Charles A Upsdell

Domain Names - What Are They? 

A domain name is an address on the Internet. For example:

www.upsdell.com
www.upsdell.ca

The prefix 'www.' is traditional, but isn't always present: depending on how the server is set up, the 'www.' may be required, optional, forbidden, or replaced by something else. For my upsdell.com domain the 'www.' is optional.

Notes

Several names may address the same site: e.g. both www.upsdell.com and www.upsdell.ca.

Upper- and lower-case characters are equivalent: hence WWW.UPSDELL.COM is www.upsdell.com.

Until 2001 no part of a domain name could exceed 26 characters, including the TLD. The limit now is 63 characters.

No one is authorized to pre-register names with future TLDs, so there is no guarantee such names will be honoured. Likewise no one is authorized to register names with non-standard TLDs, e.g. .xxx: avoid registering such names, as they don’t work everywhere, and there is no guarantee they will be honoured if the TLDs became standard TLDs.

 

International Domain Names

International Domain Names (IDNs) have a TLD with non-ASCII characters. These IDNs are proposed or approved; those with checkmarks are live:

Algeria (.dz)	الجزائر
China (.cn)	中国
	中國
Egypt (.eg)	مصر
Hong Kong (.hk)	香港
Georgia (.ge)	გე
India (.in)	भारत
	بھارت
	భారత్
	ભારત
	ਭਾਰਤ
	இந்தியா
	ভারত
Iran (.ir)	ایران
	ايران
Jordan (.jo)	الاردن
Korea (.kr)	한국
Morocco (.ma)	المغرب
Oman (.om)	عمان
Pakistan (.pk)	پاکستان
Palestine (.ps)	فلسطين
Russia (.ru)	рф
Quatar (.qa)	قطر
Saudi Arabia (.sa)	السعودیة
	السعودیۃ
	السعوديه
Serbia (.rs)	срб
Singapore (.sg)	新加坡
	சிங்கப்பூர்
Sri Lanka (.lk)	இலங்கை
Syria (.sy)	سورية
Taiwan (.tw)	台灣
	台湾
	臺灣
Thailand (.th)	ไทย
Tunisia (.tn)	تونس
United Arab Emirates (.ae)	امارات

Note : the IDNs above will appear correctly only if your PC has a Unicode font with the right characters.

The main part of the name (‘upsdell’ in the above example) may have only the letters a-z, the digits 0-9, and a dash, with no dash at the beginning or end, and may not exceed 63 characters. Exception: in June 2003 an Internationalized Domain Names (IDN) standard was issued to allow international characters from 350+ languages in domain names.

The suffix (e.g. ‘.com’) is called the TLD (Top Level Domain). There are conventions about TLDs:

• .aero is for the air-transport industry.
• .arpa is for Internet infrastructure purposes.
• .asia is for Asian sites.
• .biz is for businesses.
• .cat is for the Catalan language community.
• .com is for businesses.
• .coop is for coöperatives.
• .edu is for US institutes of higher education; earlier .edu was also for non-US institutes.
• .eu is for those in the EU.
• .gov is for US government sites.
• .info is for information suppliers.
• .int is for international treaty organizations.
• .jobs is for the international human resource management community.
• .mil is for US military sites.
• .mobi is for mobile devices.
• .museum is for museums.
• .name is for personal sites.
• .net is for network-related organizations.
• .org is primarily for charities and non-commercial or non-profit organizations.
• .post is for the Universal Postal Union.
• .pro is for accredited professionals, with sub-domains .cpa.pro for accountants, .eng.pro for engineers, .med.pro for doctors, .law.pro for lawyers, etc.
• .tel is for accessing communications devices (not yet available).
• .travel is for the travel industry.
• .xxx is for adult content, e.g. porn.
• a 2-letter country code — e.g. .ca for Canada — is for a designated country. Some nations precede this with a sub-domain name identifying a region or a type of site: e.g., in Canada addresses of government sites for the province of Ontario end in .on.ca; in the UK addresses of commercial sites end in .co.uk.
• IDNs, International Domain Names using non-Latin characters are appearing for some countries.

More TLDs will likely be approved in the future.

More TLDs, sponsored by any entity with enough money to pass an approval process, will appear in the future, potentially allowing the appearance of a very large number of new TLDs. For example: .canon.

Choose your name very carefully. It shouldn't be someone's trademark in the USA or your country: the trademark owner could make a claim to your choice. To protect a domain name from such a claim, you could trademark the domain name or the name from which the domain name was derived.

It may be wise to register several names: the name you prefer, plus similar name that you don't want others to have; e.g., if your preferred name were bestbuys.com, it may be wise to also register bestbuys.biz. The cost of this is small, typically US$35 or less each year for each name. If protection of your domain name is especially important - as it would be for major corporations - it would be wise to register a wider range of domain names: e.g., with domain names ending in .biz, .com, .info, .net., .org, and also those ending in country codes (such as .ca) for any countries in which you do business.

Domain Names - What Names Are Available? 

Use this form to discover which domain names are available: enter a name to check it.

Remember to end the name with .com, .org, .net, or whatever. Also, as discussed above, note that only letters, digits, and dashes are allowed. Example: TheNameYouReallyWant.com .

Pages - why does a browser display them differently? 

I design sites to work with all browsers in common use, including those which are very old and very new. Pages may, however, look somewhat different to different people:

• User Configuration : my sites are designed to adapt to different sizes of browser windows, different sizes of fonts, and to different fonts, so pages can look different depending on how the user has configured their browser, or on which fonts the user has. In some cases — the Mississauga Majors team sites are a prime example — the user can also choose from a set of designs, so pages can also look very different depending on which design the user has chosen.
• Old Browsers : very old browsers often have bugs and lack features which make pages look less attractive. An example is Internet Explorer 5 which, in Feb 2011, was still used by some people even though it is obsolete and has dangerous, uncorrected security bugs. This browser fails to support many aspects of industry standards, which — among other things — often results in pages with poor spacing between page elements. No attempt is made with the very newest sites to be compatible with Internet Explorer 5 unless there is a specific need to do so.
• New Browsers : very new browsers may implement leading-edge standards poorly, which can make pages look defective in some spots. An example in Feb 2011 was Apple’s Safari browser, which in one of my sites caused text to overlay a sidebar, and in another of my sites caused rounded corners to look jagged. Such problems disappear as browsers improve. These problems are rare with my sites, because I avoid using “bleeding edge” elements of standards.
• Other Browsers : not all browsers support all aspects of the industry standards, and this can make pages look different with some browsers. An example is Firefox 3, which does not support a standard feature which produces rounded corners, producing square corners instead. Such problems make pages look different, not bad. These problems disappear as browsers improve.
• Mobile Browsers : some sites are not designed for mobile browsers, and may look bad when a mobile browser is used; other sites are designed to adapt to better mobile browsers, so are designed to look different — sometimes very different — with small screens.

Pages - How Are Their Widths Set? 

Some people wonder why pages have margins on the left and right, instead of using the full width of the browser window.

This is done to make the text easier to read. Research suggests that people can read more easily when lines of text are neither too long nor too short: very long lines are especially hard to read if lines are close together. My modern sites therefore normally set a maximum to the page width, where the maximum depends on the user’s preferred font size: people who prefer smaller fonts get narrower pages and wider margins; people who prefer larger fonts get wider pages and narrower margins; in both cases a given line of text will have about the same number of words no matter what the font size is, and therefore are equally easy to read.

Photos - What Do I Send? 

This gives tips for ensuring the best results with photos you send me for your website. With the best results, the photo will look good when it appears on the website, and its image file will be small enough that it loads quickly. If you send me a poor quality photo, the quality of the image on the website may be poor, or the image file may take longer to load than it should.

You can send me photo prints, image files from a scanner, or image files from a digital camera:

• Photo prints: if you choose to send prints, please note:
  • Photo paper: make sure photos are on glossy, photo-quality paper; the paper must not have a matte, scratched, or pitted surface, and should not be defaced by such things as paperclips or staples. [1]
  • Photo quality: send photos with fine detail, lighting, and colour. Much quality is lost when a web image is made from a photo, but the loss can be minimized if the photo quality is high. [2], [3]
  • Photo size: send photos that are notably larger than they will appear on your website. A photo that is too small must be enlarged, which lowers quality.
  • Negatives and slides: I cannot process negatives or slides.
• Scanners: if you choose to scan your photos and send files instead of prints, please note:
  • Resolution: scan photos at a resolution of at least 150dpi; I often scan at 300dpi.
  • File format: send files in a non-lossy format, e.g. EPS, PNG, PSD, or TIFF files: not as JPEG files. If you can only send JPEG files, make sure you create them with minimum compression / maximum quality. When in doubt about the file format, contact me first.
  • Media: you can eMail files to me, but to send many files, or huge files, it is best to send them on CDs or on 100M ZIP disks.
• Digital cameras: if you choose to send files from a digital camera, please note:
  • Resolution: use your camera's highest resolution.
  • File format: send files in a non-lossy format, e.g. EPS, PNG, PSD, or TIFF files: not as JPEG files. If you can only send JPEG files, make sure you create them with minimum compression / maximum quality. When in doubt about the file format, contact me first.
  • Media: you can eMail files to me, but to send many files, or huge files, it is best to send them on CDs or on 100M ZIP disks.

Note [1]: a common error is to send photos on matte paper; such photos produce subtle but visible distortions when scanned.

Note [2]: it is especially important for skin tones to be accurate; I can adjust skin tones, but need to know what they should be.

Note [3]: I can correct many lighting and colour problems.

Printing - Why Don't Pages Print Properly? 

Intentional Differences in Printing

In many of my sites, some things will not be printed, by design: often the page banner, borders, background, menus, and decorative items are not printed, because they are not needed on printed pages; and often, background colours are not printed unless there is a very good reason, and text is plain black on white, because this reduces your printer costs, especially if you have an ink-jet printer.

Unintentional Differences in Printing

Sometimes background colours and images will not be printed, even when they should be. This is because browsers have an option to disable printing of background colours and images: this can reduce your printer costs, but may also result in printed pages that lack important content or which look bad; for example, if the page has white text on a dark background, and the browser does not print the background, the text will not show up. If this happens, you can configure your browser to print background colours and images, which will fix this problem. To do so:

• Chrome: there appears to be no way to configure this.
• Firefox: click File, Page Setup, Format & Options, then check the checkbox labelled “Print Background (colors and images)”.
• Internet Explorer: click Tools, Internet Options, Advanced, then check the checkbox labelled “Print background colors and images”.
• Mozilla: click File, Page Setup, Format & Options, then check the checkbox labelled “Print Background (colors and images)”.
• Netscape 7 or later: click File, Page Setup, Format & Options, then check the checkbox labelled “Print Background (colors and images)”.
• Opera: click File, Print options, then check the checkbox labelled Print page background.
• Safari: there appears to be no way to configure this.
• SeaMonkey: click File, Page Setup, Format & Options, then check the checkbox labelled “Print Background (colors and images)”.

Your Updates - Why Aren’t They There? 

Sometimes clients may notice that updates to their sites do not appear, or do not appear in a timely fashion.

This may happen because of an error on my part, or because I was unusually busy. But this may also happen if the client’s browser is displaying old versions of your pages, so clients should check for this before contacting me.

Why would a browser display an old version of a page? This happens because of “browser caching”: to display pages as quickly as possible, browsers maintain a cache — called Temporary Internet Files by Microsoft — which holds recently read files from sites; and when someone returns to a previously viewed page, the browser may get the files for the page from its cache (which it can do very quickly) rather than from the website (which can be slow). Ideally a browser would check the dates of the files on the site, and use the files in its cache only if they are up to date, but browsers do not always do this. As a result, a browser may show an old version of a page, or worse, a version which has both old and new elements.

To make things worse, there may also be caches on the Internet: when someone views a page, the files for the page may be saved in an external cache, somewhere on the Internet, or even in several places on the Internet; and if someone views the same page afterwards, the browser may get the files from an external cache instead of from the website, so again it is possible for the browser to show an older version of a page, or a version which has both old and new elements.

Some browsers use their cache much more because this enables them to load pages more quickly than other browsers. Also, some browsers have options to control how much they use their caches, and the default is often to use them much more. Finally, some ISPs (Internet Service Providers) — for example, AOL — use external caches much more. As a result of all of this, some browsers are much more likely to show old versions of pages.

If, therefore, an update does not appear when expected, a client should try to force their browser to read the latest version of the page from the website. To do this:

• Try to reload the page. Browsers typically offer a button, or a menu command, or a keyboard command, to reload the current page. Some browsers even offer two types of reload functions, one which simply loads the page again, and another which loads the page without using its cache. Use the best reload function your browser offers. If the updates do not appear, try several times.
• If the update still does not appear, empty your browser’s cache. All browsers offer a function to do this: and remember than Microsoft refers to its cache as the Temporary Internet Files. Then try to reload the page again: because the cache is now empty, the browser will have no old files to use, so the browser should show the latest version of the page unless there is external caching, e.g. by your ISP.
• If the update still does not appear, repeat the previous step several times: this will reduce the chance that an external cache is still providing old versions of the page. which is especially likely with some ISPs, e.g. AOL.
• If the update still does not appear, try another browser.

If after all of this, the updates still do not appear, contact me.