge!

Example Web Sites

Corporate Internet web site: Tex-Mex Meter Service
This web site, although still in semi-construction stage awaiting photographs from the corporation to scan and include in the site's content, is an example of a basic mid-size business web site designed to inform and communicate the business to the public.

Tex-Mex Meter Service, Inc., an oil and gas metering company in West Texas specializing in L.A.C.T/A.C.T. units for the petroleum industry wanted something more than mere telephone book advertising, yet is still in the initial stages of discovering what a web site can do for them. Like many mid-size businesses that have a small local area network (LAN) with a server or two, they still are working towards having that network work for them in so many ways, and an corporate Internet or intranet site is just one of them.

The company's colors are red and black against a white background. Therefore the site incorporated those colors in the site's theme. The navigational buttons within the site were also designed with an "industrial" look to further ease the visitor's travels throughout the site, as well as remain with the overall theme. An animated graphic on the opening page gives imparts a little activity on the otherwise static display, yet highlights some of the company's offerings.

The site includes custom graphics using company colors (including animated GIFs), JavaScript for special effects, button rollovers and forms, and tables for precise screen layout.

Business intranet web site: ShortCircuit LAN
This web site is just a small example of an intranet web site, and is modeled similar to the one I use in my own business. Although many of the functions, such as search abilities and many of the links themselves, are non-working since it demonstrates a private intranet (not an Internet site), it should give you a taste of what an intranet web site can comprise. I've included just a small portion of the intranet site as an example as there are many things a business needs to keep private, and that's just what an intranet site is designed for!

Most intranet sites take advantage of HTML's format commonality to include document management, indexing, searching, form completion and data collection, and serve well to disperse data to various departments and users. This makes an intranet web site a perfect vehicle for inclusion of company policies and procedures, employee handbooks, announcements, news and other items for company-wide dispersal.

Please keep in mind as you navigate this example of an intranet web site that the majority of links normally referencing or targeting data or pages on an internal private network will not function as such over the Internet (since intranets are usually protected from public access). I've modified the links on the main page to target existing Internet sites or example pages, however you will still find links used in those example pages that will return an error (Server Error 404: Page not found) should you try to navigate outside of those example pages.

Artistic Internet web site: Casa Linda
"Casa Linda" is a web site authored for a southwestern artist in New Mexico, Linda Miller, which highlights a partial gallery of her paintings, includes reprinted articles from various magazines and newspapers, gives you a peek into her studio and allows visitors to request a catalog of her work.

As the site was created for an individual's business, and with that individual being an artist herself, as much of that individual's personality and spirit were incorporated into the creation and presentation of the pages. Linda is pleased, and would be thrilled if you dropped by and experienced a bit of her life as an artist living in the enchanted southwest.

As the artist works out of an adobe studio in New Mexico, is enamored with the southwest and incorporates many southwest and Indian artifacts and themes in much of her work, I thought it befitting to tailor her web site to reflect this. You will find the site is based on an adobe theme, and uses southwest Indian symbols as navigational buttons. Even as one of Linda's artistic hobbies is tile-work, I've created examples of tiles very similar to those I saw in her studio to frame her opening portrait.

In navigating the site you will find, along with her artwork, article reprints backgrounded with a parchement paper design. Included on the parchment design (and throughout the site) are headings based on a rustic font, further epitomizing a southwestern look and feel. In designing the site my hopes are that as a visitor navigates the site they will not only see her talent, but leave with a taste of her personality as well. While you're there, be sure to visit the "More..." section, where you can easily request a catalog of her artwork for sale from a custom JavaScript-based form that sends the request via the user's own email client to Linda's email address, a suitable alternative for web site hosting services such as the one Linda is using that don't allow server-side CGI scripting).

The site includes custom graphics geared towards a southwest theme, JavaScript for special effects, button rollovers and forms, and tables for graphic and text positioning.

Hobbyist web site: Bee Happy!
One of my hobbies is bee keeping. Combining my main career and hobby with another important hobby in my life was a natural. Hence, "Bee Happy" was born. It's a rather simple site, and was initially designed for testing table and frame layouts. However, it wound up being a fairly popular site visited by many beekeepers due to the selection of facts, FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions), a honey bee glossary and instructions on starting a hive of honey bees.

As you navigate through the site you will no doubt recognize that the common theme takes on a new appearance when visiting the "journal" pages (beekeepers are often known to track their hive's health and productivity in journals). This improves overall readability, yet still keeps within the hobbyist theme. A lot of information is provided, yet in a consise and organized layout that enables the reader to flow through the articles and information with ease. Included are brief summaries of several reputable beekeeping books with links to a bookseller of which I hold an affiliate account. It is techniques such as this which can easily enable a hobbyist (or business) to display a "catalog" or collection of items for sale.

The site includes custom graphics in keeping with a beekeeping theme, tables for precise graphics and text positioning, JavaScript for special effects and button rollovers, and frames.

Personal Internet web site: Niche on the Net!
If this site looks familiar, that's because it's my own personal web site! Started in 1996 as a way to learn HTML coding, I developed "Niche on the Net!" which grew along with my skills to include a variety of web page styles and techniques.

"Niche on the Net!" has changed quite a lot over the last six years, though mainly in design and layout, as it's still serving as a personal test-bed for web design, HTML, JavaScript and ActiveX authoring techniques and scripting, and graphics (and why the mixture of themes and graphics throughout). Along with various topics added, still included are hundreds of captioned links to other web sites that many find exciting and useful.

You may notice that "Niche on the Net!" site (along with this site) includes several deviations from "other" web sites posted on the Internet. One is the location of the navigation bar. Many sites place the navigation or contents bar on the left side of the browser window. This makes navigation more difficult for the visitor who has to continually traverse the browser window to scroll down the navigation bar, then back again to scroll down the page. Even if a navigation bar is static (does not scroll), if placed on the left side of the window, the user is still forced to traverse the browser window needlessly to click on the links they wish to visit.

The site includes custom graphics and navigational techniques, tables for precise graphics and text positioning, JavaScript for special effects and button rollovers, and frames.