Understanding Risks in IT Projects

Introduction

It is a common practice that when a business, whether small or large decides to undertake an IT project, the first thing a project manager will do is to whip out a Gantt chart and starts planning including drawing up the budget, timeline and the expectations. This is then presented to the board (in big businesses), or the owner (in small businesses) for approval. Then voila... everything should work according to plan, with some minor adjustments factored into the plan, right? Wrong... this is a common misconception of many, who would ultimately learn that in any IT projects, big or small carries risks, and the bigger the project is, the bigger the risks and the stake will be higher. These risks may eventually cost the business heavily in terms of monetary losses or damaged reputation. This can happen in all sorts of unthinkable ways. That being said, there are small IT projects that did have severe negative repercussions as well. Trying to "dive in" without first spending some time doing ground work and talking to relevant parties while exploring the bigger picture is just a recipe for disaster.

Typography in Web Design:

Typography in Web Design:

A very important but often underplayed element in website design is web typography. Typography itself is as old as the earliest writing systems and has since developed into a very specialised field.

Typography originated after the invention of printing from movable type in the mid 15th century and has come along way since then. Today we find a large number of typefaces on the web.

How you approach typeface in your design, will either enhance or diminish the visual impact of your website. Function and aesthetics are intrinsic in web design and how well your design works is just as important as how it looks.

New liberty in Web Design: sIFR Text

Creative uses for typeface in web design were limited until recently. Today’s new operating systems have made it possible for website designers to move away from the limitations of using standard system fonts.

Scalable Inman Flash Replacement, better known as sIFR text are giving many website designers creative leeway. In simple terms, sIFR text is a flash rendering technique whereby designers can replace on-screen text elements with flash equivalents. In order to display correctly on someone’s web browser, sIFR requires the following: JavaScript and a Flash plug-in.

sIFR allows website headings, pull-quotes and other elements to be styled in whatever font the designer chooses. It is Search engine friendly and will display the website content as text and not an image.

Important Typeface Tips:

The web is saturated with tips on website design and typography. Here are a few tips that can help you with the choice and placement of your typeface in web design.

Space:

Take note of the line spacing/ leading that you give your text. The space between your words will impact the readability of your copy.

Colour

Consider the colour of your design and choose the colour of your text accordingly. The colour of your text should neither overpower your design nor be consumed by it.

Font Size:

Consider the theme and style of your web design and choose the font size accordingly. Certain typefaces have been designed as small fonts and will therefore not have the same effect if it is too big.

Take into account that your text size should be readable to different users who are making using different browsers and technologies. Don’t make your text too small or too large.

Legibility

Take your user into account. The emphasis in web design today is on user-centric design. Remember that your website is there to communicate information. The objective is to encourage people to read the information on your site.

Too many fonts

Don’t use too many fonts throughout your website, rather make small adjustments to the existing font. This will help you to maintain a sense of continuity throughout your design. We suggest you use two types of font at most.

Font-smoothing

Any windows operating system lower than vista, does not apply “font-smoothing” as a default setting. This could radically change how the viewers see your text.

Lilo is a professional Website Design and Web Development company, based in London UK with offices in Cape Town, South Africa and more recently Sydney, Australia. We are a multidisciplinary agency, delivering expert and cost effective solutions that will meet a variety of your web development and website design requirements.

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Website Design Tutorials Photoshop

Creating a Website Header in Photoshop
Step 1. Getting the background together.

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Let’s start by creating a new Photoshop file. Open Photoshop and create a new file that’s 770pixels wide by 180px high. Make sure the resolution is set to 72 dpi.

For our basic grey background I’ll need two components:

1. A Shape layer with a Gradient Overlay effect applied
2. A layer with a Pattern Overlay applied

Start by selecting the Rectangle tool and dragging out a rectangle to fill our empty document.

Next, go to the Layers palette and click on the “Add a Layer Style” icon at the bottom. Choose “Gradient Overlay” from the popup list. In the Layer Styles window, create a new gradient from black to grey (I used a hex value of 545454). It should look something like this:

Now I’m going to create a diagonal tiling background pattern. Create a new Photoshop document of 4px square. Zoom right in, and using the Line Tool, create a white diagonal line going from the top right corner to the bottom left. Hold down Shift as you draw to constrain it to 45 degrees. Double click on the background layer and hit OK to make the Background layer into a normal bitmap layer. Now turn that layer’s visibility off in the Layers palette. The document should look a little like this:

Choose Select > All from the menu and then go to Edit > Define Pattern. Choose an appropriate name if you like. Now head back to the original header document.

Create a new layer above the rectangle with the gradient and fill it with black. Double-click it to bring up the Layer styles and go to Pattern Overlay. Your new pattern should be in the drop-down list of patterns. Select it and you should see your pattern in place in the document. Click OK, and the adjust the layer’s opacity to around 5%, or whatever you think best. This has the effect of reducing the effect of the pattern to “just about visible” levels.

So now we have a nice basis for our header. The gradient and pattern serve as a backdrop for what comes on top. The pattern especially will really emphasize the effect of reduced opacity of any layer above it, and the gradient is practically essential in current web design thinking!
Step 2. Adding the logo.

I’ll be creating a header for a fictitious gardening social networking site, called “Grass is Greener”, so select the Type tool click on the image and type it out. In our example here I’ve used all lowercase, with no spaces to keep the modern feel. I’ve used Arial Bold at 48pt. I’ve also pulled in the Tracking to -50 to tighten the space between the letterforms a touch. For the colour I’ve chosen a really vivid yellow/green of d0e113.

To differentiate the “is” in the middle of the logo so it’s readable, I’m going to select just those two letters using the Type tool and make them white (choosing the colour either from the Options bar or the Character palette).

I’ll give the logo just a hint of a glow to make it “breathe” a little on the page. Click on the “Add a Layer Style” icon at the bottom of the Layers palette and choose “Outer Glow”. You want a smallish yellow glow with a Size setting of 5, at quite a low opacity, so set that to 25%. You can see the settings and their effect below:

I’ll also add a tagline of “social gardening” to the logo. Again, use Arial Bold (or Helvetica Bold) with the Tracking set to -50. I’ve set the font size to 14pt and aligned it with the right of the logotype above. To add the same glow as we used in the previous step, go to the Layers palette, hold down Alt/Option and drag the layer style from the previous layer to our new tagline, like this:

Lastly, I’ll have a box framing the logo, which I’ll create using a Shape layer. Select theRounded Rectangle Tool and set the corner radius to 5px in the Options bar.

Click and drag to create the shape, until it’s a little wider than the logo, with about 15-20px of clear space in all directions. If it’s sitting on top of the logo, drag it down in the layers palette so that it sits beneath both the logotype and the tagline. I want to position it off the top of the image, so using the Move tool just drag it off the top a little to lose the top rounded corners. You could also use the shape editing tools to re-shape the top of the box, but it’s a waste of time in this instance.

For positioning, I’ll put the edge of the box 20px in from the edge of the image, and set the text 20px down from the top. Really I should align the top of the main text body (the “waistline” in typo-speak) at 20px down, but that feels too high, so in the end I think instead that pushing the top of the dot of the “i” 20px down suffices.

Now, we’ll use our “dragging Layer Styles” trick to drag the Gradient Overlay from the background to the new box. So Alt-drag the Layer Style to that box in the Layers palette, and you’ll see it take on the same gradient as the background. I want to see an illusion of transparency here, so I’ll drop the opacity of the layer to around 36% to allow the lines in the background to be visible.

Finally, double-click the layer to bring up the Layer Styles window, and now we’ll add just a tiny Bevel and Emboss effect to make the box “sit into” the background a touch. The settings for this are in the screenshot below.
Step 3. The Search box.

To preserve continuity, the search area has the same corner radius and Layer Styles as the background for the logo. Select the Rounded Rectangle Tool again and make sure your corners are set to 5px. Click and drag out the search box until it’s around 30-35px high and 275px long.

Position the search area 20px in from the right, and align the bottom of the search box with the bottom of the logo background. Again, using the same margins and lining things up keeps everything neat.

Copy the Layer Style settings from the logo background to the search box using the Alt-dragging technique mentioned previously. This looks okay, but doesn’t really feel indented like a text area should. Double-click on the layer to bring up the Layer Style window, and click on“Inner Shadow” in the Styles menu on the left. We’ll use a Distance of 5px and a Size setting of 57px to give a deep shadow (see settings below). Set the Opacity to 100%. Click OK to commit the changes. To complete the search area, set the Opacity of the layer to 36% to allow some background through, and mirror the effect of the logo background.

I’ll add a user prompt to the search area in the shape of the inviting word: “search…”. This is just arial bold at 18pt. It’s worth noting at this stage that to actually implement a search field like this, you’ll have to use a background image in the final CSS.

Our final search area looks like this:
Step 4. The grass.

Now comes the fun bit – drawing the grass. Note that we’re not after photo-realistic grass here; just the suggestion of grass. I want a very stylized version, and I’ll build it up using three of layers of brushes and gradients.

To start, create a new layer in the Layers palette by clicking the “Create a new Layer” icon at the bottom of the palette. This is going to be my “background” grass, which will be quite a dark green. Changing the colours for each layer adds depth to the image. I’m going to choose 667e04.

To create the grass, I’ll use a brush. Click on the Brush tool, and from the Brushes palette, find the Grass preset. It’s a little big as it stands, so drop the size to around 45px. Your Brushes palette should look a little like this (Note I’ve turned off the Color Dynamics since I just want a solid colour at this stage):

Now I’ll “paint” with the brush to create a grassy border around 50px high at the bottom of the image.

I’m going to add another layer of grass above the first, but this time using the light yellow/green colour from the logo (chosen to add consistency). Use the Eyedropper tool to select it by clicking on the green in the logo, and reselect the Brush tool. Just brush it on as before to create a “highlight” layer.

Lastly, I’ll add a bit of a glow to the whole thing which just livens it up a little. Create a new layer above the previous two and select the Gradient tool from the Tools. If you followed the last step, you should have the light green from the logo as your foreground colour, but we want that to fade to transparent rather than another colour. In the Options bar, open the Gradient Picker and choose “Foreground to Transparent”, as below.

I’ll click at the bottom of the image and drag upwards until it’s just past the top of the grass, where I’ll release it. That effect’s too much, but now I’ll drop the Opacity of the layer to around 60% to soften the effect.

Finally, I’ll add a bigger grass stem in the background that will show through the translucency of the search box. This should really emphasize the depth in the image. On a new layer, I’ll use a bigger version of the grass brush we used previously. This time it will be around 230px in size, and use a dark grey colour. I’ll choose #282828 for this; not quite black as we want a slightly softer effect than the black would give us.

Drag the new grass layer in the Layers palette to just above the lines in the background, and add a couple of touches of the bigger grass to the layer so that it sits behind the search box. Try changing the size slightly between each dab of the brush to add more variety.

And that, as they say, is that! The final image should look something like this:
Wrapping up.

The end result of this tutorial should give you some grounding in how to apply abstract concepts like Layer Styles and Shapes to a real-world design example. Get a feel for what it looks like with different alignments, composition and colours to see how the various elements fit together, and play with those Layer Styles to get a feel for how they can affect the perception of depth and tone. Above all, have fun!

How to get interactive website design for your business

In India if you have a basic website which is not found in Google for niche business keywords of your industry and you are earning not a single penny from it then you might be losing potential customers and wasting your time. Website play leading role in getting online business
successful and works perfect for you. It cost effective solution and very much like virtual assistant who works 24x7x365 days in a year.
In Delhi there are lots of website design companies found in google who provide various plans and different types of website template and design services at different price some companies offer cheap web design services one important comes in mind how to get best web design company delhi who provide cost effective solution at much affordable price. Remember your website should be customized according to your requirement and most importantly satisfying all basic requirements for visitor to easily convert them into customers. Web design firm like delhiwebhostingindia works under wire frame management make changes when required test your website in different phases and views so that not a single error there exist they knows what best for their customers is best for their customer clients.
Remember your website should be designed in such a way that it looks search engine friendly and it helps you got a big list building and hence improve customer base firms like delhiwebhostingindia provide online tools customized with your website when user sign up in newsletter they got weekly interactive email about your new product and services with special discounts and coupen codes for special occasion such as company inauguration, holiday festivals etc.
You can sell your products online web design delhi firm provide cost effective solution including shopping cart intergeration with paypal, ebookers etc they use various platform like content management system like Joomla, mambo and shopping site templates developed under php, ruby like magento, ecommerce, ecart etc. these platform have builtin analytics panel in which you can track what your visitors are doing and how many comes from which internet medium like search engines, directories, classified, advertising modes etc.
If your website is not found in Google then you are losing mass volume of potential customers. Your website should be search engine friendly it should have unique content and description in on-page optimization factors like meta tag, meta description, header tag, image alternate text, body text etc. millions of website are being developed each day and in internet there exist very competitive market ranking in google for long period required effective search engine optimization. In order to optimize our website in maximum keywords we should update our website with fresh content in the form of blog, articles, press release page, faq page etc.
You should think about it. When you do a search with Google, do you browse through the different pages of the result or do you reach a decision based on the first page. 9 times out 10 people do the same. If you get web design delhi service for your website with 100 % ethical white hat seo while following Google search engine guidelines definitely you will get good traffic of visitors and your interactive website will convert this visitors into customers.
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, window hosting, dedicated server hosting, domain registration, email hosting, website builder, digital certificates. We are leading Website Design Delhi company Contact us today to make your website money making machine for you

Web Design- A Tool To Carve A Successful Business

You may try to spread information about the products available with you through advertising, SEO and many other methods. You certainly want to give your customer, the best product to make him come to you always for his needs. Establishing a good will of a company is important for the success and longevity of the business. In fact, it is always the first priority and a sky underneath which your dreams lie.

There is one tool besides all the mentioned ones here which people may underestimate or ignore. It is your ‘website’. Your website can bring in business and can also establish a report. How? Let’s see how.

If a website is designed the right way, it can do wonders for your business. It is that one thing which can speed the journey of success for you. It can take your business to the global level in a quick and easy way. Website designing is an art about the technicalities of which a layman may not know. There are companies and experts who can help you create website designs which could help you grow on a faster pace in every corner of the world.

To do this, you have to find a company which understands your needs, as well as your customer’s. A website design has to be user friendly. The website must not be cluttered with information as it can be confusing for the user. At the same time it must not have a dearth of information on it as incomplete information again leaves users confused. Not only pictures and pie charts, but the content also has a big role to play in a website. The website has to be interactive and fresh in order to leave a mark on the minds of users. All these things are not merely important for the beauty of a website. In fact they are also helpful in the online promotion of the website. There are many good web design and development companies providing online marketing solutions, web designs, Viral Marketing utilizing, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), major social networking platforms, targeted and untargeted Email and SMS mobile marketing and many more such services. The combination of such services from experts and a good website design can take your website to the first page of leading search engines.

An expert can surely help you with all the details about useful techniques and ways to benefit the website and business. Your website is one of the biggest and economical ways to rule the industry.

Take Me to the Higher Ground Mr Cowen

In the next few months Ireland as a nation is going to change as we will be experiencing one of our toughest budgets in the past 10 years. It will be a shock to the system for the majority of people in this country as they look into their purses and wallets and realise that they are going to have a lot less money than they have had in the past.
I think personally that this budget will be the official end of the Celtic Tiger for those who in the private sector have been lucky enough to keep their jobs and businesses going till now as they face higher taxes and charges for services that escaped in the past.
I am not an economist. I could dust off my MBA notes from the OU and try and fill these paragraphs with some sort of commentary but I wont bore you with this. All I know is that from a web design perspective it will become more and more competitive for me. A website is often seen as a discretionary marketing spend for many companies. I will not go into this argument again (suffice to say I disagree). I know that inquiries will possibly drop and people will want more for less. This is perfectly understandable as I am in that very same boat myself. I find myself looking at prices in the supermarket more closely, shopping around that little bit more and like you sometimes not spending where in the past I might have done so without question.
OK Where is the Sales Pitch?
Now I could slip in a special offer “Website for XX euro” and try and attract you to making a spend. However if you are reading this blog post you probably already have a website or at least the knowledge to do it without my help. As more and more media students are streaming out of colleges the competition is fierce and prices are hitting rock bottom. Surf around and you can get sites from 300-500 euro easily.
I don’t compete with these prices and value stream and as a result I have been thinking long and hard about my plans for the future in this space and have decided that I my strategy for 2010 and beyond is going to change. Of course I will still design websites and those queries are welcome and I will give you a product that you will be happy with. However my competencies lie beyond this. I have worked in IT and the Internet for over 20 years as a technologist, hosting expert and project manager.
I believe that there are customers out there that need people to help them understand what they are looking for in a website.and an on-line business solution. They are experts in their own niche but are unfamiliar with the best way to go with an on-line strategy. If they ring up a website design company no self respecting designer is going to say they cant deliver on their needs (god knows I have done it often enough myself), but for a large scale project they can often be disappointed and run the risk of failure.
Business owners need expertise to help them to make the right decision for their on-line strategy. They may know the answers but not the right questions. I have the questions that will save you picking the wrong people to deploy your solution. For a very modest fee I can show you the best approach, recommend the best website designers in your area (I exempt myself from this process of course), measure success and tell you how it should all work together. There are some fabulous website designers and graphic designers in the Cork area alone and I know most of them.
I can point you in the right direction, document a plan for you – give you the contacts and set you on your way with a high degree of comfort.
Why Should I Bother?
Why bother with this – is this another middle man in the process? You told me up top that I would have less money and now you want me to spend it on you – this sounds like a huge waste of money. ?? No it isn’t and I will explain why with a simple example. I am dealing with a customer at the moment who wants me to update their website as their original designer has moved on. However they do not have any hosting details or ftp information. To get this is going to take some time and add to the duration of the project.
It is also frustrating for the customer as they had not planned for this time to be part of the process. If when they had originally started the website and made certain that this information was documented then this stumbling block would have been removed. This is an example of a question that was not asked when this project was originally started.
If you call me and explain what you are looking for I can develop a website strategy document for you, supply yopu with a set of contacts that will help you succeed all for less than the cost of a small ad in a local newspaper. You will have a document and a plan at your elbow that will stand you in good stead for the rest of your project.