Digi Skills Agency

You are here: Home / Archives for web

web

IT Job Feature: 10 Must-Know Skills for a job in Web Design

by

In order to land an IT Job in web design, check out the top 10 tips below.

You need to know them so well that you can do them almost without thinking. When it comes to an IT Job in web design, many skills can change and evolve over time, but there are a few basics that you should be able to do in your sleep.

And even if you aren’t a “web designer” by trade, each of these skills is becoming must-have for all designers working today. How many are you already comfortable with? Let’s dive in and take a look at what you should be able to do on “auto pilot”!

 

1. Code with HTML and CSS

Whether you are a developer or not, everyone needs to understand the most basic of language behind website design. You need to understand how to read, edit and troubleshoot basic HTML.

In any case, you should be able to pinpoint a bold or font or color or size issue in HTML without thinking. You should be able to substitute styles in CSS with ease. These are skills that are easy to learn and will serve you well in the long run.

 

2. Edit Photos

In any design field, it’s likely that you will work with images all day long. So it only makes sense that you understand how to manipulate them. From basic cropping to sizing and a little “clean up,” you should be able to work with photos with ease. At a minimum, you should feel comfortable with cropping and resizing as well as some image quality adjustment.

 

3. Make a Print

While your IT job might be in the digital realm, parts of the design will no doubt be needed for printed applications. From fliers to business cards to press releases, you should be able to create and convert elements in such a way that are also print-ready.

Key things to understand include printing resolutions for different media types and colour. While you likely use a value such as FF0000 to make a text block red, that won’t work for printing. CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) color mixes are the standard for printed items.

 

4. Write a Headline

It’s near impossible to really visualise a design with lorem ipsum as the main headline. The words are the glue that bring the visuals and the message together. Your headline might not always stick, but you should always fill in the big words when you turn in a design concept.

As a practical matter, the words can help the client understand how much space is available for text. A good headline shows that you understand the client and go the extra mile in projects and it leaves people with a lasting impression.

 

5. Grab Any Device and Navigate a Website

You should have a comfort level with computers and devices that most people do not. This might require breaking away from your favourite devices or browsers or programs and playing with plenty of other things.

We’ve all been there: There’s nothing worse than a client whipping out an old phone or showing you something on a small screen for help and you just can’t figure it out with ease. You should be able to use your website (and others) in any environment and talk others through how to do it as well.

Tip: Just start playing. Make sure to experiment with different browsers and if you are an Apple person, pick up an Android device (and vice versa).

 

6. Sketch with Confidence

One of the greatest things about sketching is that you can help others visualise what you are thinking. Remember, plenty of other people need to see a wireframe or outline before they can start to imagine what you are thinking.

Sketching with confidence is a great way to help create that connection. This is not to say you need to learn to be a top-notch artist overnight. But you should come ready with a pad and pen so you can put those ideas on paper and share them with the team.

 

7. Use a Common Framework

There is no shame in using a website design framework to kick-start projects. In fact, you probably should unless you are a super-star developer.

Frameworks keep you from reinventing the wheel with every project and are easy for others to use if you are ultimately handing a website over to a client that will try to maintain it and make updates. WordPress is a popular option, but there are plenty of others out there to try.

Tip: Start with WordPress. It’s the largest blogging and website content management system and framework available.

 

8. Backup and Package Files

While a website seems to be a self-containing system, it is not. You need to understand how to and how often to backup your site (and restore it, if necessary) to prevent data loss should something happen to the site. If you don’t know the exact logistics of this exercise in your sleep, you should know what is being saved, how frequently it is happening and where the data is stored.

In addition, you should have a good idea of how to create package files for website styles, design parts and pieces and more that can be used as a backup and can provide vital information for clients should they need to use the parts. Package files (for print) are a necessary part of the web design process as well so clients have a set of branding tools that match the website design for printed promotions.

Tip: Every website needs a backup plan. Packaging files will help you keep materials, such as fonts and images, together when you have to send them elsewhere.

 

9. Know 3 Trends (And When To Use Them)

You should be able to talk to anyone with a reasonable amount of design knowledge about what visual techniques are trending and why or why you should not use them. How do they work and what do you like/dislike about these trends. Alternatively, you can view online sources for advice.

 

10. Explain Design Theory

Colour, flow, balance and proportion, spacing: These are all things that you should just be able to see when working on projects. But it’s more than having a good eye; design theory is equally important. Understanding why you do what you do and why that creates a well-balanced aesthetic is important.

And if you understand it well, you can explain it and more easily defend and explain design decisions to others. A foundation in the basics will help you master any project.

 

Conclusion

How many elements on this list can you check off as things you know in your sleep? How many others are you eager to go learn more about or refresh your skillset?

Web design – like any other type of design – is rooted in the basics and sprinkled with plenty of trends and new techniques. A good understanding of the mix will help you grow and become a better designer, and will help you feel even more confident in your design decisions and work.

If you are already familiar with all of these skills and would like to take the next step in your web design career, check out our latest IT Job vacancy by clicking here!

IT Jobs Feature: What is PHP used for?

by

PHP is a popular server-side scripting language for the web and has common use in many IT Jobs

Generally, PHP is used to add a functionality to websites that HTML alone can’t achieve. There are many IT Jobs which require PHP knowledge as a key skill. But what is PHP capable of and what are the main functions in which someone seeking IT Jobs involving PHP be familiar with? Here are some examples:

Performs Calculations

PHP can perform all types of calculations, from figuring out what day it is or what day of the week a date in the very distant future will be, to performing all  types of mathematical equations. In PHP, math expressions are made up of operators and operands. Basic math addition, subtraction, multiplication and division are done using mathematical operators. The large number of math functions are part of the PHP core. No installation is required to use them.

Collects User Information

Using PHP, you can let your user directly interact with the script. This can be something really simple, like collecting the temperature from the user that they want to convert from degrees to another format, or it can be more extensive information, like adding their information to an address book, letting them post on a forum or participate in a survey.

Interacts With MySQL Databases

PHP is particularly good at interacting with MySQL databases, which opens endless possibilities. You can write user-submitted information to a database, and you can retrieve information from the database. This allows you to create pages on the fly using the contents of the database. You can even perform complex tasks like setting up login systems, creating website search features, or store product catalogues and inventories online.

You can also use PHP and MySQL to set up an automated picture gallery to showcase products.

Creates Graphics with GD Library

Use the GD Library that is bundled with PHP to create simple graphics on the fly or to edit existing graphics. You might want to resize images, rotate them, change them to grayscale, or make thumbnails of them. Practical applications allow users to edit their avatars or generate CAPTCHA verifications. You can also create dynamic graphics that are always changing such as dynamic Twitter signatures.

Works With Cookies

Cookies are used to identify a user and store the user’s preferences as given on the site so the information doesn’t have to be re-entered each time the user visits the site. The cookie is a small file embedded on the user’s computer. Using the programming language, you can create, modify and delete cookies and retrieve cookie values.

Are you seeking IT Jobs which involve working with PHP in a professional environment? Keep an eye on our vacancy page for the latest featured IT Jobs updates. Visit it by clicking here!

 

– Angela Bradley

Software Development Feature: 12 Major Advantages of ASP.NET

by

ASP.NET stands for Active Server Pages .NET and is developed by Microsoft. ASP.NET is used to create web pages and web technologies and is an integral part of Microsoft’s .NET framework vision. As a member of the .NET framework, ASP.NET is a very valuable tool for software programmers and software developers as it allows them to build dynamic, rich web sites and web applications using compiled languages like VB and C#.

ASP.NET is not limited to script languages, it allows you to make use of .NET languages like C#, J#, VB, etc. It allows software developers to build very compelling applications by making use of Visual Studio, the development tool provided by Microsoft. ASP.NET is purely server-side technology. It is built on a common language runtime that can be used on any Windows server to host powerful ASP.NET web sites and technologies.

In the early days of the Web i.e. before the release of Internet Information Services (IIS) in 1997, the contents of web pages were largely static. These web pages needed to be constantly, and manually, modified. There was an urgent need to create web sites that were dynamic and would update automatically.

Microsoft’s Active Server Pages (ASP) was brought to the market to meet this need. ASP executed on the server side, with its output sent to the user’s web browser, thus allowing the server to generate dynamic web pages based on the actions of the user.

These server-side technologies are important contributions to the development of the Web. Amazon.com, eBay.com, and many other popular web sites use ASP.NET as the framework for their site; without ASP.NET it would not be possible.

 

12 important advantages ASP.NET offers over other Web development models:
  1. ASP.NET drastically reduces the amount of code required to build large applications.
  2. With built-in Windows authentication and per-application configuration, your applications are safe and secured.
  3. It provides better performance by taking advantage of early binding, just-in-time compilation, native optimization, and caching services right out of the box.
  4. The ASP.NET framework is complemented by a rich toolbox and designer in the Visual Studio integrated development environment. WYSIWYG editing, drag-and-drop server controls, and automatic deployment are just a few of the features this powerful tool provides.
  5. Provides simplicity as ASP.NET makes it easy to perform common tasks, from simple form submission and client authentication to deployment and site configuration.
  6. The source code and HTML are together therefore ASP.NET pages are easy to maintain and write. Also the source code is executed on the server. This provides a lot of power and flexibility to the web pages.
  7. All the processes are closely monitored and managed by the ASP.NET runtime, so that if process is dead, a new process can be created in its place, which helps keep your application constantly available to handle requests.
  8. It is purely server-side technology so, ASP.NET code executes on the server before it is sent to the browser.
  9. Being language-independent, it allows you to choose the language that best applies to your application or partition your application across many languages.
  10. ASP.NET makes for easy deployment. There is no need to register components because the configuration information is built-in.
  11. The Web server continuously monitors the pages, components and applications running on it. If it notices any memory leaks, infinite loops, other illegal activities, it immediately destroys those activities and restarts itself.
  12. Easily works with ADO.NET using data-binding and page formatting features. It is an application which runs faster and counters large volumes of users without having performance problems

In short ASP.NET, the next generation version of Microsoft’s ASP, is a programming framework used to create enterprise-class web sites, web applications, and technologies. ASP.NET developed applications are accessible on a global basis leading to efficient information management. Whether you are building a small business web site or a large corporate web application distributed across multiple networks, ASP.NET will provide you all the features you could possibly need…and at an affordable cost: FREE!

Do you possess skills in ASP.NET? Check out our latest Software Development job role which is focuses mainly on C#/ASP.NET by following this link!

– Steve Kozyk

Considering an IT Career?

by

Whether you are looking for your first job or are in need a career change, many people are opting to start an IT Career.

There are so many different IT Career routes you can explore, from software design right through to game testing. It helps that IT jobs are also currently high in demand, especially IT contractors and freelancers.

Careers in IT deal with the design, creation, management and maintenance of the varied components of the system, including software, hardware, networks, systems integration and multimedia. Broadly, information technology can be divided into four central pathways: network systems, information support and services, programming and software development, and Web and digital communication. Down each career avenue exist a huge amount of occupational opportunities, ranging from database administrator to computer systems engineer, digital media specialist to systems analyst.

Here is a list of starting pointers if you are new to the IT Industry and wondering how you can get onto the IT Career ladder.

  1. List the IT work you would be interested in.It is important to find a career you are passionate about. There are a large number of IT jobs available, so you should narrow down your choice in order to give yourself a specific focus.
  2. Network and apprenticeships.Get to know IT professionals in your area and learn how they have managed to establish themselves in the industry. You can also set up apprenticeships in order to gain valuable advice and guidance during your career move.
  3. Gain IT qualifications.Have a look in your local area for any educational opportunities that could give you an opportunity to achieve essential skills for your future career. Any professional certifications will highlight your knowledge and capabilities to future employers.
  4. Experience and internships.Of course, if you don’t want to go into education, you can gain your experience and skills from entry level positions or internships. A portfolio or CV demonstrating previous employment in the industry will also show your competence in the field, similar to IT qualifications.
  5. Constructing your CV.Your CV is often your first chance to show organisations your capability. Therefore, you should clearly pinpoint your relevant experience, skills and experience, and also highlight your enthusiasm for your chosen profession.

 

Sources:

– ComputerScienceOnline

– Parasol

Cloud Competition: Amazon vs Google vs Microsoft

by

With Amazon, Google and Microsoft all reporting strong growth on the back of cloud, we take a closer look at how they have achieved it

The grip that Amazon Web Services (AWS) has on the infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) market can make it hard for even relatively big players to get a look-in when enterprise CIOs shop around for cloud services.

Microsoft has managed to hold its own, with the help of its Azure platform, by focusing on convincing its existing base of on-premise enterprise customers to ditch their own servers and use its cloud infrastructure.

It is a strategy that appears to be working very well for Microsoft. Its fourth-quarter 2016 financial results saw the Azure cloud division emerge as one of the company’s best-performing business initiatives, with revenue growth of 102%.

In recent years, the company has also publicly committed to matching AWS on price for various commodity cloud services, which has been a useful marketing tactic.

For instance, every time Amazon decides to publicly announce a price cut for any of its cloud infrastructure services, Microsoft grabs the opportunity to crowbar its way into that narrative and announce a price cut of its own.

This has helped to create the impression that the IaaS market is something of a two-horse race between AWS and Microsoft, which is an image Google has been working hard to dispel since late 2015 when it appointed former VMware co-founder, Diane Greene.

A Google board member since 2012, Greene was appointed to oversee the running of Google’s newly-converged cloud services business, bringing the product, engineering, sales and marketing efforts of its off-premise infrastructure and software initiatives under one roof for the first time.

Unified approach

The move was comprehensively referenced during a conference call to discuss Alphabet, Google’s parent company, and its 2016 second-quarter results, with CEO Sundar Pichai, who described how taking a more unified approach to cloud was opening doors for it in the enterprise.

“It’s a big set of changes, and it’s obviously having an impact,” said Pichai on the call transcribed by Seeking Alpha.

“So for me, I see a shift to a world-class enterprise approach, and it’s definitely having an impact on the type of conversations we are having and the outcome of the RFPs [requests for proposals] we are engaged in.”

Proof of that is evident in some of the high-profile contract wins Google has secured this year with the likes of music-streaming site Spotify and Apple.

To keep up this momentum, the company outlined the steps it has taken to increase its headcount across several areas of the business, including its cloud division, with more than 2,460 recruits taken on in the previous quarter.

Google vs AWS

At present, Alphabet does not provide a breakdown within its financial results of the cloud’s contribution to its wider business, which banked a profit of $4.9bn against revenues of $21.5bn in Q2.

Instead, it is reported as “other revenue”, which means the performance of Google’s converged cloud unit is muddied because its figures are lumped in with those for Google Play and the company’s hardware ventures.

Even so, this part of its business brought in revenue of $2.2bn, up 33% on the year before.

It is currently unclear just how big Google’s cloud business is, but there is no denying that AWS has the upper hand, based on its financial results, which were released the same day.

The activities of AWS alone brought in $2.9bn in revenue for its parent company, Amazon.com. This figure is 58% higher than that for the same quarter a year ago, and equates to about 9% of Amazon’s total sales.

During a conference call to discuss the results, also transcribed by Seeking Alpha, the senior management team at AWS said the work being done behind the scenes to improve the efficiency of its infrastructure was having a positive impact on its revenue generation.

Datacentre footprint

The company is also currently building out its datacentre footprint across the globe in response to customer concerns about latency, data sovereignty and security, and this looks set to bring a fresh tranche of users on board, it said.

Brian Olsavsky, chief financial officer at Amazon.com, said: “When we expand geographically, existing customers will run more of their workloads on AWS. Sometimes they have local latency concerns or security issues that require them to run things in their country, so that helps.

“We also open up to new customers when we add these regions, and it is certainly an exciting investment for our customer base.”

In view of Google’s and Microsoft’s attempts to become even bigger thorns in the side of AWS, the company is in no danger of overlooking the competitive threat either of these rivals pose to its market-leading position in the cloud.

Particularly, as Olsavsky referenced elsewhere during the results call, there is a strong chance that AWS, Google and others will find their services being used by the same customers as enterprises move to adopt a multi-cloud approach in their IT environments.

“We have been in this business longer than anyone,” he said. “Having said that, there is plenty of room for multiple suppliers in this business.

“What we focus on is innovating on behalf of customers and expanding our geographic footprint to make our services more widely available.”

In a briefing note following the recent wave of financial results, Kate Hanaghan, research director at analyst house TechMarketView, said AWS clearly continues to lead the way in the cloud market.

“We know more about the performance of AWS than its competitors,” she said. “Google’s cloud revenue is buried, and while we know Microsoft’s Azure revenue was up 102% in its last quarter, this was from an unknown base.

“Our view is that AWS is growing at a slower rate in the UK specifically. That said, AWS is outpacing the market and most of the other players.”

– Caroline Donnelly

© 2025 Digi Skills Agency Ltd. All rights reserved. Sitemap

Website Design by Yellow Marshmallow.