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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS | |||||||||||||||
If you have a question about web sites, web-related terminology, or the services we offer, the answer is likely located on this page. If this page doesn't provide you with the information you are looking for, please feel free to contact us. We'd be happy to answer any questions you have!
How much experience do you have in the web development field? Pulsar Design has been in business for over eight years, and in that time, we have tackled many diverse projects to all of our clients' satisfaction.
How long does it usually take for you to complete a web site? Since web sites vary greatly, there is no "average" time in which we complete web sites for our clients. If your web site is very complex and you want many changes made to what has been completed, it will take considerably longer than if you wanted a simple, less complex web site.
What if I need my web site created on a deadline? If you must have your web site finished before a certain date or within a certain time period, it is likely that we can meet your request, depending on how complex the project is and when it must be completed. Please use the Contact Us page to describe your project and the time period in which it must be completed, and we will let you know if we can comply with your demands.
How will I send you my payment? And when will I need to do it? You may pay using check, money order, or credit card (PayPal). The first half of the payment (starting payment) will be paid before we begin developing your web site or web template, and the second half of the payment (finishing payment) will be paid upon the project's completion.
What if I don't need updates after my site is completed? If you do not need updates or additions made to your web site once it is completed, that is entirely acceptable. We will not charge you extra for a service you do not use.
How does the update procedure work? When you need an update or an addition made to your web site, simply contact us with the details, we will, if necessary, discuss it with you, and then we will begin work on the update. Updates are charged based on the time we spend working on the update, at $30 an hour. Payment will need to be made after an update is complete. Usually updates to a site are very small and take only a few minutes. Because of this, if you have requested several, seperate updates to be made to your site over a period of time, charges are based on the amount of time spent on all updates combined, saving you a great deal of money. For example, if during the course of the year you have us make four seperate updates to your site, and each update consists of 15 minutes of work, you will only be charged a total of $30. We know how upsetting it is to be surprised by bill you weren't expecting, so we will continuously update you as to how much time we are spending updating your site. You will know far ahead of time what the charges are going to be.
Can I mail you, via a postal service, documents I would like to have posted on my web site? If the documents need to be digitally scanned or photographed for placement on your web site (i.e. certificates of authenticity, maps, legal documents, etc.), we will be able to do that for you at no extra charge. If you would like the documents back, you will need to send a self-addressed, stamped envelope with enough postage for the documents to be returned.
If the documents contain text that you would like printed on your web site, you will either need to simply e-mail the document to us, as an attachment, if it is already in saved on your computer, or transcribe the document in a digital format (re-type the document in a word processing program or e-mail message) and e-mail it to us. Will I be able to update my web site myself? If there are certain sections of your site that change constantly (i.e. a news section, a catalog of products, etc.) or a section of your site that needs to have changes made to it immediately, and you would rather have an easy way to do it yourself, it is possible for us to create an administration program for some of the content on your web site. Of course, creating such a program can be a long, difficult, and complex process that could take many hours to complete, so this option should only be requested by individuals who believe this will save them money in the long run (by not having to pay us for updates).
Can you get my web site to appear within the first few results on search engines once the site is completed? Unfortunately we do not offer search engine optimization services. Search engine optimization is an entirely different area of web developement that we do not participate in. There are many firms across the globe that specialize specifically in propelling sites to the highest of search engine rankings, and the good ones usually charge thousands of dollars for their services. There are also many bad search engine optimization firms as well who charge equivalent amounts of money, and it is very difficult to tell the good from the bad since you'll only be able to find out their quality of service after you've worked with them. If, after your web site is completed, you wish to have your site optimized for search engines, you may be interested in hiring one of these firms to do the job.
What if I am dissatisfied with the project's final result? It is highly unlikely that you will be dissatisfied with the completed project, because if there are aspects of it your dislike, we will make the necessary changes.
What is the importance of owning a web site? In this digital age, a web site is a necessary tool that keeps your customers/members/visitors informed, advertises and sells your products or services, opens the doors for a higher scale of communication, and establishes you, your organization, or your business on a global level.
How can I get people to visit my site? If your web site exists as a business card (a site that provides information on your company but no e-commerce is done), a resume, or any other site that is meant to inform a small, select group of people, then getting that group of people to your site is as easy as printing the address of your site (URL) on your business cards, your resume, your brochures, etc. But if your site needs traffic (visitors) to pour in from around the world, that is a much more complicated matter.
Far too often, people think that once they have a web site, users will immediately know about it and visit it, but that's not the case. Getting your web site to be known is not easy. You may want try exchanging links with another web site related to yours (you link to their web site and they link to yours), you may want to purchase ad space on web sites, or any other medium, that appeal to your target audience, or you may want to hire a firm to fully optimize your site and submit it to popular search engines. (Pulsar Design does not offer site optimization or search engine submission services). Whatever you do, avoid free services that pretend they will submit your site to numerous search engines—most of the time these services either don't work or they hurt your site's standing on search engines. How do I know if people are visiting my site? Most web hosting companies will offer you statistics programs that will keep records of visitors, hits, referrers, and much more. The most common programs out there are Webalizer and Analog. If such programs aren't offered with your account, you may want to try signing up with a company that will record statistics for your site (usually for free) by having you place a bit of code within the web pages you'd like to have among the statistics, usually an image that advertises the company you've signed up with.
How can I accept money electronically over the Internet? The easiest, most affordable, and now standard way to receive money over the Internet is through PayPal. PayPal makes it extremely easy for web site owners to integrate PayPal's easy-to-use money transferring services into their sites. They, of course, will take a small cut out of every transaction, and any transactions will be made through PayPal's site (so you won't be able to embed the transaction forms on your web site), but if you're not doing a very large amount of business, these minor downfalls should be acceptable. The alternative is to pay another company monthly fees in order to accept credit cards; these other companies still take a cut of the transactions, and some take more than PayPal while others take less.
Will I be able to have e-mail under my domain name, i.e. me@mydomainname.com? You may have a number of e-mail accounts under your domain name, depending on what web host you have your web site hosted with. The maximum number of e-mail accounts you may have set up is usually listed on the web hosting company's web site. Most hosting packages come with at least one available e-mail account.
Which operating system should I have my web host run my web site on? For the vast majority of web sites, the type of operating system the web server is running on makes little difference. When signing up for a web hosting account, there are usually two options to choose from, Windows and Unix (Unix usually being the more inexpensive of the two). Unless you are going to be using Active Server Pages (ASP), there's a strong chance you should go with Unix. If you don't get the option to choose an operating system, chances are that your web host is using Unix. The operating system of the web server your web site is stored on does not have to be the same as the operating system on the computer you're using.
How much bandwidth (data transfer) will my web site require? Web hosting companies usually offer you a small portion of their bandwidth for your site (rarely is the bandwidth unlimited), and depending on how large your web site is and how many visitors your site receives, the amount of bandwidth your site consumes will vary. For an average, small web site, you should require no more than five gigabytes of bandwidth.
How much disk space (storage space) will my web site require? The size of your web site, in bytes (usually megabytes), determines how much disk space you will require. If you will be hosting many big files on your site, or you plan on expanding a lot in the future, you may need a large amount of disk space. But for your average, small web site, 100 or even 50 megabytes of space should be adequate.
Why do I need to pay for web hosting? Can't I just go with a free hosting service? When it comes to web hosting, or mostly anything for that matter, you usually get what you pay for. If you choose to have your web site hosted with a free hosting service, your web site will load slowly, it will have a long, hard-to-remember URL, it will be covered in ads, and it will lack the support of many features usually offered with paid hosting accounts. You can get quality web hosting for such an inexpensive price that freebie hosting doesn't even compare.
Why can't I just create my web site myself? Designing and programming a web site that is professional and eye-catching as well as easy to use is a difficult task, and instead of spending years and years learning the languages, learning to work with the programs, and learning the important elements of web design, you may want to save time and money by hiring a company or individual to do your web developing for you.
Addon Domain Name - See Domain Name Pointer. Bandwidth - In web hosting, the amount of bandwidth your web site can consume in a certain time period (often in month intervals), that is usually measured in gigabytes or megabytes. Bandwidth Usage - In web hosting, the amount of data that has been sent to all of your web site's visitors. Bit - Binary Digit, the smallest piece of computer data. Each bit represents a 0 or a 1. Browser - See Internet Browser. Bulletin Board - See Forum. Byte - A series of eight bits that represent a single unit of data, such as a number or a letter. Counter - Text or an image that displays how many hits an entire web site or a single web page has received. Data Transfer - See Bandwidth. Disk Space - In web hosting, the maximum amount of data you are allowed to have stored on a web server. Domain Name - A name followed by an extension (i.e. PulsarDesign.com) that serves as an Internet address for a web site. Domain Name Alias - An auxiliary domain name that directs users (web surfers) to the proper web site, useful for directing users that have misspelled a domain name or have entered an older domain name (one that a web site no longer primarily goes by). Domain Name Pointer - An auxiliary domain name that directs users (web surfers) to a specific URL. E-mail Account - A password-protected account from which you can send and receive electronic mail. In web hosting, e-mail accounts under your domain name, i.e. me@mydomainname.com. E-mail Autoresponder - An e-mail function that will automatically respond to any messages sent to a certain address with a preset message. E-mail Forwarder - An e-mail function that automatically forwards all e-mail sent to one address to another address. Forum - On the web, a program that allows users (web surfers) to post messages to one another. Opposed to Instant Messaging or Chatting, forum discussions do not occur real-time. FTP - File Transfer Protocol, used with various programs, including web browsers, that will allow you account-based, password-protected access to the files on a server. In web hosting, you will use an FTP program to connect to your web host's web server and manage the files your web site consists of. Most web hosts offer a file manager you can access through the web with your Internet browser as well, an alternative to using an FTP program. GIF - Graphics Interchange Format, a digital image that can utilize animation and transparent pixels, containing up to 265 colors. In general, *.GIF's are usually preferred for small images, simple images with few colors, and animated images, while *.JPEG's are used for nearly every other purpose. Gigabyte - About one thousand megabytes. Hit - The retrieval of a file from a web server, usually just the retrieval of web page, but sometimes can consist of any type of file. HTML - Hypertext Markup Language, a markup language used for formatting web pages. Image - A digital file that, when viewed, acts as a picture. Internet Browser - A program web surfers use to view web pages (like the program you are using now). IP Address - Internet Protocol address, a series of four numbers separated by periods, unique to every computer, that determine one computer from another on the Internet. JPEG - Joint Photographic Experts Group, a digital image stored in a compressed format; one of the most commonly used image formats on the web. In general, *.GIF's are usually preferred for small images, simple images with few colors, and animated images, while *.JPEG's are used for nearly every other purpose. Kilobyte - 1,024 bytes (about one thousand bytes). Megabyte - 1,048,576 bytes (about one thousand kilobytes). MySQL Database - A Structured Query Language database that works well with programming languages such as PHP. Parked Domain Name - See Domain Name Alias. Perl - Practical Extraction and Report Language, a programming language used for Perl and CGI scripts, programs that can be used to interact with users (web surfers) and display dynamic content. Perl and CGI scripts are more complicated, they use more resources, and they are less secure than PHP, therefore PHP is the preferred algorithmic language for the web. PHP - Originally stood for "Personal Home Page" in the phrase "PHP Tools", a programming language perfectly suited for the web that can be used to interact with users (web surfers) and display dynamic content. PHP works well with databases such as MySQL. Pixel - A single unit of colored light that exists in computer monitors and televisions. Many pixels of varying color or brightness form an image. POP3 - Post Office Protocol 3, used with e-mail programs to receive e-mail from a mail server. Shopping Cart - On the web, a program used to record the items (products or services) that a user (web surfer) wishes to purchase. SMTP - Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, used with e-mail programs as well as some web scripts to send e-mail. Storage Space - See Disk Space. Subdomain - A name that comes before the first dot, instead of "www" (i.e. http://example.pulsardesign.com), that directs users to a certain section of a web site. Text - In computing, data that consists of characters representing words, numbers, and symbols that are coded in ASCII format. (A digital image with words contained in the image is not considered text.) Unix - An operating system that most web servers run on. URL - Uniform Resource Locator, a web site address. Visit - A visit to your web site by a unique user. A unique user can browse through all of the pages on your web site and still only have it count as one visit. Web Development - The graphical design and programming of web pages. Web E-mail - See Webmail. Web Host - A company (or individual) that provides space on a web server to its customers in order to store web pages. Web Page - A single computer file, accessed through an Internet browser, that contains text and sometimes graphics and sound. Web Server - A computer that is always on and connected to the Internet to allow users to access web sites that are stored on said computer. Web Site - Series of related web pages on the Internet that provide information and interact with users (web surfers). Web Surfer - A person that visits a web site. Webmail - Allows you to access your e-mail through the web using an Internet browser. Windows - A common operating system that most computers run on, as well as some web servers.  | ||||||||||||||||
