These articles were written to help clarify a specific technology or to explain our thinking in a bit more detail. As long as clients continue to ask questions we'll continue to write long emails, which we then turn into articles.

Articles

• Raster vs. Vector Files (and DPI)
  You will hear talk of raster vs. vector files. An example of raster is a typical digital photograph whereas an example of vector is a typical logo (in its original format as created by the logo designer).
  
  
• Three Common Ways to Specify Color
  There are three common ways to specify color: RGB (typically for web sites and things to be viewed on a computer screen and also for digital printing), CMYK (traditional offset printing with four ink tanks, one each for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black) and Pantone (for offset printing when it's important to get the color just right and a special Pantone ink tank is used).
  
  
• HTML Text vs. Graphical Text
  In the process of building a web site, a distinction is often made between text that is displayed by the web browser ("html text") and text that is embedded in a graphical image (typically a .gif or .jpg file).

• Site Traffic Reports and Site Marketing
  Site traffic reports are a key element of search engine tracking and site optimization. Why you need to know who is visiting and what pages they're looking at, and what you can do if you don't have access to those traffic reports.
  
  
• A Common Architecture for Database-backed Web Sites
  Database-backed web sites can be created using a variety of technologies but a combination we use frequently is a Microsoft IIS web server (either dedicated or shared/virtual) combined with a Microsoft Access database and either Microsoft ASP or Macromedia ColdFusion as the scripting language.