Wednesday 16 March 2011

W3C Validator Compliancy for Microsoft Office Live Web-Hosting and Facebook Buttons (2)

(For the latest PDF files Merger Software please have a look at the top of the left margin, inside the red box.) I needed to add few words to my previous comment when I was experiencing for compliance of my website. First, I said that I use Microsoft Office Live (OL) templates. That is a good practice. Design of OL templates are done by the very competitive professionals in the industry. Thus should not be retired easily. An example is implementing the idea of  "zones." That makes doing things easier. Or the site maps so neatly designed. Or the OL visitor reporting Java Scripts. I keep as much of them as possible. I use all the facilities provided by OL such as their css and js files. I learn lot from them. Still, if I would not create my web, based on pages loaded from Document Gallery and I had limited myself in using pages created solely by the Microsoft Office Live, then I could not use a panoply of editors and other tools that I have on my ease in my local computer, without being have to sign in and open the OL console. I create my page, on my own desktop, by adding an "_AA" to the beginning of the file name. That takes it to the top of the list of OL Document Gallery and when I delete it to put a new one I do not delete a working page inadvertently. I test the page and debug it completely. I add the validator codes to it to be able to test it frequently. W3C validator also helps in finding and removing errors of the page. I delete and upload again and again and when I become sure about all aspects of the page then I add its file name to the directory of my web site. I change its name to whatever it should be, and then I upload it. On the other hand I have implemented an Apache web server on an old laptop at my own home. That mirrors my OL website and is connected to the Internet by a DynDs free domain name (perhaps later I can convey my observations about how to set up such a facility at home). My OL site pages, both root and Document Gallery pages have dependencies to different css and js and asp files from Microsoft hosting servers. On my toy home server I try to reduce all those dependencies to nill. I do it in a very neat manner with a system analyst approach. For example I do not create new dependencies to new providers, say free cgi hosting or other freely offered servers or thirty days trials. It has one root page, and a document gallery (Documents folder), and an image gallery (Images folder). I can add my own css, js, cgi, name space, and experience with ajax. I try to make it robust and be validated with strict standards. It is said that web designers should not have qualm with W3C validator or other strict QC criteria, and it is a geek obsession to meet such strictness. As an example you frequently hear that an average Amazon page has 17000 error and warnings through a W3C validator gauging. This is not a relief. Computer is the product of very well organised people specially pioneer system analysts. If during the design we follow few easy steps then the entire Internet becomes more smooth and cheaper to experience for those who are only users and actually pay back the expenses of the producers and have not time for technical difficulties that might be the result of relegating the standards. After all, I backup my entire site on a DVD.  In this way my web site will be completely migrate-able in a snap of finger. It is like a duffel bag ready to be deployed anywhere. My next goal is to validate this blog spot.